E. F. Schumacher Society Pamphlet Summaries
Distributing Our Technological Inheritance
Gar Alperovitz, 1994
Gar Alperovitz argues that our current sophisticated technology builds on a history of scientific achievements which are rightly our shared cultural inheritance. He then constructs a philosophical argument for broad distribution of the profits earned from the capitalization of this technology. In the process he examines some of the practical ways that such distribution can be achieved.
The Assemby: A Tool for Transforming Communities
Donald Anderson, 1996
Anderson describes the fruit of his life's work, the idea of the Assembly. The purpose of the Assembly is to strengthen neighborhood institutions and leadership at the grassroots level, so that people can take charge of their own lives and their own communities. The Assembly, pioneered in Surry County, Virginia, provides a representative structure for community transformation and a means of continual communication among community members. When people have a real say in shaping the communities in which they live, many things are possible. Among the most rewarding results are the flowering of unsuspected talents of leadership and achievement in a human scale society.
Capitalism, the Commons, and Divine Right
Peter Barnes, 2003
Peter Barnes defines the commons as "the sum of all we inherit together and must pass on, undiminished and more or less equally, to our heirs." The commons includes watersheds, air, DNA, playgrounds, Main Street, radio waves, political systems and numerous other natural resources and social innovations. Barnes suggests that the commons should be held in trusts for the benefit of current and future generations, as a way of countering the power of the market and its search for short-term private profits.
Every Being Has Rights
Thomas Berry, 2003
The audience knew they were part of a memorable gathering when Thomas Berry delivered his 2003 Schumacher Lecture. Paul Winter came with saxophone in hand to honor a living sage; every face beamed. It hardly mattered what Thomas Berry said, but what he did say reminded us that we are a part of a common universe in which every being has the right to fulfill its destiny and the right to joy. Thomas Berry's cosmology is deeply rooted in respect for all living things. His inspired lecture is a testament to this respect.
The Ecozoic Era
Thomas Berry, 1991
We presently face a radical transition in Earth's history. "[W]e have already terminated the Cenozoic period of the geo-biological systems of the planet. . . . A renewal of life in some creative context requires that a new biological period come into being, a period when humans would dwell upon the Earth in a mutually enhancing manner." Berry outlines the conditions required for the emergence of an Ecozoic Era, a time for healing the damage done to Earth and learning to live in harmony with it again. Drawing on the experience of Native Americans, he urges renewed understanding of the Great Story: the combined stories of community, Earth, and universe. Berry calls on Elders of the Tribe to inspire future generations with this vision, since only with a new myth to replace the current entrancement with a destructive technology will they "be able to endure the pains of transformation" sure to come.
The Family as a Small Society
Elise Boulding, 1983
Elise Boulding argues that the household unit because of its scale, authenticity, and depth of relationships can be an effective tool for social change in the local community. She contrasts "global systems" with "planetary systems." The military, international corporations, and global markets which make up global systems she describes as serving institutional interests; whereas the network of non-governmental organizations which make up planetary systems and whose members are small scale household units, have roots in and serve actual places. Boulding has faith in the endurance of this "planetary localism."
It's Healing Time on Earth
David Brower, 1992
The first stage of the James Bay hydro-electric development project submerged four thousand square acres of northern Canadian forest. In the last eighty years the global population has tripled and the population of California has gone up by a factor of twelve. We may already have destroyed the botanical ingredients of a cure for AIDS. In this lecture Brower delivers these and other stories of the ecological destruction taking place in all parts of the Earth. He embellishes his narrative with stories of people working for ecological restoration and examples of the "miracles of wildness." Brower also identifies a strong public wish to assist with ecological restoration and urges us all to participate in restoration projects.
The Role of the Individual in Localizing Money Issue and Credit Creation
Christopher Houghton Budd, 2005
Houghton Budd explains how we as individuals relate to the complex worlds of Money and Capital. He shows that an understanding of these aspects of the monetary world as well as an awareness of the importance of accounting give new meaning to the maxim, "Think Globally, Act Locally," both in terms of macro-economic realities and micro-economic desicion-making - and how these two are linked. Houghton Budd concludes with profound advice for those who care about investing their money in ways that truly make a difference at the local level.
Sustainable South Bronx: A Model for Environmental Justice
Majora Carter, 2007
Majora Carter, founder and Executive Director of Sustainable South Bronx, points to environmental justice as the civil rights issue of the twenty-first century. She advocates economically sustainable projects informed by community needs. Her work to counteract environmental health hazards and high unemployment in her community includes the promotion of green roofs, greenways, clean technology, and a green-collar job-training program and workforce.
