I believe the climate’s changing, now what?
From imagineering to active citizenship
Climate change has finally entered public consciousness around the world. It’s been in scientific consciousness for a while, but some roads are more bumpy than others. But thank you Trump! You tipped it!
Climate change is a meme and I extend it to larger ideas of human impact on planet Earth, its evolutionary processes (the whole genetic modification game), and sentient diversity. For those of you who don’t fully see the bigger picture of human impact on our beautiful planet, these 12 minutes with The Big History Project and Crash Course will give you a quick lesson on the story of life and the story of death on Earth, looking at the various mass extinctions studding our 4.5 billion year history — Spoiler alert! We’re in one right now! We’re the cause, I mean.
If the gravity of the matter’s finally settled in, there are two roads spread out — both being both optimistic and pessimistic in some sense.
ROAD 1: WE’RE DOOMED, LET’S GET THERE FASTER!
The optimistic side to this is that it will all end anyway, and we don’t have to worry our conscience anymore about our guilty pleasures. The Earth and life will go on…I mean Mars and life will go on with a select few humans and other species who will eventually evolve into some other species. And the homo sapien sapiens will eventually die out because it would be less adapted to the new planet…who knows! Who cares???
ROAD 2: WE’RE NOT DOOMED YET, LET’S SLOW THINGS DOWN!
This view sounds optimistic but is filled with so much hard work and so many challenges, it’s not surprising more people don’t adopt it. To consider this view seriously—we must admit we’ve lost the plot, consider our ethics around life, and reprogram ourselves and our habits and our societies and larger systems. Everyone needs to get on the same game. Like everyone got on the end colonization game.
HELLO, I’M HERE, AT THE FORK, NICE TO MEET YOU
Personally, whether I traverse road A or B, depends on the day —but I’ve decided to overall align myself by first listening to the ethics within → creating a vision → understanding the vision of others → participating in a collective vision → taking the steps necessary to align myself to the collective vision. I picked up this process through a visioning activity with Green Initiatives in Shanghai. Gerald, a strategy coach, first asked us to write down our individual dreams and visions for Green Initiatives and then a collective one. This was the example:
A vision is an image of where you want to go or where you want to be. Images surpass language and this exercise is more about accessing what’s within. The vision should be easy to understand and remember, mobilize energy, be both challenging and realistic, trigger intense discussions, and be that guiding light. Setting a vision is similar to setting a strong intention.
CREATING A DREAM
So I thought about it long and hard. Closed my eyes. And imagined. I think what sums it up for me is the idea of balance. Not a Libra scale kind of balance but the yin-yang kind of balance.
In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (also 陰陽 yīnyáng) describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.
Today, it’s the balance of ecology and economy and the balance of my inner and outer life that I strive for. Being a little bit of a gypsy whose life seems to span across countries and cultures, it’s a vision of global environ(mental) balance. With that clear image at the horizon, I penned down some core competencies and lines of actions noting what I need to learn, do, and feel to get there.
I think I’m right now between stages 1 and 2 of all lines of action. Critical thinking, in particular, is a skill that’s been occupying my mind a lot lately. It is also being pushed among 21st-century skills in schools and it’s one I wish was a part of my curriculum growing up. To offer you a comprehensive definition:
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities, as well as a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism. — criticalthinking.org
I don’t have the words to talk about non-thinking as yet — I can only share that it’s as important (if not more important) as critical thinking in this journey of ‘listening’. The Japanese call it hishiryō (非思量).
IMAGINEERING: A START
I’ve left a blank template here for you to share your vision through the comments and maybe someday we meet to collaborate and cooperate into making our dreams come true.
