Let me start by saying something that sounds controversial but actually isn't:
Climate change isn't our biggest problem. It often gets treated that way, but not only is climate change a symptom of a much deeper problem, it's also a symptom of a way of life that few of us are really happy with anyway.
If we really want to go to the root of climate change, we need to start asking ourselves some very deep questions.
Questions like:
Who am I? What is my relationship to the community of life on Earth? What does the most beautiful future I can envision actually look like? And what story will help us get there?
These are the questions we need to focus on, because if there is one thing I have learned, it is that our stories have an immense power to shape the world.
No individual has the power to chop down a whole forest or enslave a whole people by themselves. It takes a story that is believed by many more people who act together to accomplish such feats.
Stories provide roles and context in which our behavior makes sense. For example, our culture's dominant story of “progress” sees the conversion of biodiverse forests into palm oil plantations or tar sand oil developments as something positive for society.
Stories affect the world because they are stories we are enacting, and in enacting the present story of the modern world, we are undermining the life-support systems upon which we depend.
In discussing solutions, it is also clear that the stories we have been telling about the crises we face are not working.
The way we have been framing climate change, species extinction, deforestation, inequality, crime, poverty, and war isn't getting to the root of the problem.
So what is it?
At the heart of it I believe is the idea that human society is somehow separate from and superior to the natural world.
If the world is an “other” that is not “me,” then what I do to the world does not affect me. Today, this "story of separation" is being exposed as the root of our problems. New non-profit or government programs, new organizations, new laws or new leaders aren't going to help us if we don't challenge and change the underlying story.
More and more people recently have been talking about this - pointing out how our narratives about the world's problems take for granted certain assumptions about the value of economic development and our human-centered, materialistic notions of progress.
Climate change is often framed as a problem in itself, while the true cause remains unaddressed. We want to 'solve' climate change while leaving intact the globalized infinite-growth economic paradigm that is causing it.
This is one reason why many people have a gut-level resistance to the notion of 'sustainable development'. Implicit in the phrase is that we want to go on as before - commodifying the natural world, turning the living biosphere into profitable units for sale in our imaginary human economy. The push by business and government leaders caught within the old story is to find a way to sustain a way of life that more and more people are realizing is not sustainable.
And therein lies the problem. It can't be done! You can't sustain a system that is unsustainable!
So long as our solutions remain tied up in sustaining the unsustainable, our efforts will take us further off the cliff.
That is why we urgently need new narratives that break the spell of the old story.
These new stories must expose the invisible assumptions of our old narratives. But most of all, these new stories must capture our imagination - they must awaken in us our collective dreams of the more beautiful world that we know is possible.
The future does not belong to those who want to make the bad problems less bad. It doesn't belong to those who say that sustainability means giving things up or 'living with less.' It belongs to those who know that this transformation of the world is about saving all that we cherish and love. It belongs to those who see that this transition into a new way of being will offer our lives a meaning and joy that the old story could never have imagined.
This revolutionary shift in our culture will be brought about by those who can articulate the most meaningful story that we can be a part of.
It isn't about giving up things we want. It's about attaining things we never thought were possible to have - joy, meaning and experiences that make life unbelievably worth living.
The new story is about giving some things up, things like insecurity, stress, violence, poverty, loneliness, disconnection, a lack of community and meaning - all those things that make life miserable for so many in the world. All of that we are ready to give up.
So what is the alternative story? What are the new narratives? Such a question cannot be answered in a single statement. But over the years I have come across many excellent films, articles and books that articulate this story in their own way.
Following then, is a collection of some of the best alternative narratives about our world. Taken together, they articulate the more beautiful world that, deep in our child-like hearts, I believe we know is possible.
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8 min ·
The old story of our culture is losing its meaning for more and more people. Perhaps almost everyone can feel it these days. But a new story is emerging too - one that recognizes some long forgotten truths about who we are and our...
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51 min ·
David Korten’s inspiring and extensively illustrated presentation of his book The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. David says we are at a defining moment in all of human history.
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Joanna Macy ·
When you know where to look, you begin to see an unprecedented phenomenon now happening in this world of ours. Be they teachers in favelas, forest defenders, urban farmers, occupiers of Wall Street, designers of windmills, military...
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35 min ·
Peter Russell’s award-winning video, based on a live audio-visual presentation in 1983. He explores the idea that the Earth is an integrated, self-regulating living organism and asks what function humanity might have for this planetary...
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Daniel Quinn ·
"We know it's too much to ask, but if we could encourage every city official, business owner, student, and citizen to read this book, it'd be amazing.
Besides being incredible in terms of seeing the building of "civilization"...
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6 min ·
What matters in life? Who are we? Every culture has answers to these questions. And the way we answer them has profound effects on the health of people and planet.
This is a consciousness-shifting clip from the excellent film "Occupied...
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Joanna Macy ·
Something important is happening in our world that you are not going to read about in the newspapers. I consider it the most fascinating and hopeful development of our time, and it is one of the reasons I am so glad to be alive today...
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Tim Hjersted ·
People are waking up.
They're getting involved.
They're saying, "Not another day! This is where I mark the line."
Their desire to change the world is turning from simple wishful thinking on Monday mornings into tangible action.