Stories From an Appalachian Community
Marie Cirillo, 2000
When asked by Vice President Gore what she would do if elected President, Marie Cirillo said she would introduce a program of land reform. For thirty-three years Marie Cirillo has lived and worked in Clairfield, Tennessee, located in a valley hemmed in by two big mountains, and made up of a network of twelve unincorporated communities—most of which are former coal camps. Her single goal has been to gain some measure of economic self-sufficiency for the Appalachian people whose land and livelihood were wasted as a consequence of the extractive practices of absentee corporate owners. Marie's first task was to regain control of the land for human settlement and restoration by establishing theWoodland Community Land Trust. Her struggle for and with the people of the region to achieve that purpose makes her one of the true heroes in the effort to reverse the patterns of globalization.
Ecologically Sustainable Economic Development: Not Just Another Pretty Face
George Davis, 1993
George Davis devoted his MacArthur fellowship to mapping the watershed of Lake Baikal, the largest fresh-water source on earth. Using zoning methods, conservation easements, and the community land trust model for the productive land, he has undertaken to implement a sustainable economic development plan for the watershed to ensure the protection of this important world resource in the face of the many changes going on in the former Soviet Union. His motto, "Listen to the land, listen to the people," has helped him create cohesiveness among the various interest groups, including emerging regional government authorities, environmentalists, entrepreneurs, academicians, and representatives from foreign countries. His approach is highly effective and his lecture an important addition in a series on environmental issues. The E. F. Schumacher Society is working with Davis Associates to implement a regional land trust in the Olkhon region of Baikal.
The Management Explosion and the Next Environmental Crisis
David Ehrenfeld, 1990
In this lecture Ehrenfeld examines the consequences of "the extraordinary proliferation of administration, of bureaucracy, of management, the increasing percentage of people in our society who control events but do not themselves produce anything real." Ehrenfeld gives examples of management that has become itself a raison d'etre, grown far beyond a size appropriate to its necessary modern-day role. When management grows so large, "it appropriates and stifles the life of the society." He then gives several suggestions on how to curb managerial excess, with the admonition that "[t]o survive with the many good features of our society intact and with our environment in a liveable condition, we must solve the problem of bureaucracy before it solves itself . . ." because "management, like anything undergoing perpetual growth, will eventually bring itself under control by running out of resources."
Flapping Butterfly Wings: A Retrospect of TRANET's First Twenty Years
William Ellis, 1998
Bill Ellis has spent the past twenty years searching out the people and organizations with the best applications of appropriate technology. He records and circulates his findings through TRANET newsletter, thereby helping facilitate the person to person exchanges that empower small communities
around the world to successfully solve technological problems at the local level.
A Map: From the Old Connecticut Path to the Rio Grande Valley and All the Meaning Inbetween
Chellis Gledinning, 2000
"I come to you from a place where the earth is pink”—thus Chellis Glendinning begins her warm evocation of place, the place in New Mexico where she lives, the particular spots on the map where other people have learned to set their roots, connect with the land, and live their lives in effective harmony with their surroundings. She contrasts the ways in which the Europeans who invaded America (including her ancestors) regarded place, as the battleground for empire and exploitation, with the way the mostly Chicano people she lives among—the "down-to-earth people,”as one of her friends puts it—regard their place. They are trying to resist that empire, fighting against Wal-Marts and the Bureau of Land Management and the developers stealing from their ancient land grants. But however ugly and powerful the forces of what she terms the "global economic empire” may be, the challenge to them is really based on a deep feeling for place that she calls "a map of love;” in today's world, as she puts it, "loving the earth is a political act.” And this map, she shows, can apply to all of us, no matter where we live.
