Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.
— Aristotle
W. H. Auden
Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
— W. H. Auden
If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination ... no more men!
Once upon a time a band of knights riding through a forest saw hundreds of trees with targets painted on them and an arrow in the very center of each target. When the king heard of this, he sent the knights back to find the archer who hit the bullseye every time. They found a wee, small boy. They brought him back to the king, and the king asked how he ever managed such a remarkable feat. The boy answered, "it's easy, sir. First you shoot the arrow, then you paint the target."
— Anonymous
Never doubt the value of your own contribution however much it may go unrecognised by the powers-that-be. Nurture your own self-confidence and help realise the confidence of the group to which you belong, even if the only group to which you belong is humankind.
— Anonymous
Trying to relieve traffic congestion by building more roads is like trying to lose weight by loosening your belt.
— Anonymous
Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day.
— Anonymous
Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints. Kill nothing but time.
— Anonymous
To Save the Children, sustainable development means that each generation should leave to its children a world at least as diverse and productive as the one it inherited. It also means guaranteeing the rights of all today's children, so that they can fulfil their potential in the struggle for development. The millions of children still denied their basic rights as a result of poverty, violence or environmental degradation testify to the international community's failure to make this vision a reality.
— Mike Aaronson
Growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of the cancer cell.
— Edward Abbey
If you want to do it quickly, do it alone. If you want to do it well, do it together.
Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract - sustainable development - and turn it into a reality for all the world's people.
— Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General
The shift to a stable population will increase the "dependency ratio of old to young". While that may stem environmental decline, it could bring economic hardship to the countries that first achieve it. The only real chance of escaping this dilemma is to eliminate the huge economic inequities that now prevail in the world.
— Robert Ayres, Professor Emeritus of Management and Environment at the INSEAD European Business School, The Economic Conundrum of an Aging Population, World Watch Magazine, September-October 2004
The science is clear, it's not those fighting to put food on the table who need to fix this mess right? It's the high consuming communities, high consuming individuals who need to act furthest and fastest.
— Tom Bailey, TakeTheJump.org
William Cullen Bryant
A breeze came wandering from the sky, light as the whispers of a dream; He put the overhanging grasses by, and softly stooped to kiss the stream, The pretty stream, the flattered stream, The shy, yet unreluctant stream of wind.
— William Cullen Bryant
Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of the landscape with people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.
We must not build housing, we must build communities.
— Mike Burton, politician
Dave Barry
There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: 'passive' systems collect the sunlight that hits your home, and 'active' systems collect the sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too.
— Dave Barry, politician
One of the things that we saw during the pilots, is that citizens realise how hard it is to build consensus and, furthermore, how hard it is to try to create a policy that fits all. How can this change democracy? It facilitates the understanding of how complex consensus, decision and policy-making are, how long it takes...
Democracy cannot longer be a 'thing' that we do once every x amount of years. You get good at being democratic the more often you practice it. Civic technologies are organised around participation, therefore granting the opportunity to get more experience, to assess different points of view, to build arguments, to accept we don't know everything. Moreover, a grass-roots collection of data creates a very different landscape and understanding of cities by the citizens, at the very least this is why we feel it is worth doing.
Sustainable development is never going to materialise as a result of edicts from New York or Geneva. It needs to be constructed, shared and implemented in a truly global way that takes account of traditional, local and non-Western approaches.
Democracy is a promise that the excluded voices are needed to form a greater whole.
— Alan Briskin
When I thought of Dialogue in this larger sense, I had the image of the open central courtyard in an old-fashioned, Latin American home… you could enter the central courtyard by going around and through any of the multiple arched entryways that surrounded this open, flower-filled space in the middle of the house… For me, Dialogue is like entering this central courtyard in the spacious home of our common human experience.
— Juanita Brown
The real work of creating a different world is to take responsibility upon ourselves to lead that change to create the sort of world we want.
I have no illusions that we can simply declare a Law for the Commons. The very idea and its variations must first be formulated for our modern context, and then fought for. But at a time when existing regimes of law and governance are in a shambles – losing public respect, failing to meet people's basic needs, destroying the Earth – I believe that commoning and laws to enable it have a bright future. Commons can meet people's needs in fair, open and effective ways, and provide a dignity, respect and equality that the market/state order has trouble achieving. By cultivating more direct engagement with people, and demanding that they step up to responsibilities, commons also have great promise in improving ecological stewardship.
