What is Harmonious Biodiversity?

(This chapter was first published on Medium on 6/28/26 at https://medium.com/@t.higginson/what-is-harmonious-biodiversity-and-72a7ab41f5b5)

I. Background: All Current Value Systems Have Failed

The existing orthodoxies (belief and value systems) are foundational to the embedded structural forces of the political, societal and overwhelming extractive economic structures that govern the world, and that have set people against each other by class, race, gender, religion, citizenship and socio-economic status, and that have justified the economic path that has the world on the worst case climate change trajectory.[1]

These outmoded but foundational structural forces include, at least,

· All current economic ideologies, including those of the devastating duo of capitalism and communism/Marxism/Leninism[3] that, in essence, each drive all values through an economic filter

· Essentially all current religious theologies, including those that profess their “love” will solve the world’s problems (albeit that many religions have calls to respect time, are animist, hold foundational beliefs that generations (past, present and future) of humans are all represented and owed duties by those who are alive and/or have core tenets recognizing that humans and all creatures are closely related). (For cites to selected religions that fit in one form or another in the parenthetical category, please see some of the the Suggested Readings page of www.churchoftimeunited.com) and also, importantly, the article published by John Burrows in the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence (Feb. 2026) titled "Anishinaabe Treaties and the Rule of Law (see quoted excerpt in footnote).[2]

· All current legal jurisprudence, including those ideologically tied to private property and cost benefit analysis

· All current political agendas, including especially those built on and sustained by national and/or international and multinational power structures

It has become clear from centuries of data and experience that these old structural forces cannot create stable nations or a stable earth. Instead, they worsen the trends towards war, instability, inequality, oppression, hatred and resource scarcity of all kinds, including, but not limited to, clean water, adequate nutrition, vibrant culture, healthcare and education.

The entirety of the earth needs a new set of values and underpinning philosophy.

Harmonious Biodiversity offers a fundamental break, a new value system, and one that reaches back to the origins of life on earth.

That is the background and foundational need for harmonious biodiversity.

II. What is Harmonious Biodiversity?

Harmonious biodiversity offers a value system based on the science of evolution and a theory of time to solve the failures of current orthodoxies to meet the challenges that have left our world on the brink of climate catastrophe with accompanying mass extinctions across all species, billions of humans displaced and dead by the end of the century, on-going wars across the globe, vast poverty, famine and suffering, and abbreviated civil and human rights in and among all nations of any kind and size.

Harmonious biodiversity is an actionable, focused philosophy and legal standard that establishes clear, science-based (3.7 billion years of testing, validation and unerring success) and common guideposts for individuals, for policymakers, regulatory agencies and courts.

There are two parts to Harmonious Biodiversity: Harmony and Biodiversity.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity means everything from differences within a single species to the diversity of life in an ecosystem and across the earth, to the diversity of planets, solar systems and galaxies in the universe. It means the diversity of thought, languages, and audible and other communications among and between a species, and across species and throughout an ecosystem.

Harmony

Harmony means that all this biodiversity functions to create a healthy environment for biodiversity to flourish.

A Metaphor

A metaphor will help explain what harmony and bioversiy are individually, and how they are inextricably linked.

Think of a classical music orchestra. There is a rich diversity of parts: the original composer, the conductor, the musicians (individually, by instrument type, by organization structure, by location, etc), their instruments (and chairs and music stands, water bottles, clothes and jewelry, the conductor’s baton), the stage, the acoustics and the air through which the sound is carried, the building or outdoor arena, the audience, the teams behind the scenes.

All these diverse parts must work together, inclusively and in harmony, to create a work of art, of music in all its beauty, tragedy, comedy and emotions.

In that sense, a symphony orchestra is a metaphor for the astonishing power of combining of harmony and diversity.

Now expand the metaphor from a classical music symphony orchestra to include any and all forms of music, from any and all cultures. It would be a very constrained world if only one form of music existed or was permitted, or everyone was required to play only one instrument, or even play one instrument in only one style, or if one form of music dominated and drowned out all others, or if the forms of music played in a way that created a cacophony of conflicting, overlapping noise.

In contrast, a world that celebrates the creation and playing of the most diverse forms of music is much more vibrant and alive, but only when it is done harmoniously, meaning, metaphorically, it does not require any one person to listen or play or submit to any specific music, and all the music is played to further the vibrancy.

