Meeting the Core Challenge
.The most fundamental and unsettling fact underlying the entire dilemma of the planetary crisis is that we simply do not yet have another way to meet the basic needs of most of the human beings on the planet. Nor could the planet handle 8 billion of us "going back to the simple life of the land," appealing as that is in many ways. Corporate greed, deceit and moral indifference are certainly a challenge--but lack of options for a truly sustainable way of living in the developed world is at least as problematic.
The challenge is to pull together and to scale a whole host of new ways--and of old ways newly reclaimed--all at pretty much the "same time", and for sure all "just in time". They mostly have to show up together, because the full success of any one usually depends on the simultaneous success of the others. E-vehicles need charging stations need solar sources need panels or blades need storage need transport need rare earths need human labor protections, need effective democracies, need committed citizens--need us and your own particular contributions --you get the idea. And all of these components, these pieces of the puzzle, are in fact fast coming in and the same with changes in food, and water, and rewilding, etc. And then as it all comes together into a viable new system--or close to it-- can we at last turn off the spigots, stop the poisons, reduce our shipping, and say goodbye to plastics!
Changing our ways as individuals, doing our bit at the surface--yes, all needed. But changing together as a society, making it possible for us all to live without harming our planet or its people--that is essential.
The challenge is to pull together and to scale a whole host of new ways--and of old ways newly reclaimed--all at pretty much the "same time", and for sure all "just in time". They mostly have to show up together, because the full success of any one usually depends on the simultaneous success of the others. E-vehicles need charging stations need solar sources need panels or blades need storage need transport need rare earths need human labor protections, need effective democracies, need committed citizens--need us and your own particular contributions --you get the idea. And all of these components, these pieces of the puzzle, are in fact fast coming in and the same with changes in food, and water, and rewilding, etc. And then as it all comes together into a viable new system--or close to it-- can we at last turn off the spigots, stop the poisons, reduce our shipping, and say goodbye to plastics!
Changing our ways as individuals, doing our bit at the surface--yes, all needed. But changing together as a society, making it possible for us all to live without harming our planet or its people--that is essential.