Wagner And The Fate Of The Earth: A Contemporary Reading of The Ring
Hunter Hannum, 1993
Wagner's four operas comprising The Ring of the Nibelung have long been subject matter for scholars; Hannum offers a new interpretation based on the work's relevance to contemporary society which is suffering an environmental crisis without, as Thomas Berry says, a vision to guide it forward on a path to sustainability. The Ring, according to Hannum, is a drama that elucidates the "destructive elements of our age" while offering "a vision of healing and wholeness." Hannum critiques the 1898 analysis of The Ring by G.B. Shaw, finding his rejection of the work's tragic aspects and his misreading of the drama's denouement illustrative of the "heroic" phase of the scientific-technical age in which Shaw lived. Instead, Hannum argues that the drama's denouement-Brunnhilde's return of the stolen gold to the Rhinemaidens-is a symbolic pointer toward ecological restoration and a vindication of Nature and the Feminine vis-a-vis the power of the patriarchy, as represented by the work's male characters. Hunter Hannum presents composer-poet Wagner as an artist who, in a myopic industrial-commercial age, demonstrated a vision encompassing the fate of planet Earth.
Democracy, Earth Rights, and the Next Economy
Alanna Hartzok, 2001
It is only in recent human history that land has been enclosed and the rights of use given to a few people, as opposed to a whole community. Alanna Hartzok points out that individual equality, even in a democracy, cannot exist without equal rights to the abundance of the earth. She presents solutions that have been successful in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, including restructuring taxes so that land value, a communal asset, is taxed instead of wages or buildings.
Ten Million Farmers
Richard Heinberg, 2006
It is high time that solution accompanies the discussion of peak oil. Heinberg conveys to us the urgency of converting our current agricultural system while options for doing so are still available. There is something highly dysfunctional and ultimately destructive about a system of food production that requires ten kilocalories of energy to produce one kilocalorie of food. His solution is a decentralized agriculture system relying on the productive capacity of regions, not long-distance transport of products. Small-scale, organic farming would decrease our current dependence on fossil fuels and prepare us for the is the inevitable end of cheap oil.
Development Beyond Economism: Local Paths to Sustainable Development
Hazel Henderson, 1989
In this lecture Henderson evaluates the need for a broader definition of economic development, one which measures progress and prosperity by social as well as by traditional econometric measures. "Guiding societies by today's over-aggregated indices is like trying to fly a Boeing 747 with a single oil pressure gauge! The social indicators debate is about disaggregation, revealing overlooked detail, locally and sectorally, and adding a whole row of additional gauges to...societies' 'instrument panels' so as to plug feedback into decision-making with more precision and timeliness." She describes her experiences in developing countries which are trying to act independently of "Eurocentric industrial development theorists" in order to gauge economic progress more accurately and respond to their countries' real needs.
The Wisdom of Leopold Kohr
Ivan Illich, 1994
More than any other thinker of the twentieth century, Illich has challenged institutional bureaucracies and provided a strong voice for the small communities. In this lecture, Illich reflects on Kohr's efforts to lay a foundation for an alternate to economics, and traces historic attitudes of proportionality, scale, reasonableness, and economic scarcity.
Women and the Challenge Of The Ecological Era
Dana Lee Jackson, 1990
The era of greed and dominance must end. In the Ecological
Era, according to Jackson, "we must learn from nature and
from women in order to transform our destructive patterns...The
first step... is to cultivate and elevate in importance
some of the qualities and values most generally associated
with women that can help us abandon our suicidal patterns."
We can then "combine what we have learned in the ecological
era and what we have learned in the feminist era to respond
to environmental crises."
Becoming Native to this Place
Wes Jackson, 1993
Wes Jackson, co-founder of The Land Institute in Salina,
Kansas, and pioneer in sustainable agriculture, is once
again a pioneer-for sustainable communities. Years of seeing
the harm done to his beloved prairies through the implementation
of corporate agricultural practices determined his dramatic
move to the small, almost abandoned town of Matfield Green
in the Flint Hills of Kansas. Instructed by the history
and traditions of the people there before him, Wes has undertaken
to renew the town on an ecological and sustainable basis.
It is a large undertaking, even as Wes is large, and it
may not be successful; however, he has only one choice and
we with him-to try. His lecture is a powerful affirmation
of this spirit of renewal.
Call For A Revolution In Agriculture
Wes Jackson, 1981
Jackson points to agriculture-in particular to the methods
of till agriculture, which cause soil loss and destroy the
soil's water-holding capacity-as our "number one environmental
problem, aside from nuclear war." As practiced, modern agriculture
undercuts the very basis of its own existence and thus jeopardizes
the future of the human population. At the Land Institute
in Salina, Kansas, Jackson and others are working toward
a sustainable system of agriculture based on patches (rather
than fields) of perennials (rather than annuals), a "system
that is at once self-renewing like the prairie or forest
and yet capable of supporting the current human population."
