Tom Woodbury
Apr 21, 2022

Martin: While I applaud the spirit of this essay, I implore you to stop blaming nature - human or o/w - for this crisis. "It is human nature not to care about your house maybe possibly getting flooded or burned down in ten years, if it means you’d have to stop driving your car today." No, it is NOT. That is called the pervasive conditioning of a consumer culture, which is anything but natural or humane. It is human nature to empathize and cooperate with others out of a concern for survival. That's how we gained ascendency, not by being selfish pricks. Thank you.

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Tom Woodbury
Tom Woodbury

Written by Tom Woodbury

Communications Director for Buffalo Field Campaign, ecopsychologist/author, M.A., J.D.

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I agree that a lot of our assumptions are conditioned by consumer culture, but I also think most people in any culture worry most about their short-term needs and wants, ahead of long-term planning. One could even argue that it makes evolutionary…

Yes, humans are capable of teamwork and altruism. But we are also capable of cruelty, tribalism, group-think, and short-term selfishness. What we do in any situation is on a knife edge, as human history shows time and time again. Our current culture…