For too long, the world’s decisions have been made in rooms filled only with humans.

Those decisions have brought us to a world on the brink of environmental collapse. We need help from outside the room.

So, we’re going to invite animals in. We’re going to ask for their perspective.

Then we’ll invite scientists in to help us learn how to listen.

We’ll invite artists too (this will be interesting — scientists and artists haven’t properly been in a room together for a long time).

At this point we’ll need a bigger room.

Now we’ll ask wolves in, farmers, pigs, ecologists, hawks, policy makers, beavers, film makers.

Now here come the elephants.

The bison!

Sharks. Cows. Bears.

Bigger!

Then some people will argue about whether we should allow rocks in the room. The debate will go on for a while, but if we ask the rocks in, we’ll definitely need a bigger room.

The water will come in. The fungi. The microbes.

At this point — and no one may quite realize it — the room has become the world.