Pablo Picasso
Family of Saltimbanques, 1905
Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.190
Global Inheritance
To the ecology community, particularly, our elders who are struggling to set a good example, and the mothers and fathers of families who are just beginning to learn about ecological reality. Scientists now agree, overwhelmingly, this present generation of Americans will inherit a dying biosphere of Planet Earth, depicted in The Tree of Biospheric Destruction!
Scientists believe we are in the midst of a mass extinction faster than the crash that occurred when dinosaurs died some 65 million years ago.
No grandparent or parent can possibly
desire to leave such an abominable inheritance. This is entirely unnatural. To improve
conditions we must awaken the unvanquishable power of the people.
Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number--
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you--
Ye are many--they are few.
[Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Mask of Anarchy, 1819].
There are three steps to a creative
leap forward: identification of self-imposed constraints or assumptions; removal
of them; and exploring the consequences of their removal. [Russel L. Ackoff,
The Democratic Corporation 99 (1994)]. Action to replace the dying
biosphere with a "Healthy Planet" starts, therefore, with a decision by Americans
"in unvanquishable number" to learn how to recognize the self-imposed constraints
or assumptions reflected in The Tree!
Recognition of the self-imposed
constraints that produce the appalling existing situation will make it possible
to design and implement a viable strategy for the removal of those constraints,
which is the second step of a creative leap forward, according to Ackoff. In
short, when tens of millions of Americans grasp the appalling existing situation
and become sensitive to the big picture of natural existence, we can wage the
good fight all together for a sustainable future and win. GO TO:
The Tree!