Author: paulm100m

The Psychopathic Selection Hypothesis (PSH): Have Humans Bred Hollow Societies?

🧠

Imagine a world where the most charming, risk-taking, and empathy-deficient individuals don’t just survive — they thrive. Not just in movies, but in boardrooms, parliaments, and even dating apps. This isn’t a dystopian fantasy. According to the Psychological Selection Hypothesis, it’s happening now- as it always has in homo sapiens history

🔍 What Is the Psychological Selection Hypothesis?

The hypothesis suggests that modern society selectively rewards psychopathic traits — emotional detachment, manipulative charm, risk-taking, and dominance — especially in complex, competitive, and symbolic systems like finance, politics, and corporate leadership.

Rather than being a rare pathology, psychopathy becomes a strategic ‘positive’ adaptation in environments where:

  • Empathy is a liability
  • Image matters more than integrity
  • Short-term wins outweigh long-term consequences

Over time, these traits are reinforced, replicated, and even romanticized, shaping institutions and cultural norms in their image.

🧬 The Feedback Loop: How It Works

  1. Biological Selection
    In high-competition environments, individuals with psychopathic traits often achieve higher status and reproductive success. Studies show that corporate executives score significantly higher on psychopathy measures than the general population . These individuals are more likely to attract partners, gain visibility, and pass on their genes — subtly shifting the population toward these traits.
  2. Institutional Reinforcement
    Once in power, they reshape systems to reward their own traits. Organizations become hierarchies where:
  • Loyalty is extracted, not earned
  • Ethical behaviour is performative, not practiced
  • Emotional detachment is seen as “strong leadership”
    The result? A culture where empathy is weakness, and manipulation is mastery and where might (and violence) becomes right

Cultural Normalization
Media and social platforms amplify this. From TV anti-heroes to influencer culture, we glorify narcissistic charisma and strategic coldness. Phrases like “fake it till you make it” or “it’s just business” become mantras of success — masking moral disengagement as maturity.

    🧨 The Psychological Fallout

    As these traits become normalized, mental health deteriorates

    • Depression and anxiety increase dramatically
    • Social trust erodes
    • Loneliness becomes a global health risk, (comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day).

    Even those not psychopathic are forced to emulate its traits to survive — suppressing empathy, over-performing, and internalizing stress. This creates a psychologically hollow society, where emotional depth is discouraged and relational fatigue is the norm.

    🧯 Can We Break the Cycle?

    Yes — but only if we interrupt the feedback loops:

    • Reform institutional incentives to reward cooperation, not conquest and violence
    • Promote emotional literacy in education and leadership training
    • Challenge cultural narratives that glorify ruthlessness
    • Support mental health infrastructure that values vulnerability and empathy

    The presence of individuals with psychopathic and sociopathic traits in positions of power, often referred to as “corporate psychopaths” or “successful psychopaths,” is a phenomenon with profound and measurable negative impacts on organisations and society. We analyse this impact, focusing on the explanatory framework provided by the Psychological Selection Hypothesis (PSH) .

    The Psychological Selection Hypothesis posits that the traits associated with psychopathy—such as emotional detachment, manipulativeness, superficial charm, and fearlessness—are not merely adaptive to modern complex systems, but have actively shaped the very architecture of those systems .

    As human societies evolved from direct, tribal reciprocity to abstract, globalized, and neoliberal socioeconomic structures, psychopathic cognition is likely to have played a foundational role in guiding the emergence of ‘civilisational’ structures cultures and norms .

    These structures create a self-reinforcing feedback loop that structurally and biologically selects for psychopathic traits. The traits that enable an individual to thrive in abstract, opaque, and competitive environments—namely, the ability to exploit others without remorse and prioritize symbolic dominance—are mistaken for “leadership qualities” .

    The PSH suggests that civilization itself increasingly mirrors the mind of a high-functioning psychopath, leading to systems optimized for power and short-term gain, but which are fundamentally maladaptive for long-term civilizational sustainability, such as ecological stewardship and intergenerational care .

    Prevalence in Leadership

    While psychopathy is estimated to affect approximately 1% of the general population, its prevalence is significantly higher in senior leadership roles, a finding that supports the PSH’s core tenet of selection .

    Population GroupEstimated Prevalence of Psychopathic Traits
    General Population~1%
    Corporate Executives12% to 20% (up to 1 in 5)
    National Political Leaders 12% to 25% (plus!)

    This over-representation suggests that the modern corporate and political environment, with its emphasis on ruthless competition and short term results, acts as a powerful filter, selecting for individuals who possess these “dark traits” .

    Impact on Organizations and Employees

    The influence of psychopathic leaders, often grouped under the Dark Triad of personality (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy), is overwhelmingly detrimental to organizational health and employee well-being .

    Organizational Decline

    Research consistently links the presence of corporate psychopaths to organizational decline, particularly in the long term .

    Area of ImpactConsequence of Psychopathic Leadership
    Financial PerformanceLong-term revenue decline; psychopathic fund managers have been found to generate annual returns 30% lower than their peers over a 10-year period .
    Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)Stifled sustainability efforts and reduced commitment to CSR, as these conflict with the leader’s short-term, self-serving interests .
    Organizational CultureIncreased conflict, bullying, and the creation of a psychologically unsafe work environment .
    Innovation and CreativityDecline in employee creativity and organizational commitment due to fear and lack of motivation .

    Employee Well-being

    The psychological impact on subordinates is severe. Perceived psychopathic traits in supervisors are directly correlated with negative outcomes for employees .

    “The results illustrate the effects of perceived psychopathic traits in supervisors on employee well-being… The ‘dark side’ of leadership has been the topic of considerable research over the years” .

    The consequences include increased workplace stress and significant levels of emotional exhaustion . Studies have also found that female employees, in particular, may experience a stronger influence of leader psychopathy on their levels of emotional exhaustion .

    Socio-Economic and Institutional Impact

    At a macro level, the PSH provides a framework for understanding how psychopathic leadership contributes to systemic issues, most notably financial misconduct and economic inequality.

    Financial Misconduct and Fraud

    The core psychopathic traits of lack of remorse and manipulativeness make these leaders prone to engaging in unethical and illegal activities. High-profile cases, such as the multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Bernie Madoff, are often cited as prime examples of financial psychopathy .

    The pursuit of power and profit without ethical constraint leads to manipulative accounting practices . This behavior is not merely individual but is often facilitated by weak external accountability mechanisms, allowing unethical financial behaviors to become institutionalized .

    Reinforcement of Economic Inequality

    The theoretical framework suggests that Dark Triad leaders exploit financial reporting systems for personal or organizational gain at the meso-level, which in turn exacerbates economic inequalities at the broader macro-level . By prioritizing self-enrichment and short-term gains, these leaders contribute to a system where wealth is concentrated at the top, often at the expense of long-term stability and social equity. Some research suggests that psychopathic leaders may even be willing to “spark a financial crisis for profit” .

    Conclusion

    The research strongly supports the view that the overrepresentation of psychopathic and sociopathic traits in leadership positions is a significant problem, explained in part by the Psychological Selection Hypothesis. While these traits may facilitate a rapid ascent up the corporate or political ladder—often by mimicking desirable qualities like confidence and decisiveness—the long-term impact is one of organizational decay, employee distress, and systemic socio-economic harm.

    Addressing this issue requires not only better screening for leadership roles but also a fundamental re-evaluation of the values and metrics that currently define and select for “successful” leadership in modern institutions.

    The Psychological Selection Hypothesis doesn’t claim that all leaders are psychopaths — or that psychopathy is the only path to success. But it warns us that when we build systems that reward the coldest minds, we shouldn’t be surprised when the world starts to feel colder.

    Let’s stop selecting for the traits that destroy us — and start training and selecting leaders who can not only sustain the other homo sapiens who rely on them, but help to collaboratively create a sustainable world.

    References

    [1] Greg Elliott. The Psychopathic Selection Hypothesis: Evolutionary Fitness in the Age of Collapse. Medium.

    [2] Floriana Irtelli and Enrica Durbano. Successful Psychopaths: A Contemporary Phenomenon. IntechOpen.

    [3] C. Mathieu, C. S. Neumann, R. D. Hare, and P. Babiak. A dark side of leadership: Corporate psychopathy and its influence on employee well-being and job satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences.

    [4] M. D’Souza and D. Oliveira. Corporate Psychopaths: implications for organizational health and well-being. European Journal of Public Health.

    [5] B. Sheehy. Corporate law and corporate psychopaths. PMC.

    [6] V. Lipman. The Disturbing Link Between Psychopathy And Leadership. Forbes.

    [7] C. R. Boddy. Psychopathic Leadership A Case Study of a Corporate Psychopath CEO. Journal of Business Ethics.

    [8] Anglia Ruskin University (ARU). Psychopaths would spark a financial crisis for profit. ARU News.

    [9] Henley Business School. Are psychopath leaders stifling sustainability and business transformation? Henley News.

