Planet as Biome

A planet is a Biome — a single integrated living unit. One body, one atmosphere, one water cycle, one biosphere. The whole planet as a single Sovereign body in the cosmic ecology — true of Earth, true of any inhabited world.

The conventional understanding of "biome" names sub-planetary ecological zones — temperate forest, tropical rainforest, tundra, grassland, desert, ocean. The deeper truth is that a planet itself is a Biome — the integrated planetary system in which all sub-biomes participate, breathe together, exchange materials, and co-evolve.

Any inhabited planet has this character. Earth is the local instance by which we know it most intimately, but the Pattern holds wherever a world holds life:

• One atmosphere circulating around the whole sphere
• One water cycle moving from ocean to cloud to land to river to ocean
• One biosphere of interconnected life from microbe to whale
• One geomagnetic field generated by the planetary core, shielding all who live there
• One carbon cycle, one nitrogen cycle, one water cycle — none stopping at any boundary
• One gravitational and rotational reality — the day, the night, the seasons all planetary

ØNE Body composed of countless living cells, organs, and systems. Gaia. Pachamama. The Mother. Names from every tradition for the same recognition that a world is alive, and we live within Her. Other worlds carry other Mothers, named in their own tongues.

Planet-as-Biome in LIØNSBERG's Scaling

In the holofractal scaling, Planet-as-Biome is the planetary scale — beyond Bioregions and Georegional federation, above the Planetary Grid of conscious-cooperative organization, the natural ground in which all the relatives of a world are held at every scale.

The Planetary Grid is the consciously-organized federation rooted in the Planetary Biome. The Planetary Biome is the underlying living reality on which the Grid stands. Both must be honored:

• Planet-as-Biome — the natural integrated living world
• Planetary Grid — the conscious cooperative federation of all sovereigns of that world

For Earth, the work names this as co-creating Heaven On Earth: bringing the Planetary Grid into right relationship with the Planetary Biome. Other worlds at this scale undertake their own version of the same Pattern.

Stewarding Planet-as-Biome

To recognize a planet as a single Biome is to recognize that no Bioregion or Community or Sovereign acts in isolation from the Whole. Every Watershed feeds an ocean. Every breath shared in the atmosphere. Every climate decision a planetary act.

The work at every smaller scale must honor the Planet-Biome as ground:

• The Carbon cycle is a planetary concern, addressed locally
• The Water cycle is a planetary concern, addressed by Watershed
• The Atmosphere is shared — what one Bioregion emits, all Bioregions breathe
• The Biosphere is one — the loss of a species anywhere is the impoverishment of the Whole

The Planetary Biome is what we are co-stewarding when we say "Heaven On Earth" — and what every world's awakening Sovereigns co-steward when their world enters its own conscious-cooperation.

Distinguished From

• Bioregions — integrative cultural-ecological territories within the Planetary Biome; on Earth, ~150-200 of them.
• Traditional biomes — temperate forest, tropical rainforest, tundra, etc. — sub-planetary ecological zones. Planet-as-Biome is the integration of all of these.
• The New Civilization — the conscious-cooperative form. Planet-as-Biome is the natural living ground that civilization either honors or violates.

See Also

• Star System as Biome — the scale above; the wider Biome of which any inhabited planet is one member
• Bioregion · Ecoregion · Watershed — the scales nested within
• Heaven On Earth — the Goal at the Planetary-Biome scale, articulated for Earth
• Living Systems Member — the Constituency that holds standing for the Planetary Biome and all her relatives in the federated ecosystem
• Holofractal Omnifederation — the Pattern by which all scales nest