Jackson urges that we stop using the reductionist language
of science and economics in our studies and applications
of ecology, and instead use language and metaphors that
spring directly from nature.
The Economy Of Regions
Jane Jacobs, 1983
According to Jacobs the healthiest economic regions are
those which have strong and innovative import-replacing
cities of their own. The economies of such city-regions
are shaped and reshaped by complex, economically enlivening,
interrelating forces originating within their own regions.
Such regions, she says, become capable of producing amply
and diversely for their own people and are not passively
manipulated by specialized economic forces from distant
cities.
Cold Evil: Technology and Ethics
in Today's Society
Andrew Kimbrell, 2000
When Andrew Kimbrell examines what is causing the greatest
social and ecological havoc in today‘s world, it is not
what we traditionally think of as evil—crimes committed
in the hot passion of the moment. Instead the problems stem
from our misuse of technology, a technology wielded by some
very nice people, neighbors we have come to like and trust.
Kimbrell blames the scale of technology that creates a double
distancing between the user of technology and the consequences
of that use. The lecture is a highly original reflection
on the current condition of our society.
Why Small Is Beautiful: The Size Interpretation of History
Leopold Kohr, 1990
"The answer to all questions underlying all our problems
today is the size factor-not unemployment, not warfare,
not juvenile delinquency, not business fluctuation, not
Black Mondays, Black Fridays, or Black Tuesdays." According
to Kohr we must reduce the huge size of modern nations in
order to reduce their negative consequences. Using anecdotes
and analogies Kohr shows why small is beautiful. Just as
the small size of a harbor will diminish the power of great
swells arriving from the open ocean, so can small communities
mediate the impacts of our global society's ocean-sized
operations. This is the "harbor philosophy"; its application,
says Kohr, is "the only prospect that will enable human
society to survive."
Creating a Post-Corporate World
David Korten, 2000
David Korten is co-founder of Positive Futures Network (publishers
of Yes! magazine) and the People-Centered Development Forum.
He is best known for his analysis of the social and ecological
problems wrought by global corporations. In his lecture
he explores alternatives to an economy dominated by a few
giant enterprises.
Voices from White Earth: Gaa-waabaabiganikaag
Winona LaDuke, 1993
LaDuke, a member of the Mississippi Band of the Anishinaabe
from the White Earth Reservation, is a strong and clear
voice for the return to traditional land-holding patterns
of her people. She explains how, in order to sustain the
life of the Anishinaabe, her people have need of different
kinds of land; the lakes for harvesting wild rice, the forests
for hunting, and the meadows for gathering herbs. The earlier
artificial allocationof square plots of the White Earth
Reservation to individual tribal members and the inevitable
loss of the Anishinaabes' land through sale to outsiders
has resulted in a mosaic of land use that separates the
community from its traditions. Her own work is devoted to
restoring the integrity of the White Earth Reservation by
repurchasing sold land and holding it in a community land
trust arrangement so that it may be productively used without
fear of loss. The story she tells is a moving one and provides
a practical approach to healing a wounded people and wounded
land.
Towards A Politics Of Hope: Lessons
for a Hungry World
Frances Moore Lappe, 1985
According to Lappe economic rules taken as dogma have allowed
an increasing concentration of decision-making power over
wide-scale food production and distribution: it has come
to reside largely with land-owning minorities, with "governments
beholden to self-serving elites," and with the international
corporations that dominate world trade. The roots of hunger,
she says, lie not in the scarcity of resources but in the
scarcity of democracy. A "politics of hope" working toward
food for all must encourage trust in our deepest moral sensibilities.
Of Corporations, Law, and Democracy
Thomas Linzey, 2005
Linzey is engaged in the work of "collective nonviolent disobedience through municipal lawmaking." As the co-founder and staff attorney for the nonprofit Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund he has dedicated himself to changing the method of governance in the United States. For democracy to be a reality Linzey believes that a shift must be made from "regulating the activity to defining the actor." His lecture gives hope and direction to our communities that are too often plagued by absentee governing and ownership.
Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial
Revolution
Amory Lovins, 2001
Amory Lovins is clearly one of the world's most brilliant persons. It is fortunate for us all that he applies his thinking to caring for the environment. In Natural Capitalism he argues for the viability and profitability of industries creating that are creating energy- smart products. Not content to only merely observe and comment, he jumps in to the designing of new products design, taking risks,investing time and money, giving practical examples, and making hope of a future industrial society based on sound biological principles seem feasible.
