Gratitude and Regeneration
11/25/21
Hello everyone:
In the spirit of gratitude that’s meant to underlie this holiday season, I first want to thank everyone for sticking with me through these past 7 months and 30+ essays. I’m always working to figure out the balance between describing our new, difficult reality and reminding you of the context in which it occurs: an astonishingly beautiful, lush world populated with countless people generating solutions for the path forward. The reading can be heavy at times, I know, so thank you for your attention and support.
On the gratitude theme, for this holiday week I’m borrowing a message of hope and motivation I’m grateful for, courtesy of Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation, by Paul Hawken and his colleagues. It’s a quick read, so you can be grateful for that too…
The Regeneration book, and its attendant website, offer a remarkable collection of solutions in short (2 to 4 page) illustrated essays that are intelligent, in-depth, and as philosophical as they are pragmatic. Regeneration is a plan to redirect the daily life of civilization toward restoring the health of the human community and the community of life. There’s a wonderful education to be found in their writing, which is ethical without being dogmatic and sophisticated without relying on jargon. I highly recommend that you devote yourself either to perusing the website or reading the book.
What I appreciate most about Regeneration is that the climate crisis is recognized as part of the larger set of changes we’re making to life on Earth. Regeneration, as you’ll read here, is about restoring life and improving people’s lives around the globe as we simultaneously draw down greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, many of the best solutions we have for stabilizing the climate are also solutions for enriching human life and biodiversity.
What I’m quoting here is the first of two brief introductory essays in Regeneration. This one is an explanation of what regeneration is and why it’s essential in a wounded world; the second, entitled “Agency,” does a fine job of explaining that yes, each of us does have the power to do what needs to be done. Perhaps I’ll dive into that in another essay. For now, though, here is Paul Hawken and company on regeneration.
Regeneration means putting life at the center of every action and decision. It applies to all of creation – grasslands, farms, people, forest, fish, wetlands, coastlands, and oceans – and it applies equally to families, communities, cities, schools, religions, cultures, commerce, and governments. Nature and humanity are composed of exquisitely complex networks of relationships, without which forests, lands, oceans, peoples, countries, and cultures perish.
Our planet and youth are telling us the same story. Vital connections have been severed between human beings and nature; with nature itself; and between people, religions, governments, and commerce. This disconnection is the origin of the climate crisis, it is the very root – and it is where we discover solutions and actions that can engage all people, regardless of income, race, gender, or belief. We live on a dying planet – a phrase that may have sounded inflated or over the top not long ago. The earth’s biological decline is how it adapts to what we are doing. Nature never makes a mistake. We do. The Earth will come back to life no matter what. Nations, people, and cultures may not. If putting the future of life at the heart of everything we do is not central to our purpose and destiny, why are we here?
The proximate causes of the climate crisis are cars, buildings, wars, deforestation, poverty, oil, corruption, coal, industrial agriculture, overconsumption, and fracking, among others. All have the same origin and impact: the economic structures created to support human well-being degenerate life on earth, creating loss, suffering, and a heating planet. The financial system is abetting and investing in planetary liquidation – a short-term source of monetary wealth and a near-term cause of biological depletion, poverty, and inequality.
For the past forty years, the most powerful way to reverse global warming was largely overlooked. Fossil-fuel combustion is the primary cause of warming and must cease rapidly; without this, there is no cure. However, in order to stabilize the climate, we need to draw down carbon dioxide and bring it back home. The only effective and timely way to reverse the climate crisis is the regeneration of life in all its manifestations, human and biological. It is also the most compelling, prosperous, and inclusive way. Biological degeneration has brought us to the brink of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse global degeneration.
Our economic systems, investments, and policies can bring about the degeneration of the world or its regeneration. We are either stealing the future or healing the future. One description of the current economic system is extractive. We take, we dam, we enslave, we exploit, we frack, we drill, we poison, we burn, we cut, we kill. The economy exploits people and the environment. The ongoing cause of degeneration is inattention, apathy, greed, and ignorance. Climate change may leave people feeling as if they have to make a choice between “saving the planet” and their own happiness, well-being, and prosperity. Not at all. Regeneration is not only about bringing the world back to life; it is about bringing each of us back to life. It has meaning and scope; it expresses faith and kindness; it involves imagination and creativity. It is inclusive, engaging, and generous. And everyone can do it. It restores forests, lands, farms, and oceans. It transforms cities, builds green affordable housing, reverses soil erosion, rejuvenates degraded lands, and powers rural communities. Planetary regeneration creates livelihoods – occupations that bring life to people and people to life, work that links us to one another’s well-being. It offers a path out of poverty that provides people with meaning, worthy involvement with their community, a living wage, and a future of dignity and respect.
In December of 2020, Dr. Joeri Rogelj of the Grantham Institute in London and a lead author of the Sixth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made a remarkable statement: “It is our best understanding that, if we bring carbon dioxide [emissions] down to net zero, the warming will level off. The climate will stabilize within a decade or two. There will be very little to no additional warming. Our best estimate is zero.” This was a remarkable change in scientific consensus. For decades it was assumed that if we were able to stop our carbon emissions, the momentum of warming would continue for centuries. That was mistaken. Climate science now indicates that global warming would begin to recede after we achieve zero carbon emissions.
This is a watershed moment in history. The heating planet is our commons. It holds us all. To address and reverse the climate crisis requires connection and reciprocity. It calls for moving out of our comfort zones to find a depth of courage we may never have known. It doesn’t mean being right in a way that makes others wrong; it means listening intently and respectfully, stitching together the broken strands that separate us from life and one another. It means neither hope nor despair; it is action that is courageous and fearless. We have created an astonishing moment of truth. The climate crisis is not a science problem. It is a human problem. The ultimate power to change the world does not reside in technologies. It relies on reverence, respect, and compassion – for ourselves, for all people, and for all life. This is regeneration.
That’s it for this week, folks. Be well, relax, and enjoy the holiday if you’re celebrating it. Remember that we live on indigenous land, and that as we look ahead to the regeneration work that needs to be done, we should keep in mind the necessary realignment of our values, whether personal, economic, or national. With that in mind, here are a few closing thoughts:
Our community includes the community of life.
Ecologies are more vital than economies.
Work that restores and respects life restores our self-respect.
The improvement of the well-being of the world improves our own well-being.
The world does not belong to us; we belong to the world.
I’ll close by reiterating a question from the Regeneration text above: “If putting the future of life at the heart of everything we do is not central to our purpose and destiny, why are we here?”
