Vandana Shiva has long advocated that we change our worldview from separation from nature to connectedness with it. In this excerpt from her essay New Paradigm: Earth Democracy, she addresses the root of the problem and urges us to again become part of the Earth community:
The same technological and economic systems that violate the planet also violate the rights of communities to her resources – the land, the biodiversity, the water. When land, biodiversity and water are reduced to tradeable commodities and privatized, not only are the rights of nature violated, the rights of communities are also violated. Pitting humans against nature and placing them outside the Earth community is an outmoded, fossilized legacy of capitalist patriarchy and mechanistic thought that gave us fossil-fuel based industrialism and colonialism and is now imposing militarized growth on communities. If our species is to survive, we must re- imbed ourselves in the planet and again become part of the Earth community. We must reawaken our duties to protect the Earth and our rights as Earth citizens to a fair share of her gifts. For this we need to revisit our concepts of growth and prosperity, we need to change the assessment of technologies to include the impact on the Earth and on society.
I’ve posted the entire essay here.
The Village Market 
Leave a comment