The...
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65 min ·
Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. It has also worsened nearly every problem we face: fundamentalism and ethnic conflict; climate chaos and species extinction...
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85 min ·
Join acclaimed director Velcrow Ripper on a journey deep inside the global revolution of the heart that is erupting around the planet. Humanity is waking up to the fact that the dominant system of power is failing to provide us with...
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65 min ·
Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview is a documentary exploring the depths of the current human condition and the emergence of a worldview that is recreating our world from the inside out.
Weaving together insights and findings...
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109 min ·
Permaculture designer Andrew Faust gives us an inspiring and heady narrative about the evolution of all life and human consciousness on Mother Earth.
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66 min ·
This film is an inspirational immersion in the Transition movement, gathering stories from around the world of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. There are stories of communities printing their own money, growing food...
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86 min ·
Money & Life is a passionate and inspirational essay-style documentary that asks a provocative question: can we see the economic crisis not as a disaster, but as a tremendous opportunity?
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Daniel Quinn ·
Daniel Quinn is the author of many works including The Story of B, My Ishmael, and Beyond Civilization. His first book,
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Kenny Ausubel ·
In this epic moment of radical environmental and social disruption, the world is experiencing the dawn of a revolutionary transformation to becoming an ecologically literate and socially just civilization.
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60 min ·
Never before in history have so many people relied on so few for the basic essentials of life.
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7 min ·
"We have heard the rationales offered by the super powers. We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species, who speaks for Earth?" - Carl Sagan
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Ashish Kothari ·
A Way to Achieve Global Human Happiness Without Destroying the Planet
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84 min ·
In 2004, thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers from all four corners, moved by their concern for our planet, came together at a historic gathering, where they decided to form an alliance: The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous...
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51 min ·
Bestselling author, political adviser and social and ethical prophet Jeremy Rifkin investigates the evolution of empathy and the profound ways that it has shaped our development and our society.
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Elizabeth Oriel ·
How we think about and talk about ecological crises and our role in them form the structures of our responses. This is why thought forms, concepts, frames as George Lakoff calls them, are all central, form the crux, of attempts to...
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2 min ·
Based on David Suzuki's best-selling book of the same name, and filmed on five continents, THE SACRED BALANCE celebrates a new scientific worldview, an inclusive vision of nature in which we human beings are intimately connected to all...
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30 min ·
Economics of Prout covers the basic economic principles of Prout, which offers a viable alternative to the materialistic, anti human philosophies of Capitalism and Communism.
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12 min ·
Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth.
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90 min ·
Wake up to your own role in creating a new future. This new perspective of the current state of our planet features top scientific, indigenous and activist minds from around the world. Now available for the first-time ever on video...
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9 min ·
Recording with Thomas Berry, who was interviewed by Caroline Web in February of 2006. Berry is talking about Human-Earth Relations. "The human is here for the perfection of the Earth, not the Earth here for the perfection of the...
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22 min ·
In the words of filmmaker Tom Shadyac, "The shift is hitting the fan." We're experiencing the dawn of a revolutionary transformation. This awkward 'tween state marks the end of pre-history - the sunset of an ecologically illiterate...
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81 min ·
Featuring many key figures from Europe and the U.S., this is the first documentary film to look with scientific thoroughness at the world of Cultural Creatives. It shows that a great mass of people think differently from the way...
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Velcrow Ripper ·
“The future belongs to the most compelling story.”
— Drew Dellinger
Humans are story-makers — we are continually weaving disparate events into coherent narratives. It gives form and substance to our life journey; it gives us meaning...
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Timothy S. Bennett ·
Part 1: The River of Vision
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Charles Eisenstein ·
Sometimes I feel nostalgic for the cultural mythology of my youth, a world in which there was nothing wrong with soda pop, in which the super Bowl was important, in which America was bringing democracy to the world, in which the doctor...
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85 min ·
This film presents an optimistic alternative to apocalyptic doom and gloom. Directed by Emmy Award nominee João Amorim, the film follows journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, author of the bestselling 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on a quest...
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13 min ·
"Every action and decision we take - or don't - ripples into the future. For the first time we have the capability, the technology, and the knowledge to direct these ripples."
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5 min ·
How we see the world determines how we act. Western thought sees us at war with each other over resources. In Indigenous philosophy, we are all related as individuals in balance with nature. This video juxtaposes these two world views...
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5 min ·
Thom Hartmann describes a society based on cooperation and the idea that we're all in this together. Compares our current "me" society with a potential "we" society.
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Articulated above is a new and powerful story that personally inspires me. It draws from the wisdom and knowledge of cultures both ancient and new. It is a story worth belonging too.
I believe it is a story so compelling that, as the world hears this new story, will begin enacting it. And as we begin to enact the new story in our every day lives, all those problems that stem from the old story will begin to lose their sway over the world.
From changed hearts and minds will spring forth enumerable actions, solving our myriad crisis at its root, through billions of tiny different ways of being.
“The future belongs to the most compelling story.”
— Drew Dellinger
Tim Hjersted is the director of Films For Action and can be reached on Facebook. Hat tip to Chris Agnos at Sustainable Man for contributions to this article.