For humanity to survive the coming ‘apocalypse,' what to do?
Siobhan Shaw
Co-Founder / Board of Directors Chair at Growing To Give? / Host, Co-Producer, Feel Good Share Good Talk Show / Board Co-Chair for Kichini Gardeners Initiative, Uganda / Crop Circle Farms? Ag Tech Authority / Author
Shifts in climate have been constant throughout time. It’s not new. What’s new is that humanity has reached an industrial and technological period in history that has been snowballing downhill for 100 years or more.
We’ve moved from nomadic communities to rural ones, to a highly urbanized society. Our population has grown, and the pressure on natural resources has multiplied. We strive for success through consumerism. The more we have, the more successful we think we are. More houses, more food, more cars, more money. Desire to have has had a significant contribution to the effects of climate we are feeling today. We are living in deserts, on historical floodplains, and our appetite to have and our propensity to waste what we have is massive. It all adds to pressure on the natural system we all take for granted.
If we were thrown back into the Stone Age, most of us wouldn’t survive. We don’t know how. For humanity to survive the coming ‘apocalypse,’ we don’t have to depopulate, as some have said, but we do have to change how we live and consume.
We must become so resilient that nothing less than an apocalypse will put us under. That means communities must band together and strip down to bare bones and then carefully and with thought for the future, create spaces and ways of living that reduce the impact of our human footprint on the earth and her living beings.
We must let go of the idea of lack and embrace the concept of enough. We have enough. We need to learn to live within the confines of nature, work with nature, and help enhance its ability to give life.
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We have not yet discovered all the answers, and many of the solutions we think are correct are proving to be far from it. We trade in sustainability as the answer, yet for cell phones, electric and gas powered vehicles, even the fashion we wear and the food we eat, we use finite resources that often use child labor. How completely insane is that?
We know the human race can create our way out of tight spots. We’ve done it before, and we will continue to do it. The difference today is that we believe we have ultimate domain over a natural system that can end us in a nanosecond. Less arrogance, more reverence is needed and now.
?? Founder, The Leaders Co-Lab | Growing Transformative Leaders and Teams in the AEC & Buildings Industry | Future-focused, Resilient, Systemic, Informed ??
12 个月Thank you Siobhan Shaw for calling us out, and at the same time, pointing us to nature. "We must let go of the idea of lack and embrace the concept of enough. We have enough. We need to learn to live within the confines of nature, work with nature, and help enhance its ability to give life." Especially relevant as we shop for holiday gifts - essentially feeding the "story of stuff", and lack, and love=presents vs. presence. When we ask our friends and family - "what do you need for (name your Dec/Jan holiday)" and they say "Nothing really - I have everything I need", maybe it's time to believe them. My biggest holiday goal is to create a lovely stream of holiday gatherings - filled with love, joy and laughter, and sharing. Filled with "presence" and deep connection. And yes, we will exchange some practical, thoughtful, well-researched, sustainably sourced "gifts". But I'm rethinking some of those gifts as well. I am working on mindsets... that is a gift.