She raises so many good points, but mostly I feel that the depth of her meaning is to remind us to see the forest for the trees. I think that the major shortcoming of the vast majority of environmental discussions, and scientific discussions for that matter, is that they get so lost in the minutiae that they easily forget to place the thoughts in the greater holistic context, and to take the time to find the greater meaning beyond the argument.

My favorite quote of hers ~ “If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it.”

Peace,
Eric

Learning how to coexist in a mutually enhancing manner is the central concept and the ultimate goal of The Gaia Community College, and in many ways, will be the keystone achievement for ensuring a habitable planet for all species. Thomas Berry reminds us (warns us?) that there can be no viable human community without a viable earth community.

Along those lines, it is the things that we can do everyday that can help make a difference, from calling our legislative representatives (for those of us lucky enough to live in a representational government), to the way that we choose to clean our houses. What we purchase is increasingly a vote for earth awareness and sustainability, as the money we spend does cast a vote heard by the powers that shape market forces.

There are a growing number of books, websites, and periodicals devoted to making green choices in our daily lives, and one of the tasks at hand through The Gaia Community College website is to highlight the ones that we find most aligned and inspiring. Instead of bombarding you with a large collection of daily news items, products, publications, and event listings, it is our intention to offer only the choicest morsels for your contemplation. We all know how valuable our time is in this day and age, and the last thing we want to do is belittle any of our chosen messages with diluted tripe.

As always, please link to us, pass along the good word, let us know of worthy inclusions for these pages, and help support this project and others like it in any way you can. When all is said and done, the only thing we truly have is our belief, and your belief in us does mean a lot. Thank you.

Yours in the Dream of the Earth (thanks Thomas!),

Eric

There’s a great article making the rounds regarding the need to present global issues and perspectives, especially within the sciences, as relevant locally. But what really got me going was talking about making global issues meaningful locally. It’s only when we are able to relate to an issue at home that they really become real for most of us, so the ability to relate to global issues becomes the challenge of glocalisation. It’s the meaning of something that so often gets lost these days, and especially so within the sciences. After all, it is meaning that ties everything together, and once again illustrates the need for story.

The article through the Environmental News Network can be found here:

Glocal approach makes global knowledge local

And there’s a good overview (surprise surprise) of glocalisation in Wikipedia.

So Go Glocal, and lets find ways to understand our local bioregions through addressing the global issues that face us all, and discover ways to understand our global issues by being able to relate to them locally.

Peace.
Eric

p.s. ~ while we’re in the process of going glocal, we might as well consider becoming locavores as well, a person who tries to eat as much as they can from within their bioregion. It’s a macrobiotic diet principle that’s been around for a while, but the word itself is fairly recent, and was even chosen as the 2007 word of the year in the Oxford American Dictionary. Pretty cool any way you look at it.