Observing Earth's Lifestyle

The book Observing Earth’s Lifestyle is an attempt to share one geographer’s perspective on how Earth lives. The author lived in North America, where the indigenous peoples have lived for tens of thousands of years with an active appreciation for their complete dependence on Earth’s lifestyle for their existence and survival. Modern society, although equally dependent, are usually oblivious to such dependence. Through this website, the author seeks to further expand on and share the observation of many others.

Now living in Belize in Central America the author has had to confront similar social pressures to ignore Earth’s lifestyle as the rising ocean threatens occupied land along the coast. Accordingly, it is becoming relevant to learn from indigenous Mayan forest farmers and local community environmentalists and archeologists, who offer new approaches to observation, using modern science.

The book outlines the consequences of the modern departure from an observation of natural forces as a source of living examples to a reliance on a lifestyle that assumes a lifetime quest to achieve “human control of nature”. This quest is the most prominent cause of today’s climate crisis. Traditional societies existed for tens of thousands of years before the modern era and they conformed to the harmony of Earth’s lifestyle. Our modern lifestyle of the past few hundred years has imposed its will on the land hoping to “improve on nature” through a variety of technological manipulations. This has caused nature to adapt its weather and climate to maintain its own overall harmony of operations. As a result the climate is becoming increasingly inhospitable to human survival.

The problem is especially critical in the USA, where the government is unprepared to face up to the consequences of living in combat with the natural environment. The country’s economy is the richest in the world. Its economic growth has depended fossil fuel consumption most responsible for the climate crisis. The current government has no interest in future generations. However, young people, who will inherit the unsustainable modern lifestyle are awakening to an urgent dilemma. They are joining a growing global movement discussed in Observing Earth’s Lifestyle.

The author, David Romain, applies his economic development and urban planning expertise to his geographic analysis of the global climate crisis. Today in 2020 the climate crisis has been upstaged by a coronavirus pandemic, which has been killing hundreds of thousands around the world. and its projected limits on future generations. He feels strongly that we owe it to our grandchildren to do our utmost to abandon our assault on the natural environment and revert to genuine Earth stewardship, with a particular focus on using Earth’s resources in a sustainable manner. In appropriate humility, we need to acknowledge our subordination to Earth’s environment and be mature in our response to the current global climate crisis.

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