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Environment

From Mother Earth to Biotechnology
Adapted from an advance copy of  
The Power of Partnership by Riane Eisler 
 by New World Library

Creatures of the Earth are being squeezed out by ever more people. Holes in the ozone layer let in cancer-causing radiation. Global warming is melting our polar ice, threatening our coasts. Pollution fills our seas, our air, and our food, and every one of these problems is of our own making.

It is clear that our relationship with nature is terribly out of balance. Many of us are beginning to realize this, and to realize that it is up to us to help change our course. This article outlines the problems that are caused by today's dominator culture and shows how a return to a partnership model can help. It also provides a list of things you can do to help change our course.

Technology and Industrialization 
Those who fight environmental regulations claim that there is neither an environmental problem, nor a population problem. All that is needed, they tell us, is increased production and consumption. But in truth, environmental problems are actually the result of these kinds of "solutions."

Through technology and industrialization we have changed the face of our planet, and caused devastating environmental crisis. But the problem is not industrialization itself. There is no intrinsic reason that industrial technologies have to exploit and pollute our environment. With progress toward a partnership orientation have come laws to protect our environment and industrial processes that avoid waste and pollution. The problem is the dominator culture in which they were developed. Overconsumption is inherent to dominator societies where consumption is a symbol of power and control is a substitute for emotional and spiritual fulfillment. If we believe the dominator ethos of "man's conquest of nature," we will likely do irreparable harm. If we seek partnership and harmony with nature, technology could vastly improve our lives. 

Population
World population is growing by a staggering 90 million people each year causing ever more encroachment on wildlife, desertification, and resource depletion and pollution. How can we defuse this "population bomb"? Study after study shows that the only humane way to reduce population growth is for women to have free access to family planning and equal educational and economic status. To do this, we must accelerate the global shift from domination to partnership.

Economic Rules 
Our present economic system depends on a cycle of overconsumption and despoliation. As long as businesses do not include in the cost of manufacturing what economists call "externalities" - such as the cost to our environment of damaging industrial processes - we cannot curtail activities that pollute our air and water. We need economic rules that support partnership relations, environmentally responsible corporate charters, international treaties that protect nature and new economic rules that accord value to the work of caring for our Mother Earth.

Protecting Nature and Ourselves: What you can do 
To protect our natural environment we must work for systemic cultural changes both big and small. Changing our own habits of thinking and living contributes to change. Joining together to make our voices heard can also have an impact on business and government policies. Environmental groups have expanded popular awareness about our environmental problems while others are working to defuse the population explosion through family planning and raising the status of women. 

There are many things you can do to help. No one can do it all, but each of us can do something. Here are some possibilities: 

At Home

• Support CPS in its continuing efforts to spread partnership world-wide.
• Recycle and reuse when possible.
• Buy biodegradable soaps and pesticide-free produce. 
• Use nontoxic methods of pest and weed control.
• Use energy-efficient light bulbs and drive a car that has fewer emissions and better gas mileage. 
• Call phone-in talk shows and counter the lack of information in the media. 
• Write editorials for the mainstream press.
• Obtain a list of environmentally and socially responsible companies from Co-Op America and buy from them.
• Vote for government officials who support funding for family planning both at home and abroad. 
• Work to get those who oppose this funding out of office.
• Invest in stock from socially and environmentally responsible businesses.

At School

• Support Partnership Education that includes environmental education.
• Ask your school district to replace diesel school buses with natural gas, or better still, with electric school buses.  

At Work

• Adopt manufacturing methods to recycle materials and avoid waste.
• Join environmentally responsible professional and business organizations such as Businesses for Social Responsibility, the Social Venture Network, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and the World Business Academy.
• Encourage your workplace to conserve energy and water.
• Encourage your workplace to use recycled paper products.

Reaching Out

• Lobby for government regulations that protect our environment. 
• Join groups such as Planned Parenthood International, Population Action International, Zero Population Growth, the Pathfinder Fund and the Population Institute that provide family planning technologies. 
• Write legislators to support the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which mounted a massive educational campaign that links overpopulation with environmental and human rights issues. 
• Support organizations dedicated to raising the status of women, such as the Ms. Foundation, the Global Fund for Women, and Women's International Network 
• Join environmental organizations, for example, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Earth Island Institute.
• Write your representatives not to weaken the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to reduce emissions of the gases that cause global warming. 
• Write the Environmental Protection Agency and ask that genetically engineered products not be sold until tested for long term effects, and then clearly labeled. 

Remember that you are not alone, that thousands of groups all over the world are working to restore our Earth. But more of us need to also work to change the values that are driving us to the brink of ecological disaster. We urgently need cultural values that support partnership rather than domination - that teach us that we are part of a miraculous web of life interconnected with our Mother Earth. We need to strengthen partnership values and leave behind the old programming of conquest and control that has kept us from moving to more balanced and harmonious relations with ourselves, with others, and with Nature.

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