How can we be good ancestors?

Some thoughts and inspiration for living in a time when every choice matters

We live in a time when our choices matter; we are staring at a moral dilemma, says Robin Wall Kimmerer in her recent book, Serviceberry. "Our patterns of gross overconsumption have brought us to the brink of disaster."

Many of us recognize this, and as individuals, we're not quite sure what we can do about it, especially with a federal administration that understands the earth and all its living things as commodities to profit from. And so we are faced with the understanding that our lives are contingent on the lives of others, and forced to participate in an economy that annihilates the earth and its people.

Novelist and theorist Daisy Hildyard refers to the personal environmental impact that we all have as the “second body.” The “first body” is the physical self, and the “second body” is a version of the body—the body’s externalities.

You are stuck in your body right here, but in a technical way you could be said to be in India and Iraq, you are in the sky causing storms, and you are in the sea herding whales towards the beach. You probably don't feel your body in those places: it is as if you have two distinct bodies. You have an individual body in which you exist, eat, sleep, and go about your day-to-day life. You also have a second body, which has an impact on foreign countries and on whales.

Hildyard asserts that all of us walk around with a sense that our everyday actions are felt on the other side of the world. I feel this every time I throw something in the trash or get on a plane. There is a lingering sadness in the back of my mind, knowing that I am a participant in the destruction of our earth.

The desire to counteract these negative impacts is strong for many of us. Climate change implicates all of us, and that is a big anxiety to try to quiet, it creates a dissonance in our lives. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz acknowledges the impact,

Bafflement, suffering, and a sense of intractable ethical paradox are all, if they become intense enough or are sustained long enough, radical challenges to the proposition that life is comprehensible and that we can, by taking thought, orient ourselves effectively within it.

Attempting to orient yourself in the chaos of climate change is a challenge.

My husband and I have set out three principles that guide our lives. One of them is to "Be Good Ancestors," and I spend a lot of time asking myself, Can we truly be good ancestors? What choices can we make that support that aspiration? What can we look toward for inspiration?

For those of you who struggle with the same questions and are still harnessed to this destructive economy, here's inspiration I can share.

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I know a woman who changed her career. The change was partly inspired by the fact that her father got sick and died after years of exposure in his job working for a large agricultural biotechnology company. The name rhymes with "ponpanto." She shared her thoughts about the decision to move from interior design in the healthcare industry to sustainable construction services, "I think we all have a little voice inside of us. Sometimes we turn it down really low, sometimes we're not as in touch with it, but there was a voice that just kept saying that all of these materials that you're specifying are no good for the planet, and they might be making people more sick or they're not contributing to their health, and you don't even know what they're doing to the environment."

Her change wasn't a huge swing; she took the skills she had and applied them in a company that is committed to sustainable building practices.

But not all of us can do that. So what do the rest of us do?

We can change our individual behaviors. Even if they seem small, at scale, they make a big difference. This is what The Denver Climate Project is banking on. Their work nudges consumers toward more environmentally responsible choices. One of their campaigns involved a partnership with Goodwill, where they sold a line of upcycled clothing with proceeds supporting electric vehicle technician training. By providing the opportunity for consumers to buy products that reduce waste and benefit the renewable energy transition, the project offers people consumption choices that are in the best interest of the whole.

But the reality is that we need to rethink how our entire economy works if we want the Earth to be around for our children and their children. This is where examples of creative destruction offer us a way to rethink goods, services, and how we interact with nature and one another.

Ideas of mutual aid, reciprocity, and new ways of thinking about our economy, in more ecological and holistic ways, are abundant if you know where to look. Like that of Kate Raworth's Donut Economics model. The Donut is a model for sustainable development that envisions a safe and just space for humanity. Shaped like a donut: the inner ring represents the social foundations needed for well-being (like food, health, and education), while the outer ring marks the ecological ceiling humanity must not overshoot (such as climate stability and biodiversity). The goal is to thrive in the space between these boundaries, ensuring no one falls short on life’s essentials while collectively living within the planet’s limits. These kinds of macro ideas have tremendous potential.

But what about our day-to-day choices? Our current economy has grown so large that it has seemingly extinguished opportunities for investing in community well-being. But if you look around, gift economies and investments in the commons exist. For instance, Free Little Libraries, Buy Nothing groups, and makerspaces. These non-market market activities, where sharing and gifting are at the core, serve as incremental moves toward a more just economy. There's one example of this that I absolutely love.

Fallen Fruit is an art collective that brings together community, public space, and everyday life through fruit. Their projects range from creating maps of fruit trees and organizing nocturnal fruit forages to collaborating with cities to install public fruit gardens. They use fruit as both a material and a symbol. Their thesis is that fruit dissolves class boundaries—everyone can share in it. The result of the project is art that is participatory, democratic, and rooted in shared abundance. The idea that you could grab a friend and go out foraging for fruit with one of their maps (find yours here) is liberating and a great way to build resistance and community.

Our economy, as it exists, has no remedy for climate change. And so, we must get creative, together. And, in the meantime, marvel at the magic of nature, and as one of my favorite thinkers, Robert Macfarlane suggests,

"Be out, get out, look up, walk where and when you can. Be curious and be astonished by the world."