    [10] S. Latif, M. Z. Alam, M. A. Aziz, and F. Saif. The role of dark triad leadership in manipulative accounting, accountability mechanism and economic inequality reinforcement: a theoretical approach. International Journal of Ethics and Systems.

    [11] Psychopathic Selection Hypothesis Book – Medium


    [12] The Psychopathic Selection Hypothesis: Evolutionary Fitness – Medium

    False Outrage

    Western commentators continue to express outrage about Trump’s latest international adventures: Nigeria, Venezuela and more particularly Ukraine and Greenland ( because they have ‘good white’ populations.

    I was struck by an Australian Broadcasting analysis of 11th January 2026 which stated, without a hint of irony, that Trump had assaulted the ‘once enshrined concept of national sovereignty, overthrowing eight decades of rigidly enforced global order.

    Obviously the analyst didnt understand the concept of history, or perhaps was born less than decade ago. The United States since its inception has been launching wars of extreme savagery and brutality ( something the Israelis seem to have inherited from them and the UK) . From the extermination of North American Indians, the Phillipines genocide in 1898, the many many wars in South America over the past 200 years to install compliant dictatorships, to the post second world war killing spree, with CIA endless covert murders across the world, the Korean War genocide, then on to the wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, there has most certainly not been 8 decades of peace because of the West’s global world order!! (or the ‘International Rule Based Order ‘ if you prefer (i.e. the US rules and you obey)

    Trump’s attempts at a land-grab of Greenland, along with trying to plunder Venezuelan oil and supporting Israel’s imminent (second) war against Iran are simply just a continuation of America’s foreign (and internal) policy since its inception in 1792.

    U.S. analysts decry Trump and his coterie for undermining democracy and freedom and not wanting to be an empire like the 19th century European powers, frequently quoting statements made by the U.S.’s founding fathers like Jefferson and Washington. Those analysts use the founding fathers statements and quotes from the American Constitution as proof that the US is essentially a ‘good’ nation.

    What analysts in the US particularly object to about Trump and his thuggish entourage, is that they are saying the things that they have themselves always really believed in, OUT LOUD.

    Perhaps those founding Fathers believed in the things they were saying, but the evidence suggests they were trying to create a country where the wealthy and landowning civilised ‘white’ (really pink) class could live in peace without threats from the uncivilised darker peoples of the world. And naturally, because those peoples were uncivilised it made perfect sense for the US military to treat them as sub-human.’Humanity’ was reserved for the white-skinned folks. Trump and his racist coterie and oligarchs are therefore, the continuation of a long lineage of theft and thuggery.

    We should be careful though to emphasise that the other pink ‘ruling classes” of the world also subscribe to this obscene and absurd view. The EU ex head of EU ‘diplomacy’ Josep Borrell’s statement in 2022 that “Europe is a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle. The jungle could invade the garden” is a classic example of this racist ignorant ideology.

    Borrell seemed to have forgotten that the only reason Europe had had- up till then at least, been a ‘garden’ is because it had murdered and plundered its way through most of the global south over the past 500 years and used those resources to create Europe’s safe and pretty garden. Ironically, Europe now relies economically on the non-pink migrants it has brutally forced from their homelands for its cheap labour and maintaining its GDP.

    Similarly and with great irony, what helped to make “America Great” in previous times was the enormous number of immigrants from ‘pink’ Europe.

    Trump and his ‘administration’ are now attempting, with great lawless brutality, to cut off that very lifeblood of immigration to US simply because they are now the wrong colour. In Trump’s desperate attempt to ‘Make America White Again’, that cheap labour, which as of late 2025, made up approximately 19% of the total U.S. labour force, is now under threat, thus undermining the very basis of US agriculture and industry. One is reminded of Australia’s attempts for 50 years to to keep Australia ( besides the ‘sub-human’ indigenous aboriginal population) ‘safe’ for Europeans using their “White Australia” policies.

    With the meteoric rise of China as a global economic power and its vastly superior research and industrial base, the West is under massive threat to its global dominance. China expands its opportunities for wealth, not through Western-style theft and subjugation, but through contracts and mutual agreements. The Belt and Road initiative is a classic example of this practice.

    In theory the US and the West could realign their foreign policies to work alongside China and the Global South to develop cooperative and mutually beneficial trade, while reducing the threat of war.

    This however does not seem to be an option for the US or the rest of the West. 500 years of exploitation and murder have paralysed Western decision-making and innovative thinking.

    ‘

    The Role of Racism in Western Colonialism: A Historical & Contemporary Analysis

    Racism was not a side-effect of empire—it was its operating system. From the 15th-century “Age of Discovery” to 21st-century border regimes, racial hierarchies have justified land theft, slavery, resource extraction and permanent war.

    We outline how racism powered colonialism—and why it still shapes our world, as we see in the large recent populist responses in Europe and the US to immigration from non-white countries.

    I would argue that we are, as human beings, inherently racist. We cherish the human group we belong to; the way we look, the way our group behaves, the things that are important to us. Those that look, and/or behave differently to us are therefore not ‘one of us”- they are outsiders, a threat to us and our group’s safety and wellbeing. Who we are is ‘normal’ – those ‘others’ are not normal.

    That defensiveness against ‘others’, I would argue, is the root of racism. While that fear response may be deeply imbedded in our psyche, it can, and must be rooted out with clear rationality and understanding for those ‘others’. If we are to be truly human, we must treat all other living things with the kindness and compassion we expect for ourselves.

    Conquest Begins with Name-Calling: “Savage” as a Licence to Kill

    Greek and Roman writers already labelled outsiders “barbarians”, but the Atlantic world turned prejudice into policy. English colonisers depicted the Gaelic Irish as dark-skinned degenerates; Spaniards painted Indigenous Americans as cannibals; Dutch and Portuguese traders recast West Africans as “beasts of burden”. Once economic incentives for plantation slavery exploded, stereotypes hardened: Africans were now naturally servile, sexually voracious, mentally inferior—and therefore made for slavery. The perjorative demeaning language used to describe non-whites by ‘white’ people across the world is no accident. Language defines..

    In the 21st Century, non-white immigrants to Western countries are seen as a threat to European ‘values’ culture and economic wellbeing. Current immigrant levels to the US and Europe are a direct result of economic and safety destabilisations caused by earlier extractive colonial policies and the West’s immensely destructive wars in those countries. In addition, Western governments, as opposed to their ‘white’ populations, have welcomed these new cheap labour immigrants to bolster their GDPs.

    “Scientific” Racism: Empire in a White Lab-Coat

    19-century European universities measured skulls, mapped skin tones and coined terms like “Caucasoid” to give racism the veneer of objectivity. The Dawinian science of evolution was used to delineate some human ‘races’ as less genetically evolved, with of course the white races at the top! This absurd and unscientific use of evolution were used by many in the West and exploited in the eugenics movement, and in its extreme form by the Nazis, and latterly the Zionists.

    3. Britain’s ‘Liberal’ Empire

    “Violence was not a one-off occurrence… it was systemic and part and parcel of Britain’s liberal imperialism.”– ‘Legacy of Violence-
    A History of the British Empire’ Caroline Elkins (2023)

    In the 19th century, Medical journals warned that “negro lungs” were unfit for cold climates to help justify keeping indentured labourers on Caribbean sugar plantations. Anthropology museums displayed colonised peoples alongside fauna. These ‘scientific’ findings were incorporated into colonial legal codes: the 1885 Berlin Conference carved up Africa on the assumption that Whites could best steward African land and bodies. Britain’s ‘protectorates’ listed below are a ‘sublime’ example of the racist mentality of the British Foreign Office. Why these populations would need ‘protecting’ from themselves was never adequately explained…

    TerritoryProtectorate proclaimedToday part of …
    Malta1800Malta
    Ionian Islands1815Greece
    Mosquito Coast1838Nicaragua / Honduras
    Aden (W. & E. Protectorates)1872Yemen
    Cyprus1878Cyprus
    Sultanate of Zanzibar1890Tanzania
    Bechuanaland1885Botswana
    British Somaliland1884Somalia
    North Borneo1888Malaysia (Sabah)
    Brunei1888Brunei
    Sarawak1888Malaysia
    Maldives1887Maldives
    Sikkim1861India
    Barotseland1900Zambia
    East Africa Protectorate1895Kenya
    Uganda Protectorate1894Uganda
    Nyasaland1893Malawi
    Northern Rhodesia1924Zambia
    Swaziland1903Eswatini
    Basutoland1868Lesotho
    Gambia Protectorate1894The Gambia
    Sierra Leone Protectorate1896Sierra Leone
    Nigeria (N. & S. protectorates)1900Nigeria
    Qatar1916Qatar
    Bahrain1861Bahrain
    Trucial Oman1887UAE
    Cook Islands1888New Zealand (self-governing)
    Niue1900New Zealand (self-governing)
    Tokelau1889New Zealand
    British Solomon Is.1893Solomon Islands
    Gilbert & Ellice Is.1892Kiribati & Tuvalu
    Tonga1879Tonga
    Oman (Muscat & Oman)1800Oman
    Bhutan1911Bhutan

    From Kenya’s “Pipeline” detention camps to Malaya’s New Villages, London cast mass incarceration, forced labour and sexual violence as “rehabilitation” for racially suspect subjects. Files were then sealed for decades under the Colonial Papers Destruction Policy.

