The Solutionary Way: Transform Your Life, Your Community, and the World for the Better

Praise for

The Solutionary Way

From thoughtful personal stories of seemingly intractable problems to a wealth of tools that can help you develop your own solutionary skills, The Solutionary Way is filled with both extensive examples of the problems being addressed, along with potential solutions that can be implemented. Read this book. Become a solutionary.

—Shariff Abdullah, author, Creating a World that Works for All

In The Solutionary Way, Zoe Weil has woven an inspiring and wonderfully usable guide to living a virtuous and productive life in a fast-forward century that seems designed to confuse, paralyze, and divide. I particularly love her focus on progress-making as a practice and mindset, not gauged through a foreseen set of measurable outcomes. A lot of problems are posed when fitting upwards of 9 billion people on a finite planet, but if even a fraction of those humans become humane solutionaries, I see a bright future ahead.

—Andrew Revkin, New York Times environmental journalist, and co-author, The Human Planet: Earth at the Dawn of the Anthropocene

Some books give us what we want, and some give us what we need. The Solutionary Way gives us both: A path toward a more ethical, meaningful life and a process toward a future where everyone, human and nonhuman, can thrive.

—Moby, musician and activist

To address the sentient world’s biggest challenges, it’s not enough to inspire people. We’ve got to equip people. That means providing tools to build skills and the motivation to use those skills. Which is exactly what this book does. Practicing the solutionary way will benefit everybody—from you to your loved ones to our more-than-human roommates on this shared Earth.

—Irshad Manji, founder, Moral Courage College, and bestselling author, Don’t Label Me

As an antidote to the often siloed and quick-fix solutions offered to address the compounding crises plaguing Earth today, in The Solutionary Way Zoe Weil invites readers to slow down, step back, and look at the larger interwoven systems we’re caught in, and then to devise solutions that elevate the rights and wellbeing of the planet, people, and animals. Zoe offers a multitude of angles from which to diagnose problems so that we can minimize the unintended harmful consequences that may accompany our proposed solutions.

—Nandita Bajaj, M.Ed., executive director, Population Balance

If you are someone who sometimes feels despondent and even despairing about the state of our society and our world, this book is for you. In these times, many of us have felt hope for a peaceful and healthy future becoming increasingly remote. But this book showed me that even with all that is going so wrong in our world, it is far more possible than most of us think to take a life path that is clear, inspiring, practical—and leads us toward a world where all life can thrive.

—John Robbins, president, Food Revolution Network and author, Diet For A New America

Just as hope is a pipe dream without action, an equitable, sustainable future may be a pipe dream without this solutionary blueprint of Zoe Weil’s book.

—Robert Shetterly, founder, Americans Who Tell the Truth

I’ve spent decades working on behalf of people, animals, and the environment, and I’ve discovered that determining the best strategies is essential to having the biggest impact. This may sound obvious, but it can be challenging to find the most effective approaches that also align with your skillset and concerns. The Solutionary Way provides a framework for developing and pursuing solutions that lead to humane and sustainable systems that can endure. I give this book my highest recommendation.

—Bruce Friedrich, co-founder and president, Good Food Institute

Zoe Weil moves us to expand our compassion and challenges us to become what she calls solutionaries who can change the world. Through her words and example, she shares her many hopes and dreams for a more humane future that we can build together.

—Paul Chappell, executive director, Peace Literacy Institute

As a conservationist and documentary filmmaker, I’m always looking for strategic ways to address the grave challenges we face. I believe that if we embrace the solutionary process described in this book we will be on our way to building communities, nations, and a world where people, animals, and nature can thrive. Read this book for yourself and for our global future. Then put it into practice so we can build a healthy world together.

—Susan Rockefeller, artist and award-winning documentary filmmaker

The Solutionary Way is not just a vision for a more humane world but also offers a positive and practical guide for anyone to become an active contributor to positive change through evidence-based optimism and ethical problem-solving.

—Kiran Bir Sethi, founder, The Riverside School and Design for Change

The

Solutionary Way

Transform Your Life, Your Community, and the World for the Better

Zoe Weil

Foreword by Dr. Jane Goodall

Copyright © 2024 by Zoe Weil.

