The Case for Hope
Hope Lies Within Each One of Us
A flock of birds flying to their future. Photo copyright Mbolina|Dreamstime.com
Every day the news is unbearable. Global warming. Species extinction. Pandemic. Genocide. Unparalleled wealth and power disparity. Mass shootings. Whether you’re conservative or liberal, these are enemies to all of us. It is in our common interest to work for decent lives and a future for our children. That’s where our hope lies, in our common needs, not manufactured political divisions. We must overcome the manipulation of politicians, the mainstream media, spurious social media and corporate brainwashing. We must speak to each other civilly and learn how to listen again. We must agree on a common set of inviolable facts, so that together we can overcome the crises we face and build a better world. The stakes are too high for anything less.
Our country is diverse, which is both our strength and weakness. People of all ethnicities and religious beliefs have contributed and continue to contribute to our success, or failure. We are living in perhaps the most dangerous time this country has faced since the Civil War, because of our politically manufactured division. That division is caused by greed, not race, gender, or ethnicity. Those designations are tools of the powerful to keep us fighting among ourselves, while they loot the future on the backs of our own toil.
The words, “Together We Stand, Divided We Fall,” have never been more resonant than in this moment. The ground seems to shift under our feet daily. First, the industrial revolution shook our world. With it came wondrous inventions that promised better, easier lives. We now know it also brought air and water pollution, deforestation, acidified lakes, leaching dumps, radioactive waste, mass extinctions, cancer and unconscionable economic disparity. Today, we are living through a technological revolution that has brought questionable promises as well, with ever more powerful computers, artificial intelligence, gene editing, advanced robotics and nano technology. More information is available to the average person than ever before. However, as during the industrial revolution, it has also brought significant downsides. Access is unequal and the rise of social media has created dangerous tools for the greedy to further divide us. These tools have allowed hate groups to proliferate, false conspiracies to flourish and increased corporate and political surveillance. We have been dehumanized into little more than data points of profit.
All that is natural and normal has been removed from our lives in just a couple of hundred years. We are forced to adopt change we have no control over. We feel increasingly less secure. Our anger comes from fear and a sense of helplessness. We want easy answers when there aren’t any. We are encouraged to point our fingers at each other. That is the game of certain politicians and the ultra-wealthy. Those who own ninety-nine percent of the planet wish to keep us fighting over the one percent left. Their game is to keep us divided, so they can increase their control and wealth.
Don’t lose hope, don’t become passive. There are thousands of good people fighting for human rights, equal economic opportunity and environmental justice. Even as there is cause for concern, our country is slowly moving forward to fulfill its unrealized promise. There is more opportunity and freedom here than in most other countries in the world. We just appointed the first black woman to the Supreme Court. A black man was President just a short time ago. Our science brought a global pandemic under control. We can achieve amazing things and it is, “We the People” who make them happen, by protesting unjust wars, organizing million person marches and lying in front of bulldozers. The struggle for justice and equality is never over, it demands constant participation.
Now we face our greatest challenge ever, global warming. Corporations have run roughshod over the earth and dangerously reduced biodiversity. Resilience lies in diversity. Numerous intricate, linked systems are inherently stronger than a few monolithic ones. Our drive to master nature—eliminate predators and create predictable food harvests—has found its limitations and now endangers our future. Ever more extreme weather patterns threaten our industrialized food system. Just last week South Africa saw rainfall in one day that exceeded what is expected in an entire month. Homes were washed away, shipping containers tossed like toys, roads collapsed into deep pits and so far over 300 people are known dead, many buried alive. Climate refugees are now part of our future and the wealthiness of a nation is not protection against an extreme earth.
Our next steps will determine whether we succeed as a species, or succumb to our worst behavior. We must go to the heart of the matter, every one of us, and change our values. We must value preservation over consumption and time over money. We must live more naturally and sustainably. We must make profound changes that will create more meaningful lives, just societies and restore our planet. It starts with our thinking. Consider if our decisions were based on these thoughts:
This earth is all we have; we must take care of her or die.
The planet is not just our physical survival, it’s our spiritual and mental health.
Every human being has a right to share equally in the earth’s resources.
Every species plays a critical role in our survival that we are just beginning to understand.
Living infinitely on a finite world is a path to extinction.
Materialism isn’t happiness, living slowly and thoughtfully is.
We now see we can’t bend nature endlessly to our will. Fortunately, she is resilient. The key to our survival is in stopping expansion and letting wild areas thrive again. Even in extreme cases of destruction such as the Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown, nature has returned. Forests and the oceans are critical for sequestering the carbon that is heating our planet. In half a human lifetime forests can regenerate by simply halting the clear-cutting of natural habitats, allowing farmland to become wild again and choosing urban renewal, rather than endless urban expansion. More forests storing carbon will reduce carbon absorption in the ocean, slow it’s rising temperature and sea levels that threaten our coasts and ocean life. By choosing farmer’s markets and buying locally we can eliminate shipping food across the globe with its enormous carbon footprint and keep the dream of small farming alive. By cutting our consumption of meat, heavily processed foods and fast food, we can dramatically reduce carbon emissions and vastly improve our health. We can return to natural methods of agriculture and halt pesticide usage, itself a huge contributor to global warming and cancer-causing agents. We can demand it be illegal for Monsanto to hold farmers hostage—forced to buy genetically modified seeds—that don’t propagate. These are powers you and I have, by simply living consciously.
The premise of our Democracy reaching its potential was founded on the idea of citizen participation. We have been lulled to sleep by our prosperity, fantasy that we can blindly trust institutions we depend on and an anesthetizing entertainment culture that brings 24/7 systemic brainwashing and creates lust for items we don’t need, envy, and false definitions of worth. Will Smith slapping Chris Rock is of no importance and your possessions are not a measure of your heart and soul.
There are babies with stick limbs and sunken faces starving in countries like Yemen, Sudan and Nigeria while their parents watch them die in helplessness. We have been living in a comfortable bubble that climate change is bursting. It’s difficult, it’s scary, but this existential crisis we face is also an opportunity for profound, positive change. We can’t duck and cover. We must be brave and prepared for sacrifice. America must lead again. We must hold our leaders accountable. We must find our generosity. The new life we create can be better than the one we are now forced to leave behind, one way or another. We must think bigger than one nation. We must think one earth.
We can do this. We have had to fight for every right and protection from day one. Power must be held accountable and justice starts with us, the common people. We had to fight for workplaces that wouldn’t burn to the ground. We had to fight to end slavery. We had to fight for the right for every person to vote. We had to fight for clean water and air. We have to fight to keep our hard won victories. We can never stop fighting, as sadly, the forces of greed and hatred will not be eliminated in our lifetimes.
The power is in our hands. We must envision a better world and act courageously.