In high school I learned that living systems, if they are healthy, achieve a state of dynamic equilibrium. That is they are in balance. There are a lot of processes going on but they act on each other to stay in balance. A simple example is any local ecosystem prior to man’s arrival. There may be too much rain or too many of one kind of species for a while, but the overall ecosystem comes back into balance over time. Without humans, the whole earth would be in a kind of dynamic equilibrium.

Clearly humans have thrown the natural balance of the planet out of whack. We’re using a huge amount of energy and creating a huge amount of waste product. Without a change, the energy required to keep human progress going will run out. More people chasing a better life will need more and more energy—more coal, more oil, more water, more food. More energy for more machines and more energy for more humans.

More energy use means more waste by product—carbon dioxide, methane, toxic chemicals, trash. And this waste is what’s threatening to throw the planet into a new state of dynamic equilibrium that will be extremely detrimental to humans and other life on the planet. Balance will be restored but at the cost of many lives and much hardship. But you probably know this already. The question is can we change?

To change the way we act requires a change in beliefs and values. Right now most people on the planet are operating with a core set of beliefs that is not aligned with our best interests or the true nature of the universe. We believe that the pursuit of happiness equals the pursuit of stuff, of wealth. We think the more stuff we have the happier we’ll be. Our economic systems are set up to encourage this, to promote “wealth creation.”

But it turns out, according to Jeremy Rifkin in The Empathetic Civilization, that “once people have achieved a minimum level of well-being that allows them to adequately survive and prosper, additional accumulations of wealth do not increase their happiness but, rather make them less happy…” [p 497].

The idea that we must accumulate all that we can, that life is a competition, is ingrained in all of us. “I’ve earned this stuff, it’s mine, and the government doesn’t have any right to take it and share it with others who didn’t work for it.” That’s the way the prevailing value system shakes out if you’re a “conservative.” But unless we refocus on creating a dynamic planetary equilibrium for all, rather than wealth creation for a few, we face disaster for all.