Greening the Campus from a Purchasing
Perspective
Kevin Lyons, 2002
To talk of the importance of using more ecologically responsible
products is easy; to implement their use in our institutions
is a different journey. As purchasing agent for Rutgers
University, one of the largest state educational institutions,
Kevin Lyons had the opportunity to put theory into practice.
His story reveals his dogged determination, attention to
small details, consensus-building with stakeholders, frustrations,
humble courageousness, and willingness to be marginalized--all
necessary to effect change. It is the story of a hero of
our times.
The Ice Is Melting
Oren Lyons, 2004
Oren Lyons is a tribal chief of the Onondaga Nation. Although
referring to himself as unlettered, he communicates the
wisdom Native Americans have passed down over the centuries.
As Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan he is responsible for
maintaining the Clan's customs, traditions, values, and
history-all of which he tells about in his compelling lecture.
He takes us back to the days of the Founding Fathers and
shows how influential Native Americans were in guiding them
in the formation of a democratic government. Chief Lyons
focuses on what is urgently needed today: waking up to the
coming global catastrophe represented by global warming;
a return to responsible leadership; and giving thought to
seven generations ahead in our decision-making.
Economic Globalization: The Era
of Corporate Rule
Jerry Mander, 2000
Jerry Mander, who has long been in the forefront of the
anti-globalization movement, sets forth here in clear and
impassioned terms the devastating effects of the current
global economy—"the most fundamental redesign of the
planet's systems since the Industrial Revolution"—and
shows how such measures as the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment are designed to make the rich richer and the
poor poorer. But he also shows the steps that can be taken
by individuals and groups in opposition to globalization
to protest and resist its domination and raise the fundamental
issue of "who should make the rules we live by." Delivered
just a few weeks before the great protest demonstrations
in Seattle in November 1999, this address predicts the powerful
forces that gathered there and suggests the ways in which
the anti-globalization movement can continue to make its
voice heard and truths manifest in future struggles.
Bringing Power Back Home:
Recreating Democracy on a Human Scale
John McClaughry, 1989
Although for generations the government of Vermont rested
with the administrators of its 246 towns, the last thirty
years have seen a slow but steady growth of central power.
According to McClaughry Vermonters are in danger of losing
true citizenship and therefore of losing their democracy
as more and more decisions affecting their lives are made
by distant functionaries. "[T]he place where you belong
and where you recognize those who belong and those who are
strangers, where the good of everyone is tied together in
an interconnected web that is ruptured only at the peril
of everyone in the community‘that is where citizenship resides."
Reiterating the central theme of The Vermont Papers: Recreating
Democracy on a Human Scale (co-authored with Frank Bryan),
McClaughry calls for a federation in Vermont of new political
bodies called "shires," which would be big enough to take
back the powers lost to the state and small enough to allow
direct citizen participation.
John Deere and The Bereavement
Counselor
John L. McKnight, 1984
Just as the sod-busting steel plow was destructive of the
healthy agricultural development of Wisconsin, modern service
technologies such as bereavement counseling can be destructive
of the natural caring web of community. According to McKnight,
costly service technologies are often counterproductive,
resulting in a community's loss of traditional wisdom and
social commitment. He recommends the recultivation of social
forms that do not replace consent with control or replace
diverse cultural behavior with service monopolies or make
citizens into mere clients and consumers.
The Community's Role in Appropriate
Technology
George McRobie, 1982
George McRobie, founder with Fritz Schumacher of the Intermediate
Technology Development Group in London, discusses the role
of intermediate technology in building self-sufficient regional
economies. He explains that engineers should be trained
to scale down their designs to meet the cultural, economic,
and natural resource conditions of local place. When engineers
design to save energy and capital, rather than save labor,
the resulting technology facilitates the creation of large
numbers of workplaces rather than centralizing manufacturing.
He sees intermediate technology as a tool to redistribute
wealth, giving back to communities, families, and local
organizations the power that has gradually been taken from
them.
The Company We Keep: The Case for
Small Schools
Deborah Meier, 1998
Deborah Meier argues that at the heart of civic life are
responsible relationships; we learn by the company we keep.
Meier goes on to contend that our system of large schools
tends to discourage responsible interactions by their very
scale. Not content to just criticize, she outlines the steps
she and her colleagues have taken to shape small schools
within the public school system, increasing continuity of
staff, more interaction between age groups, and a sense
of community.