Commoning is a radical concept because it insists upon the active, knowing participation of people in shaping their own lives and meeting their own needs.
The 'Web of Life' is, of course, an ancient idea, which has been used by poets, philosophers, and mystics throughout the ages to convey their sense of the interwovenness and interdependence of all phenomena. Ultimately, deep ecological awareness is spiritual or religious awareness. When the concept of the human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels a sense of belonging, of connectedness, to the cosmos as a whole, it become clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest essence.
— Fritjof Capra
This generation of politicians is the last generation who have it in their power to secure the future of our planet, to safeguard the health and livelihoods of millions of people and the habitats that sustain their lives. History will not forgive them if they fail to act.
— Dr. Catarina Cardoso, WWF-UK
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: We are all in the same boat.
— Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Rachel Carson
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
The global city is not London, New York, Tokyo or Jo'berg -- it is the part of each which is connected to an analogous part in each of the others. The global city is a distributed phenomenon. There is only one global city, and it floats on top of the others like lace. Networked organizations outcompete all other forms of organisation, particularly the vertical, rigid, command-and-control bureaucracies.
— Manuel Castells
We're all very much aware that there are millions of young people who are unemployed, particularly in high–risk countries across the world, who form the majority of the population, and haven't got a remote chance of ever getting a job. I work on these issues with the Youth Employment Network of the United Nations. We know that one of the things that must be done urgently is to remove the economic, legal and regulatory impediments that many governments and societies impose on their own young people. Angry young people without opportunities are good candidates for extremist and simplistic arguments.
— Maria Cattaui
Planning automobile cities focuses on saving time. Planning accessible cities focuses on time well spent.
Our house is burning down and we are blind to it. The earth and humankind are in danger and we are all responsible. It is time to open our eyes. Alarms are sounding across all continents. We cannot say we did not know! Climate warming is still reversible. Heavy would be the responsibility of those who refuse to fight it.
— French President Jacques Chirac, August, 2002
We need places where we sit on the edges of the public realm and look in the mirror, to be reminded of who we really are.
The idea that the American model of liberal capitalism offers the widest scope for individual opportunity is the great ideological hoax of our times.
— David Clark
I would like more than anything to have our own space in the community, because we always have to be looking for places to run our programs. I want to run them every day.
Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand
— Confucius
Empowering the individual and underinvesting in the collective is our great macro danger as a society.
— Craig Charney
Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.
— Cree Indian Proverb
I thought there would be failure modes, but I wasn't surprised that communities found ways around them. I thought it was important that when the organization proved to be wrong, people could reorganize on their own, that organization could emerge. It's a form of brainstorming that's bigger than one person standing at a flip chart.
The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the reverse.
— Herman E. Daly
Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way. There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.
— Edward de Bono
We cannot solve global problems using half of the world's brain power.
— Monika Devikka
Sometimes, even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be mad, a man must set an example, and so draw people's souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea does not die.
— Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Aleida Arzeta dreams of a community center that would also function as a café and bakery, and a place where families could share social and emotional support. Aleida, Gloria and I fantasize about the community center of their dreams. They envision a comprehensive center with education, business, social and health supports all in one – not a place where "experts" would provide "services" to people in need, but a place where real people would support each other, because we are all experts in something, and we all have needs.
Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.
Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
— Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
The only source of knowledge is experience.
— Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
It is high time that the ideal of success should be replaced by the ideal of service.
— Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
— Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.
— Albert Einstein
Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.
— Albert Einstein
A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe,' limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion is a prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons close to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from our prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all humanity and the whole of nature in it's beauty.
— Albert Einstein
For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.
I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and, also, generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field.
— Albert Einstein, Charter member, AFT - American Federation of Teachers, Princeton, New Jersey, USA 1938
As a public health doctor, I know that by eliminating the local consequences of fossil fuel emissions, and lifting whole communities out of poverty, the Green New Deal will also be a Public Health New Deal.
Amid a frenzy of conspicuous consumption, an inconspicuous revolution has been stirring. A growing number of people are seeking a way of life that is more satisfying and sustainable. This quiet revolution is being called by many names, including voluntary simplicity and compassionate living. But whatever its name, its hallmark is a new common sense - namely, that life is too deep and consumerism is too shallow to provide soulful satisfaction.
