Life is more than a never-ending race to acquire more stuff and assert dominance over everything around us
To really save our planet, we must change how we think about the world itself and our place within it. This means taking a fresh look at nature, learning from its amazing rhythms, patterns and interconnections. And it means opening our selves up to new possibilities for how humans work together to survive, thrive and ensure good lives for coming generations.
A shift of this importance will not happen easily. It requires a fundamental reorganizing of our industrial, hierarchical, technocratic, economic-centric culture. And it will be ferociously opposed by those who reap fat profits from the way things are.
Yet we must remember that the modern industrial, market way of life—which is so deeply instilled in many people’s minds that they can’t imagine living any other way—actually benefits only a tiny sliver of the planet’s inhabitants. Certainly not plants and animals, nor people living in the global south, nor the poor and most of the middle-class in the overdeveloped world, nor people who love nature, nor those seeking meaning in their lives beyond buying and selling.
Most people envision their lives as something more than a never-ending race to accumulate more money, acquire more stuff, achieve more technical prowess and assert dominance over everything around us. Competitive instincts do not wholly define the human character—we also possess deep urges to cooperate with one another and to appreciate the wonder of this world we call home.
That’s why I believe the global movement for the United Nations to adopt a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth (modeled on the landmark Universal Declaration on Human Rights) is not a quixotic crusade. It only makes sense to move toward a different worldview that challenges the dictates of a globalized profit-crazed industrial system. But how? Well, the commons is a proven model of how we can relate more harmoniously with nature and each other that has been the organizing principle of many cultures through the centuries.
The commons represents an old way of looking at life that’s now being heralded as a bold new idea for solving the problems that face us. In essence, it’s an operating system for life on Earth that focuses on what we share, rather than on what we own individually. The commons still flourishes around the globe today, not only in indigenous and peasant societies where it is the foundation of daily life, but also in the heart of rich, technologically advanced nations.
We all need the gifts of air, water, soil, plants, animals, minerals and genes bestowed by Mother Earth. We all depend on the bounty of oceans, forests, skies, plains, rivers, prairies, wilderness and biodiversity. Without sharing these resources, and the many layers of collaboration they foster, modern society would not exist.
The commons puts useful tools in our hands to stop the assault on Mother Earth and start the healing of our planet. Restoring the commons and defending the rights of Mother Earth are really the same cause, which depends upon discovering a different vision of looking at and living in the world.
—JAY WALLJASPER
Credit: Tatoo: Nick Wasko from Sacred Heart; Photo: Melissa Dex Guzman under a Creative Commons license from flickr.com