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.

Cover illustration: © iStock (background #1365741141, dandelion #49021 9610) Chapter title illustration: iStock: 1146828627 © Ksana-gribakina

Printed in Canada. First printing June, 2024.

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of The Solutionary Way should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below. To order directly from the publishers, please call 250-247-9737 or order online at https://www.newsociety.com.

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers

P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada

(250) 247-9737

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The solutionary way : transform your life, your community, and the world for the better / Zoe Weil ; foreword by Dr. Jane Goodall.

Names: Weil, Zoe, author. | Goodall, Jane, 1934- writer of foreword.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20240319524 | Canadiana (ebook) 20240319532 | ISBN 9780865719989 (softcover) | ISBN 9781550927917 (PDF) | ISBN 9781771423878 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Social change. | LCSH: Social action. | LCSH: Social advocacy. | LCSH: Problem solving.

Classification: LCC HM831 .W45 2024 | DDC 303.4—dc23

New Society Publishers’ mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision.

We are the flood, and we are the ark.

—Jonathan Safran Foer

Contents

Foreword

Preface: A Better World Is Possible

Introduction: Bad and Better at the Same Time

Chapter 1: A Solutionary Mindset for Next-Level Change

What I’ve Learned from Improv Comedy

Build relationships

Embrace Yes, and...

Bring the love

Help others shine

Cultivating a Solutionary Mindset

What Is a Solutionary Lens?

Solutionary = Next-level Changemaker

Solutionaries take problem-solving to the next level

Solutionaries take humanitarianism to the next level

Solutionaries take problem-identification to the next level

Solutionaries take activism to the next level

Chapter 2: Most Good, Least Harm (MOGO)

Would You Kill a Cousin for a Full Head of Hair?

The MOGO Principle

Do Our Personal Choices Really Matter?

Why the Superlative?

The 3 I’s

Inquiry

Introspection

Integrity

MOGO for Whom?

Which birds?

Which sea animals?

Which people?

Make MOGO Choices, But Don’t Stop There

Chapter 3: Thinking Like a Solutionary

Be Aware of Assumptions and Judgments

Resist Judgmentalness

What Is Solutionary Thinking?

Critical thinking

Systems thinking

Strategic thinking

Creative thinking

Challenge the Ten Instincts

Chapter 4: Preparing for Your Solutionary Practice

What Is the Story and Path that Led You to This Process?

What Are You Good At? What Do You Love to Do?

Did You Know?

Strive to Be a Campfire Rather than a Forest Fire

Chapter 5: The Four Phases of the Solutionary Process

Phase I: Identify

Select an issue to learn more about

Identify the problem you want to solve

Write down a problem statement

Phase II: Investigate

Connect with everyone you can who has a stake in the problem

Determine the causes of the problem

Research what has succeeded and failed at solving the problem

Phase III: Innovate

Develop solutions that address the causes of the problem, avoid unintended negative consequences, and do the most good and least harm to people, animals, and the environment

Determine which solutions are most solutionary and most feasible for implementation

Draft a plan to implement your solution

Phase IV: Implement

Implement your solution

Assess and share your solution

Celebrate and iterate

Chapter 6: Solutions

Food Solutions

Population Solutions

Economic Solutions

Production Solutions

Political Solutions

Criminal Justice Solutions

Biomedical Research and Drug Testing Solutions

Education Solutions

Conclusion: The Solutionary Way Is Good for You

Notes

Appendix 1: The Solutionary Framework and Solutionary Scale

Appendix 2: The Five Key Questions

Appendix 3: The MOGO Questionnaire

Appendix 4: Chart of Problems, Impacts, and Local Manifestations

Acknowledgments

About the Institute for Humane Education

Index

About the Author

About New Society Publishers

Solutionary

Noun

A person who identifies inhumane, unjust, and/or unsustainable societal systems and then develops solutions to transform them so that they do the most good and least harm for people, animals, and the environment.

