I take solace in the fact that the executive, in his/her grief, might now consider another part of the Aspen Proposal that suggests that all humans have the same suite of needs, shaped by our evolution. There are real and robust ways to meet those needs, and yachts isn't one of them.

If you have a look at the Aspen Proposal, you will see that it does indeed suggest a smaller population than the current 8 billion or the peak 10 billion. Fortunately, birth rates are falling everywhere and we should be able to ease our numbers down over a few centuries.

The "family" is all the species that co-evolved with us from common ancestors. Which is all the species on earth. One of the reasons humans are mucking things up, is that we only see our selves as human and not as part of a large extended family. Changing that mindset may help us fit in on this planet a little better.

Well, you are certainly not allowed to eat your human relatives. But the other living things, including the ones you eat, also share a common ancestry with you. They deserve a bit more consideration than we have been in the habit of giving them.

Actually, the status quo is unworkable in the long run. One of the things that will help save our bacon is the recognition that the rest of the family has rights too.

Okay, I understand. Of course, this is about more than just land, as there are beings involved.

How the rights of nature are defined might vary with different pieces of legislation. In this case you would have to find the Ecuadorian laws that spell that out.

I am not sure what you mean by "property rights concept". A tree doesn't own property, nor does a butterfly.

Incorporating the rights of nature into national laws and constitutions is one of the many important ways we can recognize that humans are part of a very large family. We share common ancestors with all living things on earth and they are therefore, literally, our relatives.

This recognition is an essential element of a sustainable civilization. If you are interested in seeing a very brief description of all the elements you could check out the Aspen Proposal. www.aspenproposal.org

At this point in history, drifting into the future without any clear idea of where our species needs to go, will be catastrophic. It is time to step back and think about what it would take to make our civilization sustainable for the long-term. It is about much more than just climate change. www.aspenproposal.org

This article points out, once again, the need to move as quickly as we can to decarbonize our civilization. But we have already baked in a fair bit of change and it is going to be challenging, given all our other impacts on the biosphere, to get through the bottleneck of the next century and begin the long easing toward a sustainable civilization.

In the longer term, we can see a way for humans to flourish on this planet and to allow all our non-human relatives to flourish as well. But it will take a paradigm shift to get there. Perhaps something like the one described in the Aspen Proposal. www.aspenproposal.org

I think that in the long run our civilization will be more resilient with a number of regional economies that have only modest interconnections that one big global economy where a single shock can disrupt everything. It will take time and considerable thought to make the transition, but in the end it will likely be better for both cultural diversity and local economies.

There is a brief description of of what a sustainable, resilient and ethical civilization could look like in the Aspen Proposal. www.aspenproposal.org