— Duane Elgin
The new media are orientated towards action, not contemplation; towards the present, not tradition. It is wrong to regard media equipment as mere means of consumption.
— Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach... It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
He that is rich need not live sparingly, and he that can live sparingly need not be rich.
— Benjamin Franklin
Buckminster Fuller
All of humanity now has the option to "make it" successfully and sustainably, by virtue of our having minds, discovering principles and being able to employ these principles to do more with less.
In technology reality must take precedence over public relations, because nature won't be fooled
— Richard Feynmann
Where I live in Marin County, it was citizen action that instigated the preservation of hundreds of thousands of acres as open space and parkland; it was not government taking the initiative. That mostly happened in the pre-Internet days. Now that we've got the Net and there's more talent, creativity and freedom in the civic sector than in government, it's time that citizens once again take the lead in building tools and solving problems for their localities.
Building a world where we meet our own needs without denying future generations a healthy society is not impossible, as some would assert. The question is where societies choose to put their creative efforts.
— Christopher Flavin
All of it must begin with the 'whole'. When we open ourselves awe returns. This will get us out of the oppression of work. We need to return to nature rather than trying to master it. Our inner work is also community work. Schumacher: "We can each of us work to put our own inner houses in order". We should look at the inner houses of all the communities in which we live. We can do this through ritual and other forms of art. Part of it is letting go, particularly of self-pity. We need to move from a cynical society to a possible society. Business has the potential to lead the change. There is so much work needing to be done.
— Matthew Fox
No one has ever become poor by giving.
— Anne Frank
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
There would be very little point in my exhausting myself and other conservationist themselves in trying to protect animals and habitats if we weren't at the same time raising young people to be better stewards.
— Jane Goodall
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
My friend, all theory is gray, and the Golden tree of life is green.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Gandhi
Speed is irrelevant if you are going in the wrong direction.
I love to see projects that make the world a better place manifest. The way a project manifests from inception, brainstorming, researching, creating, testing, iterating, promoting, etc. always fill me with wonder and excitement. There is no one way that it unfolds, but my favorite ways to be part of are those that are collaborative.
Every individual counts, every individual has a role to play, every individual makes a difference.
— Jane Goodall
We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action.
— Al Gore, acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, December 10 2007 [1]
The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: "What were you thinking; why didn't you act? Or they will ask instead: "How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve? We have everything we need to get started... "We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.
— Al Gore, acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, December 10 2007 [2]
It's time to swim perpendicular to the tide, time to become a real citizen, and time to practice democracy like my life depends on it, because it does.
A great high wall there, it tried to stop me. A great big sign there, said 'private property'. But on the other side, it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me.
— Woody Guthrie, This Land Is Your Land
Today's world requires us to accept the oneness of humanity.
We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.
I think that it is generally true that members of certain traditional, rural communities, do enjoy a greater harmony and tranquillity than those settles on our modern cities. My impression is that those living in the materially developed countries, for all their industry, are in some ways less satisfied, are less happy, and to some extent suffer more than those living in the least developed countries. Indeed, if we compare the rich with the poor, it often seems that those with less are often less anxious. As for the rich......they are so caught up with the idea of acquiring more than that they make no room for anything else in their lives. As a result, they are constantly plagued by mental and emotional suffering - even though outwardly they may appear to be leading entirely successful and comfortable lives."
— Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama on wikiquote
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
— Heraclitus
Hansen at the Our Opportunity student summit in March 2009.
A global tipping point will be reached in 10 years [2016] if levels of greenhouse gases like methane and CO2 are not reduced. Global warming at this point becomes unstoppable.
— James Hansen
Brundtland addressing the Congress of the Labour Party, 2007.
Fundamentally, sustainable development is a notion of discipline. It means humanity must ensure that meeting present needs does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
— Gro Harlem Brundtland
People, their buildings and the ways they organise themselves are central to permaculture. Thus the permaculture vision of permanent (sustainable) agriculture has evolved into one of permanent (sustainable) culture.
We now understand better than ever that innovation is very often a social, interactive process rather than one of individual creativity, and that networks play a vital role in the creation and the transfer of new knowledge and innovation.
— David H Hargreaves
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
I don't drive to birdwatch any more. I walk from my house. I'm under no pressure to see anything exciting. I've stopped commodifying it. I just think of being out where I should be. Whenever I do that I'm really thankful for it. Nature is not there to make me feel better. It's something we can use to help us but ultimately we have to be there for it as well. And we've got to make wholesale changes to how we live.
