Essay
by Sarah Jaquette Ray
The environmentalist Paul Hawken says, “The most complex, radical climate technology is the human heart and mind, not a solar panel.” What would it mean to imagine the heart and mind as the most important green technologies, and to invest in them? To broaden our idea of climate action beyond the tunnel vision of international agreements and infrastructural solutions?
These “technologies,” if you will, are not new; they apply ancient wisdom to our current moment and shift our attention toward connection, not (just) reducing emissions, as the medicine for what ails us and the planet. If a technology is merely an application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, then all kinds of approaches can be technologies.
Increasingly understood as science, too, many wisdom traditions offer a compass for such an endeavor—including traditional ecological knowledge, Theravada Buddhism ...