Bob Swann's "Positively Dazzling
Realism"
Stephanie Mills, 2004
Writer, editor, ecologist, and activist Stephanie Mills
has been involved with matters ecological, bioregional,
social, and political for over thirty years. Although her
books and essays have largely fallen under the rubric of
nature writing, in her lecture she presents a portrait of
Robert Swann, co-founder in 1980 of the E. F. Schumacher
Society and its president until shortly before his death
in January 2003. Focusing on his life-long active non-violence,
participation in the civil rights movement, and introduction
into this country of the community land trust, she describes
how Swann became an inspiring spokesman for community economics
and was instrumental in advancing a community-based economic
movement that continues to grow. Mills is eloquent in her
portrayal of Bob Swann as "a visionary of the here
and now."
Making Amends to the Myriad Creatures
Stephanie Mills, 1991
The purpose of the rapidly growing discipline called ecological
restoration is to heal damaged landscapes by reinstating
their original plant and animal communities, thereby making
amends for humankind's degradation of ecosystems. Thousands
of people nationwide are involved in this rigorous, labor-intensive,
painstakingly slow work. Mills, author of Whatever Happened
to Ecology?, tells about current projects, describing the
difficulties, pitfalls, and rewards in store for those who
return a given area to its earlier biological diversity,
stability, and beauty. Mills shows that protecting wilderness
is not the only motive behind restoration: another is to
regain a sense of belonging to and depending on one's local
ecosystem, with the hope that "cultural interaction with
[it] will inculcate a moral restraint on the impulse to
control and determine, to expand and exploit," resulting
in a sustainable way of life for future generations.
Declaration of Independents
Stacy Mitchell, 2006
Independent business in the United States has been under attack in recent decades. Large chains, or "big-box" stores, have dominated the market for nearly every product, in the process homogenizing our once unique Main Streets. Now local communities across the country are fighting back, and Mitchell is helping to shape the tools. As a staf member of the Institute for Local Self Reliance she creates effective guidelines for communities struggling to resist corporate invasion. Her lecture describes the application of these innovative programs that provide hope for the future of independent business.
How the Conquest of Indigenous
Peoples Parallels the Conquest of Nature
John Mohawk, 1997
Blending social history, of which he is a teacher at SUNY
Buffalo, with an ecological perspective, Mohawk is able
to draw the parallels among various cultures from the ancient
Greeks to the Spanish conquerors to the Nazi Germans. Each
of them essentially believed in a Utopian idealism in which
certain people are destined for greatness and other people,
and the environments in their way, are to be destroyed or
ignored. This is now the philosophy underlying global capitalism
and its institutions, and the reason why the world is in
such trouble. Indigenous people understand that, and it
is by connecting with their wisdom and their way of thinking
that we can begin to ask some serious questions about where
we are headings and at what costs.
Reclaiming Community
David Morris, 1996
David Morris, co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance,
describes the growing tension between the globalization
of economies and the localization of politics, between our
role as consumers and our role as citizens. He suggests
that the resolution of this tension lies in Schumacher‘s
call for local production for local consumption. An impersonal
globalized information economy can co-exist with a localized
physical economy. To achieve this goal requires instituting
new rules to favor production methods which are accountable
to community and place.
Moving Toward Community:
From Global Dependence to Local Interdependence
Helena Norberg-Hodge, 1996
Norberg-Hodge, who is the founder and director of the International
Society for Ecology and Culture, here presents an eloquent
argument in favor of worldwide action to oppose the global
capitalist economy and its monoculture with revivified and
strengthened local economies and communities. Drawing on
her experience, particularly in Ladakh in northwestern India,
she shows clearly how much of a menace to tradition and
stability is the newly powerful global economy, how destructive
of culture as well as environment. But using her experience
there in local organizing and cultural survival, she also
demonstrates that it is possible to resist international
pressures, raise awareness of the dangers of foreign influences,
and create grass-roots initiatives for local empowerment
and self-sufficiency.
Environmental Literacy: Education
as if the Earth Mattered
David Orr, 1992
"For the most part. . .we are still educating the young
as if there were no planetary emergency." Yet, continues
Orr, the environmental crisis is "first and foremost a crisis
of mind, perception, and values-hence, a challenge to those
institutions presuming to shape minds, perceptions, and
values. It is an educational challenge." Our society must
embrace and implement new manners of teaching that emphasize
and prepare people for ecologically integrated lives and
livelihoods. Orr presents five measures necessary to transform
the modern curriculum and describes the goals and basic
tenets of ecological education.
