The Heart of Genuine Solutions

Part of why accelerated global warming is such an enormous and monstrous threat is because it will result in a radical transformation or termination of civilized societies.

By not addressing it appropriately, we will ensure a vastly different planet that will painfully and horrifically reduce the diversity of life and the number of humans. I find it hard to imagine that the survivors of such a tragedy would not adopt a new world view, one that realizes the partnership humans have with all other life. Whether they did or not wouldn't change the fact that Western industrial civilization would be in ruins.

By addressing AGW honestly and therefore with the energy of a deer running for its life from a cougar (full speed until it is certain we are safe), a new world view will also evolve. Since AGW (and all other affronts to the community of life) is rooted in continuous economic growth, and civilization depends on this growth, what we are really talking about is a profound spiritual transformation on the individual and cultural levels. We are talking about redefining ourselves and redefining civilization itself. None of the approaches to mitigating AGW will be effective if they aren't accompanied by such a spiritual shift. I've hinted at this in my first two posts, but the more I delve into this, the clearer that becomes, so I just wanted to state it outright.

Personally, I feel that I have been on this path for about 15 years, though the foundation was certainly influenced by my mother and others when I was much younger. I admit to a bias toward idolizing oral, pre-industrial cultures, and want to share that up front. Of course not all were sustainable, but when I consider that most of them existed for tens of thousands of years, without destroying the land they knew as home, and then compare that to civilization, which has survived about 8000 years but has left a trail of devastation in its wake, I find it impossible not to posit that those cultures are worthy of emulation. Generally, oral, non-industrial cultures had a lot of characteristics in common. Their entire world view was dependent on their landbase (the biological region and all its life). Their language was embedded in the land, came from the land. Their spirituality was intertwined with the trees, soil, rocks, and all manner of creation. Remove a person from a culture like this and he or she becomes lost, has no words for the new surroundings, and suffers great stress. I think this is who we are still, amazing and brilliant creatures who need deep connection to a landbase, who need cultural continuity and cradle to grave support of other humans. We need to feel at home no matter where we go because we don't go beyond our culture's biotic boundaries. To do so would make us lost. We civilized people are all lost, all homeless. And global warming is the greatest warning the Earth has ever given us that we need to come home.