There are some 2 billion people, many living sustainably with traditional livelihoods, who are unlikely to ever have access to banks or dominant money systems. Yet, their mutual aid and barter can be facilitated independently from our dysfunctional money systems, which are about scarcity, competition and fear. Barter and mutual aid are about cooperation, sharing and abundance.
— Hazel Henderson
Unpaid work (parenting, growing food for family and community needs, maintaining households, volunteering in community service, do-it-yourself home and community construction, and repair projects) is estimated as some 50 % of all production in OECD countries and 60 to 65 percent in developing countries.
— Hazel Henderson
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
— Nelson Henderson
And all that we learned, we shared with one another, so that wisdom ever grew greater.
— Robin Hobb
What of the relationships built, the degree to which people feel more hopeful, skilled, connected, positive, resilient? What are the gardens actually growing? What are the community energy companies actually generating? What are the construction projects actually building? And these are just a fraction of the thousands of Transition groups in now over 50 countries. And these are just a fraction of the wider, diverse, and innovative networks of grassroots responses happening around the world.
— Rob Hopkins, Why COP21 matters, and why I'm going. Rob Hopkins. October 29, Transition Network
In making any law, our chiefs must always consider three things: the effect of their decision on peace; the effect on the natural world; and the effect on seven generations in the future. We believe that all lawmakers should be required to think this way, that all constitutions should contain these rules...
— Carol Jacobs, Cayuga Bear Clan Mother
Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.
The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that 'W-A-T-E-R' meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free.
— Helen Keller
Helen Keller
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
— Helen Keller
Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the life of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and those ripples, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy, build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
— Robert F. Kennedy
John F Kennedy
Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.
— John F Kennedy
Treat the Earth well. It is not inherited from your parents, it is borrowed from your children.
— Kenyan proverb
...and for many others today, re-engagement is essential for long-term vitality. This requires re-connecting with participative ways of knowing.
Before we finish our breakfast we have come into contact with 2/3rds of the world.
— Martin Luther King
A defining difference between Empire and Community, Suicide Economy and Living Economy is the shift from hierarchy to networking as organizing principle.
— David Korten
The seeds of living economies have already been planted and are taking root in countless communities throughout the world. Some have been around for a long time. They include land trusts, local organic farms and farmer's markets, enterprises producing and marketing innovative environmental services and products, community supported agriculture initiatives, local restaurants specializing in locally grown organic produce, community banks, local currencies, buy local campaigns, fair traded coffee, worker buyouts of factories whose owners are moving production abroad, family businesses that take pride in community service, employee and community owned businesses, production networks of small producers taking on large projects, recycling business, independent book stores that serve as community learning centers, independent media, community sustainability indicators, green business directories, independent business alliances and much more."
— David Korten
To the forces of community, the world is inherently nurturing, compassionate, and overflowing with creative abundance and opportunity. In the world of community we consider violence and conflict to be irrational, because they are self-destructive — a violation against the sacred spiritual unity that is the source of life and the ground of all being. Meaning and purpose are found in equitably sharing power and resources to secure the well-being of all as we engage in a cooperative exploration of life's infinite creative possibilities."
— David Korten
For all our differences, we all wanted the same thing: healthy children, families, and communities with healthy natural environments living in peace and cooperation—and not just for ourselves. We wanted it for everyone.
— David Korten, The World We Want, Portland, OR, June 13, 2008, Source: davidkorten.org, June 13, 2008
The global destruction of cities and countryside, of human cultures and of nature itself, can only be reversed by a global philosophical, technical, cultural, moral and economic project: by an ecological project.
You, my sisters, perhaps it is your husband who earns the money for your family, but it is you who are determining how that money is spent; and in so doing you are deciding the fate of your village. You may choose to buy the beautiful silk made in France or Belgium, or you may choose the khadi cloth made by your sister and your neighbor. When you choose the khadi cloth, you are investing in more than cloth, you are investing in your neighbor, her children, and your village. As you watch the children walking to school in the morning, fed by the earnings of their mother, you realize that you and they are woven together through the cloth. You and your village are richer in proportion to the number of such stories that unite you.
