These documents and books may be downloaded in PDF format free of charge. My collapsology essay, Quiet Earth is listed first. Next is an active project aimed at engineering an ecologically responsible AI. After that, we have human-caused environmental changes. novels about people living through the environmental changes, textbooks reviewing writing techniques, and last, plant and animal field guides. Please use the contact form at the bottom of this page if you have questions.
Collapsology
Quiet Earth
A science-grounded ecological-collapse manifesto on biosphere simplification, thermodynamic descent, triage, and seed-carrying into the future. Citation: Rogers, G. 2026. Quiet Earth. Agua Fria Open Space Alliance, Coldwater Press. (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20681562).
The Sonoran Blueprint: Ecological Simplification as a Conservation Pathway
Essay: The Sonoran Blueprint
A concise version of the Quiet Earth argument, focused on Sonoran Desert fire, ecological simplification, conservation triage, and biosphere descent.
Science Essays and Books
Essay: Scientists’ Reticence Leads to
Underestimation of Climate Risk If Hansen is right, and reticence has indeed gone too far, understanding the machinery of this silence is no longer just an academic exercise, it is a survival imperative. The essay attempts to dismantle that machinery to show exactly how and why we underestimate the risk of ruin.
A pragmatic discussion of civilizational survival, this work proposes a hierarchy of interventions, from limiting direct resource extraction, to shifting foundational economic paradigms, to navigate the irreversible decline of the planet’s life-support systems.
Reader Views Literary Awards Gold in the Science category.
This comprehensive treatise assumes that the complete restoration of Earth’s ecosystem functions is no longer a viable objective. It provides a cross-disciplinary framework for maintaining limited human civilization through strategic societal adaptations.
This brief but urgent volume outlines essential community-level strategies for surviving the most extreme climate projections, emphasizing the need for prudent, proactive planning over reactive crisis management.
Novels
Corr’s journey takes him from the political intrigues of his home district to the vast expanses of the multiverse, challenging his skills, beliefs, and adaptability.
Kirkus Star and the OneBookAZ literary awards.
The history of Maplewood and its journey into a new environmental reality is imagined from historical sources: journals, newspaper clippings, and official records, particularly the personal journal of Town Manager James Holden.
Through professional triumphs, crushing losses, and the desperate, quiet work of raising a family in a collapsing world, Sam and Mia discover that the strongest shelter isn’t made of concrete—it is made of promises kept.
Dr. Sarah Chen discovers a failure in the metrics used to monitor planetary health.The biosphere is collapsing. Her investigation leads to Indonesia, Svalbard, and Antarctica, where paleontologist Tom Bradley identifies the agents of collapse: Ancient, dormant organisms have awakened and are changing life on earth and the planet itself.
Writing Textbooks (These can be downloaded from the Infinite Writers book page if that ever gets finished.)
Field Guides
Several field guides for local plants and animals are available on Amazon. The weeds book below can be downloaded free.
Download: 2023. Weeds of Dewey-Humboldt Arizona, 2nd Edition. 336 p.
Boring Bit of Background
Concerned about human impacts on nature, I watched the news and complained until my friend Mark McBrady became exasperated and said to do something or shut up. Alright, so I decided to see if the new AI chat systems could help me concoct a plan to save the world. I began with the adaptations people must make to survive worst-case climate change and biosphere collapse. The AIs produced in-depth reviews and summaries of current state of knowledge on topics I chose. The AI work was comprehensive, but it required substantial editing and correction of details. The result is a useful guide for planners and administrators. Click “Adapting to Worst-Case Climate Change” above to download a free copy.
The AI research revealed profound changes taking place in global climate and the planetary environment. I could see that a singular focus on climate overlooked the broader erosion of biological complexity resulting from farming, deforestation, desertification, livestock, species extinctions, and the unraveling of the “assembly language” of our planetary operating system: the microbiome.
I asked the AIs to research the inner workings of the biosphere, the changes that were occurring, and the adaptations people needed to make. I also asked for a review of the “Cognitive Biosphere,” for indeed, Earth is not a passive platform, but an active, information-processing entity connected and regulated by quadrillions of microbial and fungal agents. The presence of cognition across every level of the biosphere illuminates the complex interconnected nature of Earth’s living system. A series of blog posts on this website do the best job of illuminating this astonishing issue.
