Charles Eisenstein has been challenging my thinking for about 15 years now, but never more so than with his latest book, Climate: A New Story.
Basically, Eisenstein argues that focusing all our environmental activism on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming is a bad idea.
As a card-carrying member of the enlightened, scientifically-literate, progressive wing of the American populace, of course I know that human-created climate change is the single greatest threat to our civilization, and that the biggest thing we can do to combat it is to reduce our carbon footprint, individually and collectively.
Heck, that's one of the best arguments for eating a plant-based diet – that it fights climate change more profoundly than switching from a Hummer to a Prius, or eschewing air travel entirely. And since I want as many people as possible to go plant-based, of course I'll deploy this convenient, terrifying climate narrative (which 97% of climate scientists agree with) to add one more reason to the mix.
After all, the last thing I want to do is stand with the crazy, greedy, deluded, ignorant climate skeptics, right?
Well, after reading Climate: A New Story, I have a whole different view on what needs to be done.
The earth, or “Gaia,” as Eisenstein calls our home, is quite sick. Rising temperatures is one symptom, just as a high fever might be a symptom of an infection in a person. Just as the pharmaceutical industry treats symptoms and ignores root causes, so too the environmental movement has become mired in reductionist treatments of symptoms rather than addressing root causes.
A healthy planet, Eisenstein argues, can withstand perturbations like increased greenhouse gases. A sick planet, whose organs (forests, wetlands, oceans, prairies, etc.) have been destroyed by human beings, will not have the resilience to absorb the extra carbon.
Digging deeper, Eisenstein identifies the root root cause of our mistreatment of our only home: we don't view the earth as sacred.
Until we return from our illusion of separation, with its requirement that we control and dominate and bend all the forces of nature to our instrumental will, we cannot heal the planet.
In fact, approaching climate change like we approach our other problems – with a war on carbon emissions, just like our failed wars on terror, drugs, crime, disease, and agricultural pests – guarantees that we will fail. Warlike thinking is the cause of the problem. We need a different mindset to find our way out of it.
As you know, there's a fierce battle going on about whether climate change is real, and if it is, whether it's our fault, and if it is, whether there's anything we can do about it. Like all wars, this one demands that we choose sides. If you were to suspect me of being a climate skeptic or denier, you probably would dismiss me and my podcast out of hand.
Listen to our conversation, and please read Climate: A New Story. It's essentially a work of politics, economics, history, and science that takes spirituality seriously. You can map the teachings of Eckhard Tolle, in A New Earth, directly onto Climate. If you've ever wondered what enlightened public policy would truly look like, Eisenstein is a good a guide as any I've come across.
I'm thrilled that Charles agreed to share an hour with us, and I look forward to some spirited, and respectful, and loving, debate from the listeners of this podcast.
Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box or audio recording box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.
Links
Climate: A New Story
CharlesEisenstein.org
A New Earth, by Eckhard Tolle
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Dr Howie Jacobson
This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).
My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.
Here are three gigs that I do:
1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation
I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.
At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.
My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.
2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance
I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.
We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.
The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.
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I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.
So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.
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Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.
What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.
Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.
Music
The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.
It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.
You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.
Gratitudes
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The communication between you two seemed a bit garbled at times, when you were perceiving that Eisenstein was saying emotional perception trumps scientific inquiry, but I think there was clarification by the end. I haven’t read any of the author’s work, but found his explanations very logical, and not against scientific inquiry. He seem more to be describing how this inquiry is often guided by human bias, because it’s being done by humans, who tend to be biased, and that if we release our human-centric view we will be able to more accurately perceive the value of non-human life-forms, and our relationship to them. Thanks for introducing this author to us!
Just Wow. What a moving and inspiring vision of healing our planet. I’ll be reading his books.