“We will not solve the problems we face unless we stop addressing issues such as climate change, deforestation, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, poverty, or our response to pandemics as stand-alone issues. If we zoom out to the orbital perspective, we see the true reality—that they are only symptoms of an underlying root problem. The problem is that we don’t see ourselves as planetary. So, what do we mean when we say planetary, and why planetary and not global? We don’t live on a Globe. Global is our computer networks; our financial networks, it’s abstract lines covering a sphere. When I looked out of the window of the International Space Station, I saw an iridescent biosphere teeming with life, I didn’t [Expletive] see the economy. The economy is a subsystem of society which in turn is part of the biosphere. That means our global economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the biosphere and not the other way around. But since our political, business, and cultural systems put the complete focus on growing the economy at all costs, and since our human-made systems treat everything including the very life support systems of our planet as the wholly-owned subsidiary of the economy it is obvious from the vantage point of space that we are living a lie. We need to move from thinking Economy - Society - Planet, to Planet - Society - Economy. Our Society is dependent on our Planet, and our Economy is dependent on Society. We need to reorganize and re-prioritize these systems not out of any ideological or eco-philosophy, but rather because this is the reality of the world we live in.”