E. F. Schumacher: He Taught Us to Build Bridges and Plant Trees
Will Raap, 1996
Using the examples of the Intervale Foundation and Gardener's Supply, both of which he founded, Will Raap demostrates that economic gain can be linked to social and environmental gain. A business can flourish by enhancing the environment and supporting community while still generating a profit. Raap recounts the encouraging story of the Intervale in Burlington, Vermont. Once a dumping ground, the Intervale has been rejuvenated as an incubator for beginning organic farmers. His lecture presents the possibility of putting marginalized land into productive use to benefit the surrounding community.
The Columbian Legacy and the Ecosterian
Response
Kirkpatrick Sale, 1990
With the passing of the 500th anniversary of the "discovery"
of America, Sale, author of The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher
Columbus and the Columbian Legacy, reassesses the legacy
of European settlement and domination and finds it dangerously
inadequate. As a countermeasure to this heritage and as
a practical step to a different future, he proposes the
creation of small-scale communities to be called ecosteries:
models of the monasteries that arose after the fall of Rome,
devoted now to ecological protection and restoration and
to the preservation of the knowledge necessary for that
work.
Mother Of All: An Introduction to
Bioregionalism
Kirkpatrick Sale, 1983
Sale argues that while the positive accomplishments of modern
science are undeniable, the failures and dangers of the
mechanistic, scientific world view are such that the only
sane path, the very path of survival, is "to once again
comprehend the earth as a living creature." To begin to
move toward this vision of the living earth, says Sale,
we must get in touch with and understand the natural conditions
of the specific place in which we live. Sale outlines four
basic determinants of any organized civilization-scale,
economy, politics, and society-and demonstrates how bioregionalism
is an appropriate organizational model in each area, with
historical validity and a workable vision for the future.
The Friendship Club and the
Well-Springs of Civil Society
William Schambra, 1999
Schambra, a senior program officer at the Bradley Foundation,
is concerned about creating the conditions for people to
practice the art of self governance in small face to face
communities. Taking as his model the Friendship Club, a
small self governing community of drug users and street
people in Milwaukee, Schambra shows how real people can
cultivate new attitudes and virtues without making themselves
into the "grateful clients of credentialed experts." This
level of civil society, he notes, can be murky and disorganized
- but the existence of an institution that is theirs is
worth much more to people at the bottom than the benevolent
ministrations of the bureaucratic social agencies delivering
services and benefits.
Going Local: New Opportunities for Community Economies
Michael H. Shuman, 2002
Shuman's lecture to the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires recounts the shift that is occurring from a global economy focusing on cheap goods and the protection of private bottom lines toward a local economy centering on place and the protection of families, communities, and the environment. Ultimately self-reliance will "systematically resolve . . . material conflicts over oil, water, land, resources, and poverty. . .mak[ing] a very important contribution to world peace."
The Garden Project: Growing Urban
Communities
Cathrine Sneed, 1995
This lecture delivers a message that is moving, hopeful,
and extremely important. Cathrine Sneed's work, as described
in her lecture, shows that bringing people out of the jails
and off the streets into the garden can be transformative
in both the human and natural realms. Sneed's personal story
is equally compelling—overcoming illness, poverty,
a skeptical bureaucracy, and resistance of co-workers to
create a gardening program within the San Francisco jail
system which linked prisoners to the restaurants and people
outside prison walls.
Green Politics: The Spiritual Dimension
Charlene Spretnak, 1984
Charlene Spretnak calls for a greater spiritual grounding
within the Green movement. She encourages fostering those
inner paths to wisdom which exist, though often unemphasized,
within every religious tradition. She asks that we move
beyond the patriarchal, anthropocentric, media-shaped values
of the modern technological world and, with increasing inner
conviction, support a vision of gender equality, social
responsibility, and deep ecological wisdom.
Ecological Design: Reinventing the Future
John Todd, 2001
To hear John Todd is to be struck by his dedication, modesty, integrity, and humanity. A biologist and Earth steward he is in the forefront of the new field called ecological design, which applies the intelligence of nature to human needs. By decoding this intelligence it can be used technologically in order to reduce the destructive impact of humankind on the planet. In his lecture Todd tells about the work being done to create living technologies in the areas of food production, generation of fuels, conversions of wastes, and repairing of environments„in his own case, restoring degraded and polluted waters. He describes his current involvement in an eco-industrial park in Burlington, Vermont, that will consist of small enterprises, such as a brewery and a fish farm, that share their resources so the waste or excess of one enterprise will be an in-put component of another.
