Tom Ellis
1 min readNov 3, 2021

--

Entirely true; The five enemies of Gaia are Greed, Ignorance, Hatred, Denial, and Despair. The first is the default ideology of all corporations--more is always better; the first four comprise the Republican Party Platform--the ideology of toxic, charismatic fascists like Trump and Tucker Carlson.

The last--Despair--is the enemy within each and all of us. But despair, however justifiable, is self-validating: if we assume nothing can be done, nothing WILL be done. So what can we do? I boil it down to three slogans: Grow gardens, Grow community, Grow awareness.

When we grow food in our own gardens, we reduce our dependence on Glomart (the Global Market Economy) and rediscover our intimate connection to Gaia, our biological support system. And growing gardens leads directly to growing community

When we grow community, we share our knowledge, skills, and insights with those who live closest to us, thereby enhancing our collective resilience. And growing community leads directly to growing awareness.

When we grow awareness, we encourage others to reduce, still further, their dependence on Glomart by learning and teaching new knowledge and skills, healing ecosystems and each other, and creating a relocalized Gaian socioeconomic system that can withstand the inevitable collapse of Glomart. Or--failing that, we can die trying!

--

--

Tom Ellis
Tom Ellis

Written by Tom Ellis

I am a retired English professor now living in Oregon, and a life-long environmental activist, Buddhist, and holistic philosopher.

Responses (1)