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 The
Issue
Marrying technology to greed is
destroying the fabric of life. Our
modern world rests on some important
falsehoods: we humans are separate from
nature, we have a right to overexploit
natural resources, nature has no
intrinsic value, and nature’s machinery
is comprised of interchangeable parts.
We wrongly define energy consumption as
a human need that takes precedence over
long-term pollution problems. There is a
grave danger in defining the climate
change crisis in technocratic terms.
Adaptation, mitigation, finance, and
technology define the problem too
narrowly, because they attack this
crisis with the same kind of thinking
that created the problem in the first
place. If we are to save the planet from
destruction, we need to add a fifth
area: developing a new view of earth.
We humans cannot bring extinguished
species back to life, restore depleted
stocks of resources, but if we act
rapidly, we can hopefully slow and
reverse global warming. As Gandhi
instructed, “The Earth provides enough
to satisfy every man’s need, but not
every man’s greed.” We must use our
bodies, minds, and spirit to end
ecological destruction carried out by
institutions large and small.
Solving the climate change crisis
requires shifting our consciousness to
an entirely different and more truthful
reality. We are nature; our bodies are
mostly water. Our highest calling is to
love and nurture life. It is our sense
of spirit that gives us courage,
motivates, inspires, and empowers us to
build earth-healing technologies and
communities. The principals of love,
hope, and charity are universal, and are
essential tools in transcending our
destructive patterns.
This shift in spirit also requires that
we reexamine the balance between the
masculine and the feminine in our world
cultures. In many cultures the masculine
spirit of control and possessiveness is
too dominant. The shift we seek requires
strengthening the nurturing and giving
feminine voice.
Institutional change is vital to this
process. Institutions in the 21st
century must be legally required to work
with and not against nature.
Institutions and their technologies must
stop over-exploiting and polluting
natural systems. We must ensure that
institutions and modern technologies
clean, restore, and enhance natural
systems.
For all these reasons, we redefine the
hero as “one who heals not harms”. All
of humanity is part of a larger living
system on earth, Gaia. We each need to
recenter our lives on this larger
reality; we need to effect a global
cultural shift away from the
ego-centered I and champion the
interdependence of humanity and all
living systems.
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