Ecohumanist Lab

 Listen, friends,

I do not want to spoil your afternoon but if we don’t do something dramatic soon, our grandchildren will live in misery and many of them will die. We have 40 years or so to do it.

The ecological catastrophe is like a Monster with 100 heads and we are not even cutting these heads. We are nibbling on the tail and this is no good. 

I believe there is the chink in the Monster’s armor. A vulnerable place awaiting the arrow of the hero. 

         The trick is simple. We are almost 8 billion strong hurtling towards a disaster, but each of us is the same human. Same genes, instincts, pleasures, and pains. Same brain structures, same neurotransmitters, and hormones. Just 50, 000 years ago we were an almost extinct horde of cavemen. And now we KNOW THIS, we SEE THAT. we can imagine and understand that the proper action can save us again. It is just the same horde (or community)- so what if it looks like 8 billion strong mad crowds that are high on power, violent, reckless, and…stupid. The solution is inside each of us. Each of us wants to be happy. No exceptions. The way we try to get this happiness has been changing with cultures and civilizations but it seems that until quite recently it was stable, and lo and behold, safe for the planet. We were happy, embarrassingly, in the similar way the animals are, just a little bit fancier. It was all about a good experience- satiety, relationships, safety, awe, beauty, and art. Only just about 20 or 40 thousand years ago we slowly developed “the kingdom of things”. We dig out coal and oil and ore, we got energy, technology, and gadgets. Things are seemingly irresistible, they please all senses, they are reliable( your car will be there and ready tomorrow – your woman might not be)- easy, easy, so easy to get happy and powerful and safe, especially after all these thousands of years of fear, uncertainty, relying for happiness on OTHERS! Oh, the misery of relying on these tiny, fleeting moments of understanding, awe, and fun. 

         But we can make this pivot, we can make this second Renaissance smarter, more robust, the experiences with technology can be more “things-like”.

There is no other way anyway. 

And if we do it later when the resources are gone, we are overcrowded and fearful, then this “old happiness” practiced with the blade on our throats might look more like a caricature of the good stuff.

I think we need to create a broad coalition across professions, nations, and many other “huge” differences, and smarter people than me need to lead and design the details and actions.

I welcome brainstorming on my blog ecohumanistlab.com  and I will post more practical elements. of how to call it- a dream? plan? movement?  I think that the parenting of infants and toddlers would be easiest to address.