Here I am at part 62 in my discussing The Great Healing. I started out with the five main things we need to do to make sustainable decisions for ourselves and our communities. item number one: Mindfulness; Item number two: New Economics; Item number three: New Metrics; Item number four: Food Read more
I heard a beautiful question the other day, “When pundits state that we all need to wake up, the real question is, why are so many asleep and oblivious?” In last week’s post a friend asked me why I seemed apologetic about the ‘dark’ aspect of the post. A good Read more
When I was teaching about agriculture, food and diet, I often used the same mantra many nutritionists use today – ‘We are what we eat.’ When we input junk data into a computer, we are not surprised that the output is junk. We are infinitely more complex than a computer Read more
As of this posting, the global human population is approaching 8.25 billion people. One single thing that unites everyone of us is the need for sustenance – food – and by that, I mean healthy, nutritious food. The food produced through our global corporate (Big Ag) system is for the Read more
I focus a lot on the developed world, because the 20% or so of the human population that lives in the developed world account for most of the ecological destruction brought on by the hyper-consumer lifestyle. So, what about the other 80% or so of the developing world? Many of Read more
One of my friends commented that here I am again talking about psychological sustainability instead of technological sustainability. Yes, I am. Until we come to terms with the problems of using inappropriate technology we will continue to degrade and poison the environment no matter how ‘green’ we might like to Read more
“What are the things you can’t see that are important? I would say justice, truth, humility, service, compassion, love. You can’t see any of those, but they’re the guiding lights of a life” Jimmy Carter. “As Long as the general population is passive, apathetic. Diverted to consumerism or hatred of Read more
As I was pondering what to write on this week, I came across some thoughts from other writers that made me think a little differently. I always talk about how we need to make crucial decisions now to create a sustainable world. But then it struck me that we are Read more
My five items are not hierarchical, in that each is as crucially important as part of the whole – I arbitrarily listed them in that order. What my do though is challenge in an uncompromising way the major assumptions we have for living in a modern technological world. All the Read more
“Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true, but many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly – and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence”, and “It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think…Intellect is not wisdom” Thomas Read more
I was discussing my five items with a friend and another crucial component of modern living and sustainability came up – Sanitation. One factor we notice when looking at many of the great civilizations of the ancient past is when we see how much effort when into finding solutions for Read more
“If we wish to diminish the love of money which, we are told, is the root of all evil, the first step must be the creation of a system in which everyone has enough and no one has too much” Bertrand Russell. A question I have asked before: Do you Read more
“Market capitalism says freedom is isolation: a house, a fence, and enough money to ignore the world. Real freedom is knowing your neighbor has your back. The land is thriving, and our collective future is secure” Powwows.com. One of the great challenges with localizing electrical power generation is not the Read more
I was talking with some colleagues recently, and we expressed our concern at Al ChatGPT. It’s one of those modern quandaries of technology. You plug in your topic parameters and the program writes the text for you. While the program might pick (cherry pick perhaps) the items included, the lack Read more
I’ve been told that I had a lot of typos on my last post – and that I have occasional typos on most posts. My apologies. Grammar check on my system it seems is misbehaving. Usually, I read through to copyedit my posts, but it’s hard to do on the Read more
“If [humanity] is to survive, [it] will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. [Humanity] will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear” Gene Roddenberry. This is not meant to Read more
Why did farming become such a profit-making business, especially with the global system that ships it all over the planet – if you can afford it that is. Can’t afford it? Just die because you are not a customer – even for that cheap stuff we process and euphemistically call Read more
We’ve spent a long time looking outside of ourselves for reasons and explanations for the myriad problems we face globally, whether that be social, economic, or ecological, or all of these. We are so fixated on trying to pin blame that we forget that we are the co-creators of our Read more
As I was typing up this week’s post about Agriculture, I got this question from a friend, “Why will anyone give up the convenience of modern living and start doing all this work towards a sustainable world that you talk about – because it entails work and also seems to Read more
Here we are at Item four, which is not fourth most important one but perhaps the most primary. To be honest, all five items I am covering have to happen pretty much at the same time, but the order of which to prioritize depend a lot on the urgency of Read more
In biomimicry, engineers are learning to study organisms for their evolutionary engineering to problems. After all, nature has had billions of years to develop unique solutions to problems we see today without creating more problems. Economically, nature works to maximize its natural currency (energy capture using photosynthesis) through a circular Read more
I recall a kid’s TV program from 1969 where a bumbling wizard from the 11th century comes to the future and is enamored with the magic of “Electrickery.” He would flip a light switch and act as if he cast a spell so that the light turned on. Now a Read more
As we move into a new economic future, we will not leave manufacturing behind for some mythical utopian agrarian society. We still need ‘stuff’ for a good techno-sustainable standard of living (SOL), but the focus will be on a much broader quality of life (QOL) and not simply SOL. As Read more
As we move through the coming global political and economic upheavals, re-localizing our lives is the best way to re-establish our sovereignty and begin to live sustainably. This is not going to be a tweak of what is now, or even a variation of how we live, (e.g., greener and Read more
To overview briefly about the idea of ownership. Nowadays, especially in the developed countries, we own lots of ‘stuff.’ Some people have so much stuff that they cannot store it in their home and rent storage space at specific rental facilities (the 11th largest growth industry at this time). Now Read more
“Our destructiveness has not been, and is not, inevitable. People who use that excuse are morally incompetent, they are cowardly and they are lazy. Humans don’t have to live by destroying the sources of their life. People can change; they can learn to do better. All of us, regardless of Read more
“We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world” Howard Zinn. Here in the USA, I just submitted this year’s tax return. Whether I like or dislike taxes, they are a fact of our Read more
“There is a purpose behind distorting history to make it seem like only great men achieve significant things. It teaches people to believe they are powerless and must wait for a great man to act” Noam Chomsky. As I wrap up my advice on how to create a sustainable future through Read more
I have talked many times about the need for Mindfulness (e.g., see links 1 and 2) to create a sustainable world. Too many people react to life instead of mindfully observing it and then responding with Love and Compassion that celebrate our differences as strengths, not affronts to be challenged. Read more
I was talking with some friends and what came out of the discussion was why I believe that localization matters so much. Another comment that arose out of that discussion was the notion that we must rebel against the globalized society to become sustainable. Let me say straight away, I Read more