A well-researched, comprehensive analysis of the biases in Drawdown. "Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." - Martin Luther King, Jr. Paul Hawken, Tom Steyer,...
It is unfortunately true that most human rights proponents argue against animal rights, with some even claiming that it can lead to human atrocities such as the Holocaust. Yet, it is no coincidence in my mind that animal rights proponents are overly represented by Jews,...
"Scientists warn that humanity could soon be left increasingly isolated on a planet bereft of wildlife and inhabited only by ourselves plus domesticated animals and their parasites."...
We are in the midst of a monumental transformation in human civilization, akin to a metamorphosis. Just as in Nature where the caterpillar gorges itself before forcibly undergoing a metamorphosis in the chrysalis, we over-consuming humans are reaching a point of being forcibly transformed within...
It is becoming increasingly obvious that a new cultural narrative is required if we are going to be successful in our human quest for wisdom, meaning, and harmony in our rapidly changing world. Understanding how the deep structure of our culture confines us to the...
I began writing this book over two years ago. I attended a Vipassana retreat[1] in Twenty Nine Palms, Southern California in January 2014 and during those ten days of silence and meditation, the patterns of this unabashedly positive story began to emerge. It was stunning!...
Everything in Nature is unique. Every human being, every animal, every leaf, every rock and even every grain of sand is unique. In turn, the universe experienced by every being is unique as well.
...In 2003, the Nobel Laureate, Richard Smalley, compiled a Top Ten list of problems that humanity faces today
...Nature’s physical limits are not easy to overcome. Certain laws of physics are literally sacrosanct as engineers have been butting their heads against them for decades without much success.
...It is that quest for growth that created Smalley’s top ten list of humanity’s “problems”. These problems are systemic since their root causes are structural or cultural and therefore, largely independent of the individual actors.
...Imagine going to a doctor with a persistent mild, 1 degree C fever…
And a coconut-sized growth by the side of your head.
As you are waiting for the doctor to examine you, you sense a lot of nervousness in the office. You...
This story of separation is the core story that is truly failing us. With the technological strides we have made in the last two centuries, most of us live in concrete jungles with little to no exposure to the terrestrial biodiversity on Earth.
...In addition to the stories we tell ourselves about the present, the stories that we tell to explain our past and the stories that we tell about our future also determine how we act in the present, which, ultimately, is all that matters.
...In Dec. 2010, as I held our tiny, one-month old granddaughter, Kimaya, in my arms, surrounded by our family, two thoughts crossed my mind
...It was the summer of 2009, a dark night in a remote wildlife sanctuary nestled in the Western Ghats of India.
...In my 2011 book, Carbon Dharma: The Occupation of Butterflies, I used the metaphor of the Caterpillar and the Butterfly to recast the human story in a positive light, where we do belong exactly as we are.
...The story of separation which has animated Western civilization and which has now been imposed globally, must now end in a common story of reunion and redemption for all humanity.
...In our Caterpillar phase, the human ego has risen high as we have become more and more deluded that we are separated from Nature. As a result, even our stories about supernatural deities have become tinged with human hubris.
...Our egotistical thinking is then reflected in the attributes that we assign to our deities.
...At their core, all faith and wisdom traditions, including secular humanism, contain the same nugget of truth that only compassion for all Creation helps Creation thrive, whereas unbridled violence to any part of Creation cannot endure.
...I contend that in an inexorable march towards that idyllic world, we had to create a mess to begin with! This is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary factual evidence.
...Our story rationalizes most of these seeming imperfections as the necessary suffering that had to be endured in our Caterpillar phase as we built out the technological foundations of our Butterfly phase.
...In general, we orient ourselves based on a creation story, a story that places us within the Universe and imbues our life with meaning and value.
...Therefore, the difficulty is not with the creation stories per se, but with the cultural stories that rule our daily lives. When our cultural stories don’t match reality, we tend to do things that are not true to ourselves, that are against our core “Dharma”.
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