A person who brings critical, systems, strategic, and creative thinking to bear in an effort to create positive changes that are equitable, restorative, and humane for all affected.

A person who seeks to contribute to humane and sustainable systems by making personal choices that support such systems.

Adjective

Pertaining to or characterized by solving problems in a strategic, comprehensive way that does the most good and least harm for all affected.

Innovative and far-reaching in a positive way for people, animals, and the environment.

Foreword

Zoe Weil opens this important book with the sentence A better world is possible. This belief underlies all my work. I am convinced that we must address the critical issues that this book highlights, such as the need for humane and environmentally responsible production of food, voting rights for all, and alternatives to animal testing for biomedical and other forms of research. There are dire problems facing us in all these areas and many more, but despite the challenges, we must not lose hope. For if we lose hope, we become apathetic and do nothing to promote change. And if young people lose hope, we are doomed. That is why the message in The Solutionary Way is so important.

In 1991, I founded the Roots & Shoots humanitarian and environmental youth program in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, when twelve high school students came to me with concerns about problems in their community. They felt powerless to help. I suggested they bring together their friends who felt the same, and at that meeting Roots & Shoots was born. We decided the main message would be that every individual matters and makes an impact on the planet (for good or bad) every day. And that because all these issues are interconnected, each group would choose three projects—one to help people, one to help animals, and one to help the environment. Or a project encompassing all three. Today that program, with members from kindergarten through university and beyond, is active in some seventy countries. These young people are my greatest reason for hope. Once they understand the problems and are empowered to take action in a program of their choice, they roll up their sleeves and get to work. Everywhere they are making a difference. Their energy, determination, and compassion are inspiring. Hundreds of thousands of young people are Roots & Shoots members, and there are many other youth groups around the world. They are indeed Solutionaries, identifying problems and developing solutions. I urge you all to join them in building a better world.

During one of my visits to Tanzania, we organized a meeting of different Roots & Shoots groups from around Dar es Salaam so that they could share their projects and encourage and inspire each other. We do this as often as possible in all countries. At the end of that meeting, the young people got together and shouted Together we can!—meaning together we can save the world. I told them, Yes, absolutely we can. But will we? This startled them, but they understood what I meant. Then I led them in a rousing Together we can. Together we will! And now, given how urgently we need change, we’ve added Together we must! As you read this book, keep this rallying cry in your heart. Together we can! Together we will! Together we must!

Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE

Founder—the Jane Goodall Institute

& UN Messenger of Peace

Preface:

A Better World Is Possible

A better world is possible. We have the ability to develop sustainable and humane food, production, energy, and other systems. We can end poverty and treat all people equitably. We can learn to solve conflicts without violence and create enduring peace. We can usher in a culture of compassion toward animals, slow the rate of extinction, and restore ecosystems.

How can we build this better world? By becoming solutionaries.

This book makes a bold promise: If you become a solutionary, in addition to making important contributions in your community and world that lead to a healthier, happier future for others, your own life will be enriched. You will have tools for bridge-building and meaning-making. You will make new friends and build collaborative relationships. You will develop a greater sense of agency and efficacy. This is not a feel-good book, but you are likely to feel better if you read it, put it into practice, and share the solutionary process with others.

I wrote this book for people who are already working to create change, as well as those who are frustrated, frightened, and furious but haven’t figured out how to channel these emotions into positive actions. I wrote it for those who are despondent and even despairing about the state of their communities, countries, and continents with the pledge that meaningful accomplishments and evidence-based optimism are the likely outcomes as you develop solutions to problems. I wrote it for Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, and baby boomers, because we all have a role to play in building a better future.

If you are someone who already identifies as a changemaker and wants new tools to be more effective and strategic, you’ll find these tools in the pages that follow. If you are feeling heartbroken about cruelty, outraged about injustice, and infuriated about environmental destruction, you will find a meaningful path forward. If you’re maddened by systems that are inhumane and myopic, you’ll discover how to transform these systems. If you are personally experiencing injustice and inequity, you’ll learn a process to help solve problems that are directly affecting you, your family, and your community.