    Comparative Brutality: France, Belgium, Germany


    • French Algeria: Settler colonialism embedded in the département system; with 1.5 million Algerians killed during the 1954-62 war of independence (Al-Jazeera retrospective).

    • Belgian Congo: Leopold II’s rubber regime caused an estimated 10 million deaths—A BBC investigation calls it “one of the greatest mass murders in history”.

    • German South-West Africa: 1904-08 extermination order against the Herero and Nama is now officially recognised by Germany as genocide.

    British India: current scholarship puts the excess-mortality death toll attributable to British colonial policy in India between 1881-1920 alone at roughly 50–165 million people.

    Racism after the Empires Recede

    Decolonisation brought new flags, but not justice. The UN confirms that “colonialism lives on” in racial profiling, poverty and unequal trade. Former plantation economies still dominate global commodity chains, even while end-use processing for value addition to those raw commodities continues to happen in the Global North. France’s banlieues, Britain’s Windrush deportations, and the U.S. racial wealth gap all map precisely onto old imperial shipping routes.

    Environment Impacts of Racism

    The climate crisis is driven by the same extractive logic that cleared forests for sugar and cotton. Former colonies already suffer temperature increases twice the global average—a direct legacy of shipping carbon to Europe while deforesting the colonies’ natural environment- that same natural world many indigenous populations relied upon for their survival.

    Towards Reparatory Justice

    • Unveiling the Truth: Ensure that all colonial archives are opened to the public and for research (UK still classifies this information under the “migrated archives” rule).
    • Reparations: From debt cancellation to technology transfers—see UN-DESA Policy Brief #96 along with fair funding reparations from ex colonial powers for their brutality and economic extraction.
    • Education: Develop truthful, accurate and non-ideologically driven curricula for each ex-colonial country and its coloniser which explains the rationales and impacts of racism and consequent colonialism from each side.

    Palestine 2023-25: A Live-Streamed Genocide Enabled by Racialised Imperial Logic

    The same racial logic that once classified Indigenous peoples as “savages” and Africans as “natural slaves” is now redeployed to portray Palestinians—especially in Gaza—as irredeemable terrorists whose lives are expendable. Western diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel’s 2023-25 assault is therefore not an aberration; it is the continuity of a 500-year-old pattern in which white-majority states licence settler violence against racialised “others” while declaring themselves civilised.

    Genocide is apparently what “non-white” actors commit; white or white-allied states are presumed incapable of it. Western media highlights Israeli “security” and terrorists’ ‘hostages’ while Palestinian deaths are counted in opaque “casualty” statistics, stripped of names, faces, context, and their 70 + years living under Israeli colonisation completely ignored. Bizarrely, peaceful protesters against Israeli savagery in Gaza in France, Germany, Britain and the US, among many, have themselves been labelled as terrorists and arrested.


    France banned pro-Palestine demonstrations within days; police invoked emergency powers against students wearing the keffiyeh. The UK Home Secretary equated Palestinian flags with “support for terrorism”. Germany’s Berlin Senate excluded Palestinian speakers under the IHRA definition. These measures show how racialised imperial violence abroad is coupled with shrinking anti-racist space at home.

    Trump’s ‘War’ on Immigration

    The role of racism in Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is not incidental—it is the engine. From his 2015 campaign launch to the executive orders signed on Day 1 of his second term, Trump has consistently racialised immigrants, fused white-nationalist grievance with policy, and leveraged state power to punish Black, Brown and Muslim communities. Bizarrely the United States economic growth has historically largely been fuelled by immigration- but only immigration from the ‘right’ places; from Western Europe.

    Trump’s language about immigrants betrays the racist underpinnings of his anti-immigration policies -‘“These aren’t people. These are animals” (referring to Central-American migrants), “Shithole countries” (Jan 2018): Trump asked why the US admits people from Haiti, El Salvador or Africa instead of Norway..

    Such statements activate what scholars call “demographobia”: the fear among whites that they are being “replaced” by higher-fertility non-white minorities.

    The Great Replacement theory—the belief that elites are deliberately replacing whites with non-white immigrants—moved from far-right chatrooms to Trump’s 2025 National Emergency declaration, which frames migration as an “invasion” threatening “national character”.

    Further Reading & Tools

    All links open in a new tab. Bookmark this list for classroom or activist use.

    Feel free to republish under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 with attribution to the author and a live link to this post.

    When the Last Tree Falls

    The vital importance of humans connecting to nature: for themselves and for the planet

    “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
    —John Muir

    Muir’s century-old observation now reads like a medical prescription. A growing body of research shows that regular contact with living, biodiverse ecosystems is a non-negotiable pillar of human health—and the fastest way to make people care about the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change.

    This post unpacks (1) what happens to our bodies and minds when we lose everyday nature, (2) how collapsing ecosystems ricochet back on us, and (3) the personal and collective actions that turn concern into meaningful response.

    As the world’s rapidly expanding human population increasingly no longer lives in proximity to our living world- but instead is surrounded by concrete, tar and walled environments, and enclosed within self-defined technological walls of social media, AI and self-selected ‘entertainment’, we are losing both our vital connection with the rest of the natural world we are intrinsically part of, along with our unconscious understanding of its importance to us.

    In doing so, we become less and less aware how the natural world is shrinking inexorably year by year, decade by decade, day by day, and what that means for both ourselves and our world, in terms of our wellbeing and our very survival.

    Each new generation of humans normalise a poorer natural baseline, lowering conservation ambition and stabilising acceptance of biodiversity loss as the ‘norm’. Along with those changes of what is ‘naturally normal’, cultural definitions of ‘nature’ shift over time ( e.g. Wordsworth’s early 19th century poems vs. today’s TikTok hiking videos).

    Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where fresh water is in problematic supply.

    As climate extremes intensify with climate change, the impacts of both floods and droughts are magnified from loss of tree cover.

    The 30-Minute Cure: How Daily Green & Blue (aquatic)Time Rewires Us

    DomainEvidence-Based Benefits of Frequent Nature Contact
    PhysicalLower cortisol, heart-rate variability, blood pressure; stronger immunity (natural killer-cell activity up 50 % after a 3-day forest trip) .
    MentalReduced risk of depression, anxiety and ADHD; restored “directed attention” capacity (Attention Restoration Theory) .
    SocialHigher empathy, pro-social behavior, lower crime rates in neighborhoods with tree cover .
    Spiritual / CulturalSense of identity and belonging, especially for Indigenous and rural communities tied to specific species and landscapes .

    Dose–response sweet spot: Two hours per week in green or blue spaces (parks, coastlines, riverbanks) delivers optimal well-being gains .

    The Flip Side: Nature-Deficit Disorder

    When that contact disappears, we see the inverse—rising obesity, Type-2 diabetes, myopia in children, loneliness, and eco-anxiety. Urban populations already spend 90 % of their time indoors; in lower-income areas, unequal access to safe nature is a new axis of health inequity. Little data is available on the impact of nature deprivation in the Global South.

    In countries where daily life is entangled with nature (smallholder farming, forest reliance), disconnection manifests differently—often as loss of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) rather than park visits.

    What Biodiversity Loss Actually Costs Us

    Biodiversity is the planet’s operating system. Every lost species is a deleted line of code.

    Every living thing: every individual fish, every insect, every bird every mammal, has its own intrinsic worth. Its ‘value’ is simply in its existence.

    A. Health & Medicine

    • 70 % of anti-cancer drugs are natural or bio-inspired; 60 % of all new infectious diseases are zoonotic and surge when habitat edges fragment .
    • Traditional medicine—used by 80 % of people in developing countries—depends on intact ecosystems .

    B. Food & Water Security

    • Pollinator decline already threatens crops worth US $235 billion annually .
    • Wetlands loss (35 % since 1970) has left >2 billion people with declining water quality and rising water-borne disease .

    C. Climate Stability

    • Forests, peatlands and mangroves store more carbon than all human emissions from 2009–2018 combined. When biodiversity unravels, these sinks flip to sources, accelerating extreme weather that in turn wipes out more species .

    D. Positive Impacts of Human Skin Contact with Soil

    Regular, safe skin contact with biodiverse, uncontaminated soil—gardening, barefoot walking, forest play etc, rewilds the human microbiome, trains the immune system and supports mental well-being.

