"You cannot solve a problem with the same level of consciousness that created it." -Albert Einstein
Well folks, it's the end of the world as we know it.
And according to Mayan elders, like Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum (pictured below) of the Quiche Mayan branch in Guatemala, to understand the Mayan prophecy is to understand the Mayan worldview, in which time is cyclical not linear and life is continual – it has no end. This "end of the world as we know it" is a shift in consciousness.
I already see the dynamics of this new consciousness emerging.
- Imagine every nation with a green (energy-efficient, low-carbon) economy that eradicates global poverty
- Imagine that a nation’s well-being and standard of living is measured not by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) alone, but supplemented with indicators that take into account the value of a country’s environmental goods and services, human well-being and quality of life; indicators such as carbon emissions, renewable energy, forest and water stress, waste collection, recycling and reuse rates, literacy rate, levels of harmful chemicals in drinking water, number of people hospitalized due to air pollution, and access to modern energy, water and sanitation.
- Imagine a future in which sustainability goes hand-in-hand with gender equality and empowered youth.
- Imagine a world in which coal-consuming China adopts a general policy of Ecological Civilization, which places ecological goals for the country at the same level of priority as goals for economic, political, cultural and social development. (That JUST happened. Congress adopted it last month.)
Don’t know what I’m talking about?
As a Peace Corps Volunteer working with the municipality in Macedonia on development projects that seek to improve the local economy, environment and well-being of our citizens (triple bottom line), I’m constantly trying to keep up with the latest innovative technologies and sustainable development strategies of the United Nations and European Union so that Macedonia can be a pioneer in this field instead of always lagging a few steps (or 50 years) behind. My research this past year has been both wonderfully and frustratingly energizing.
There is SO much movement and energy around the world of people working towards a sustainable future that we often don't hear about in the news headlines, yet at the same time the process is painfully slowed by current political and economic roadblocks.
Every day there are meetings taking place around the world about the well-being of our future as a global community. There was the 2012 U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this past June that drew 45,000+ leaders from around the world to renew and refine commitments to sustainable development 20 years after the1992 Earth Summit in Rio when the world’s nations first committed to sustainable development. There was the Doha Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar last month marking the first time that climate change negotiations took place in the Middle East. That meeting changed the very structure of all future climate negotiations by making sustainable development goals the same for developed and developing countries. Representatives from both the developing and developed world now sit at the same table to solve challenges together.
And earlier this month, the U.N. Environment Programme held a conference in Geneva with international leaders to redefine measures and indicators of a nation’s standard of living based not only on GDP, but on those very indicators I listed in the beginning of this email. These meetings are changing the future – changing the ways we will measure success, the ways we will do business – with emerging concepts such as: green growth, green industry, green technology, innovative technology, clean development, climate compatible development, low carbon economy, and inclusive green economy. The world, as we know it, is shifting.
Having studied ecology and the intricately interconnected ecosystem of our world, where cause and effects know no borders, my heart rejoices to be alive at this unique time in history. We are living history, and as Albert Einstein infers above, in order to solve the problems we’ve previously created, we must take on a higher consciousness to do so.
It is not the first, nor will it be the last shift in consciousness, as these sorts of shifts seem to have occurred throughout history in approximately 5,000 year cycles as documented by the Mayans. I recommend an intriguing film “2012: The True Mayan Prophecy" that lets the Maya people speak for themselves and shares their wisdom through interviews with Rigoberta Menchu and other Mayan Elders, as well as interviews with Nobel Laureates Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama and leading scientists who share their wisdom about what we should all be doing today to create a better future.
It's a 50-minute film that you can watch here: westword.com/
Welcome to an era of new consciousness. And ready or not, we have work to do!
Lots of LOVE from Macedonia (where it's already 12/21/12),
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