The Context for Change

A Shift of Paradigm

We have always been fundamentally interconnected on the planet, but only recently have we seen it in a new way, on the other side of a paradigm shift. Before, a tribal mind-set: America (or Russia, China, Israel, Iraq) is my tribe, and as long as others beyond my borders fear my strength, I will be secure.

This ancient heritage of separation, with which we have lived for thousands of years—identifying ourselves as loyal to small, limited groups—is a powerful voice that echoes within our mental landscape. There is “us”—white, black, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, communist—and there is “them.” In our fear, our uncertainty about what we don’t understand about “them,” we make “them” into a fearsome other, and justify whatever we have to do to defend ourselves. This is the root cause of all wars.

Our own (American, Russian, Chinese, Israeli, Iraqi) sovereignty is sacred, but in the name of defending ourselves we rationalize invading the sovereignty of other nations or peoples. Russia invades Afghanistan; Iraq invades Kuwait; America invades Iraq;  China occupies Tibet; Israel occupies Palestine, and on and on. We give scant consideration to how "we" would feel if "they" did same thing to "us."

Now, a new paradigm: my own security depends not upon how much others fear me, but upon their security and well-being. If you or I exhaust the ocean of a given fish species or degrade its coral, the diversity of the living system which supports us all will be weakened. If my military misinterprets a harmless missile test as hostile, we all may die. If I drive a gas-guzzling vehicle, I degrade everyone’s air as well as mine. Conversely, if the Chinese invent a new way to cut carbon emissions, I flourish also.

This paradigm shift, from independence to interdependence, is as powerful a change-agent as one could ask for. It will determine everything in the coming decades. Our job as humans is to learn to live by its inescapable truth: we are all one on this planet.  In our families, in our neighborhoods, in our civic affairs, in our international relations, we have the choice of acting like scorpions in a bottle, or of working together to build ever-widening circles of relationship and responsibility.

Our real tribe is the whole human species, all colors, all religions, all cultures. Our common story is the 13.7 billion-year-old history of the universe. In this enlarged mental and physical landscape of interdependence, war has become dysfunctional and obsolete. Everything has changed, and so we, too, must change in response.

A Convergence of Challenges

Our two biggest challenges on the planet are war and climate change. What is the relationship between these two urgent issues?

•Even a limited nuclear war would result in millions of tons of soot and ash lifting high into the global atmosphere,  causing radically accelerated climate change and shutting down agriculture worldwide.

•Future wars, unless we prevent them, will be fought in competition for scarce resources—land where food can be grown, sources of drinkable water. Climate change, even now, is causing desperation and destitution in many areas of the world. Resources are already growing scarcer due to climatic changes.

•The military forces of the world, in proportion to their size (those of the United States are by far the largest) are the biggest users of non-renewable fossil fuels, and the biggest polluters. So they are accelerating the very causes of war for which they are at the same time planning ahead to fight.  Understanding this vicious circle is an opportunity for the world to redirect its resources to preventive actions and meeting real human needs directly.

•U.S. dependence upon fossil fuels from the Mideast is another turn of the vicious circle. A vigorous program to expand sources of renewable energy would lessen the need for the U.S. to have so many bases in the region, lighten our ecological and security footprint, and rachet down regional tensions.

•We are now certain that our species cannot survive a sudden catastrophe like global thermonuclear war. Many of us are less sure, or find ourselves in denial, about more gradual catastrophes like the incremental heating up of the planet. And yet scientists can predict general outcomes, agricultural change, rise in sea level, worldwide economic dislocation. They are already happening.

Principles of Survival

All humans have in common a desire for meaningful survival. What universal laws determine survival? We know from studying the patterns of living systems far into the distant past that life must always adapt to the conditions around it in order to survive.  65 million years ago, an asteroid collided with the earth in the Yucatan area, setting off a sudden worldwide change of climate. Some creatures, our evolutionary ancestors, were able to adapt and carry on. Others, like most of the dinosaurs, could not. They became extinct. The environment determined the nature of the changes required of life forms if they were to continue.

The same is true for humans today, not just some humans, not just the rich, not just people of one religion and not another—everyone. Our environment provides a new context in which change has become mandatory for all of us if we are to survive.

The demise of the dinosaurs ushered in the age of mammals, called the Cenozoic. Now the combined effects of our human presence on the planet are bringing the entire 65 milion-year Cenozoic period to an end. This is an extraordinary moment in the long history of Earth. Human creativity and decision-making now determines the future not only of our own species, but of the entire living system upon which we depend.

Unleashing Our Creativity

Thanks not only to self-evident symptoms of climate instability, but also to modern networks of communication, these truths can spread around the world with near-miraculous rapidity. As they spread, citizens and leaders alike can begin to awaken to our fundamental interdependence, and their minds can open to new possibilities. The neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman speaks eloquently of the possibilities of an open mind.

A mind open to diverse cultural frames of reference and yet oriented to the convergence of all our major challenges is a mind that sees that real change can only start with me. I must learn to resolve conflict non-violently. I must learn to go beyond blame and to maintain a consistent attitude of good will. I must learn to work more effectively with others.  These core practices orient the connection between the global and the local and integrate the two. By taking on these personal practices, we can begin to live, right now, beyond war. We can start immediately to be the change we wish to see in the world. The more people who take this on, the quicker we will get to a thriving, just, fulfilling, sustainable world that works for all—a world beyond war.