    1. Immune-System Maturation
    Finnish daycare study: children playing on forest-floor (soil-rich) yards had more diverse skin & gut microbiota and stronger immune regulation two years later. Nature 2024
    2. Anti-inflammatory Response
    Urban adults handling microbially-rich indoor potting soil for one month showed ↑ plasma IL-10 (anti-inflammatory cytokine) and ↑ skin bacterial diversity (Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, etc.). Environment International 2024
    3. Immediate Skin Microbiome Boost
    Just two minutes of rubbing hands with soil & plant materials produced an instant increase in skin microbial richness (Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, etc.) that lasted several hours. Frontiers 2025
    4. Gut Microbiome Support
    Mice exposed to non-sterile soil developed higher gut microbial diversity than those on sterile soil, indicating that dermal/oral transfer of soil microbes reaches the intestine. NIH PMC 2019
    5. Vaccine Response Enhancement
    Adults with daily soil-moss skin contact mounted stronger cell-mediated responses to pneumococcal vaccine (higher IFN-γ, IL-17), suggesting soil exposure can improve vaccine efficacy.
    Nature 2024
    6. Mental-Health & Stress Reduction
    Soil bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae triggers anti-neuroinflammatory pathways, lowers stress hormones and may improve mood via the gut-brain axis. New York Times 2024

    E. Mental & Cultural Resilience

    • Coastal or forest communities displaced by fires, floods or coral bleaching lose livelihoods and ancestral stories, triggering inter-generational trauma .

    Turning Contact into Commitment: The Feedback Loop That Matters

    Every exposure to a thriving wild patch biophilically primes the brain. Here’s how to restore that effect:

    Personal Practice

    1. Micro-dose daily: 10 minutes of exposure to tree canopy or moving water (even street trees count).
    2. Citizen science: Log birds, insects or plants on iNaturalist—data that feeds real conservation maps.
    3. Nature journaling: Sketching or photographing a leaf or shell deepens attention and memory encoding.

    Community Action

    • Green prescriptions: Doctors in the U.K., New Zealand and Japan now write “green prescriptions” alongside statins . National pilots of green prescriptions in Scotland (2021) and Canada (2022).
    • Schoolyard biodiversity: Converting asphalt to mini-forests improves test scores and doubles local insect diversity within three years .
    • Urban rewilding: Pocket meadows, living walls and daylighted streams cool cities, cut AC demand and give residents daily wildlife encounters. Barcelona’s “Green Axes” programme is a great initiative.
    • Biodiverse botanic parks where people of all ages and ability can explore and learn about our natural green world.
    • Plant native trees in your own backyard- replace that lawn you mow!

    Policy & Economy

    Why the biodiversity decline matters for climate action

    PathwayMechanismEvidence
    Environmental behaviourHigher NCI (Nature Connection Index) predicts pro-environmental choices (diet, transport, donations).Martin et al., 2020, J. Environ. Psychol.
    Biophilic policy supportIndividuals with strong nature connection are 2× more likely to back ambitious conservation funding.Mackay & Schmitt, 2019, Conserv. Lett.
    Psychological resilienceNature connection buffers eco-anxiety; enables sustained activism.Whitburn et al., 2020, Climatic Change
    Feedback loopShifting baseline syndrome: each generation normalises a poorer natural baseline, lowering conservation ambition.Papworth et al., 2009, Trends Ecol. Evol.

    A Thought Experiment

    Imagine the last dawn chorus on Earth: no birds, no insects, just human-made noise.
    Now rewind the tape. Plant one native tree outside your window this month. Spend 30 undistracted minutes beside it each week. Listen.

    Your nervous system will notice the difference within days.
    Your neurons will start lobbying your choices.
    And the planet will register one more caretaker.

    When we experience how nature heals us, we finally understand that healing nature is self-defense.

    References

    Richardson, M., Dobson, J., Abson, D. J., Lumber, R., Hunt, A., & Young, R. (2020) Nature connectedness in decline: Evidence from 5000 English adults 2013-2019. People and Nature, 2(3), 821–835. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10146

    Richardson, M., Hunt, A., Hinds, J., Bragg, R., Fido, D., Petronzi, D., … & White, M. P. (2019) A measure of nature connectedness for children and adults: Validation, reliability and associations with well-being. PLoS ONE, 14(7), e0218641. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218641

    7 Consequences of Biodiversity Loss for Humans: gaiacompany.io.

    WWF: How does Biodiversity loss affect me and everyone else? Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where fresh water is in irregular

    Royal Society: What is the human impact on biodiversity? How do humans affect biodiversity? · Deforestation. · Habitat loss through pervasive, incremental encroachment such as that caused by urban sprawl.

    thrivabilitymatters.org 2023/04/14: How do humans affect biodiversity? The Importance Of Contact With Nature For Well-Being. Spending time in nature, or mingling with a natural element has tremendous effects on physical, mental, social and spiritual wellness.

    United Nations Foundation 2023/05/18: How Biodiversity Loss Harms Human Health. A higher risk of infectious outbreaks is just one of the many repercussions of biodiversity loss on human health.

    Biodiversity loss can have significant direct health impacts if ecosystem services no longer meet societal needs.

    World Health Organization (WHO) 2023/10/12: Climate change is directly contributing to humanitarian emergencies from heatwaves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms and hurricanes.

    Mental Health Foundation(U.K.): How connecting with nature benefits our mental health. Research shows that people who are more connected with nature are usually happier in life and more likely to report feeling their lives are worthwhile.

    US EPA impacts to human health: Climate Change; City of Chicago: Overview – Temperature Impacts – Air Quality Impacts – Extreme Events – Vector-borne Diseases – Water-Related Illnesses – Food Safety and Nutrition – Mental Health – Populations of Concern – Other Health Impacts.

    American Psychological Association 2020/04/01: Nurtured by nature. Exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, & reduced risk of psychiatric disorders.

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Climate Change and Human Health | US EPA: This includes increasing the risk of extreme heat events and heavy storms, increasing the risk of asthma attacks and changing the spread of certain diseases .

    LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY: THE BURGEONING THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTH: O Adebayo · 2019 · Mencionado — the loss of biological biodiversity appears to affect significantly human health.

    Impact of Contact With Nature on the Wellbeing and Nature Connectedness Indicators After a Desertic Outdoor Experience on Isla Del Tiburon by G Garza-Terán · 2022 · Cited by 23 — Results show that both wellbeing and Nature Connectedness are positively influenced by performing activities out in the natural environment.nih.gov2024/05/24

    Climate change impacts on health across the life course: The climate crisis results in new disorders such as eco-anxiety and solastalgia. Older people also experience adverse brain effects

    Effects of Climate Change on Health – CDC: The health effects of these disruptions include increased respiratory and cardiovascular disease, injuries and premature deaths related to extreme weather .

    UC Davis Health2023/05/03: 3 ways getting outside into nature helps improve your health. Research continues to show that being outside and experiencing nature can improve our mental health and increase our ability to focus.

    Arizona Health Sciences2023/04/03: A look at the cost of climate change on human health. The evidence is clear – climate change is having a negative effect on our physical and mental health.

    ScienceDirect: Natural environments improve parent-child communication by T Cameron-Faulkner · 2018 · Cited by 84 — In this study, natural environments influenced social interactions between parents and children by increasing connected, responsive communication.

    The global human impact on biodiversity F Keck · 2025 · Mencionado por 37 — We show that human pressures distinctly shift community composition and decrease local diversity across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems.

    Benefits for emotional regulation of contact with nature by ML Ríos-Rodríguez · 2024 · Cited by 15 — Exposure to natural environments, such as parks, forests, and green areas, is often linked to a decrease in stress, anxiety and depression.

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Climate change impacts –

    Climate change impacts our society in many different ways. Drought can harm food production and human health. Flooding can lead to spread of disease, death, …

    Universidad Veracruzana: Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. The impacts of diversity loss on ecological processes might be sufficiently large to rival the impacts of many other global drivers of environmental change.

    Friends of the Earth2020/09/23Importance of nature. For children and adults alike, daily contact with nature is linked to better health, less stress, better mood, reduced obesity – an amazing list ..

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Climate Change Impacts on Health | US EPA Climate change can disrupt access to health care services, threaten infrastructure, and pose physical and mental health risks.

    United Nations: Five ways the climate crisis impacts human security

    United Nations University2024/05/16: Understanding Humanity’s Role in Biodiversity Loss Losing species threatens our well-being. As we lose species, our ecosystems also lose genetic diversity.

    Science Mission Directorate2024/10/23: The Causes of Climate Change – NASA Science. The greenhouse effect is essential to life on Earth, but human-made emissions in the atmosphere are trapping and slowing heat loss to space.

