From "Diet for a Small Planet" exactly 40 years ago, it dawned on me that humans are actively creating the scarcity we say we are trying to escape. Whoa! Why would our bright species do such a thing? Researching my new book, "EcoMind, Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want" (Nation Books), I discovered that it is the power of ideas. I learned that neuroscientists are increasingly finding that while most of us think that "seeing is believing," that, no, for human beings "believing is seeing." Our core ideas about how the world works determine, literally, what we can see and what we can't. From this groundbreaking science, I argue that some of our most common assumptions are perversely aligned with nature, including human nature. They block us from seeing possibilities emerging all around us--the solutions in front of our noses. Here are 10 of those ideas and ways that an eco-mind--one that thinks in connectedness and continuous change--might rethink them. I welcome your response.
Follow Frances Moore Lappe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/fmlappe
True!!
If you want to colonize the future, imagine it. Imagine it in such exquisite detail that you can start living there. But to do that you must quit believing that what you see is what you get. What you see is what you got, what you imagine is what you get.
Exercise: Technology has eliminated far more jobs than out-sourcing to a deserving, hard working fellow human named Wong. That will continue and accelerate, and should. Instead of cursing the darkness, image if we set 50% unemployment as a goal. That's right, a goal! It would require removing "livelihood" from "employment". Are we so trapped with tunnel vision that we can not imagine an economy where 50% of adults are no longer "employed"? Yes we are. But, with baby boomers retiring by the millions, we are going to get a glimpse outside the tunnel of what it could mean. And all it takes is a reorganization of how money flows - something we are actually very good at if we want to concentrate it. What if concentration was not a goal? What if we had other goals? In reality, that's all it takes, a new set of goals.
Thanks Frances for a very inspiring article. The statistics attached to the images tell the story - THIS is NOT the best we can do.
Cheers, Tee
Tee is Senior Editor of digital magazine CostaRicaCLOSEUP.com about Costa Rica
Can you elaborate for us Tee?
I've often thought Al Gore has harmed efforts on global warming by trying to sell fear instead of opportunity. Fear causes denial, but you don't see the denial mechanism kick in when opportunity knocks. I can see from your website that you've mastered marketing (!!), so how has that been applied to sustainabiÂlity in general within the Costa Rican society?
BTW thanks for the comment on the website :)
Huh. Midyear world population for 2001, 6,171,904,482. For 2011, 6,946,043,989. Increase, 774,139,507. Your "birth rate" reference is of very little consequence. By this time next week there will be approximately 1,612,800 more people on the planet. By next year, an estimated increase of over 77,000,000.
And, exactly, what is the nature of that "food production?" Any possibility GMOs, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides playing a role, there? Causing accelerated soil erosion and contaminating fresh water sources?
Nice job of cheering on unchecked reproduction and perpetuating the myth natural resources are infinite.
Really??
I think genetic engineering plays a bigger role in getting more food than the others you mentioned.
Check out the Haber-Bosch Process. Before that, nature dictated 3.7 billion was the human population limit. After that, you see all too clearly the result of that discovery, today, and the distance we've drawn between our species and nature.
And the article still promotes reproduction as a matter of no concern.
#10 It is good the democracy is working elsewhere; it sure isn't working here.