Ecological and social crises are calling us to reinvent ourselves

Now is the time! We are empathic earthlings of the living Earth!

As a child and youth, 1944 to 1962, I was taught that I lived in a series of social constructs. I was a resident of a house, within a neighborhood, within a town, within a county, within a state, within a nation, within a world of nations. I was not taught that I was part of nature, part of ecosystems, and part of a living planet. Contrarily, I was taught that nature was “out there”, and that I, as a human being, was separate from and superior to the natural world. I was a soul, a mind, an ego, a personality, a citizen, a consumer, not an Earthling.

In 1968, I remember the feeling of mystery and exhilaration upon seeing for the first time the Earthrise photo from the moon. There we were, ALL of us, part of one round, living planet moving through space-time! Everything we know about billions of years of life’s evolution and thousands of years of human history happened and continues to happen as part of this living planet. We do not live primarily in a social world but within ecosystems, within a living planet, within a solar system, within a spiral galaxy, within a mysterious universe!

During the past two hundred years, we thought that extracting and burning fossil fuels – coal, oil, and gas – were brilliant solutions to meet our energy needs. They were, and they were also a disaster.

Humanity has been waking up over the past sixty-six years to the fact that our planet’s ecosystems are being severely damaged by fossil fuels, and a global economy of relentless extraction, industrial production, pollution, monetization of nature, and mass consumption. In order to care for over eight billion humans, we are driving many other species extinct, and threatening life on Earth, including the human experiment, with debilitating heat, forest fires, mega storms, and coastal flooding.

Now in 2024, how can we wake up and take the necessary actions? How do you and I do our part and help others wake up and respond to this moment of crisis? How is this crisis an opportunity to reinvent the human project on planet Earth?

After the devastation of World War II including the horrors of exploding nuclear bombs, the United Nations was created so that humanity would never again engage in such destructive behavior. What is the devastation of climate change and ecocide calling us to create at this very moment? How can this be a moment of reinventing humanity as a responsible part of a living planet?

It is not only climate change and ecocide that are calling for a new way of being human. The tech world, artificial intelligence, genetic experimentation, rising fascism, patriarchy, racism, corporatocracy, wealth inequality, a billionaire class, and nuclear armed nations are also threatening to undo the realization of human values of wellbeing and justice and institutions of democracy and universal care. Nothing less than an ecological-compassionate civilization is called for.

As a former UNDP policy advisor, international civil servant, founder of the Compassionate Civilization Collaborative, and most importantly, an aging nobody, I call on the over eight billion of us and our leaders in government, business, civil society, media, and academia to launch a global initiative of reinventing humanity as Earthlings committed to ecological regeneration and social justice.

In World War II, President Roosevelt called on industry, government, and citizens to unite in defeating fascism. In my country, I call on Vice President Harris, Governor Walz, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, the ACLU, Third Act, and other leaders and movements to articulate a compelling vision and effective action plan of social justice and peace for all people and ecological regeneration of all ecosystems of air, water, soil, minerals, plants, fungi, insects, and animals.

Around the planet, many are calling for whole system transformation including the United Nations, the Dalai Lama, the Plum Village movement, the Global Compassion Coalition, Greta Thunberg, Kate Raworth, Gus Speth, Phil Lane Jr., Daniel Schmachtenberger, Jacinda Ardern, Nafeez Ahmed, Vandana Shiva, Daniel Wahl, Arundhati Roy, Rutger Bregman, the Great Transition Initiative, the Sunrise Movement, and many, many others as part of a planetary movement of movements.

We can do this. Let’s do it today and keep on keeping on in mindfulness and compassionate action.