Maya Wisdom and the Survival of Our Planet

We now live in the Anthropocene, the first epoch of our own making. We have altered the Earth's atmosphere, landscapes, and bodies of water. The burning of fossil fuels has warmed the planet enough to change weather patterns, melt glaciers, and raise sea levels, a situation made worse by rampant deforestation and resource depletion. Many look to governments to confront these existential challenges. In Maya Wisdom and the Survival of Our Planet, Lisa Lucero looks to the Maya, past and present.

Through the lens of the traditional Maya inclusive worldview--one in which humans are part of the world, not separate from it, and where everything is connected--Lucero provides a practical roadmap on how to sustainably address climate change and environmental degradation. She shows how the Maya collaborate with rather than try to subjugate forests, animals, soils, water, and other nonhuman entities. The Maya sustainably farmed for millennia and provided goods, labor, and services to their kings in cities. In return, kings performed vital ceremonies to the Rain God Chahk, other gods, and ancestors to replenish urban reservoirs that lasted throughout the long dry season--a balancing act that worked for over 1,000 years.

Lucero shows how approaches to tackle climate change from the bottom-up, beginning with the family or household, are just as important as top-down governmental mitigation, and how learning from traditional knowledge is vital for the survival of us all. She brings to life the tropical jungles of Central America and reveals the valuable solutions its ancient and contemporary inhabitants offer us to save our planet.

Lisa J. Lucero is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has been conducting archaeology in Belize for over 35 years and is the author of Water and Ritual: The Rise and Fall of Classic Maya Rulers and co-author of If the Past Teaches, What Does the Future Learn? and Changing the Atmosphere: Anthropology and Climate Change.

Preface
Acknowledgments--Thirty-Five Years' Worth
Introduction
1. Setting the Stage: Then and Now
2. The Maya
3. Chahk, The Capricious Rain God
4. The Maya Inclusive Worldview
5. Relations with the Three Realms
6. The Maize People
7. House and Cosmos
8. Water Lily Kings
9. Yax Cities
10. The Survival of Our Planet
Index