III. The Science

This is, according to my understanding, a core teaching of Bernie Kraus’ extraordinary book “The Great Animal Orchestra.” The biodiversity of nature itself is directly reflected in the “Orchestra” of nature, including everything from animal sounds and the sounds of rocks falling, wind blowing through reeds, thunder, and all other sounds great and small, whether underwater, in a humid forest, across a dry desert, in a thunderstorm or any other of the ever evolving places where sound passes. A key insight of his, according to my understanding of his book, is that nature, when healthy, naturally evolves a harmonious, biodiverse environment.

Harmonious Biodiversity represents the eons-tested and proven value system that offers human civilization the best chance to survive climate change.

IV. Other “Harmonies”

Harmonious biodiversity is not “harmonious pluralism” and is not “harmonious diversity.”

Fundamentally, “harmonious pluralism” is a subset of “harmonious bioversity” because pluralism is more about human polities than about biodiversity.

“Harmonious diversity” is odious, bigoted propaganda, a tagline that derives from hatred that is focused on ignorant human polities and separation of groups of people by ideological racist categorizations, and is the opposite of natural biodiversity where healthy ecosystems exist and evolve because of the integrated diversity of life.

V. How Ideologies Conflict with Harmonious Biodiversity

Ideologies, whether purportedly a-religious (e.g., capitalism and communism) or outwardly religious, demand conformity and uniformity, even purity. They have a group of initiates, a group of the chosen, who, no matter how much they profess ecumenical respect, perceive themselves as fundamentally better and different than others by will of their “God.” Even if a religion expresses a form of willingness to accept or respect other ideologies or religions, the religion still creates a hierarchy where, at their core, the adherents to their ideology or religion are somehow “selected” and, as such, superior with special rights and powers associated with that status.

VI. Why Does Harmonious Biodiversity Matter?

This is explained in Chapter 1.

VII. Is Harmonious Biodiversity a Viable Legal Standard

In short: yes. Please see Chapter 4 titled "Harmonious Biodiversity: a Jurisprudence for Life."

VIII. The Role of Time

Time is at the heart of evolution and nature. Given time, evolution and nature lead to biodiversity when the conditions are right.

On the basis that, because we humans and everything are literally made of time, we are all fundamentally equals at the core of our essence, and, as such, we all have affirmative obligations to live according to that equality. Harmonious biodiversity teaches the importance of and requires, as a fundamental daily obligation, respectful diversity of thought, expression, type of being, etc.

These requirements derive from the underlying principle that everything (an animist philosophy) is made of time, and, as such, everything deserves equal respect, including, under law, in personal actions and obligations and by and from groups.

Harmonious biodiversity follows from this awareness of time, and a jurisprudence of harmonious biodiversity applies this awareness and ultimate value of time.

IX. What is the role of the Church of Time United, and its relationship to Harmonious Biodioversity?

The Church of Time United is a religion of Time, holding that Time is a sacred deity. Everything that exists is made of time, making everything equal deities. As everything, animate and inanimate, is innately an equal deity, Harmonious biodiversity is a core tenet of this religion of sacred Time. (Learn more about the Church of Time United at www.churchoftimeunited.com, which has, as one of its core tenets, that if any of its teachings is established by science to be false, then that teach must be conformed to the science).

However, harmonious biodiversity is not dependent on and does not derive from the teachings of the Church of Time United. Harmonious biodiversity (time as the basis of and for evolution) stands on the science of the evolution of life. Life itself grows from an integrated, interwoven biodiversity that is dependent on inanimate matter.

[1] See, e.g., my essay titled “Proposing a Paradigm Change of Existential Importance to Life on Earth: Replace “Inalienable Rights” with “Inalienable Obligations” at https://medium.com/@t.higginson/proposing-a-paradigm-change-of-existential-importance-to-life-on-earth-replace-inalienable-83bce2049d65

[2] See, e.g., John Borrows, Anishinaabe Treaties and the Rule of Law, Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence (Feb. 2026), including, the following excerpt “We must learn law from our ancestors. Plants, insects, birds, and animals have much to teach us. We are their kin, and they are our elders. We would not exist without them. They came first and they continue to sustain us. Our evolutionary lineage and bio-physical dependence point to this fact. We sever ourselves from what sustains us if we separate the law from the air, water, rocks, plants, insects, birds, animals, and other such kin. Our legal lives depend on respectfully nurturing that which nurtures us, which includes our biophysical environments. The living world provides the very conditions from which all other activities flow. We cannot be reconciled with others unless we first reconcile ourselves with the living earth. A key question is: How can we better incorporate lessons from the more-than-human world into Anishinaabe law and other legal systems?” Note that this text was brought to my attention by an early reader of this book.

[3] A metaphor that comes to mind on the capitalism/communism duopoly is that of watching two old and decrepit boxers bash each other in the head indefinitely while the audience of the rest of humanity suffers and the world dies.