New Scientist - Major Methane Release Almost Inevitable - We're Likely A Few 10ths C Away

[GliderGuider]

25. That's the fundamental misperception of how change happens.

We tend to believe that "wise men" (or strong men, or foolish men) lead, and eventually if they are right (or strong enough, or just lucky), things change.

I thought that way since I was born and raised by progressive, humanist, engaged, caring socialist parents. Then I noticed that the world didn't actually seem to work that way. Sometimes "good" people led the change, and often "bad" people led it. But the world seemed to march to its own drummer. Often the leaders, whether good or bad, wise or venal, simply reflected broader changes already happening in society. So I started turning over stones looking for why that happened. This is what I've found.

I no longer think that's the way change happens. What makes the most sense to me in terms of what I've observed about social change is this: Most change of the kind we're talking about doesn't happen in society's head, or its heart. I happens down in the guts, where society digests its food. It happens not at the level of thoughts or emotions, but at the level of raw feelings like hunger - hunger for better food, for a faster car, a better job, a better mate, hunger for acknowledgment and excitement, hunger for power - hunger for more.

Yes there is greed here, but we have to own it - greed is the value judgment we lay onto hunger. Greed isn't just the affliction of the men in mahogany boardrooms - they are simply the purest expression of the hunger we all feel. They are as trapped by the system I've identified as any of us who feel we are their wage slaves.

So let's say we do try and own our own hunger - what do we do then? This is where the power of the individual comes into its own. If I recognize those cravings in myself, then instead of projecting them angrily or sadly out onto those men in the boardrooms, I can learn to say, "Enough." I can recognize the consequences of satisfying my own hunger, and decline to play that game. I may not be able to turn 7 billion people aside from this path of hunger-ruin, but I can step off that path myself. I can tell others what I've done. And some of them may follow. Not a lot, it will never be a lot. But perhaps enough for right now, for right here. It's all I can do.

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. And the more you know about where you are and what you have, the more you can do.