I have written about this several times before (including in my teens), although I keep revisiting it to help myself process it.
It’s pretty simple:
WE ARE NATURE
This living planet is a seamless system. It’s nearly infinitely abundant if allowed to be, and it also has limits.
We are a part of this living planet. We are nature. We are local and temporary expressions of this living, dynamic, adapting, evolving, system.
Our life and everyone and everything we care about is part of this living system. We are, and all is, dependent on the health of this living system. What happens to nature happens to us and all we care about.
WE ARE IN GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT
We have an economic system – and a civilization in general – that assumes separation and infinite nature. We assume we are separate from nature, and that nature has infinite resources and infinite capacity to absorb the toxins and waste of our civilization.
This assumption, combined with our numbers and technology, means we are in a global ecological overshoot. We use more resources than Earth can replenish. This is similar to living off money in a savings account. It looks fine for a while, and when we reach bottom, our lifestyle comes crashing down.
In this case, our lives may come crashing down too.
We know how to reduce our collective ecological overshoot. We know how to live well, and more than well, within the limits of this planet, and we know how to support the living systems in creating more and more abundance. There is no lack of attractive alternatives. The question is our collective will.
THE REAL CONTEXT FOR OUR LIVES AND CIVILIZATION
This is the real context for our lives, our civilization, and everyone and everything we care about.
In a sane world, it would be the conscious context for all our activities – economy, education, growing food, energy, art, music, movies, culture, news and media, and so on.
Our economic system would be aligned with ecological realities and set it up so what’s easy and attractive to do is also ecologically sound and supports life and the lives of future generations.
Our education would place ecology as the context for everything and our first priority.
Our news and media would see ecology as the context of everything, which it is, and prioritize it over other topics.
WHY IS IT NOT THE ONE OVERARCHING ISSUE FOR ALL OF US?
Why is it not like this?
We know that the living systems of this planet are unraveling because of the activities of our civilization.
We know we are nature and that we – and everyone and everything we care about – are 100% dependent on the health of the larger living systems we are part of.
We know we need profound changes to become a more ecologically sound civilization.
We know solutions that will benefit and create a higher quality of life for everyone.
So why don’t we collectively do what we need to do in order to survive? Why do we not do what’s needed for our descendants to have a good, or even decent, life?
SOME REASONS WHY
Some may…
Think we still have time. It’s not urgent. If politicians, the media, and my friends and neighbors don’t treat it as urgent, it must not be urgent. (We don’t have time, we are reaching critical tipping points.)
Think others will do it. Politicians, corporations, the market, scientists, or future generations will do it. I can just live my life as before and leave it to them. They know better anyway. (This is about all of us, we cannot expect others to do it.)
See it as a sacrifice. To make these changes, we’ll need to sacrifice so it’s best to wait until it’s necessary, or see if it will be necessary. (In reality, the real solutions are win-win-win solutions that improve the quality of our lives.)
Assume it will impact others, not me. It will impact those who don’t have much resources to prepare, adapt, and move. It will impact the poor in the world, not me. (Yes, it will first impact the poor, and then everyone including you and your children.)
Think nature is out there, as a kind of appendix or luxury, and I am here. What happens to nature doesn’t impact me much. They are so detached from reality, and so far into the imagined separation, that they don’t realize that we are nature and that what happens to nature happens to us.
Think there will be a technological solution. This is another version of “others will take care of it” and it’s misguided since what’s required is a profound and deepening transformation of our civilization, in all aspects of life and thought.
Think we just need to tweak something here and there. They don’t understand how serious the situation is and the profound changes required to do something about it. They are in denial.
Have other priorities. They see other and more immediate things as more important: Work, relationships, children, entertainment, enjoyment. They don’t realize that the web of life is what makes it all possible and is, whether we notice or not, the main priority. If we care about anything, we care about the web of life we are part of, whether we notice or not.
Don’t trust science and scientists and the ones concerned about this. For whatever reason, they don’t trust the ones who have decades of their lives to understand what’s happening with the world and what they have found and tell us about. They think that their views are equal to the views of experts.
Misdiagnose the problem. They see politicians, corporations, or greed as the problem. They overlook the systemic reasons for the situation we are in. They overlook that we have a civilization and economic system that assumes infinite nature.
Feel blamed and guilty so go into reactivity, denial, and blame. They blame themselves, are uncomfortable with it, and react to it in a variety of ways. They don’t realize that the problem is with our system and our worldview and we are all in the same boat. By living in this system, which just about all of us do, we participate in the destruction of the web of life. That’s inevitable and it applies to all of us, no matter whether we recycle or take the train or whatever we do or don’t do.
Need to focus on surviving from day to day. They don’t have extra resources to consider these things, or at least do something about it. (This is one of the self-regulating and self-preserving dynamics of our current system. The more people who live in this way, the fewer people who have the resources to question and try to change the system.)
Feel that these concerns don’t fit their identity and image. These are the concerns of hippies, treehuggers, newagers, liberals, and generally feeble-minded people. It’s not for me. I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to be in the same category as them. (This is something that impacts all of us equally, and all of our children, independent of whatever labels we put on ourselves and others.)
SOME SOLUTIONS
Emphasize that…
This is a systemic problem and we are all part of the problem and potentially the solution. It’s not about blame or guilt or someone being better than anyone else. We are all in the same boat here.
We are nature. What happens to nature happens to us. (Nature is not something “out there”, it’s equally in here and what we are and live.)
We don’t have time. The situation is critical enough so we need to do something now. We cannot wait for the future or for someone else in the future to do it.
We are all part of the solution if we choose to be. This is not about others doing it. This involves all of us. Nobody is left out.
If we care about anything at all, we care about the web of life we are part of. This living system is what makes it all possible. The combined caring for everyone and everything we care about it our actual caring for this web of life, whether we notice or not, and that’s important to notice.
We already have win-win-win solutions. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game, the way it has often been presented. Food forests are an example of solutions that produce an abundance of food, greatly help wildlife and our ecosystem, and are profoundly enjoyable for us to experience and be part of.
Since it’s a systems problem, we need systems solutions. We need to transform our whole civilization to be more ecologically informed, aligned, and sound. There is not just one way to do this. We can all contribute and find our own flavor.
A FEW OTHER PERSPECTIVES
I have written about other sides to this in other articles: What we can do as individuals. Using the world as a mirror (projection/shadow work). Recognizing that we are all part of this much larger living system. And so on.