The Good News and The Bad News
I’m a lifelong environmentalist and since I retired, I have spent the last few years writing a book composed of a series of Letters to Mother Earth … from humanity. My experience writing the book took me to a place where I remembered how to relate with the Sprit of the Earth. My conversations in and with nature, and my perspective writing on the scale of humanity, brought me to a place where I’d like to share a few key insights that are relevant as we, collectively, find ourselves in the middle of this COVID-19 pandemic.
There’s good news and bad news.
The first thing I’d like to share is the not so good news.
Humanity is not very healthy. The World Health Organization listed the top 5 threats to global health in 2019.
Air Pollution and Climate Change
Chronic Disease
Global Pandemic
Fragile Settings and Poor Health Care
Antimicrobial Resistance
Of the roughly 60 million deaths per year, Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Countdown 2030 estimates that 7 out of 10 are the result of chronic disease. Chronic disease is caused primarily by environmental factors, not genetic factors.
In other words, 7 out of 10 people in the world die each year because of:
What we breathe
What we drink
What we eat
What we think
In other words, the scientific data is showing us that how we relate to the earth … is a threat to humanity.
When we pollute the air, we pollute ourselves
When we contaminate the water, we contaminate ourselves
When we degrade the soil, we degrade ourselves
When we live a chaotic and stress filled life, we kill ourselves
Is this not reason enough to change the way we relate to the Earth?
Is this not reason enough to stop burning so much fossil fuel? Is this not reason enough to protect our water and stop poisoning our soil, and our food? Do we need to let the trend continue until it’s killing 9 out of 10 of us?
And speaking of killing 9, or God forbid, 10 out of 10 of us, it led me to look at recent analyses by the World Economic Forum, Business Insider and Life Science on the most likely causes for ending humanity’s existence:
We either kill ourselves by:
Nuclear War
Artificial Intelligence
Climate-change
Water crises
Weaponized pathogens
Global ecosystem collapse
Cyber-attacks
Artificial Intelligence
Critical information infrastructure breakdown
Man-made environmental disasters
Antibiotic resistant bacteria
Spread of infectious diseases, or
Nature kills us by:
Extreme weather
Supervolcano
Asteroid hit
The path we’re on, as humanity, is not ok.
We are polluting the air, the water and our soil.
What we eat, breathe and drink is killing us.
We are consuming the Earth’s resources at an alarming rate that will not sustain human life long-term.
We are spending over a trillion dollars a year on defense budgets, and creating a debt for the future to defend ourselves … from ourselves.
We are fed the news from corporations, our voice is tamed through social media algorithms.
We are governed by a system that makes decisions based on the interests of re-election; the interests of campaign contributions, and not the interests of the majority of the people.
As depressing as this is, and as sobering as this is … if you are paying any attention … you have to see that we have to change something.
We have to do something. You … have to do something. We have to make a Shift … in the way we relate to the planet, the way we relate to ourselves, and the way we relate to each other.
The virus can either cause fear, separation and contraction, or… it can cause us to come together and realize that we are all in the same boat, we are all in this together. We all breathe the same air, our water is connected and the energy of us is connected.
In our distracted world we forget … that humanity is Us - the people cohabiting on this planet. Which means you, and me. We forget that we are part of it. We can get so distracted that we begin to think that we are separate from it. We begin to think that we don’t matter. So why would we bother - these systems are running ok and besides, we have people in charge. They will take care of it.
We can either imagine ourselves as a fearful, untrusting, contracted, socially distanced form of humanity - clinging onto broken systems.
Or, we can imagine the kind of humanity that we would actually want for ourselves, our kids and our grandkids.
But, we have to have thought about this - What do we want?
What do we want to have happen? Do we want to change anything? Do we have a say? Do we have a choice?
Some believe that there are deep forces, hidden agendas, and power schemes at play.
But we are remembering the power of a more conscious humanity. There is a Life Force in humanity that has a tremendous affect on the scale of the planet and this force is shaping our future - whether we are aware of it … or not.
Our future will either be shaped by the many, or it will be shaped by the few.
Which brings me to the second insight.
The second thing I’d like to share is the good news
We can change!
This is a golden opportunity for us to decide what we want the world to look like on the other side of this pandemic. Our imaginings, our ideas, our visions and thoughts about it … do matter.
What can we do?
We can, and should, pray. There is energy in our thoughts, there is energy in our prayers and there is energy in our intentions when we quiet our minds and distance ourselves from the chatter.
We can, and should, take care of our bodies. Keep our immune systems healthy, eat natural food, exercise and mitigate stress by peacemaking, forgiving and letting go of judgement.
We can, and must, change our perspective. Open our minds and expand into what is actually possible.
We can, and should, express ourselves. Write down your inspired ideas, your thoughts, your perspectives, your moments of clarity.
When we take these amorphous ideas and write them down, we bring the energy of the thought from our mind - through our body, through our heart and into our hands … and we give that thought energetic legs. Write a letter to your Congressional Representative; write a letter for your local newspaper; post your ideas. Express your thoughts on what you want the world to be like. World visions create worlds.
There is a powerful Life Force in humanity when we are coming from love, but it seems like we are teetering between Love and Fear.
I encourage everyone to follow the guidelines to stay safe, but to also follow your heart.
We matter. We each matter.
Let’s hope that the systems that are working to serve humanity survive this period and then let’s decide what we want to do better.
Take care of yourself. Take care of your neighbor. And take care of the planet. When we protect all life, we protect ourselves.