On this hour-long interview with New Dimensions host Michael Toms, Thom Hartmann (The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation) talks about the respect ancient societies gave to elders who were seen as bearers of wisdom. These gifted individuals had processed information transmitted down to them over thousands of years. They, unlike those today who emphasize the "short term," were interested in the big picture.

Hartmann believes that we can learn a lot from indigenous peoples, their rituals, and their spiritual ecology. One of the toxic stories we tell ourselves in modern Western society is that we are separate and disconnected from others and the Earth. This view has also led to the egregious disparity between consumer cultures in the West and the rest of the world. Over three billion people live on less than two dollars a day. As Americans drive to work alone in our cars, 120 species a day are vanishing as a result of habitat destruction and pollution. And in the last 24 hours, 45,000 people died of starvation, including 38,000 children.

Hartmann shares some of his ideas on possible antidotes to the excessive consumerism of the United States, overpopulation, and addiction to the media — namely television.