Part 2 in my blog mini-series on how everything is connected 

My last post discussed the idea of connectivity with a focus on ecosystems, and how human activities are damaging ecological connectivity. This week I want to expand upon this concept based on an inspiring interview that ties together environmental conservation, human survival, democracy, gender equality, and climate change.

The interview opened the International Women’s Earth and Climate Initiative Summit last December, and featured Vandana Shiva, a prominent environmental activist and author, and Jane Goodall, renowned primatologist, author, and founder of the non-profit Roots and Shoots. You can watch the extended version of the interview—highly recommended if you have the time and patience—here (special thanks to Tyagaraja for initially bringing this interview to my attention).

“We need a new paradigm of what it is to live on the Earth.”

I came across this interview the same week as the NPR story discussed in my previous post, and the ties between the two were uncanny. Both women underscored the dire need for our society to undergo a global shift in thinking—a shift away from the ‘corporate patriarchy’, whose particular type of knowledge and power form a political structure of oppression and destruction, and towards a ‘diversity of knowledges’ that emphasizes compassion, interconnectedness, and well-being in the most inclusive sense.

Shiva links the widespread ecological genocide occurring across the world with concurrent socio-cultural patterns that perpetuate social inequity (via gender, race, etc.) and violence. According to her, “We need to see more deeply the connections between human inequality and injustice, and the violence against nature.” Industrialized agriculture induces the raping of land, resulting in unproductive soil and loss of valuable resources. The destruction of productive land, whether forest or field, is the source of poverty for millions of humans, particularly in rural areas and developing countries. What is the consequence? Local farmers out of work, men and women who cannot provide for their families, who become frustrated, angry, and sometimes violent or desperate.

As an extreme example, Shiva points to Punjab, “land of the Green Revolution.” Here, the agro-industrial complex was introduced with great fanfare as a solution to all food production problems. The subsequent decades saw massive increases in violence, extremism, and deaths, much of which can be attributed to changes in agricultural practice—mechanization greatly reduces jobs leading to high unemployment; soil health declines rapidly with the intensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides; food security declines as local crop varieties are replaced with monocultures of non-food cash crops such as cotton; and human health is threatened as exposure to toxic chemicals increases (the Bhopal pesticide factory explosion being an extreme, heart-wrenching example of this, in which thousands of people died from direct chemical exposure). Human inequality and injustice are often inextricably linked to violence against nature.

What’s more, the land impacts man just as much as man impacts the land. Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel) has made a career out of documenting hundreds of such cause-effect relationships that outline a contentious history between humans and nature. From the ecological destruction of Easter Island to the fall of the Roman Empire and the Mayan civilizations, human-caused land degradation has led to political and social instabilities resulting in famine, mass migrations, and ultimately societal collapses.

“The concrete solutions are the most radical ones. The abstract has had its day.”

The problems with our current political and food production systems are many; but how are we to affect change? What new paradigm would replace our current broken system? It’s easy, even for those of us who are in some way involved in social or environmental movements, to feel overwhelmed in the face of powerful corporations, media conglomerates, and totalitarian governments. Luckily, fearless and charismatic leaders exist—even if they are far and few between—that embody the courage to not only speak out against corruption but to present alternative realities based on compassion and justice.

What draws me to individuals such as Vananda Shiva and Jane Goodall (among many others) is their ability to articulate an alternative approach to living, and to lay out, in great deal, the steps to move down that path. For Goodall, it begins with teaching children fundamental values based in love and kindness. How can a child show empathy for the environment, she asks, if they have never known and learned true kindness or compassion? It is a straightforward, yet critical, component to developing a more empathetic society.

Both men and women are crucial to revolutionizing our value systems and political structures; but this particular interview focused on what women, in particular, bring to the table. And it was on this topic that Shiva again brought the concept of interconnectivity to the forefront:

“If there is one thing that women can bring to this discussion,” she stated, “in addition to those beautiful words Jane used of love and the capacity to have compassion, it is the capacity to see connections. That is the disease that the deeply patriarchal mindset has not been able to overcome; they can’t transcend fragmentation, and separation, and thinking in silos, and worse—thinking as if we are separate from the earth, and therefore masters and conquerors…”

According to Shiva, our world is treated as if everything is a commodity; everything has a monetary value, as if nature is dead and women are passive. We need to resurrect other knowledges—indigenous knowledge, ancient knowledge, women’s knowledge, local knowledge—as a counter to this dominant patriarchal paradigm. Its not that woman should take control (though I do believe woman need to play a more prominent role in political decision making), but that we all, man or woman, need to break down the barriers of what is ‘masculine’ and what is ‘feminine’. To be compassionate is not to be weak; indeed an act of compassion displays more courage and intelligence than any act of force or violence.

Plant a seed, grow Democracy

Shiva and Goodall agree that representative democracy is failing in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Governments no longer listen to the people; they are owned by big business. We as citizens cannot sit by complacently, but must through our individual actions demand a more just direct democracy.

To Shiva, and many other social and environmental justice activists, the most radical action one can take is to grow his or her own food. “Every time we save a seed,” she says, “every time we plant a garden, every time we create a community, we are cultivating democracy and freedom and hope,” to which Goodall adds, “and empower our youth.”

Near the end of the interview, Goodall recounts a story of a farmer who has been growing genetically engineered tomatoes that are square, instead of round, meaning that more tomatoes can be packed into each truck that goes to market. ‘Yes, but these don’t even taste like real tomatoes!’ Lamented a friend, to which the farmer replied, ‘Who cares? Soon everyone who knows what a real tomato tastes like will be dead anyway’.

Goodall was chilled by the story, but it also ignited her into action. Her response? We need to be growing our own tomatoes, and teaching our children how to grow them, rather than be force-fed resource-intensive, unhealthy ‘foods’ bred for uniformity rather than quality. This corporate-controlled agriculture is leading towards a system in which a few powerful companies own all the means of food production, putting local agriculture out of business or worse, making it illegal.

“If we all do it [grow our own food],” Goodall argues in her soft, composed voice,” even if its against the law, if we all do it can they put us all in prison for growing tomatoes that aren’t square? No, they can’t.” Oh Jane, the peaceful warrior, encouraging acts of defiance in the politest of ways. A quiet revolution! Brilliant.

One size fits no one

In the end, just as we have finally begun to realize that crop diversification is much healthier and more productive than large monocultures, we need to realize that diversity is what will help us solve our larger societal problems. There is no one-size solution to our social, economic, and environmental woes. If there is a key thing we can learn from grassroots movement, it’s that there are as many solutions as there are people on the planet (I’m echoing Goodall’s words here). Sustainability can mean a million different things, and have a million (or more) different solutions and innovations depending on the social and environmental context in question.

While we need to respect our shared ethics of equality and justice, a diversity of solutions will be the way to ensure resilience in the face of current and future obstacles to survival. The stakes are high, but I see hope in the eyes of critical leaders as well as in the younger generations.

In my next blog post I’ll discuss some of the theories regarding empathy and society, and how we may potentially evolve (culturally speaking, if not physiologically) in the future to better connect with our fellow human and non-human beings.