There is no question that these are challenging times. Yet humanity lived through a dangerous climate in earlier times. How can we live now?

Even if we work together globally to reduce population growth, the status quo is not an option. This is because we will not solve the climate change problem or our economic woes by behaving in the same manner that created the problem – by depending on the premise that the world was made for humans and humans were meant to conquer and rule it. This story casts humans as the enemy of the world. Unlike any other species on the planet, we compete wantonly with all other species: we exterminate them, systematically destroy their food supply, and restrict their access to food to make room for our own. Ever since we developed agriculture some 10,000 years ago, we have maintained an inherent belief that control over nature is not only possible but beneficial. We uphold attitudes, based on the “laws” of natural selection and survival of the fittest, which presume that dominance equals fittest or best and that therefore, as the dominant species, whatever humans do is proper.