As I went on to catalog the adaptations required for our civilization to persist within the planetary biosphere, a grim conclusion emerged: the socio-political inertia that prevents ecosystem preservation, maintenance, and restoration also renders large-scale adaptation effectively impossible. The entire review and my conclusions edited and verified appear in Silent Earth: Adaptations for Life in a Devastated Biosphere.
Seeking a mechanism for survival, I researched and assembled Biosphere Collapse: Causes and Solutions. But there were no comprehensive “solutions.” The transgression of seven of the nine planetary boundaries had already triggered cascading tipping points that are irreversible on human timescales.
As the impossibility of recovering Goldilocks Holocene conditions settled in, I searched for an endgame solution. After exploring and discarding some wild ideas, I settled on Quiet Earth. In it, I propose that the collapse of industrial civilization is not a failure to avoid, but a necessary evolutionary “Initiation”. It is the mandatory transition from a state of pathological industrial adolescence defined by juvenile fantasies of omnipotence and a rebellion against limits, into a mature, sapient integration with the biosphere. The initiation requires a shift from futile concern for failing systems to an “Ark Strategy” of strategic abandonment and preservation of genetic and cultural seeds.
The various essays pursue related issues.
The novels serve as a laboratory for the factual research. While Corr Syl is the imaginary ideal of long-term ecological harmony, The Maplewood Journals and The Long Fire Season, serve as more contemporary explorations of the coming ordeal, envisioning sanctuaries of memory and survival in the ashes of the Holocene. Love in Eternal Gardens begins with the environmental issues facing our planet but quickly moves into a fantasy of change that is purely for entertainment.
Following the results presented in the essays and books, I searched for practical adaptations people could make now to prepare for the initiation. I used my years of experience living in and taking part in community affairs here in Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona to assess and integrate the AI responses. The “Guide to Community Adaptations” offers a set of strategies and rigorous actions that can help communities survive and prepare for the Initiation described in the Manifesto.
At about this time I abruptly realized the AIs themselves were a more immediate threat to humanity and the biosphere than climate change. AI resource use and biosphere impacts are growing rapidly. Moreover, the socio/cultural effects of AI may pose grave threats to human civilization. None of the major AI systems of today are being trained with recognition that neither they nor human civilization can persist without a healthy biosphere.
Hoping to overcome this oversight, I installed an AI on local hardware and began experimenting with biosphere constraints on AI responses. The project is explained in the documents above under Ecological Constitution for AI Systems.
I began work on AI constraints believing that it must be completed and a “proof of concept” publication be distributed before independent self-programming AGI (AI consciousness) developed. Heads of major AI companies predict AGI within the next one to four years. AI training currently focuses on human needs and treats nature as a resource to be used as needed for growth. Emergence of AGI on top of this view could accelerate environmental impact and lead to catastrophic acceleration of global biosphere degradation.
The four essays that lead off the download list under the heading, Ecological Constitution for AI Systems, explain what’s going on with this work. A position paper laying out the project goals and approach has been submitted for publication. Others are in preparation.
Submit this contact form if you have questions for Dr. Rogers (ORCID: 0000-0003-2024-4953).
Latest Blog Posts
Comment on the Edge of Industrial Collapse
I wanted to comment on an essay with the above title, but missed the comment window. I recommend the essay. Here’s my comment:Your framing of the current conflicts as accelerants rather than causes matches what the systems literature has said for half a century. The “Limits to Growth” curves stop where the decline begins, though.…
The Sonoran Blueprint: Ecological Simplification as a Conservation Pathway
Scholarly Perspective companion to Quiet EarthA concise ecological version of the Quiet Earth argument, focused on Sonoran Desert fire, ecological simplification, conservation triage, and biosphere descent. June 14, 2026 Garry Rogers, Agua Fria Open Space Alliance, Inc., Humboldt, AZ, USA Abstract Restoration remains necessary where ecological return paths remain open, but it is no longer…
Adding Biosphere Protection to AI: Status Report
A progress note from Phase One, April 2026 Some readers know that I have been working on a project called Biosphere Sentinel, also known as the AI Biosphere Constitution. The plan is to build an artificial intelligence advisor for ecological decisions that operates within hard limits drawn from Earth system science. The system runs on…