Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world,” and that is something I truly believe at the core.  It takes one person to mobilize a movement.  It takes one domino to affect an entire chain reaction.  It takes you.  It takes me.  It takes all of us to learn about the roles we play in systems which impact the environment, our shared home, of planet Earth.  The land we inhabit is as spiritual as the food we consume.  The Earth is an extension of ourselves, of our capacity to share love, and love Earth back.  We can choose to love Earth.  Loving Earth means stopping any form of senseless ignorance over climate mitigation tactics.  It will be our own demise if humanity chooses its own type of existential self-destruction if it opts to continue pursuing mindless consumption and a general mindlessness of the unsustainability of our current resources (and how they may or may not regenerate aspects of life on Earth). Regarding extinction, I will not dive into the specifics here, as extinction is a broader topic which undoubtedly has a shocking domino effect on our ecosystems and unfortunately it may already be in an irreversible pattern.  Beyond the painful realities of global animal extinctions, it is our duty to mindfully consume, step into shared resource generosity and reciprocity, and collective learning, action-taking and policy-making, as cultures and nations join together in global cooperation.

Despite all of the machinations of modernity: from the emergence of complex technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), which brings about complex and confusing implications across industries (and it is being massively developed only a few miles from where I write this from).  This does not mean you should ignore these developments.  It makes it all the more important to step up and learn across as many topics as you can.  We are at a precipice in America, and globally, of how we decide what we care about most.  I hope, beyond a doubt, we choose every single policy that favors our planet before mindless ideals of “market viability,” when it comes down to gas prices or trivial economic realities we have a tendency to falsely blame short-sighted economic behaviors, surrounding topics such as inflation, as the source of all of our “problems” in this country – believing inflation is our biggest issue is a deflection without a doubt, and within that deflection is the reality that many Americans are economically hurting. Americans who feel they “pay more at the pump” certainly hurts when working hard for every dollar made, including myself.  However, conceive of a nation which is no longer dependent on gas, nor electric vehicles either, as we will also certainly have power grid issues emerge in a long-term environmental crises. 

It almost feels nonsensical to consider a world where Americans could potentially adapt to life without their cars, but these are some of the looming large problems we face.  At a minimum, I believe that we will need to begin restricting the number of vehicles per household to reduce carbon emissions to start to spur real change.  This is an imperative and policy belief that I stand by.  I am a proud American and I also face environmental realities: the days of Hummers for fun are long gone and were always irresponsible (which garner an average of 11 miles per gallon (MPG), whereas a Toyota Corolla garners an average of 40 MPG by comparison).  I don’t currently have a car and know that my carbon footprint is significantly reduced.  This is one way that I have mindfully contributed to the environment and chosen to maintain that perspective for some years. Public transportation works well for me and my family. On average, it is a reduction of 1,000 pounds (.5 tons) annually per household of carbon emissions when not driving a car. Imagine how this could make a positive impact on the environment with reduction rates made by millions of people.

We are entering into an economic space globally which may transcend the imperatives which are isolated to the economic metrics which measure inflation.  We are going to be entering into a resource scarcity era soon, if not already.  This is not about “being right” or “feeling right,” anymore for anyone – the power we each have goes beyond our opinions of topics or politics, we are existentially under threat from ourselves.  It is no longer the time to stay silent about issues like the environment, to fret about which side may not be “right,” to enter in on.  Every single part of this global crisis is messy and complex.  Accept the complexity and learn to embrace it.  Learn about Complexity Science to enter into complex conversations around the environment with everyone in your life.  Learn about how to grow your own food.  Learn about how to access locally grown food.  Learn about minimizing your consumerism as a whole – stop shopping for senseless things (I need to tell myself this, too) – actively live as mindfully as possible, this if anything, is part of a global solution to lowering carbon emissions.  Beyond our individual lifestyle choices, there are entire industries which will need to face facts and see what their choices will do to further complicity in environmental damage or choosing a new path forward, if entirely stopping some production lines.

Eckhart Tolle often speaks of collective consciousness and awareness as a way of transcending individual and cultural pains.  I do believe we must make sacrifices from our own impulse based consumerism and step towards deeply sustainable lifestyles.  The pace we have may not be the pace that Earth chooses to respond back to us, but confronting our shared reality is far better than stepping back and remaining ignorant.  This is a form of complicity that should be called out from the top, from the government policies we work to enact during these times.  We cannot waste any more precious time for our planet’s sake and for the future of our planet’s sake.

The world holds questionable attitudes related to dualities – as if nuance cannot exist within duality, as if there is only science or only religion, as if the two cannot exist side by side; the same goes for identity and religion.  They do exist, side by side, and they will.  The tremendous accomplishment of developing and deploying billions of COVID vaccines globally proved that we can work together in global cooperation.  We can and we must going forward.  Every component of our existence is duality – our bodies have two sides mirroring itself into symmetry, that in of itself is a duality.  The way the eye perceives and receives light is the same meta scaled image as how the Earth receives light from the sun.  We are layers on top of layers of complexity in our existence.  The dualities such as Light and Dark; Yin and Yang; Peace and War; within every duality are truths which reside in states of contradiction.  If I can communicate a truth within our contradictions, I can say that we are going to confront ourselves repeatedly in crises due to the environmental crises which will accelerate. 

It is within these complexities there emerges patterns.  Patterns will determine our combined fates.  Ultimately, fate is a choice for engaging in patterns.  Do we choose to mindlessly consume and squander our beloved Earth’s resources?  Or do we work to actively mitigate this and learn how to become closer to the land and live in existence with it?  How do we do that without going to such as extremes as believing we need to be “off the grid” to accomplish this as a modern country?  Perhaps “off the grid,” simply means becoming in community with your neighbors again and giving them extra fruit you have and engaging in reciprocity. It starts with the little things – little things become big things.  Sharing our resources: we have the capacity within us to do this. Re-wearing our clothing without the incessant focus on trend-based style – stop buying clothes mindlessly at the minimum.  Learning about renewable fabrics that actually act for the environment is one way to pursue a sustainable wardrobe. 

At the end of the day, the climate crisis is not a ‘communism’ vs. ‘capitalism’ type of debate.  This is an existential survival debate.  I am starting to believe in the ideas around being a “prepper” – the idea of preparing for the worst.  This is how everything feels nowadays. I believe no external incentives will work well at the scale we need it to: I believe that all incentives are activated through internal motivations.  Our passion for the Earth and the betterment of the world needs to be activated deep within us, not through misguided visions of success, which is no longer about the excess accumulation of material wealth.  We are part of the answer.  We are part of the movement and we can decide to be better.  

Our only chance in the climate crisis is to believe in the contradictions as its deepest truth.  Our environmental state (and the states which this multi-layered crisis will generate in other countries), cannot be spun as a fairytale for commercial purposes; greenwashing for commercialization purposes which have limited large-scale viability is not the outcome we need to pursue in these crises. Marketing is going to be a critical tool, in some ironic demise of its own industries, to how we can enact large-scale changes.

It is our imperative to believe in full systems change approach to living – it is our deepest responsibility to the land and our lives.   We will all need to stop consuming mindlessly.  We will need to cohabitate ideally in small communities at scale, share resources in peaceful reciprocity – rooted in the belief that humans can be generous, kind, and loving at the core (no more “winner takes all” mentalities in this lifetime).  This is the best we can possibly hope for in a world that is set to descend into resource scarce chaos, which I believe is preventable if we become collectively aware of what we face.  The beauty of truth that we can rely on is that humans are capable of love and generosity, despite how we may view the state of humanity right now.

In rosiness,

Bianca