    ScienceDirect: Modelling human influences on biodiversity at a global scale–A human ecology perspective M Cepic · 2022 · Mencionado — Globalised human interventions cause most biodiversity losses.

    gaiacompany.io

    7 Consequences of Biodiversity Loss for Humans – Gaia

    1. Food Insecurity · 2. Health Impacts · 3. Loss of Medicinal Resources · 4. Reduced Ecosystem Services · 5. Economic Losses · 6. Climate Instability.WWFHow does Biodiversity loss affect me and everyone else?Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where fresh water is in irregular …Royal SocietyWhat is the human impact on biodiversity?How do humans affect biodiversity? · Deforestation. · Habitat loss through pervasive, incremental encroachment such as that caused by urban sprawl · Pollution such …thrivabilitymatters.org2023/04/14The Importance Of Contact With Nature For Well-BeingSpending time in nature, or mingling with a natural element has tremendous effects on physical, mental, social and spiritual wellness.United Nations Foundation2023/05/18How Biodiversity Loss Harms Human HealthA higher risk of infectious outbreaks is just one of the many repercussions of biodiversity loss on human health. By disrupting the delicate …WHO2025/02/18BiodiversityBiodiversity loss can have significant direct health impacts if ecosystem services no longer meet societal needs. Changes in ecosystems can …WHO2023/10/12Climate change – World Health Organization (WHO)Climate change is directly contributing to humanitarian emergencies from heatwaves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms and hurricanes and …Mental Health FoundationNature: How connecting with nature benefits our mental healthResearch shows that people who are more connected with nature are usually happier in life and more likely to report feeling their lives are worthwhile.US EPAimpacts to human health – Climate Change – City of ChicagoOn This Page: – Overview – Temperature Impacts – Air Quality Impacts – Extreme Events – Vectorborne Diseases – Water-Related Illnesses – Food Safety and Nutrition – Mental Health – Populations of Concern – Other Health Impacts — Overview The impacts of climate change include warming temperatures, changes in precipitation, increases in the frequency or intensity of some extreme weather events, and rising sea levels. These impacts threaten our health by affecting the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the weather we experience. The severity of these health risks will depend on the ability of public health and safety systems to address or prepare for these changing threats, as well as factors such as an individual’s behavior, age, gender, and economic status. Impacts will vary based on a where a person lives, how sensitive they are to health threats, how much they are exposed to climate change impacts, and how well they andAmerican Psychological Association2020/04/01Nurtured by natureExposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, reduced risk of psychiatric disorders and …U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyClimate Change and Human Health | US EPAThis includes increasing the risk of extreme heat events and heavy storms, increasing the risk of asthma attacks and changing the spread of certain diseases …nih.govLOSS OF BIODIVERSITY: THE BURGEONING THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTHpor O Adebayo · 2019 · Mencionado por 28 — While the loss of biological biodiversity appears to affect significantly human health, it has also been opined to be a significant threat to the attainment of …nih.govImpact of Contact With Nature on the Wellbeing and Nature Connectedness Indicators After a Desertic Outdoor Experience on Isla Del Tiburonby G Garza-Terán · 2022 · Cited by 23 — Results show that both wellbeing and Nature Connectedness are positively influenced by performing activities out in the natural environment.nih.gov2024/05/24Climate change impacts on health across the life course – PMCThe climate crisis results in new disorders such as eco-anxiety and solastalgia. Older people also experience adverse brain effects from the …CDC2024/02/29Effects of Climate Change on Health – CDCThe health effects of these disruptions include increased respiratory and cardiovascular disease, injuries and premature deaths related to extreme weather …UC Davis Health2023/05/033 ways getting outside into nature helps improve your healthResearch continues to show that being outside and experiencing nature can improve our mental health and increase our ability to focus.UArizona Health Sciences2023/04/03A look at the cost of climate change on human healthThe evidence is clear – climate change is having a negative effect on our physical and mental health. The scale of the impact is vast, with …ScienceDirectNatural environments improve parent-child communicationby T Cameron-Faulkner · 2018 · Cited by 84 — In this study, natural environments influenced social interactions between parents and children by increasing connected, responsive communication. These …NatureThe global human impact on biodiversitypor F Keck · 2025 · Mencionado por 37 — We show that human pressures distinctly shift community composition and decrease local diversity across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems.nih.govBenefits for emotional regulation of contact with natureby ML Ríos-Rodríguez · 2024 · Cited by 15 — Exposure to natural environments, such as parks, forests, and green areas, is often linked to a decrease in stress, anxiety and depression.National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdministrationClimate change impacts – NOAAClimate change impacts our society in many different ways. Drought can harm food production and human health. Flooding can lead to spread of disease, death, …Universidad VeracruzanaBiodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature PDFThe impacts of diversity loss on ecological processes might be sufficiently large to rival the impacts of many other global drivers of environmental change.Friends of the Earth2020/09/23Importance of natureFor children and adults alike, daily contact with nature is linked to better health, less stress, better mood, reduced obesity – an amazing list …U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyClimate Change Impacts on Health | US EPAClimate change can disrupt access to health care services, threaten infrastructure, and pose physical and mental health risks.Naciones UnidasFive ways the climate crisis impacts human security | United Nations1. Climate change intensifies competition over land and water · 2. Climate change affects food production and drives up hunger · 3. Climate change forces people …United Nations University2024/05/16Understanding Humanity’s Role in Biodiversity LossLosing species threatens our well-being. As we lose species, our ecosystems also lose genetic diversity. This often negatively impacts the …Science Mission Directorate2024/10/23The Causes of Climate Change – NASA ScienceThe greenhouse effect is essential to life on Earth, but human-made emissions in the atmosphere are trapping and slowing heat loss to space.ScienceDirectModelling human influences on biodiversity at a global scale–A human ecology perspectivepor M Cepic · 2022 · Mencionado por 62 — Globalised human interventions cause most biodiversity losses.

    Demonic Israel and the Savage West

    Israel has only 3 months till September to launch a new aerial attack on Iran.In September Iraqi airspace will be closed to the US and its allies, as US troops are required to leave Iraq by then. Given that Israel and the US clearly did not achieve it s objectives in this most recent attack on Iran, we can expect further surprise attacks on Iran in the near future.

    Will Iran finally go nuclear? will they have learnt their lesson and build a full military alliance with Russia China and North Korea? – we shall have to wait and see…

    There is clear evidence of the UK, Germany and France providing the air-refuelling tankers for Israeli F35s to reach the Iranian border, fire their missiles, and return to base. Undoubtedly Five Eyes (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK and US) have also provided the intelligence targeting data for the Israelis both for the Iran war and for the Gaza genocide.

    Germany France and UK have thus been intimately involved in supporting this unprovoked war while they and the EU have continued to pretend such an attack is legal in international law.

    International law is very clear-Israel had absolutely no legal grounds to attack . Its excuse was that Iran was about to possess nuclear weapons- a claim Netanyahu has been making for 40 years. Alistair Crooke (below) however claims that Palantir’s AI predictive software created a false impression of a sudden surge in Iranian enrichment, which contributed to the urgency to attack by the Americans and Israel.

    80% of Israelis support Palestinian genocide- its Jewish citizens have been indoctrinated into a bizarre ideology that says they are the chosen ones and therefore they have the right to act with total impunity- sadistic brutal murder torture and starvation- any thing goes- and the US and the rest of the West have fostered and enabled that savagery to blossom and erupt into its demonic current state. Over $150 billion in mostly military aid from the US alone since 1948, has enabled Israel to continuously expand its territories.

    Israel has violated at least 30 UN Security Council resolutions and over 100 resolutions from other UN bodies, totalling more than 130 violations of international consensus.

    Nevertheless it is very clear- despite an Israeli security blackout, that Israel’s economy, already fragile, has been significantly impacted by Iranian missile strikes. Bloomberg estimates the economic costs alone to Israel caused by Iran’s missile strikes at $3.5 billion. Although Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a press conference the total cost of war could be as high as $12 billion. The Israeli Haifa oil refinery will take at least a month to repair and its major shipping port, Haifa, significantly damaged and a number of military facilities either destroyed or damaged.

    Unlike Israel with its drone terror attacks in Iran, its assassinations of Iranian civilians and terror bombings in Iranian cities, Iran has displayed remarkable circumspection in its attacks-minimal civilian Israeli deaths (despite the repeated images from Israeli propaganda of little Israeli children unscathed and perfectly clean, being held by Israeli soldiers after being ‘rescued” from the rubble) have been very small- indicating Iranian precise targeting of military targets.

    Clearly this was a regime change operation. The West expected the Islamic regime in Tehran to fold quickly and rapturous joy would break out in the streets at Iran’s ‘liberation”. In fact, most (but not all) Iranians rallied round the flag and its likely that -despite 40 years of Western sanctions , Iranian infrastructure will be quickly rebuilt -especially with Chinese assistance (Iran is a vital node in China’s Belt and Road transport network to and from the West to China with a major rail network recently completed from China).

