Sunday, June 15, 2008

What if ... ?

  • What if everyone - or at least a critical mass -
    suddenly understood that we're facing
    a climate crisis that will very likely result in
    TEOTWAWKI: the end of the world as we know it?

    No, not the end of the world,
    just the end of the world as we know it.

    As Lovelock said,
    "It will be a dark time.
    But for those who survive,
    I suspect it will be rather exciting."

    Or, as I like to say,
    It's not an apocalypse;
    it's an adventure!

  • What if we stopped "business as usual",
    got very real, & decided to get on with
    doing what needs to be done to adapt
    with as much peace & love as possible,
    but with equal intelligence & wisdom
    grounded in systems sciences
    & critical thinking?

  • What if we agreed to approach
    this crisis not with fears & tears,
    but joyfully, w/ art, music & dance ...
    in short, with feeling & soul ...
    ... because all work & no play
    makes for dull humans ... ... .

  • What if we chose to learn lessons
    from those who have faced life
    threatening scenarios
    & survived?

  • What if we all understood that
    we live within - that's inside of -
    a planetary physiological system,
    a planet-sized living entity?

    It's not an "organism",
    but a living system nonetheless,
    an emergent, autopoietic, dissipative system.

    For ease of discussion,
    let's call that global system "Gaia".

    Oh, & BTW, "she" (just to continue the metaphor)
    is running a serious fever that we need
    to pay attention to vewy, vewy soon.
What if all those things happened?

How might the world be different from now?

How much faster could humans make positive progress towards dealing with a set of global storms that is coming our way faster
than an Indy 500 car, driven by a turbo-charged, fossil-fuel guzzling, global juggernaut called "contemporary human cultures"?

Could we learn how to live in a global-scale symbiosis
with other life in a way that promotes
the healing of Gaia?

Well, maybe. It's a testable hypothesis.

Buckle up, baby: it's gonna be a wild ride.

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