This past December 2020, I had my second book published by Freethought House Press. Change Our Stories, Change Our World, is all about what is at the heart of our countless problems in the world today. My book demands that we quit erecting walls and start erecting mirrors, the kind that allow for much needed soul searching. As a society, as a world, we need to go deep and see that what we believe about our world is not serving us. There are many examples from which to chose. When we believe that green lawns of manicured Kentucky blue grass will make our property values soar and keep our neighbors and lawmakers happy we end up with more cancers , decimated species of pollinators and polluted ponds, rivers and streams. Laws are often our go-to fix, with limited results. People will fight for their unexamined beliefs, and new laws might make it on the books but acts of defiance will continue. There would be no need for laws to keep us from poisoning ourselves with pesticides if health and ecology were embedded in our dominant story. The enemies of doing the right thing by humans and nature of course are those who stand to gain from the purchase of these poisons. Multi-national corporations have but one god, and it is the bottom line at the end of their fiscal year. Show no profit and the CEO’s will be sailing on their golden parachute to the next opportunity to destroy.
In my book I make the argument that we must make the switch: from worship to wonder, from greed to need, from limitless to limited, from synthetic to natural and from mindless to mindful. So why is it so hard to fill our world with wonder, live within our limits, eliminate greed and become more natural and mindful? For one thing these values do not serve a society hooked on growth and converting the biosphere and all its inhabitants into a place that serves only us. Ironically, to serve only humans and our endless appetite and need for goods and services is to eventually serve none of us at all. Between overpopulation inspired scarcity and climate change nature will bat last no matter how many attempts we make putting all of our eggs in the technology basket.
We should be teaching practical things in our schools. On my list would be basic car mechanics, how to prepare your taxes, home maintenance and civics. But none of those suggestions will matter without a deep understanding of how ecology works and our role in it. Ecology needs to be taught in the context of natural history, geography, resources and socio-political infrastructure. If that were understood I doubt if multiple high-rises would be appearing in the suburbs where I live, because someone would have measured the amount of water needed to serve them after looking at the water supply. Someone would have looked at the traffic and the cement needed to support more humans. Someone would have surveyed the wildlife in the area and put a stop to more development. If the laws of physics were understood, because they were taught as a subject starting in elementary school, we would have to reexamine all of the ways we transgress them with our indefensible stories. We would realize that over half of our land in the US is unfit for growing crops and also realize the intrinsic value in keeping those open lands untouched by human activity. We would have to conclude that it is self destructive to continue policies which look at opening more doors to immigration into a country already overwhelming its resources at a bloated 331,000,000 top of the food chain consumers. It is also very humane to obey these laws, for to disobey them is to succumb the pain and suffering of exceeding these limits.
We push the envelopes without measuring that every invention creates destruction of something in its wake. Our story of limitlessness is perhaps the most harmful story we adhere to, for the only things without limits are creativity and love. Everything else is limited. Everything modern humans do effects the rest of nature in a negative way. Bottled water saves us from poisoned wells but what about the plastic? Cell phones may make our lives more connected but they also create more pollution and a need for more mines of lithium and rare minerals.
Changing our stories must be done at a deep level. We can’t say we love wildlife by visiting zoos and watching the National Geographic channel. We must recognize that our numbers and activities are creating the sixth mass extinction which will include us someday. Only then can we work to reverse our myopia by releasing our old and tired stories and replacing them with sustainable ones.