The documents and books listed below may be downloaded in PDF format free of charge. I chose the topics, plots, and presentation, generated drafts with AI, and then read and edited every line. Though the AI contribution might not be detectable, the works were not created entirely by a human and cannot be copyrighted. The first set covers an active project aimed at engineering an ecologically responsible AI. The second set concerns the human-caused environmental changes and the adaptations humans must make. The third set, the novels, includes stories of people living through the environmental changes. The fourth set includes textbooks on writing techniques. The fifth group includes plant and animal field guides.
Ecological Constitution for AI Systems
Summary of Methods and Architecture-April 10, 2026
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Ecological_constitution_for AI_Part II_soft constraints_v9
Ecological-constitution_for AI_implementation roadmap_v8
Nonfiction 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.
Book: Community Adaptations is a rigorous tactical manual for the small-scale reorganization required to weather coming systemic shifts.It moves beyond abstract theory to provide a granular battle plan for local resilience. From establishing “analog anchors” in communications to engineering parallel “shadow structures” when official governance falters, this work outlines essential protocols for a post-monetary, high-friction reality.
Essay: The central inquiry regarding humanity’s role after the Initiation, specifically whether we will emerge as sapient stewards or devolve into subsistence organisms, requires a rigorous dismantling of our current anthropocentric assumptions.
Essay: How can humans simultaneously love and destroy plants, animals, and ecosystems. This essay, “The Innocence of Ignorance: Human Compassion and the Unknowing Destruction of the Biosphere,” explores the paradox of humanity’s innate compassion for nature coexisting with unprecedented environmental destruction.Most humans are “innocent of intentional harm to the biosphere” but they are culpable due to ignorance. Download the PDF
This philosophical manifesto frames the collapse of industrial civilization as a necessary evolutionary “initiation” that compels humanity to transition from pathological industrial adolescence into a state of mature, ecocentric sapience.
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 for months 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 The Manifesto of the Initiation. 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 learned the AIs themselves were a more immediate threat than climate change. Recognizing the approaching AI apocalypse, I began training a local AI the importance of nature for machines and humans. No one can survive without fresh water and clean cool air—two resources completely dependent on a healthy biosphere. This concept might have broad appeal, but I believe I must complete the work and distribute a “proof of concept” before AGI (AI consciousness) develops. Heads of major AI companies predict AGI within the next one to four years. AI training currently focuses on human needs, treating nature as a resource to be used. Emergence of AGI with this background could accelerate environmental impact and lead to catastrophic irremediable 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.
