November 13, 2011, Shannon Gorres gives a tour of the Cosmic Beauty School in Lawrence, KS . The CBS, now in its third year, is working to provide an urban demonstration site for radical sustainability, social justice, and holistic health.
This movie and website is making the rounds lately, so I thought I'd take a closer look. As a bioregionalist, I found myself asking a series of questions about what I found. So in the spirit of the website's admonition "not to take on, unquestioningly, a new set of beliefs," I share this review with the reader.
We're excited to announce the launch of our seventh Films For Action city chapter representing Eugene, Oregon! Below is our mission, goals and vision for the chapter, as well as several ways to get involved. Join us!Mission:Our Eugene chapter website aims to provide a definitive web-based resource for the social change community of Eugene, Oregon. By providing a robust set of...
We're excited to announce the launch of our sixth Films For Action city chapter representing Wichita, Kansas! Below is our mission, goals and vision for the chapter, as well as several ways to get involved. Join us!Mission:Our Wichita chapter website aims to provide a definitive web-based resource for the social change community of Wichita, Kansas. By providing a robust set of...
We're excited to announce the launch of our fifth Films For Action city chapter representing Durham, North Carolina. There are so many forward-thinking, innovative groups in Durham that are doing amazing things, we can't wait to see the vision of this project start to take off. We're excited to have Derek Alan Rowe heading up the chapter, so if you'd like to get involved you can contact him via...
We're excited to announce the launch of our fourth Films For Action city chapter representing the San Francisco Bay Area, California. There are so many forward-thinking, innovative groups in San Francisco that are doing amazing things, we can't wait to see the vision of this project start to take off. We're happy to have Kenneth Fax heading up the chapter, so if you'd like to get involved you can...
Today's LJWorld editorial about voter apathy got me thinking. I also find our abysmal voter turnout deeply troubling, and I think I may have a solution.If we want to inspire more people to go to the polls, they need something to get excited about. We're going to be facing some serious challenges in the coming years, and this can easily get pretty depressing to think about. Simply trying...
A true religion throws away religion. I must be a true Christian, a true Buddhist, a true American, a true Iraqi, a true patriot.A practitioner of one of these philosophies may say I am not a true believer, to identify with other religions and countries, but he would have misunderstood.
Driving to the airport to pick up a friend, I stop at a red light. My eyes wander to a bus-stop bench across the intersection. 'Norma Whitfield - Your Real-Estate Connection.' Wham. Before I even have time to react, the advertisement has entered my mind and lodged itself between the folds of my thoughts. Another chunk of my mental landscape, grabbed without consent.
Can thousands of diverse, locally-rooted, grassroots economic projects form the basis for a viable democratic alternative to capitalism? It might seem unlikely that a motley array of initiatives such as worker, consumer, and housing cooperatives, community currencies, urban gardens, fair trade organizations, intentional communities, and neighborhood self-help associations could hold a candle to...
"We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell...
In general, Earth Day is still being used primarily to sell crap that won't make a difference. Our inboxes were still flooded with press announcements touting Earth Day solar bikinis; Earth Day buy-this-thing-and-we'll-plant-a-tree promotions; Earth Day specials on a greener SUV.There are no simple steps worth caring about. We'll only head off disaster by taking steps -- together -- that are...
The new documentary Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas (buy from PM Press) proves that democracy can and should be more than casting a ballot every four years. This empowering film gives hopeful and concrete examples from around the Americas of people taking back the reigns of power and governing their own communities. Beyond Elections is a road map for social change, drawing...
Last September Ecuador approved a constitutional amendment that protects the rights of Pachamama, Mother Earth. By affirming the rights of nature, “where life is reproduced and exists,” Ecuador is offering the world a way out of one of the blindest of the many blind alleys Western thinking has created.
As our 44th President prepares to enter the Oval Office, bank lending has seized up, some of the nation’s largest banks are on life support, and the big three automakers are bankrupt. Housing continues to crash, and so does the economy.Little wonder that Obama is being compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who entered the White House in similar financial straits in 1932. Even before taking office...
Learning about self-deception is important for all people today. That's because many of our problems, both as individuals and as a society, are rooted in self-deception, and many of the ways in which others abuse us relate to our inherent tendency to self-deceive. We can overcome these problems, and have a decent chance at long-term survival as a species, only if we learn about such limitations...
When Green For All founder and green jobs advocate Van Jones started writing The Green Collar Economy, it was a book about how to get green solutions to poor people. But by the time he was done and the book was released this fall, its scope had grown: Global warming had become common parlance, and the economy was on everyone's mind, regardless of class. His new book looks at how we can fix...
We humans are myth-driven creatures. Our mythologies help define us and shape us and provide us with the context of our lives, so that we may navigate through our days and make sense of a world that at times appears so overwhelming, out of control, and full of the unknown. Within our social archetypes we find personalities we can identify with, or demonize, and in our religious and...
Imagine a world in which all the things we make, use, and consume provide nutrition for nature and industry—a world in which growth is good and human activity generates a delightful, restorative ecological footprint.While this may seem like heresy to many in the world of sustainable development, the destructive qualities of today’s cradle-to-grave industrial system can be seen as the result of a...
Man is the only creature that produces landfills. Natural resources are being depleted on a rapid scale while production and consumption are rising in nations like China and India. The waste production world wide is enormous and if we do not do anything we will soon have turned all our resources into giant landfills of waste. But there is hope. The German chemist, Michael Braungart, and the...