Whatever motivated you to pick up this book, I offer you the solutionary way. It will lead you on an important and hope-inducing journey. Along the way, you’ll meet others walking beside you. Your destination? A world where all life can thrive.

Introduction:

Bad and Better at the Same Time

In 2012—before the COVID pandemic, before wildfires were regularly destroying forests and communities in countries across the globe, before hard-won rights were being rolled back, before polarization had become so extreme it seemed we could barely come together to solve much of anything, before childhood anxiety and depression were reaching epidemic numbers—I was invited to speak at a middle school in Connecticut.

I asked the fifth and sixth graders to tell me what they thought were the biggest problems in the world, and I wrote down what they said on a whiteboard until the board was completely full. Their list was similar to virtually every other group I’d asked, whether children or adults. One boy said sex trafficking, though he had not been learning about this at school. I asked the children to raise their hands if they thought we could solve the problems they listed. Of the forty-five children, only five raised their hands.

This was the most sobering moment in my then almost thirty-year career as a humane educator—someone who teaches about the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental sustainability, and animal protection and educates people to be solutionaries. I thought to myself: If these children can’t even imagine us solving the problems they named, what will motivate them to try to make a difference?

I knew I had to do something to restore their hope, so I asked the students to close their eyes and imagine themselves sitting on a park bench on a beautiful day at the end of a long and well-lived life. I painted a picture of the scene: The air and waterways around them were clean. The birds were singing. Species were recovering from the brink of extinction. There hadn’t been a war in more years than they could remember. No one went to bed hungry. We had learned to treat each other and other animals with compassion.

Then I asked them to imagine a child coming up to them and joining them on the park bench. I told them that the child had been studying history in school and had been learning about darker times, times they themselves had lived through. The child had all sorts of questions about how things had gotten so much better. Then I asked them to imagine the child asking this final question:

"What role did you play in helping to bring about

this better world?"1

I let them respond to the child in their mind before asking them—with their eyes still closed—to raise their hands if now they could imagine us solving the problems they listed on the whiteboard. This time, forty hands went up in the air. Envisioning a peaceful, healthy world, and knowing that they and the other children in the room would have a role in creating such a future, was enough to restore their hope.

A few years later, I was in Guadalajara, Mexico, to speak at a conference. The day before the conference began, I visited the school that was hosting the event. When I arrived I was invited to talk to some of the fifth graders. Remembering the time I’d spoken to the fifth and sixth graders in Connecticut, I asked these children to raise their hands if they thought we could solve the problems in the world. This time, every hand flew up in the air.

What was different?

Their teacher had been teaching them—in age-appropriate ways—about what was happening on our planet, specifically to our environment, and had been engaging them—also in age-appropriate ways—in solving environmental problems. Their school had installed solar panels, created a composting system for their food waste, and was utilizing large water jugs to refill reusable containers instead of using single-use water bottles. They knew problems could be solved because they had been solving them. They were learning to be solutionaries.

On the day I began writing this book in February 2022, this is what was being reported in the news: Russia was on the brink of invading Ukraine. COVID-19 was killing approximately 2,500 people every day in the United States alone. Canadians opposed to vaccine mandates were blocking the busiest US–Canada border crossing between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, which in turn was causing factories to shut down. Inflation in the United States was at the highest level in forty years.

Meanwhile, what was barely in the news that day were reports about the planet heating up, with too little being done to stop it, even though the threat of climate change was so apparent and severe that it was already affecting countless species and millions of people, including in wealthy countries with the financial means to pursue solutions. While climate change would appear in the news every time there was a heat wave, wildfire, or other climate-related disaster, it would disappear as soon as the emergency passed.

Nor was it newsworthy that within the year the world’s human population would reach eight billion. The month this landmark was reached, there was barely any mention of it at all, even though our population had doubled in fewer than fifty years, creating significant impacts on the ecosystems that support all of us, human and nonhuman.

While there were some reports the day I began this book about human rights abuses, the persistence of slavery perpetrated on tens of millions of people across the globe and the reality that around two billion people lived without access to safely managed drinking water,2 about 1.6 billion didn’t have adequate shelter,3 and approximately eight hundred million