AMERICA'S GREAT WORK: Leading Change in the Way Humans Live
Lifestyles > Pollution > Disease . . . Technology vs Lifestyle Change . . . Responsibility, Democracy, Freedom
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America has accomplished much in its short history. For two and a half centuries we have stood for freedom and democracy, and as a beacon of hope and opportunity for those seeking a better life. Why would we, or any country with a sought-after standard of living, want to question the way it lives? Let alone change it.
Perhaps because we sense that something is not right when 40% of our children have a disability or chronic illness (CDC data on children here, here), and when cancer, dementia, and the cost of healthcare keep rising. And we cannot help but know that something is terribly wrong when a mass shooting occurs every 21 hours.
This begs that we pay attention, and that we try to understand why. And then work to change things. We are, after all, problem solvers.
Could it be that America’s poor health, including poor mental health, explains much of what is going wrong? We spend more on healthcare than any other country and yet have worse health outcomes. Knowing that diet, lifestyle, pollution, and toxic environments are drivers of chronic disease, could it be that we are undermining ourselves in everyday life? That the way we live - our envied standard of living - is the source of what is amiss?
American lifestyles are also sources of more atmospheric pollution than other countries’. Historical data since 1790, show that while we are responsible for almost 30% of aggregate pollution emissions, we have only 4% of the world’s population; China and India, each with about 4 times our population, only account for 13% and 3% of emissions, respectively.
With most industrial pollution originating directly or indirectly from the production of consumer goods and services, pollution emissions have a direct link to what we humans choose to do in our everyday lives.
And yet no one seems to be asking us to change the way we live. Instead, we look to industry to cut emissions, nations to adopt better policies, and technologists to innovate ways to cool the atmosphere and miracle drugs to treat lifestyle-induced diseases.
In Under A White Sky: The Nature of the Future, 2021, Elizabeth Kolbert describes “people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems”: engineers turning carbon into stone, biologists saving the world’s rarest fish, geneticists developing ‘super corals’ to be tolerant of hotter oceans, and physicists seeding the sky with reflective particles to cool the planet.
This never-ending search for technological solutions most often comes at public expense, even as taxpayer wells grow drier and national debts are rising.
Does this not make America’s much-envied standard of living, and the pollution it causes, something to question?
How much cheaper and safer would life be if we humans simply change the way we live? Might Americans ever choose wellness lifestyles over polluting ones? And what if, in saving ourselves from cancer and dementia, we also save ourselves from the political and monetary influence of those who profit from our unhealthy ways - like big food, big ag, and big pharma? And, if we did, would America not have a special and much needed story to share with others?
Let’s consider, too, what happens if we do NOT choose to change the way we live: our dependence on things outside of ourselves will grow deeper, our health will remain in the hands of corporate powers who design and profit from foods that make us sick and drugs that do not make us well. This means that we will need ever more costly technological solutions from the vast research-industrial complex that has already developed around solving the consequences of modern life.
All because we want to continue living in ways that make us chronically ill??
Elizabeth Kolbert sums up what is happening ‘under our white skies’ with a medical analogy made by a geoengineer working to control the climate: ‘no one in his right mind would undergo chemotherapy were better options available. Given that the climate is dangerously warming, deliberately (technologically) dimming the sun might be less risky than NOT doing it.’
Do we really have no options other than technological fixes like chemo and geoengineering? Must we ‘fix the climate’ by seeding the skies over our heads with particles that eventually fall back to earth’s fragile ecosystems and into the already polluted lungs of humans?
Has our intelligence turned into something without logic?
We know we can lower climate emissions by changing the way we live, and we know chronic disease can be healed and our children can live with less anxiety, depression, and mental illness. We know these things would cut government spending. Why, then, is change NOT happening?
Actually, change IS happening. And in the most polluting country on the planet, the country with the most to gain by reclaiming the health of our people . . . and the most to lose if we don’t.
For decades, America has been advancing regenerative models in both medicine and agriculture. The medical models center around diet and lifestyle change that not only reduce environmental toxins but, in combination with regenerative, organic agriculture, actually repair polluted soils and ecosystems, rebuild community food systems, and strengthen local economies. (see earlier posts here, here, and here)
It is also important to recognize that these changes are happening because of America’s free enterprise system and the entrepreneurial spirit of our people. Despite resistance from global suppliers of large-scale agriculture and pharmacy-based healthcare, freedom of choice has allowed health-seeking consumers to support regenerative, organic farming and lifestyle-based medicine for several decades.
Americans now have the knowledge and tools to heal ourselves, as well as an expanding base of green businesses supplying natural and less toxic consumer goods and services.
So, will the country with the most sought-after way of life on the planet find the true courage to change the way we live? And will we accept the challenges that come with doing so? Although America is no stranger to challenges, this challenge is different. We must want to take better care of ourselves and manage to do so with still busy lives. And we must find ways to work with the social, political, and economic changes that come with more local and less corporate control. America’s gradually emerging wellness economy is already creating change, for farmers, practitioners, and consumers.
Perhaps we Americans know, deep in our hearts, that we are using more than our fair share of a fragile planet. Perhaps we also know, deep in our bones, that democracy and freedom are not secure when our health, and sometimes even our souls, are bound up with profit-taking. Perhaps we know that freedom requires responsibility. “The price of greatness is responsibility.”- Winston Churchill
America is humanitarian. We are industrious. We offer opportunity, freedom and democracy to the world. But perhaps we have not had the right approach. Perhaps chemicals and pharmaceuticals in agriculture and medicine have created more health and environmental problems than they have solved. And using ONLY technology to resolve them digs the hole deeper.
Preventing and reversing damage to human and environmental health with new methods and different ways of living could lead us to real and lasting solutions. There is no better way to protect sovereignty and secure freedom than to understand the root causes of the problems that plague us. And to change them by understanding and changing the root causes, that is, by changing the way we live.
Eminent writer, priest, and cultural historian, Thomas Berry, recognized a need for technological civilization to move from being a disrupting force on the Earth to becoming a benign presence. He called this transition THE GREAT WORK.
Could America’s “Great Work” become sharing what we learn about new ways of doing things, about regeneration and methods that heal rather than harm, that have side-benefits rather than side-effects. Method matters and change is hard work. But it is also ‘great work’ to secure freedom and democracy by taking responsibility. Rather than seeding the skies or depending on chemo or making war against those who see the world differently, we can take responsibility for how we live.
Are we up to this? Can we make human health our economic strategy and place it at the center of America’s Great Work? Can we replace chemo and seeded skies with wellness living?
To do so we must find leaders who understand the changes needed, who recognize the power of regeneration, and who inspire us to better self-care and personal wellness. A famous American president once challenged us to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” We might even be inspired to see self-care and wellness as patriotic, as the most powerful thing we can do as individuals, families and communities to make America well and fit for the Great Work that lies ahead.
Living Well Locally wants to help with this. We are creating a vision, a pathway that brings together regenerative farming with lifestyle-centered healing at the community level. Please follow, share, and comment on our work. We are all in this together.
Wow - “people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems” is a profound statement. It implores us to pause and reflect as we continue to outsource "solutions" and our intuition solely to technology. Thank you for this thought-provoking piece!