Toward An Ecological Economic Order
John Todd, 1985
John Todd believes that a "new sustainable economic order
can be established with ecologically based enterprises."
Ecology as a basis for design, he says, "is the framework
of this new economic order. It needs to be combined with
a view according to which the earth is seen as a sentient
being, a Gaian world view, and our obligations as humans
are not just to ourselves but to all of life." In this lecture
Todd sketches some of the ideas and technologies developed
by the New Alchemy Institute and Ocean Arks International,
groups which have made tangible progress-in soil recreation,
water purification, resource recovery, etc.-toward reversing
environmental degradation and restoring diversity in a sustainable
ecological economic order.
The Promise of Ecological Design
Nancy Jack Todd, 2005
Todd shows us that the power of positive work can overcome horrific destruction. Bringing to light the models created by the New Alchemy Institute and Ocean Arks International, she demonstrates the evolution of ecological design as a viable option for creating a sustainale world. Her lecture reminds us that nature is our best source of reference. Through adherence to natural systems we can "provide for the present population of the world sustainably."
What about Us?––the Earth's People?
Charles Turner, 2007
As the old paradigm of materialism that is causing social, ecological, and economic injustices crumbles, it is essential to consciously participate in the shaping of a new paradigm. In his 2007 lecture Turner describes the transition from a material to a spiritual consciousness. He says that "we have gone through the materialization of consciousness to the extent that this age has focused on human beings as material objects… and now we are on the brink of an age that will bring the opportunity for our consciousness to be spiritualized."
The Right Livelihood Award and
Further Initiatives for a Sustainable Society
Jakob von Uexkull, 1992
The Right Livelihood Award, known as "the Alternative Nobel
Prize," was set up in 1980 "to honor and support those working
on practical solutions to the most urgent challenges facing
us today." Von Uexkull describes the Award and many of its
recipients, including workers for human rights and justice,
for environmental protection and spiritual regeneration.
The Award is one of a number of initiatives launched by
von Uexkull, who believes that the only solution to today's
environmental, economic, and social ills is to "set up shadow
institutions, in order to create a new and alternative mainstream
and to give it as much energy and standing as possible."
He concludes with an appeal to "create the foundations for
a sustainable world order without delay" and a proposal
for a democratically elected People's Council for Global
Sustainability.
The Wisdom That Builds Commuity
Greg Watson, 1997
Greg Watson tells the story of an urban community that came
together to reshape its destiny. Starting with shovels and
garbage bags to clean up abandoned lots, residents formed
the Dudley Street Community Land Trust to acquire lots which
now support hundreds of units of renovated owner-occupied
homes, a productive greenhouse, locally-owned businesses,
and reinvigorated neighborhood pride. In telling the story
of Dudley Street, Greg Watson recounts his own story as
an African American growing up in Cleveland in the sixties.
Seeing the ecological degradation surrounding him, he grew
to become a leader in the environmental movement, and then
later returned to the urban landscape with a richer understanding
of the complex issues needed to build sustainable communities.
Good Morning, Beautiful Business
Judy Wicks, 2004
Despite the dominating and destructive power of large,
monolithic corporations, business can be a positive and
essential force for community empowerment. Judy Wicks
shows how locally-rooted businesses can address the needs
of all stakeholders, employees, customers, investors, neighbors
and the earth. She describes the evolution of the White
Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, and how her personal experiences
and beliefs led her to adopt practices such as paying a
living wage, community service, educational programming,
purchasing 100 percent wind-generated electricity and sourcing
produce and humanely-raised animal products from local family
farmers.
Buddhist Technology: Bringing
a New Consciousness to Our Technological Future
Arthur Zajonc, 1997
This brilliant lecture by a leading physicist and humanist
focuses on the relationship between technology and work,
on one hand, and right values and livelihood on the other.
Zajonc shows how traditions and culture once provided a
right moral context for work and how that context has been
broken apart by the dramatically increasing capacity of
amoral technology to replace human work. Citing fascinating
examples from literature and mythology, Taoism and Studs
Terkel, Zajonc makes a powerful case for the restoration
of the links between technology, love, and beauty that must
be re-established if we are to be fully human.
