Imagine, if you will, when you are born, right on your birth certificate – you are given an account number, a revolving line of credit. But instead of a financial one, it is an ecological one. Let’s assume it starts with a zero balance. Even though bringing you into this world involves consuming a certain amount of resources, it isn’t your decision. A new life is supposed to be a joyous event, so no need to be the skunk at the party just yet. We’ll ease you into it once you pronounce and spell “ecology.” If there ever were such a thing as “your permanent record,” this would likely be it. Your ecological credit report.

Your credit is nonexistent when you are young, so you will need a cosigner. That would also usually be a parent or guardian. Their credit is also at stake, as is some incentive to bring you up as a responsible ecological citizen. As you gain independence, your cosigners are ceremoniously released from their responsibilities, and you are on your own. Now what? Whoo hooo – party time!

Not so fast. Whether you know it or not, the number of positive or negative transactions on your ecological credit line is already influenced by what level of society you were born into, the country you were born in, and if a guy named Jeeves drives you around. Your ancestors and others around the planet have been advancing their conquest of Nature for centuries before you came along. More so since the systemic wipes of indigenous culture and philosophies, they’ve run up quite a tab. You learned about this in school, right? And you thought worrying about college debt was a heavy burden?

What happens to those debts? You may not inherit them directly, or maybe you do if you are taking over the family business of clear-cutting forests. Michigan was primarily cleared of its old-growth forest, a deficit that all its residents are still paying for today because of poor ecological account management by our ancestors. The United States is the most significant historical contributor to atmospheric CO2 and, along with many other countries, has an average living standard that has already exceeded the planet’s ecological capacity many times over. And as we’ve recently seen, the tragedy on Maui unfolded, and the terraforming of the landscape there ultimately had consequences.

Despite these large debts, many people around Michigan, the U.S., and the planet still live quite comfortably, even extravagantly. That’s because we’ve primarily figured out ways to live beyond environmental limitations. We can import food to regions where it won’t grow, air-conditioned buildings and houses in deserts, and heat them in cold climates. Humans can live underwater in artificial habitats and even plan on living where no life exists on other planets. When it comes down to it, a bit of wealth, ingenuity, and perseverance, we seem to figure it out. We rebuild after hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, and floods.

Nobody is coming to foreclose on your house because your ecological debt is too high. Superfund sites remain from companies long declared bankrupt, executives jettisoned with golden parachutes. We are rich kids on wild spending sprees, partying with the planet’s trust fund. Worrying about ecological debt is essentially a psychological burden rather than a physical one, at least for the privileged. Are such deficits just an academic exercise?

But this is an illusion. Are there no costs if there isn’t a monthly statement or app to notify you of transactions? Or are they obscured by the vastness of ecological timelines in comparison to human lifetimes? We proudly exert our influence over Nature as if the conquest is genuinely over; everything is ours for the taking.

And yet, Nature is seemingly a forgiving and tolerant lender in many ways. A lot is going on for this tiny blue dot. It’s capable of healing and a certain amount of restoration, given enough time and basic materials. Forests burn and regenerate, often to their benefit. Even with something as destructive as an asteroid, life begins again.

It may not look the same as before. We already have evidence of consequences amounting to extinction if a system is changed beyond its natural adaptive capacity. We are pretty good at playing a shell game on our planet, restoring over here while destroying over there as if we are so clever. Shell games of outsourcing emissions, pollution, and deforestation. Perhaps we think nobody is doing the math that lets us continually privatize profit, progress, and benefits while socializing the debt. When we run out of shells, no worries – we borrow more and hedge against the future. Again, nature is patient and tolerant of such games and perhaps amused at our follies.

The idea of an ecological credit account, even if you never know the balance, is to recognize the highly complex situation we find ourselves in. We are born into systems built on centuries-old conquest, so confronting them is uncomfortable, difficult, and often seems quite futile. Individual spending seems minuscule compared to that of large conglomerates with exponentially greater influence, power, resources, and global reach. Yet, the financial aspects of our societal systems are built on the basis that you cannot keep spending without a bill eventually coming due. When unpaid, such bills resort to debt collection. Nature isn’t so different.

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

~ Wendell Berry

You don’t need a doorbell camera to know the faces of Nature’s repo men: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. ¹ We’ve always known, worshipped, and played with them. However, the acts of collection and repossession are often ruthless and indiscriminate. Humans still look like bewildered gamblers when our elemental friends show up for business. “Nothing personal, just business,” we like to say. Payment is painful and tragic, primarily when collection is enforced on those least responsible. However, our concepts of fairness, equity, justice, and individuality seem irrelevant on a species scale.

Why is it we seem to shrug when scientists instead of CFOs warn us certain ecological spending is out of control? Have we moved the shells so much that we have lost track? Is the concept of fiduciary duty to the environment so far-fetched now that indigenous wisdom is nearly extinct? Cynicism can lead us to think there is no accountability, but perhaps we need to shift our perspective of the time when debts ultimately come due. Because they do ultimately come due, and it is never at a convenient time.

Like any overwhelming debt, making small payments can at least make you feel like you are acknowledging and working on it. Many are doing this, dedicating their lives to educating themselves and making sense of this complicated ledger. For some, it is a coping mechanism to deal with existential stress. Acknowledging debt is the first step, and imagining a debt-free life is perhaps just a distant Utopian dream.

When our time is up, as when it began, it is appropriate to imagine a final account balance; maybe it is more convenient to have pearly gates without witnesses to this final tally. There may be no witnesses, but we know there are consequences. Nobody likes leaving a financial burden on their next of kin. Nobody likes borrowing money from a friend to pay a bill. If this is true, we must expand our self-centered ideas of kinship, and we shouldn’t wait for the doorbell.

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

~ Chief Seattle, Duwamish

• Continue Reading add-on 2026-Apr-22: Mary Geddry “The Oldest Debt”

1. “Repo Man” – a slang term used for the guy, hired by a lending authority, that comes to repossess something you took a loan out for like a car, and failed to make payments. Some movies have been made, such as one where they repossess organs. 🙂 ↩︎