    Iranian International, with enormous funding from the US and Israel (and likely other funding sources in European governments) had been poised to insert the Shah of Iran’s son Reza Pahlavi as the new “king” of Iran once the regime capitulated. The fact that Reza Pahlavi was heir to his father’s bizarre and corrupt reign (with his brutal SAVAK secret police trained by Mossad, Mi6 and CIA in torture techniques), and is entirely in the pocket of the genocidal Israelis and corrupt Americans and British who would then steal Iranian oil, wasn’t deemed to be a problem somehow. Israel’s title for their war with Iran , ‘Rising Lion’ is both a reference to Talmud texts, but also to the flag of the late Shah.

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_Israel

    Like everything associated with the state of Palestine and the history of Israel since the Nakba , Zionists have attempted to revise history and pretend that Palestinians never occupied or owned the land that was stolen from them by the Zionists, starting with the Nakba of 1948 and progressing to the present day. aijac.org.au

    Thankfully, Trump’s bombasity, lies and stupidity have fed into the perception of many in the South of a steady decline in American power and influence. The recent bizarre events at the NATO Summit in the Netherlands of Trump being called ‘Daddy ‘and all the NATO states kowtowing to Trump in pledging 5% military spending by 2035, a pledge which would undoubtedly bankrupt many of the EU states.

    America and Israel and NATO/Five Eyes had expected an easy victory over Iran- decapitate the military leaders through assassinations, disable the Iranian neural networks for their missile defence systems and radars , blitz Tehran and then demand capitulation. The assassinations were largely successful, the hacking of the networks worked- but only for 8 hours-( the West had not anticipated how fast Iranian engineers could get the system back up and running)- and then the Iranian missile response began..

    Indisputably Iran has suffered major but not irreparable losses in this war; the assassinations of some key military leadership and nuclear scientists, military facilities and missile systems destroyed.

    However the genocide in Gaza by the Israeli “Defence” Forces (IDF) continues at the same brutal pace- with continued support form the US and the West. Every day Palestinians are being shot and killed by snipers , tanks and artillery as they try and negotiate the gate-pens to get some food ‘ provided’ through Israeli and US agencies for their starving families . While condemned by the UN and many in the South, Western nations are silent and complicit in this total inhumanity: a massive indictment of all that the West has pretended to stand for in the last 70 years- freedom, safety, democracy and the rule of law.

    And for those who would like to believe this total absence of humanity and human rights for Palestinians is a recent phenomenon, please look at the following data below of the deaths and displacements by Israel since the Nakba of 1948. The state of Israel is an abomination, a pariah state fully supported by the West.

    1. Displacement and Refugees

    • 1948 Arab-Israeli War (Nakba) :
      • Approximately 700,000 Palestinians were displaced or became refugees, including many women and children.
      • The UN estimates that 75% of Palestinian refugees today are women and children.
    • 1967 Six-Day War :
      • Another 300,000+ Palestinians fled or were expelled from the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.
      • Women and children made up a significant portion of these refugees.
    • Total Palestinian Refugees Today :
      • Over 7 million Palestinians are registered as refugees or displaced persons globally (UNRWA and UNHCR data).
      • The majority are women and children due to generational displacement and high birth rates.

    2. Casualties in Conflicts

    • Major Conflicts Since 1948 :
      • 1948–1956 : Exact numbers for women and children are unclear but likely high due to mass displacement.
      • 1967 & 1973 Wars : Limited data exists, but civilian casualties included many women and children.
      • First Intifada (1987–1993) : ~1,000 Palestinian children killed; women’s deaths unrecorded.
      • Second Intifada (2000–2005) : Over 3,000 Palestinian children killed; women also died in airstrikes and shootings.
      • Gaza Wars (2008–2009, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2023–2024) :
        • 2023–2024 Gaza War : As of April 2024, over 10,000 women and 18,000 children reported killed (Palestinian Health Ministry). Independent experts warn underreporting due to chaos and blocked aid.
        • 2014 Gaza War : ~2,200 Palestinians killed, half of them children (UN OCHA).

    3. Incarceration and Detention

    • Since 1967 , Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians, including:
      • Women and Children :
        • Over 10,000 Palestinian women have been imprisoned since 1967 (Addameer, a Palestinian rights group).
        • Children : Thousands detained annually for alleged “security offenses.” In 2023 alone, over 8,000 children were arrested (UNICEF and DCIP reports).

    4. Demographic Impact

    • Population Growth : Despite displacement and casualties, Palestinian populations in the West Bank, Gaza, and refugee camps have grown due to high birth rates.
    • Vulnerability : Women and children face disproportionate risks in poverty, restricted movement, and limited access to healthcare/education.

    CategoryApproximate Numbers (since 1948)
    Refugees/displacedMillions (majority women/children)
    Casualties (conflicts)Hundreds of thousands (exact numbers disputed)
    IncarceratedTens of thousands of women/children

    Resources

    • United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)
    • Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
    • Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
    • Israeli human rights groups (e.g., B’Tselem)
    • Reports from Al Jazeera, BBC, and Reuters

    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/06/mark-sleboda-what-the-hell-just-happened-in-the-middle-east-you-may-ask.html#more

    Biocentrism (Kaitiakitanga): the only future we have

    Bill Mollison , the brilliant developer of the concepts and actions of permaculture once said; “We are not superior to other life-forms; all living things are an expression of Life. If we could see that truth, we would see that everything we do to other life-forms we also do to ourselves. A culture which understands this does not, without absolute necessity, destroy any living thing” .

    Biocentrism in environmental ethics emphasizes that all living things have intrinsic value and moral standing. It extends moral consideration beyond human beings to encompass the entire biosphere. This perspective suggests that every living organism, whether sentient or not, possesses a right to exist and be protected. 

    Such a human culture, is able to live, sustainably alongside its fellow species. Able to acknowledge that all species are part of the web of life that also supports humans. Without that web, humanity, and most other current species, will inevitably die.

    Anthropocentrism: the belief that human beings have superiority over nature has driven 6000 years of human’s ecological destruction, biodiversity loss, and now climate crises. This worldview contrasts sharply with Indigenous perspectives (like kaitiakitanga) and emerging ecological ethics that argue for biocentrism (all life has intrinsic value) or ecocentrism (whole ecosystems matter).

    Anthropocentrism’s drivers appear to be derived from humanity’s view that the attributes that humans have- particularly the capacity to manipulate his/her environment, make humans a superior being to all other species on the planet. Our self-defined view of what is superior is derived from our own attributes; rather like an elephant determining that it is superior to all other species because it can reach high places with its trunk.

    However our “superior” capacity to manipulate our environment is also our downfall; through 4000 years of manipulation of the natural world around us we have progressively destroyed the living world we rely on to survive.

    Many like to think that if we did not have capitalism, we would somehow return to a world where humans could co-habitat in sustainable peace with other species – however it is clear that capitalism is simply one of many manifestations of anthropocentrism. Our belief in our inherent superiority allows us to consider capitalism and the pursuit of ‘wealth” by exploiting and destroying other living things as though that had no cost, as a sane objective.

    6000 years ago, humanity’s anthroprocentric view of the world did not impact on the rest of the natural world as it does now. There were perhaps 7 million humans in the world, mainly hunter/gatherers who made use of the environment around them, but whose capacity to create systemic damage to the living world was limited in scale. As our capacity increased to not only defend ourselves against more ‘naturally’ efficient predators but also to kill and destroy other living things, so did the human population. Within two thousand years , the global human population had exploded to 160 million. In 2025 the global human population is estimated at around 8.2 billion people. Most humans now live in towns and cities ( what the Romans called ‘civis” – or ‘civilisation’). Surrounded by an inanimate world of asphalt and concrete we have lost our link with the rest of nature. We do not see its value because we cannot see it- except perhaps to see it as ‘entertainment on a hiking trip in the ‘wilds’.

    Many of the world’s religions, particularly but not exclusively, the Abrahamaic religions of Judea, Christ and Mecca instruct their followers to believe in humanity as superior beings before their god.

    Perhaps part of that wanton destruction has been because humans not only do not understand the inter-relationships between living things, but are also largely oblivious to the living things around us- the insects, the microbes, the fungi, the birds and mammals that help sustain our lives. We do not see how we are ourselves inextricably woven into that intricate web of life.

    This sense of superiority has also led humans to become largely compassion-less for the suffering of others- except perhaps for those people and other animals that we focus our attention on and value for whatever reason. e.g. Cats, dogs, dolphins, whales are somehow living things to be valued- but sheep cattle, rats mice can be killed mercilessly; they do not suit our purposes. Or, as in New Zealand, humans may decide that this living animal is to be exterminated because we value this other living species – it is perhaps cuter, more indigenous, more suitable, more useful for exploitation.

    Like most other species on earth, humans do not have the capacity to view the world long-term. We are oblivious to the ever encroaching tide year by year of concrete and asphalt into the living world, or of the one more old growth tree cut down to make way for ‘progress’. We cannot see what we have so tragically lost and the many lives we have destroyed.

    If we are to save this planet from ourselves, we must re-learn how to value ALL living things; to see their beauty, their intrinsic value , their importance- and to act with compassion to all living things.

