Symbiocene Principles

In what I hope will be a relatively short period of time (perhaps decades), there will be a point in human social development where almost every element of human culture, habitat and technology will be seamlessly re-integrated back into life cycles and processes. In order to get to that preferred state of living, I suggest that the key organizing principles of a Symbiocene society include:

• full and benign recyclability and biodegradability of all inputs and outputs;
• safe and socially just forms of clean, renewable energy;
• full and harmonious integration of human systems with biogeochemical systems at all scales;
• using the renewable resources of place and bioregion;
• the elimination of toxic waste in all aspects of production, consumption and enterprise;
• all species, great and small, having their life-interests and life-sharing understood and respected;
• evidence of a harmony or balance of interests where conflict is recognized as a sub-set of grand-scale cooperation;
• protection of symbiotic bonds between and within species at all scales; and
• re-establishment of symbiotic bonds where they have been severed in the Anthropocene.

As all of these principles are applied by Generation Symbiocene, in the goodness of Symbiocene time, on the very youngest soil strata on Earth, a new, thin film of vitally organic microbiome substances will cover everything. The ‘sumbiofilm’ will mark the proper geological commencement of the Symbiocene. From that point onwards, as we rapidly build the Symbiocene, that ‘organic’ layer will become thicker and richer as it covers the multitude of sins left by the Anthropocene.