The consensus of the world's ecologists is that we are on the verge
of devouring the world because of the enormous growth in our
population and resource consumption. Yet we don't seem to be able to
stop what we are doing. I make the following radical suggestion:
What it's really going to take to save the world is a changing of
our minds.
Now, I'm not talking about the sort of mind changing
people do every day – deciding to have lunch at the sub shop
instead of the taco joint. What I am talking about is a
fundamental transformation in the way people of our culture view our
place in the world. In other words, we have to turn our backs
on the cultural vision which has driven us for some 10,000 years, a
vision which has been summed up by author/teacher Daniel Quinn as
follows: "The world was made for Man, and Man was made to
conquer and rule it."
I bring you good news, folks: Humans have no more business trying to
be rulers (or stewards) of the world than do porcupines or
porpoises, bluebirds or baboons. What a relief! We can
stop working our butts off trying to conquer and rule the joint,
stop trying to both exploit and conserve it, and again live the way
humans lived for millions of years (and the way some still do): as
one species among many in the community of life.
Is this really what it's going to take to avoid global
catastrophe? I know what I think; let's find out what you
think.
We've been mud wrestling over our so-called
"environmental problems" for about 35 years now (since the
publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring). During
that time, all the big "environmental" (what a sterile
word for such a beautiful, real world) groups have employed
basically the same medicines to cure this disease: legislation,
regulation, and technological fixes.
Problem is, nothing has been cured and we're
running out of time. The air and water still aren't clean and
healthy, species are still disappearing all around us, we've done
next to nothing about climate change or population growth, and on
and on.
Maybe it's just me, but this strategy doesn't seem
to be working. I don't think it ever will work, either.
As long as we have a culture which is founded on a lifestyle
dedicated to perpetual growth – growth of our food supply, of our
population, of our economy, of our territory, of our "standard
of living" (defined, of course, as our collection of
possessions) – then the world cannot be saved. If we
continue to pursue a cultural vision that says this planet is our
property, that no limits apply to us, that we have every right to go
on turning ever more of the world's biomass into human bodies and
human products from one year to the next, we'll never be able to
pass enough laws or create enough whiz-bang technologies to prevent
the death of the world.
Time for an analogy: If you are the mayor of a
village, and you find yourself having a problem with arson, what can
you do? Well, if you only have a few fire starters you can
control them, for the most part, by passing and enforcing laws
against arson. But what if you find out that just about every
citizen of your village is responsible for starting fires?
Some of the fires are set intentionally, for one useful economic
purpose or another, but most are started as a sort of byproduct of
the ordinary things the people of your village do every day.
Sure, you could hire more firefighters, purchase a
fleet of top-of-the-line fire engines, and start altering your homes
and businesses so that they're flame-resistant. You could pass
laws that restrict how big the fires that are set intentionally can
be and how long they can burn, and you could require devices to
collect the smoke and remove the worst of the pollution before
spitting it back out.
Let's face it, though: There's no way you'd ever be
able to spend enough money to put out all the fires and clean up all
the smoke. You could reduce the damage, but if everybody is
starting fires and they don't know how to stop, there will always be
too many to put out.
But then you discover something: Your ancestors had
a way of life that didn't cause all these fires. Not only that,
but there are people in other villages who even today are living
another way, a way of life that doesn't start fires either, and they
seem quite happy. In fact, their way of life seems to bring
them more of the kinds of wealth, or wellness, that humans truly
need to be happy than your way of life does.
With this knowledge in your possession, what do you
do? Do you just ignore it and go back to hiring firefighters
and filling out orders for fire engines?
Maybe, just maybe, if you're wise, you and your
neighbors learn from your ancestors and from the people of those
other villages. You figure out a way to live happily that
doesn't cause fires, rather than spending your time and resources
trying to put out the ones you can, and struggling to control the
ones you can't – a struggle you are certain to lose in the end.
I tell you this story, my friends, because the vast
majority of what has been done so far to "protect the
environment" amounts to firefighting, and not fire
prevention. All of the "environmental" organizations
I know of are in the firefighting business. This isn't a
bad thing; in fact, it's helpful, even essential, while we work
out a new way to live, because it limits the damage in the
meantime. Our only hope for the future, though, lies in
finding a way of life that doesn't set the world on fire.
And this much I'm convinced of: Our cultural vision
– that the world was made for us, and we were made to conquer and
rule it – is napalm. We have no choice but to abandon
it if we want the world, and our species, to live.
If you're interested in learning more, I suggest you
begin by reading Daniel Quinn's Ishmael or The Story of B
(both of which are likely available from your local library and most
bookstores), or visit his Web site at http://www.ishmael.org.
Daniel has been a great inspiration to me, and to many thousands of
other people. He has changed all our minds, and our numbers
are growing.