    Without that compassion, we may continue to find fine and ultimately futile ways to lower our carbon footprint while we continue to destroy the rest of the living world, but we are nevertheless simply hastening our species’ (and many others) demise.

    We can start now. Instead of our media pushing us to buy more and more ‘things’, or to travel here or there-we need our media to begin displaying how it is to become interlinked with our world. To grow trees in every back garden and park, to teach young people that they do not need to be ‘somebody’ important- but instead to be kind and caring to all, to learn how to be at ease with what we have; to ‘need’ less.

    Politicians need to understand that GDP is a meaningless piece of garbage that does nothing to improve human’s quality of life and certainaly nothing to sustain our living world.

    Politicians also need to be educated to understand the vital importance of bringing an end to anthroprocentrism; that given the destruction we have caused, we must now become true guardians of the natural world or ‘kaitiaki’ as New Zealand’s Maori say. We must make more and more of our living world legislatively sacred -that all of nature itself has rights or ‘personhood’, like the sacred Whanganui River in New Zealand.

    Links

    Introduction to Permaculture Bill Mollison Tagari Publications Tasmania, (2011) Page 1

    Understanding Our Collapsing World- https://open.substack.com/pub/predicament/p/understanding-our-collapsing-world

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/14/rights-of-nature-laws-gaining-momentum

    https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/intrinsic-value-ecology-and-conservation-25815400/

    https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-319-09483-0_41

    The Yemen Tragedy

    Now that Trump ( as of May 2025) has made the decision not to continue U.S. air attacks on targets in Yemen (for now), the following semi-legal analysis of the strikes below is perhaps somewhat moot. However it does provide a glimpse into the legalities of the multiple aggressions by Western countries in the past 75 years since World War 2.

    After an almost shootdown of an ‘invisible’ US F35 aircraft, and the loss of 2 (possibly 3) F18s (valued at $70 million each) that had ‘fallen off’ US aircraft carriers in the Gulf, along with about 10, 30 million dollar MQ9 drones shot down by Ansar-allah (what the West MSM as one voice like to call “Iran backed rebel Houthis”-all in one breath), it must have been clearly apparent, even to Trump, that the billion dollar US bombing campaign against Yemen was going nowhere.

    Additionally, because the US had (and has) very little accurate information on where Ansarallah weapons and military was on the ground they were in fact predominantly (and accidentally?) hitting civilians. In addition the long-standing U.K air support for the Americans on the Arabian peninsula was entirely without targeting or strategy, but largely an attempt to try and demonstrate that Britain was still a force to be reckoned with in the Gulf.

    One cannot however be so charitable about Israeli bombings of civilian Yemen targets-(civilian ports and airports), who used their traditional methods of terror and brutality to try and intimidate Ansarallah.

    What follows is an analysis of the legalities of this bombing campaign, supposedly initiated by first Biden and then Trump, to stop Ansarallah closing the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea to shipping bound for the Israeli Red Sea port of Eilat (top right hand section of map)

    Legal Analysis of US/UK Strikes in Yemen and Potential Violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL)

    The US and UK military interventions in Yemen, particularly against Houthi targets, raise significant legal questions under international humanitarian law (IHL)—also known as the laws of war. Below is a deeper examination of their compliance with key legal principles.

    Analysis of the Legal Framework Governing US Strikes against Yemen

    A. Applicable Law

    • Geneva Conventions (1949) & Additional Protocol I (1977): Govern the conduct of hostilities, including distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack.
    • UN Charter (Article 2(4) & Article 51): Prohibits the use of force except in self-defense or with UN Security Council authorization.
    • Customary IHL: Binding on all parties, including non-state actors like the Houthis.

    B. Justifications for US/UK Strikes

    • Self-Defense Argument (Article 51, UN Charter): The US and UK argue strikes are necessary to protect maritime security (Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping).
    • Legal Debate: Some scholars argue this stretches self-defense doctrine, as Houthi attacks may not constitute an “armed attack” justifying unilateral force.
    • Collective Self-Defense (Supporting Saudi Arabia & UAE): Previously invoked, but less relevant post-2022 since the Saudi-Houthi truce.

    2. Key IHL Principles & Potential Violations

    A. Principle of Distinction (Civilian vs. Military Targets)

    • Rule: Attacks must only target military objectives, not civilians or civilian infrastructure.
    • Concerns in Yemen:
    • Urban Warfare: Houthis embed military assets in densely populated areas, increasing civilian risk.
    • Reports of Civilian Harm: NGOs (e.g., Mwatana, Amnesty) allege US/UK strikes hit homes, farms, and markets, suggesting possible indiscriminate targeting.

    B. Principle of Proportionality

    • Rule: Civilian harm must not be excessive relative to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
    • Challenges:
    • “Double-Tap” Strikes: Some reports suggest follow-up strikes hit first responders, which could be a war crime if deliberate.
    • High Civilian Toll in Past Strikes: Even if targets are legitimate, large-scale civilian casualties (e.g., 2022 Saada prison strike by Saudi coalition) raise proportionality concerns.

    C. Precautions in Attack

    • Rule: Parties must take all feasible measures to verify targets and minimize civilian harm.
    • US/UK Practices:
    • Use of precision-guided munitions (reduces but does not eliminate risk).
    • Lack of Transparency: Few public investigations into alleged civilian harm, unlike in Iraq/Syria.

    3. Accountability & Legal Consequences

    A. Mechanisms for Accountability

    1. Domestic Investigations (US/UK):
    • The US has a Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) but rarely discloses Yemen investigations.
    • The UK has no independent Yemen strike review body, unlike its Iraq/Syria oversight.
    1. International Criminal Court (ICC):
    • Yemen is not an ICC member, but if nationals of member states commit crimes on Yemeni soil, the ICC could theoretically investigate.
    1. Universal Jurisdiction:
    • Third countries could prosecute war crimes under universal jurisdiction (e.g., Germany’s case against Syrian officials).

    B. State Responsibility & Reparations

    • Under IHL, states must provide reparations for unlawful strikes, but neither the US nor UK has a compensation program for Yemeni victims.
    • Contrast with US payments for civilian harm in Afghanistan/Iraq.

    4. Broader Implications & Legal Precedents

    • Escalation Risks: If strikes are seen as disproportionate, they could fuel further Houthi attacks, creating a cycle of violence.
    • Erosion of IHL Norms: Repeated civilian harm without accountability weakens global adherence to laws of war.
    • Potential for Future Cases: If evidence of systematic violations emerges, legal challenges could arise in international courts or via sanctions.

    Conclusion: Are US/UK Strikes Lawful?

    • Legally Defensible? The US/UK can argue self-defense and military necessity, but civilian harm incidents raise serious IHL concerns.
    • Accountability Gap: Lack of transparent investigations and reparations undermines claims of compliance.
    • Future Risks: If civilian casualties continue unchecked, legal challenges (e.g., ICC petitions, universal jurisdiction cases) could follow.

    The Western Media Farce of a Ukraine “Peace”

    As of mid -March 2025, Western mainstream media speak as one, saying ‘Putin’ doesn’t want a ceasefire, he wants to continue the war’.

    However Putin and the Russian Federation are simply reiterating the conditions for peace they have made for the past 3 years; which would be of course be of no surprise to NATO or to Western media- but they pretend they are. MSM seem to imply that Russia should simply say ‘yes’ to a temporary ceasefire while Ukraine is then rearmed by Europe and the US after its devastating defeat in the Kursk salient and along the line of combat in Eastern Ukraine, continues to plan to be part of NATO and continues to conduct war crimes against Russian-speakers- both within Eastern Ukraine and also recently in the now liberated Russian Kursk salient.

    Russia’s conditions thus include the elimination of the well-documented persecution and murder of Russian speakers in Ukraine, (which naturally means the elimination of the Bandera-cult extremists who have attempted to implement their ethnically ‘pure’-Ukraine fiction.) Ukraine is, and has always been over the past 500 years, with its constantly shifting borders, a place where multiple ethnicities have always lived: Romanians, Hungarians, Russians, Jews, Gypsies and Poles.

    Strangely the well-documented evidence of Kiev’s assaults on its civilian population in Eastern Ukraine (and particularly the thousands of civilian deaths from shelling in Donetsk City since 2014) never make the Western press.

    And while we hear, as we should, about the deaths of Ukrainian civilians at Russian hands, we hear nothing about the missile strikes on civilians in Russia by Ukraine, many of which do not appear to be ‘accidental’ .

    Russia has consistently demanded that Ukraine return to its neutral status that it legislatively agreed to when it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia has consequently also demanded that Ukraine no longer be massively armed by the West so that it can no longer threaten Russia’s borders.

