Three big quandaries of the 21st century, with regard to the environment, globalization, human rights:

• How can we get people to care about distant places and global events?
• How can we prevent the tragedy of the commons?
• How do we squelch people’s desire to conquer the world, to over-consume in the face of abundance?

The seas are the only natural boundaries between countries on our tiny planet. They are the no-man’s land, where we throw our trash, literally owned by no one. One country’s pollution mingles with another’s. Floating bits of plastic with no allegiances, they are pure, eternal evidence of our detachment. Eternal, on the short-sighted scale of lifetimes.

We need an updated myth, a metaphor that will help us see our impact and that will guide our behavior. A collective change in behavior could solve some of the wicked problems. A clean, tidy, contemporary mythology, a perceptual shift. The Native Americans referred to all life—trees, rocks, everything—as thou, not it. Thou, the term of reverence. They lived on this land for 10,000 years without creating resource problems.

What is the new myth?