We the People Declare a Worldwide Align With Reality Day

Get back on the highway leading to smarts, arts, and growing bigger hearts

In honor of Earth Day, today’s manifesto is from my book, The New Now: Manifestos, Reinventions & Declarations: Updated & Expanded.

Light Between the Trees / 2025 / Russell C. Smith

Once upon a time, it was a good thing to be smart in the United States. Smart people moved our culture ahead in brilliant ways, writing culture-shifting and mind opening books, created scotch tape that worked, and building rocket ships that flew to the moon. Smart people possessed visions and dreams we still talk about today.

And now, we’ve endured decades of the dumbing down of the American educational system, and putting a silly notion in peoples’ heads that appearing smart, brilliant, a genius, or being an expert in your field is somehow suspect or wrong. What? LP vinyl record scratch movie moment! How the Hell did we get here? And how do we get out of the Stupid Zone as quickly as possible?

Declare it’s good to pick up a book, freely and often. Read whatever you want to read. Ignore the ones who want to stifle the growth of your mind, heart, and spirit. Read every day. Don’t know what you want to know about? Just follow your nose. You get to decide what you want to put inside your mind.

If global pandemics can become a daily reality in the blink of an eye, so can creating a world that’s better for all of us addressing the Climate Emergency now, by making a global green agenda a primary issue. We’ve done the impossible already. We’ve already been to the moon. Now, how about saving the planet for future generations? We’ve already created healthcare systems and vaccines in record time that have saved millions of lives. We’ve already been led by people with smarts and hearts. Sometimes, letting history repeat itself is a good thing. We need smart humans who want to be writers, artists, poets, political leaders (with hearts), scientists, doctors, musicians, healers, architects, world-changers, future-builders, and visionaries.

It’s time to declare intelligence as one of the key elements of being human—and one of the most important tools we’ll use to figure out a way to deal immediately with the next viral pandemic and the global Climate Emergency that’s already here, and will continue dangerously disrupting our lives on Earth.

During the first weeks of pandemic lockdown in the United States, with no air travel overhead, and freeway congestion coming to a standstill, the sky in Los Angeles was visibly clearer. How good would it be to have cleaner air every single day in the New Now? Do we want to go back to bad air and poorer health?

Facing the reality of our situation shows intelligence. Wanting to alter our reality for the betterment of all humanity is worth striving for. Shifting our culture in ways that lift us all is a massively important goal.

When every child on the planet sees the massive scope of the problem of a Climate Emergency more clearly than many elected officials, it’s time to make fundamental changes in how elected officials are held responsible—not just in this current political moment, but for future generations. Now’s the time to begin asking every politician, placed both high and low, in and out of office, what can each of us do, today.

Up until a short while ago, the Climate Crisis was falsely presented as one political party against the other, when reality itself was called into question. The dialogue has now become smart science-minded, reality-based humans against humans who are OK with destroying our home planet.

If you’re a Climate Science Denier, you’re clearly not in touch with your senses. It’s on the news every single day. If you walk outside you’ll experience it. The Climate Emergency has already ravaged our planet with superstorm-sized hurricanes and continent-engulfing wildfires. The oceans are literally rising. Every state in the United States, and every continent on the planet has been impacted by the Climate Crisis. It’s only going to get more intense, dangerous, and deadly. Wildfires in Canada and the United States are worsening year by year. It’s literally unsafe to go outside and breathe in toxic air in Portland, Seattle, and New York City. If, after having witnessed these events, you’re still a Climate Science Denier, here’s some good advice: step away from the smartphone that’s smarter than you, and seek professional help. The obvious changes in our climate that occurred before the global pandemic brought human life on Earth to a standstill, and should’ve gotten your attention. Scroll through your news feed. It’s there every day. Scientists have connected the dots, and have confirmed that, yes, what’s going on with our first global pandemic is associated with the eco-disasters that’ve already swept the planet.

We’re smarter than this as a culture, and as a species. Back in the 1960s and 70s, we were on the track to being smarter as a whole, back when everyone could receive a higher education without accruing a massive debt burden. Time to say no way, go back, turn around. Get back on the highway that leads to smarts, arts, and growing bigger hearts.

Smart is cool. Dumb is a decision. Libraries are free in every city. Digital and physical bookstores are wonderful to wander through. Independent bookstores are national treasures. The Strand Bookstore, in New York City; Powell’s Books, in Portland, Oregon; Elliott Bay Books, in Seattle; the venerable and historic City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, in San Francisco. Any book lover who has set foot inside these temples of books has felt a sense of awe and gratitude for the written word. Never in the history of our species inhabiting this globe has such an impossibly overwhelming number of books been at anyone’s fingertips. You can read yourself silly or mad, read until your mind is aglow, and read for comfort, joy, self-knowledge, and clarity.

In the middle of the twentieth century, cultural intellectuals representing every point of view were on major talk shows, tossing around big brain ideas, and discussing culturally diverse thoughts and doing so with informed opinions. Seeing brilliant writers and public intellectuals on TV programs, often in a format where they could talk at length, and transform the social dialogue with conversations lasting for half an hour was an education on how language and thought could meld seamlessly together and entertain, as well as intelligently comment on the world.

For those who can sense it, there’s something in the air again—possibilities are expanding, along with the intelligence and empathy of curious people. Humans are finding out they’re capable of being much more than they ever believed possible. People are living longer, evolving quicker. Same is true for the upcoming generations. Only more so.

Children have taken over the Climate Emergency conversation, and this is thrilling to behold. It’s the direction the world is going—smarter, more assertive children speaking up and saving the planet. One has to applaud them and marvel at the stark difference from how things used to be. People who want to turn the clock backwards are consumed by fear. Today’s children are fearlessly full of wonder.

Even if you look the other way, the rest of us are doing what it takes to create a greener and more sustainable world. Honor your own experiential truth, and step aside from the constant churn of the brainwashing media machinery. Don’t kid yourself. The Climate Crisis isn’t a debate. We’ve already crossed that threshold. It’s happening and intensifying. People in the desert are experiencing wildfires. In the desert.

Every country in the world must dedicate themselves to pursuing a green agenda, and move past the senseless wars and cultural and behavioral norms that could eventually destroy humanity.

Globally, cultures must shift to a human rights perspective. There’s already been enough senseless brutality inflicted upon women and children due to outmoded culturally reinforced rules of conduct installed thousands of years ago. Uninstall these foolish codes of conduct destroying the lives of girls and women.

It’s time to shift our focus. Turn dreamers into doers, and planners into makers. We can create a future world where war is replaced by acts of loving kindness. After the recent worldwide waves of divisive wrongheaded backwards-looking populist movements, it’s time for the opposite. It’s time to create the New Now we’ve all collectively dreamed about for centuries.

With these things in mind, let’s declare that intelligence, creativity, and loving kindness go hand in hand, and are the guiding lights in a free and open society. Declare that Climate Emergency Deniers shouldn’t be allowed to even pretend to be political leaders. Declare an end to dumb being cute or anywhere near acceptable. Declare we can all aim to become kinder, more empathetic, and yes, even more curious, and wonder-filled today than yesterday.

Pick up a copy of The New Now on Amazon. In eBook or paperback.

Thank you, with deep appreciation for your support.

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