    The fiction by European powers that they can be ‘peacekeepers” on the ground in Ukraine is simply ridiculous. Countries that have aggressively supplied and targeted the other side in a war cannot subsequently become ‘peacekeepers’- they are co-belligerents, and remain so until the war completely ends. A co-belligerent therefore cannot ever be a ‘peace-keeper’ – this is just a simplistic ruse by the Europe to create a backdoor opportunity for Ukraine to become part of NATO and for the Ukraine to continue its fight with Russia. What is also never mentioned in MSM is that Europe does not have the military capacity-either in war-machines or troops, to be a significant threat to Russia. European ‘peacekeepers’ would therefore become a trip-wire for the US to become directly involved militarily if European troops were attacked in Ukraine.

    The neocon and very influential in Washington ‘thinktank’: the Atlantic Council has naturally accused Russia of using the NATO issue as an excuse to keep fighting- somehow ignoring the fact that one of Russia’s stated key reasons for starting the war was precisely because of the NATO threat.

    We are continually told by Western media that Putin cannot be trusted to make a deal- yet it is indisputably the West who have lied and cheated their way through the Minsk 1 and 2 peace agreements to enable Ukraine to keep fighting, and scuppered the peace agreement agreed to by Ukraine with Russia in Istanbul in 2022.

    We are told that the US pouring millions into Ukraine before the Maidan coup in 2014 , and US politicians like Senators John McCain and Chris Murphy  and US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland explicitly supporting the nationalist extremists on the Maidan, is all a myth. We are also told falsely that the deposed President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych was a corrupt dictator, when in fact he was democratically elected; (although indeed corrupt , like EVERY other Ukrainian president since independence).

    Such evidence online in Western media’s reports and analysis is strangely hard to come by. Western media have demonstrated that they do not exist to provide bi-partisan evidence to allow people to make up their own minds about the history and current situation in Ukraine, they exist to ensure that the NATO narrative is the only narrative to be heard.

    Plainly the ‘needs’ of Western politicians and businesses (and even University ‘analysts’) to explain this ‘unprovoked’ war by Russia in as simplistic and dishonest way as possible to ensure their financial gains and power, outweigh the needs of Western populations to be accurately informed of the realities of this awful war.

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    Links

    https://www.publicinternationallawandpolicygroup.org/lawyering-justice-blog/2024/12/17/the-istanbul-communique-a-blueprint-for-ukraines-capitulation-1

    https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/conflict-ukraines-donbas-visual-explainer

    https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea

    The Sacredness of Life

    Life on our planet is a complex and often invisible intertwining of organisms; each  one dependant on many others for its survival.

    The World Wildlife Fund states that half the planet’s wildlife population has vanished since 1970 as a result of human activity.   52 percent of Earth’s mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish disappeared over those 50 years, 40% of all insects species and 60% of birds are declining globally.

    And those figures do not take into account the total populations of the different species of birds, insects and wild mammals that are being killed off or starved from lack of natural habitat. When did the moths last bang themselves against your lighted nightime windows?- when did the smashed insects last cover your windscreen with their bodies on that last holiday in the natural world?- when did you last see the huge flocks of birds that used to be everywhere?

    That absence may seem of no  consequence (or even a relief!) to many humans (especially those who live in  urban spaces) but in  fact  we are all reliant on the multiplicity of other species for our survival-whether it be for pollination for our food, the birds that spread the seeds of life, the Mycorrhizal fungi  that  ensure plants and trees grow healthily, or the many predators and ‘pests” who keep life in  balance.

    We need to  revive our lost understanding of our linkage to all other life on this planet. Not just  the species that humans ‘like’; our native fauna and flora and our pets, but ALL life. We must begin again to look and listen with respect and compassion to the living world around us and help  rebuild the natural  world that  sustains us. We are perilously close to cutting the remaining  threads that bind us to life on Earth.

    Acknowledging that human ‘growth’ is in fact creating more dead spaces, (more concrete sealing over the soil, more trees felled, and fewer wild spaces to name just a few of our nature destruction options) . Planting trees, reviving diverse habitats and nurturing all other species  with compassion are just some of our key steps towards a better and sustainable world.

    Sinophobia and Hysteria in the Pacific

    The Pacific has long been the playground of European powers. France even now has what the French call patronisingly ‘protectorates’) in the Pacific including French Polynesia ( including Tahiti), New Caledonia, and Wallis. The independence movement in New Caledonia is particularly strong and has resulted in a number of clashes recently with the French occupying force there.

    The United States has bases and territories in the Pacific, including Guam, American Samoa, Wake Island and Kwajalein Atoll  and also of course Hawaii which has become a US state. The US also has several naval bases in the Pacific, including Pearl Harbour, Guam, Majuro Atoll San Diego and in American Samoa.

    Australia’s primary Pacific territories include, Norfolk Island, the Coral Sea Islands (Including Willis Island) Lord Howe Island and the Torres Strait Islands; with the most notable base and populated territory being Norfolk Island, located roughly 1600km northeast of Sydney. 

    New Zealand’s Pacific territories include the semi-independent Cook Islands (whose citizens have dual citizenship with New Zealand), Niue and the Tokelau Islands . The Cook Islands government has recently caused a furore in New Zealand by negotiating a trade agreement with China without first discussing it with New Zealand.

    Both New Zealand and Australia are members of Five Eyes the notorious US,UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand intelligence network , which has for 75 years supported Israel’s genocide in Palestine through information provision and has been directly involved in providing vital intelligence for many of the brutal offensive wars conducted by the US and NATO-including the genocide in Korea , Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the current war in Ukraine, and many more..

    So perhaps it is perfectly understandable that New Zealand and Australia as part of the U.S. ‘international rule based order’ see their capacity to play their part in maiming and murdering millions for power and profit being threatened by the new kid on the block: China!

    New Zealand has also relied on cheap (often illegally so) migrant Pasifika labour for its economy to expand over the past 50 years. Keeping Pacific Island countries therefore in a state of poverty has therefore been a desired outcome for NZ economists, to ensure a good flow of migrants. China’s resurgence is therefore a major threat to this strategy, bringing significant economic benefits via trade to Island nations and the likelihood that their populations will be more inclined to stay put. Having said that, China/Pasifika business ventures like deep sea mining are also a major threat to the environmental sustainability of the Pacific.

    Despite the extensive hype from Australian and New Zealand journalists politicians and ‘experts’ , there is no evidence as yet of China establishing naval or air bases in those Pacific countries-unlike Australia and the US. What is curious is the almost total gung-ho support and consistent messaging from New Zealand journalists and ‘experts’ for more China bashing and more pointless New Zealand resources going into New Zealand’s military – on the somewhat ridiculous assumption that New Zealand’s tiny military footprint would have any impact on anything at all in a global conflict between superpowers.

    China is now after all, a global super-power; it would indeed be strange if it did not have a presence this far south . China has steadily increased its naval presence in the Indo-Pacific region, including the Tasman Sea over the past few years. This is part of a broader strategy to expand its influence and protect its trading interests from a very belligerent United States and its co-opted allies-particularly Australia who has recently the AUKUS boondoggle deal to have the US build nuclear submarines Australia wont need, at staggering cost. New Zealand ‘experts’ are now saying New Zealand should also be part of this scam, to defend New Zealand from China!.

    Rather than Australia and New Zealand acknowledging the new realities of China’s burgeoning global military and economic strength, and working with that (China after all clearly has absolutely no interest in invading Australia or New Zealand), Australia and New Zealand’s ‘experts’ and politicians instead want to hype up their populations for a futile and disastrous conflict with China. Bizarrely China is also Australia and New Zealand’s major trading partner.

    It should also be remembered that United States naval forces and their NATO allies have traversed the South China Sea- very close to China’s borders, hundreds of times a year over the past 5 years. Ostensibly the US says that this is to ensure safe maritime passage in the area- but of course the vast majority of trade through the South China Sea is in fact Chinese.

    The Chinese are under no allusions that the US is facilitating freedom of transit of this major trade route but are in fact threatening to blockade their vital maritime trade routes to the world..With its 904 military bases around the world, the US and its ‘Allies” are not a force for good in the world!

    While New Zealand and Australia should logically be monitoring and preparing for any real military threats that might arise in the future, they also need to be adapting to a new multipolar world order, where the might-is-right rules of the U.S. ‘Rule Based International Order’ will thankfully no longer apply.

    The development of open and honest communication channels with the Chinese Government instead of the current belligerency and media confrontation, would also be a helpful start, along with the development of long forgotten diplomacy skills.

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    Links

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/542679/china-begins-second-military-exercise-in-tasman-sea

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/542714/expert-says-china-s-military-exercise-in-tasman-sea-serves-as-serious-threat

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/02/08/analysis-anger-in-cook-islands-at-recent-moves/

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/542733/cook-islands-deal-opens-up-pacific-to-china-expert

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/542760/chinese-ships-in-the-tasman-a-gift-from-beijing-for-defence-spending-expert

    World BEYOND War
    Global Day of Action to #CloseBases

    https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1010252037592085&id=100058218933804&_rdr