Touting nukes is a fool’s errand. It is a futile attempt to maintain an energy-intensive, industrial consumer way of life, when clearly, it is this basic economic model itself that is the core of our problem. So long as we pursue the infinite expansion of production and consumption of commodities on a finite planet as our chief economic aspiration, we will continue to consume our biological support system like a cancer.

This global terminal cancer can only go into spontaneous remission if we realize — and propagate the realization — that we are a part of, rather than apart from, the biosphere. And while the Order of Money is based on the inviolable premise that more is always better, the Order of Nature is rooted in a logic of optimization: enough is enough.

So our best avenue toward spontaneous remission is a gradual withdrawal of individuals and communities from the global money economy, while gradually building up a localized natural economy based on sharing and trading of food, skills, resources, and culture: As John Lennon put it, “No need for greed or hunger/A brotherhood of man.” But we need not simply “imagine” such a postindustrial paradise — we can start creating it today, by growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness. There is no way to permaculture — permaculture is the way.