The world is broken. Our current story (the tale we tell ourselves of how human nature is meant to be) is toxic, suicidal and, more importantly, FALSE.
We are sold a story of humans being inherently selfish: we are out for what we can get, we are competitive, we push others down to put ourselves first. Our whole economic system is based on the idea of the selfish human. This drives competition and continual economic growth. Our relationship with nature is that of dominance, exploitation, and destruction. That is the way it is. Those who would have it otherwise are just “idealists”.
This is, however, just a story. The reality is that humans came to dominate the earth not because we are selfish, but because we are hyper-social. We look after each other, we work together, find solutions together, and we cherish and look after the places we live in. As a weak biped, we would not have got far on the African plains had we just led a solitary, defensive life.
Unlike what the horror movies would have us believe, when put under pressure by a pandemic humans did not turn into monsters. On the contrary (apart from some obvious exceptions!) we turned into fine human beings. We rediscovered our humanity and our society. We also reconnected with our own wildlife and our local places. 90% of those asked did not want a return to the old exploitative “normal”. We might have believed that society would break down under pressure, but in practise the opposite happened. Society rediscovered itself.
The story guiding society today is a falsehood. Ecological and climate breakdown means the lie has run its course. It is not possible to go on as we are. Continuous economic growth has destroyed much of the nature on which we depend, but it has not delivered the dream world that was promised. Growth, consumption, and consumerism has not even satisfied those who were successful. We must now re-write our human story.
YOUR BETTER NATURE is a new group of committed environmentalists from West Sussex. Tony Whitbread, Ecologist and President of the Sussex Wildlife Trust together with Paul Hannam, Author and Environmental Leader discuss some of the most important issues of our time. Conversations are directed by Jane Mote, presenter/film producer and ex-BBC journalist. Viviane Doussy moderates the discussion, drives the social messaging and helps bring everything together. We will be investigating how changing our human story at a systemic level will improve our lives and nature too.
YOUR BETTER NATURE offers a visionary discussion programme on ecology, environmental issues and behavioural change to prevent climate breakdown and ecological collapse. In this group we are committed environmentalists. We aim to create a global interactive channel through which we explore transformative strategies around the central theme that humans and nature can flourish together.
Join us for free, to participate in these 5 discussions using the zoom online platform for this particular series. Recordings will be made available afterwards on our YouTube channel.
Please keep Wednesday evenings 7-8pm free in your diaries for the whole of September. Book your tickets ASAP viaEventbrite as these events are anticipated to get over-subscribed.
