ECOMIND

Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want

FRANCES MOORE LAPPÉ

Pub. Date: September 13, 2011

**A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Science Book for Fall 2011**

“For veteran activists, or …those who have shied from the subject…An accessible introduction to the
psychology of this ‘historic challenge,’ … an enthusiastic shove toward reflection.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Powerful and inspiring, Ecomind will open your eyes and change your thinking. I want everyone to read
it.”
—Jane Goodall

“A small number of great people in every generation are forerunners, in thought, in action, spirit, who
swerve past the barriers of greed and power to hold a torch for the rest of us. Lappé is one of those
people.”
–Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

Reports of our planet appear uniformly calamitous, as our climate becomes more chaotic, hunger
spreads, and each day species are lost forever. Yet, these crises aren’t our core challenge, argues
environmentalist and best-selling author Frances Moore Lappé. Solutions are known or near at hand,
she explains. What is holding us back is a deeper crisis: our own crippling mental frame that creates a
feeling of powerlessness in us, so we end up creating a world none of us want.

What could be powerful enough to rob us of power to act on what we know? Lappé’s answer is the
power of ideas. In ECOMIND: Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want
(Nation Books; September 13, 2011), she presents evidence that human beings see the world through
the filter of our core beliefs—what she calls our “mental map.” And the disempowering premise of our
prevailing mental map is lack—there’s not enough of anything, from energy and food to goodness in
human nature. This premise of “lack of goods and goodness,” she says, breeds fear, guilt, and despair;
and ends up creating the very scarcity we are trying to escape.

Today’s dominant mental map is unscientific, she writes, out of sync with what we now know about
nature, including our own nature. With insight from neuroscience and ecology’s lessons of
connectedness and change, we can, however, learn to “think like an ecosystem.” Through this
emerging mental map we suddenly see possibility all around us and realize our power to change
course. This internal transformation marks the cultivation of our “eco-mind.” Drawing on
anthropology, biology, ecology, neuroscience, and psychology, Lappé creates a unique, intriguing
reframing of our environmental and social crises. One by one, she deconstructs seven widely held
“thought traps” that make up the prevailing mental map. She replaces each with fresh, creative ways of
seeing—“thought leaps”—that open our eyes to possibility, giving us a new sense of power, meaning
and connection.
For example, Lappé—who describes herself as a “possibilist” rather than an optimist or pessimist—
challenges the assumption that widespread deprivation proves that “we’ve hit the limits of a finite
planet.” Lappé reveals instead how human-made rules disrupting nature, not nature’s limits, generate
massive waste and deprivation. With surprising stories from the world over, she offers a “thought leap”
in which we see that, in aligning economics with nature’s laws, there’s more than enough for all.

Dismantling the thought trap “we must overcome humanity’s natural resistance to rules,” Lappé
reminds us that “the nature of nature is rules, and humans love rules that enhance our sense of
belonging.” As evidence, she provides stories of new rules—from those turning Germany into a green
energy leader to those created by Indian villagers to protect their local forests—that have taken off with
lightening speed. These rules work, she explains, because they reflect our commonsense and directly
involve everyday citizens in shaping them.

Lappé even takes on the thought trap that in order to move toward the world we want, we must change
human nature from its greedy, selfish ways. In her thought leap, she draws on scientific evidence
demonstrating that humans evolved with just the capacities for cooperation, empathy, imagination, and
power we most need now. With an “eco-mind,” she argues, we realize that we don’t have to change
human nature: The proven answer is creating the conditions that bring forth these much- needed
capacities. And it’s now happening, throughout the world, she shows us.

Lappé demonstrates how “thinking like an ecosystem” reveals the power within each of us to
contribute to solutions. Her innovative outlook on our global crises revolutionizes common approaches
to our environmental and social problems. With surprising evidence, on-the-ground solutions, and an
unfailing belief in the transformative power of rethinking failing ideas, ECOMIND is a toolkit for bold
action for all citizens of earth.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Frances Moore Lappé is the author of seventeen books including Diet for a Small Planet, which now
has three-million copies in print. She is the cofounder of three organizations, including Food First: The
Institute for Food and Development Policy and, more recently, the Small Planet Institute, a
collaborative network for research and education seeking to bring democracy to life, which she leads
with her daughter Anna Lappé. They have also cofounded the Small Planet Fund, which channels
resources to democratic social movements worldwide. Lappé appears frequently as a public speaker
and is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and Alternet. The recipient of the Right Livelihood
Prize and the James Beard Foundation’s “Humanitarian of the Year” Award, she works in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.

ABOUT THE BOOK

ECOMIND:
Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want
By Frances Moore Lappé
Published by Nation Books
September 6, 2011
978-1-56858-683-0
$26.00 (US)/$30.00 (CAN)/hardcover • 295 pages