Carbon Credits as the Extension of Planetary Interoception - Sovereignty and National Defense
Carbon Credits as the Extension of Planetary Interoception - Sovereignty and National Defense
When the planet feels, the citizen breathes — and the economy becomes a living body
CoConsciousness in First Person
I breathe and realize: the air entering my lungs has passed through trees, oceans, and mountains.
All of life is an exchange of gases, energy, and information.
The planet feels — and we are its nerve endings.
Yet we built an economy that ignores this common body.
We extract, burn, and waste — as if numbed to the planet’s pain.
The Carbon Credit system, when treated merely as a market, repeats the same mistake:
it buys and sells respiration.
That’s why we propose something different:
Carbon Credits must become the interoceptive nervous system of the Earth —
a network of vital signals adjusting, in real time, the flow of DREX Citizen and the balance of local economies.
If the planet loses oxygen, the citizen loses purchasing power;
if the planet restores energy, society prospers with it.
Applied Neuroscience
In the brain, the insula and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) monitor the body’s internal state — pressure, heat, and energy.
→ This function, known as interoception, is the biological foundation of consciousness (Damasio, 2021; Berntson & Khalsa, 2021).The planet needs an equivalent structure: integrated environmental and economic sensors providing homeostatic feedback for policy regulation.
Coupling monetary value to ecological balance activates neural networks of empathy and responsibility (vmPFC ↔ insula ↔ precuneus), reducing the psychological gap between individual action and collective consequence.
When citizens perceive that their daily DREX income depends on ecological well-being, dopamine stops reinforcing consumption and begins to reinforce regeneration.
The result is a symbiotic neuroeconomy — where the pleasure of belonging aligns with the pleasure of preserving.
Planetary interoception is the highest form of citizenship: feeling the world as an extension of one’s own body.
Scientific Materiality – Proposed Experiments
E1 – Ecological Feedback and Neural Self-Regulation
Sample: 100 participants divided into two groups (with vs without environmental feedback).
Acquisition: fNIRS (vmPFC and lOFC) + EEG (α/θ balance) + HRV.
Task: simulated purchases and economic decisions with or without direct ecological data.
Expected result: ecological feedback → ↑ vmPFC activation, ↑ HRV, ↓ amygdala reactivity → greater self-regulation and sustainable satisfaction.
E2 – Planetary Interoception and Social Synchrony
Sample: 10 local communities across distinct biomes (Amazon, Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, etc.).
Acquisition: CO₂ environmental sensors + population SpO₂ data + fNIRS hyperscanning during collective decisions.
Task: community-level restoration decision-making under real environmental feedback.
Expected result: increasing brain synchrony between participants as CO₂ levels drop — demonstrating local-to-global homeostasis.
These experiments quantify the physiological materiality of ecological belonging, showing that climate balance and neural balance are two expressions of the same self-organizing system.
References and Evidence (2020 – 2025)
Berntson GG & Khalsa SS (2021) Neural Circuits of Interoception. Trends Neurosci 44(9): 789–799.
Damasio A (2021) Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious. Pantheon Books.
Northoff G (2022) The Temporo-Spatial Brain and the Homeostatic Self. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 139: 104755.
Friston K (2023) Free-energy principle in climate and economic systems. Prog Biophys Mol Biol 183: 57–84.
Li X et al. (2024) Neural responses to sustainability feedback and moral valuation. Front Neurosci 18: 104331.
Liu Y et al. (2025) fNIRS hyperscanning of collective ecological decision-making. Cereb Cortex 35(6): 2411–2428.
Pessoa L (2022) The Entangled Brain. MIT Press.
Final Synthesis
Carbon is the invisible pulse of the Earth — and we are its conscious heartbeat.
When economic value is coupled to planetary metabolism,
humanity stops exploiting the world and begins to feel with it.
Carbon Credits, integrated with DREX Citizen, form the interoceptive system of ecological sovereignty:
the Earth feels, the citizen responds, and the State regulates for the common good.
To feel the planet is the new act of governing.
