Throughout the Earth’s long history of life, there have been 5 mass extinctions due to cataclysmic conditions. (A mass extinction is usually defined as a loss of about three quarters of all species in existence across the entire Earth over a “short” geological period of time. Given the vast amount of time since life first evolved on the planet, ‘short’ is defined as anything less than 2.8 million years.) The best suggestions for why these extinctions occurred: Flood basalt events; Sea-level falls; Cosmic Impact events; Sudden global cooling; Sudden global warming; Sudden methane releases; Anoxic events, and; Hydrogen sulfide emissions from the seas. While the last major extinction (Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction 66 million years ago) is usually thought to be the fifth one, we are currently undergoing the sixth one now as a result of behaviors of human civilization mainly during the last mere 200 years.
As a side note, there have been numerous events that came close to being defined as mass extinctions such as the sudden Early Dryas event (12,800 years ago) at the close of the last major ice-age, which precipitated another short ice-age for a thousand years before changing suddenly again (11,600 years ago). It is now thought that several large pieces of a fragmented comet (the Taurid debris stream) impacted the Earth at this time. The planet passes through this debris cloud every six months where we enjoy a wonderful Taurid meteor shower in the night sky, but it is sobering to note that there are still many large pieces of comet remaining within the cloud. I mention this because if we knew we were on a trajectory with a really big piece of comet debris we would probably do everything to somehow divert that piece from hitting the Earth and causing a catastrophe. Yet, everyday we sanction actions through our consumer behaviors that will fundamentally have the same final effect, and we remain complacent.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that we live at the whim of nature, and to some degree this may be true – Tsunami’s earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, fires, droughts, etc., happen regularly. But this current mass extinction event is being caused by human activities, and the behaviors causing it can be changed so it doesn’t have to happen. We must learn to live in harmony with the planet and each other or we go extinct. There are some who believe we can use technology to help humanity live within a highly technological system even as global natural systems disintegrate, but I have to wonder what kind of life quality will that be? Like many, I quite like frolicking in meadowed woods with wildlife scampering about. A sterile planet with domed cities protecting its citizens is not my idea, nor many other peoples’ idea, of a fun place to exist. As I keep saying, our beliefs control our thinking, but beliefs can change, and when we recognize our addiction to a detrimental way of thinking, we can create a new set of beliefs that are beneficial.
Being addicted to your current beliefs means you are trapped in a dualistic right-wrong perspective. It is a rigid way of thinking. This is where groupthink often occurs where everyone feels forced to agree with a perspective even if they do not completely agree. It’s really about seeing the Grey and not being Black and White about everything. The words we use are framed to allow us to give meaning to our experiences – there is NO meaning except the meaning we assign to anything. And that meaning starts with us recognizing we are a part of nature and not a controller of it. The stories we tell about ourselves and our place in the world are reflected in our behaviors. When our behaviors directly or indirectly contribute to ecological destruction then we must recognize our actions and begin a process of cultural criticism and dialogue to create a change that moves towards healing the planet and not harming it.
In my textbook (Principles of Sustainable Living) I covered Social and cultural trends that trap us in negative ways of thinking. Here I am 9 years later and it seems only now, as a result of current chaos, that many more people are finally waking up. Beside my textbook, I have covered the idea of Cultural Creatives (Imagination, Creativity, and Change 1 {March 2018}, and Recognizing that Change is now Unavoidable – Empowering Ourselves and Choosing the Future we Want Without Fear {June 2020}) in this blog. This is a group that wants change but hasn’t yet connected with like-minded to begin the process of cultural evolution from ‘Scientific Materialism’ to what is coming – I call this a new spiritual connectedness (Nova Renascentia – see previous post A New Beginning – Part 2: Nova Renascentia (New Renaissance) {January 2021}).
I know many of you reading this want a transformation, yet it is still difficult to get the cultural dialogue going on a wide scale level beyond blog sites like this one. And why is that? Well, addiction to beliefs is one, but part of this dialogue needing to occur has traditionally come through the mainstream media and they seem more invested in maintaining the power structure of the elites than moving humanity forward to a better world. It is through discussion and personal experience that we create meaning in our lives. And that is near impossible when only one narrative is being told. I recently came across an article by 30 British journalists (Elijah – UK journalists Holding the Line). A fascinating account of the extreme censorship during this pandemic such as; Perceived failures of mainstream media, a lack of context for statistics used, little coverage of alternative treatments, scrutiny of PCR testing to justify draconian policies, little attention to adverse vaccine reactions, no balanced examinations of the costs of the lockdown, etc. What is at the core of all of this is how elitist censorship is eroding the future for ‘content of speech and contours of public discourse’ in all areas of our lives. If we are not vigilant about our personal sovereignty, then western press will be more Pravda than true information.
If we are to culturally evolve to create a better, healthier and harmonious world, then we need to be able to talk about it openly and enthusiastically from varied diverse perspectives, and not just have controlled news blips about the planet’s problems laden with fear and hopelessness yet still encourage us to be good consumers. There are so many of us who are already awake, and even more that are awake but haven’t yet realized that they are not alone in their desires for a better world (The Cultural Creatives). As Charles Eisenstein pronounces and I totally agree; We Need new kinds of Community. We need to live in a New Story, one that shows the importance of finding living models of the future, and we need to find our Courage to step into the unknown to get there.
To Be Continued …………………….
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