Today’s post is by regular contributor, Richard Jurin. Before his retirement, Richard led the Environmental Studies programme at the University of Northern Colorado, where he launched a degree in Sustainability Studies. His academic interests are environmental worldviews and understanding barriers to sustainability. As ever, with our blogs, the views expressed are not necessarily shared by NAEE.
My blog posts for NEEE since late 2020 have all focused primarily on getting humanity to think differently (a new Worldview) rather than which technologies or processes within the current globalized system will better serve the transition to a sustainable society. This transition must involve a radical transformation of how we think about everything, and not, as I frequently say, a tweaking of the existing economic and consumer systems to force fit what isn’t working into a world governed by different natural laws and a unique natural economic system from the ones that humanity has adopted. The natural world exists with a ‘natural intelligence’ that on reflection exhibits a ‘natural wisdom’ of collective interaction in which all live thrives in harmony, even when it looks harsh on the surface (e.g., Lions hunting Gazelles). Only modern humans believe themselves separate from this global system and inadvertently (or deliberately) disrupt it to their chagrin.
When I talk of this Nova Renascentia, I envision it as transformative as the Medieval Renaissance was to the Dark Ages. I frequently hear and read of people hoping and then complaining for change that will resolve our global problems. How many feel saddened by the state of the world. All too often people cling to the notion that the hierarchies running the world will facilitate the changes that will make a better world. But why would they? The hierarchies thrive on the problems of the world as a means of gaining more power and economic wealth at the expense of the masses. We still structure ourselves with the same hierarchical structures that Empire civilizations began over 6000 years ago. There is an exponential transfer of monetary wealth to the financial elites of the world that is barely trickling down to the masses. This wealth distribution YouTube from 2012 is about the USA but is similar for every country in the world. Indeed, as I said in an earlier post to this site (March 2022), when we measure social outcomes rather than financial ones, everything will change. Money is a tool and not an outcome in itself as it has become.
I have also talked about two aspects – social hierarchy and social wisdom – that we can control to facilitate the needed transformation. Indigenous cultures show us alternate options (how all humanity once lived in relative harmony) for living, such as how we structure our societies (not hierarchically) and within the natural world in order to thrive. It’s not the lifestyle indigenous peoples lived per se, but how they perceived the world through an Ecological Wisdom based worldview. Our main goal for the future ought to be about more than avoiding ‘collapse’ – it must be about preparing for regeneration and finding resiliency and adaptability to whatever ecological conditions we find ourselves living within.
We talk about harmony but barely rank it within the existing economic paradigm that dominates our lives. In 2010, then Prince of Wales, Charles Windsor, wrote his Harmony book and video (2012) to mixed reviews and criticisms. Rather than stimulate global discussions, it has largely been ignored as antithetical to modern economics.
I keep hearing about the next COP meeting and many other international meetings (WEF, Bilderberg, Club of Rome, etc.) that promise to discuss global problems, but how are citizens included? We are so disempowered that outside of a few NGO activists, we hope that these hierarchical groups will actually find solutions that could actually be implemented. In a Gadarene rush to standardize the world for economic expediency we have lost local ability to adapt. Food security is merely one of the many systems that has suffered. Examples such as the loss of the Cornish Cauliflower to the demands of the European Common Market is but one stark reminder of what happens when we fail to recognize the need for local resiliency. Globally, our uniquely adapted heirloom crops have now been diminished to a mere 3-5% of desired strains. Seed banks offer us hope in case of catastrophe, but meeting global needs is not a quick solution – it would take years to rebuild. The film ‘Interstellar’ offers a grim view of relying on monocultures.
We have many alternate options for fuel in transportation but we have no substitute for oil. Limited fossil fuel oil is such a precious resource for more than 6000 things in our everyday lives, that burning it for propulsion and/or electrical energy should be considered an obscene act of wastefulness. Yet immediate global economic expediency still rules our hierarchical decisions. We need new values and ethics to make wise decisions, yet still consider war and hate as necessary for safety. Many of us know that a spiritual path is required, but still defer to economic paradigms that cannot factor Love and Compassion as alternate solutions.
There is no superman to save us. We all are the ones we are waiting for! If we do not facilitate the changes we wish to see, the hierarchies for certain will not do it. I quoted economist, John Ikerd, in my NAEE post (May, 2024), “Change never comes from the powerful and proud [the hierarchy]– they have too much to lose and too little to gain. Change always comes from the common and humble – we have little to lose and much to gain.” It is up to us to make these choices for Sustainability locally. Self-sufficiency starts at the local level, and hoping for a fragile set of systems managed by a global hierarchy to find solutions is a dubious path at best.
I often feel like ‘The Man of la Mancha’ offering ideas about our individual identities, resilience, and the power of imagination that encourages individuals to embrace their aspirations even in the face of adversity. One man tilting his lance at a windmill seems ridiculous, but tens of millions of us doing it together is a different matter – that is my dream of a Nova Renascentia. My definition of Sustainability, ‘Living within the limits of nature’s ecosystem services; and to live together in communities that are equitable, regenerative, resilient and adaptive’ is a goal we can achieve, but it is a we have to do it together, not leave it in the hierarchical hands of those with different agendas and who will not immediately suffer the consequences of being wrong.
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Richard can be contacted at: richardjurin@gmail.com