In order to stay competitive, tomorrow's engineer will need to become more culturally savvy, as well as adept at implementing appropriate technologies. Capacity building is not about constructing a showcase engineering project. It's about coming up with practical, sustainable solutions that fit the environment, its people and the culture as well. (ASME)
— Cathy Leslie, Executive Director of Engineers Without Borders-USA, Cathy Leslie's Twitter
Every time you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want.
— Anna Lappe, O Magazine, June 2003
Walter Lippmann in 1914.
Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.
— Walter Lippmann
You can solve all the world's problems in a garden.
— Geoff Lawton
What the caterpillar perceives is the end, to the butterfly is just the beginning.
— Lao Tzu
No other person can be as expert about your life, your values, your hopes than you are. And any process that tries to define the future and does not find a way to include your expertise on your life is doomed to fail
— Gary Lawrence, former chief planner for the city of Seattle
They wrote about another world, the dirt world. That too, too solid world which the Zeroes made naught of. Ti Chiu, Dichew, the dirt-ball. Earth. The "garbage world". The "trash planet". These words are archaic, history-words, attached only to history-images: receptacles were filled with "dirty" garbage that was poured into vehicles which carried it to "trash dumps" to "throw away". What does that mean? Where is "away"?
— Ursula K. Le Guin
if you want creativity, take a zero off your budget. If you want sustainability, take off two zeros.
— Jaime Lerner, Architect and former mayor of Curitiba
If we all did our bit then we could all live in peace with nature alittle more. Nature is what has brought us here and supported us. to start your own forest garden for example is very simple. Simplicity is a major part of permaculture. everything has multifunctions, cooperating with each activity. for example the garden gives you food, gives animals food, trees clean the air and may create windbreaks, the food you eat will be discarded and then turned into compost. I could go on and on. life supporting life. not major food chains, insecticides, or monoculture. what a healthy harmonious life it is too. coming from an ecovillage in argentina gives me inspiration to start my own one day. until then i will do my part, remembering that everything i do affects the generations ahead of me. community and family gardening, composting, or just being in nature are examples of awesome ideas for anyone if you are interested.. there is alot to learn from nature and permaculture, books are good but so is being surrounded by the wonderfulness of a green ecosystem. go outside!!
The Arctic is the barometer of the globe's environmental health. You can take the pulse of the world's health in the Arctic... What is happening to the Inuit will happen to you too in the South, soon… Is it too much to ask for moderation for the sake of my people today, and for your people tomorrow?
— Aqqaluk Lynge, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC). Greenpeace UK, July 31 2007
As long as there is no trust and confidence that there will be justice and fairness in resource distribution, political positioning will remain more important than service.
— Wangari Maathai, environmental activist, first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004
So that's why I've come to think that organizing is such a key thing, and such a key part of being human is… All an organizer is someone who's able to talk with the people around them and get them working together in the same direction. And that's desperately what we need right now. That's the closest to a kind of elixir that I have found to allow people to get the kind of courage that's required to stare, quite plainly, at the crisis that we're in, and not blink, and not turn away, and if they're shedding a tear, which they should be, nonetheless to be able to see through those tears to where we need to be, and how we're going to get there.
Permaculture is a design system for creating sustainable human environments. The word itself is a contraction not only of permanent and agriculture but also of permanent culture, as cultures cannot survive for long without a sustainable agricultural base and landuse ethic.
Almost everyone wants to make something of their lives, to promote their own well-being and that of others around them. We all want to 'live well', and the basic values -survival, happiness, friendship, self-respect, freedom, a sense of fulfillment and a meaning of life - are at the heart of our flourishing as human beings and as members of society. They are what life is about.
— Margaret McGee
A world where one tenth of the population gets to be extremely wealthy, and six tenths very poor, is not, in the long run, a stable place.
The most important thing an individual can do is not be an individual. Join together—that's why we have movements like 350.org or Green for All, like BlackLivesMatter or Occupy. If there's not a fight where you live, find people to support, from Standing Rock to the Pacific islands. Job one is to organize and jobs two and three."
Our new environment compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other.
— Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
— Marshall McLuhan
It is the millions of acts by ordinary people that will eventually make a difference.
— Hamish McRae
It self-organizes and evolves. It creates diversity, not uniformity. That's what makes the world interesting, that's what makes it beautiful, and that's what makes it work.
— Donella Meadows
In an ideal society, everyone should work for the wellbeing of others.
— Mencius
The best mechanism to confront the challenge of climate change are not market mechanisms, but conscious, motivated, and well organized human beings endowed with an identity of their own.
— Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia, November 28, 2008
In this negotiation process towards Copenhagen, it is fundamental to guarantee the participation of our people as active stakeholders at a national, regional and worldwide level, especially taking into account those sectors most affected, such as indigenous peoples who have always promoted the defense of Mother Earth.
— Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia, November 28, 2008
You can't tell people anything... Mainly that's about being able to do things without having to explain them first, so that the finished product can be the explanation. I think this will be a major labor saving improvement.
— Chip Morningstar
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
— Anais Nin
...if we are to move from charity to justice, helping our community members who are most marginalized to be heard is one of the most effective and enduring things we can do. Let's restore one of the strengths of our sector, and one of our sacred duties. Let's mobilize the full power of our community, constantly and unapologetically, in service of justice. We must intellectualize less and organize more. The soul of our sector, and the well-being of our community, depends on it.
There are many ways to be poor, but in today's world not having the right kind of information represents a certain kind of poverty. As long as outsiders decide what is important and are in a position to ask all of the questions, we will never be able to solve our own problems. Without information we are nothing at all and have no power to understand things or to change our life. If Inuit society is to develop we must be able to collect and use information according to our own terms.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
Good governance and sound public management are preconditions for the implementation of sustainable development policies. These preconditions include efforts to ensure an ethical and more transparent government process, as well as decision-making practices "sufficiently open to citizens participation". OECD Improving Policy Coherence and Integration for Sustainable Development
I want interdependence woven into our infrastructure. I want a community center on every corner, occupied by people who care for others, to support each other and use the space as they see fit. I want to see prisons shrink as drug offenders get treatment, not sentences, and I dream that transformative justice circles will catch on so that every community can decide for themselves how to judge and heal damage. And I want wealth addiction to be treated as the public health crisis it is. Let's do interventions on the financial playboys and CEOs who make more money than any one person can possibly spend in a lifetime, send them to rehab and group therapy where they'll sit in circles in slippers and sweatpants, lifetimes of lost feelings erupting on their poker faces. I want to see more grown men cry. Oppression depends on our self-repression to survive.
Every increase in local capacity to grow food, generate energy, repair, build and finance will strengthen the capacity to withstand disturbances of all kinds. Distributed energy in the form of widely disbursed solar and wind technology, for example, buffers communities from supply interruptions, failure of the electrical grid, and price shocks. Similarly, a regionally based, solar-powered food system would restore small farms, preserve soil, create local employment, rebuilt stable economies, and provide better food while reducing carbon emissions and dependence on long-distance transport from distant suppliers. The primary goal in rethinking development and economic growth is to create resilience – capacity to withstand the disturbances that will become more frequent and severe in the decades ahead.
— David Orr, Down to the Wire
After all, if order is for free we could afford being out of control and love it.
I hate books about poverty that make you feel guilty, as well as dry, academic ones that put you to sleep. Working to alleviate poverty is a lively, exciting field capable of generating new hope and inspiration, not feelings of gloom and doom. Learning the truth about poverty generates disruptive innovations capable of enriching the lives of rich people even more than those of poor people.
There is an increasing need to democratise the governance of science and technology, ensuring that it serves the public good rather than narrow economic interests.
— Dr Michel Pimbert, director of IIED's sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and livelihoods programme. IIED / Food activism
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Every designer's dirty little secret is that they copy other designers' work. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration.
...global IS the new local. Local meaning we really have reached the point — when considering shared assets like the atmosphere — that we're all in the same neighborhood on a very small planet?
Community building power comes from the living database that the participants create and use together informally as they help each other solve problems, one to one and many to many. The web of human relationships that can grow along with the database is where the potential for cultural and political change can be found.
— Howard Rheingold
When you're one step ahead of the crowd you're a genius. When you're two steps ahead, you're a crackpot.
— Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Feb. 1998
No-one asks our views... But we are the real experts of our own hopes and aspirations... We can contribute if you are prepared to give up a little power to allow us to participate as partners, in our own future, and the future of the country.
— Moraene Roberts
Natural ecosystems will [only] be protected when society taxes the pumping of fresh water, the damming of rivers and the felling of virgin timber. As polluters pay more, and those who tread more lightly on the Earth pay less, incentives are created for people to do the right thing.
— John Robbins
In too many countries and internationally, we still don't have governing systems and institutions that are accountable, participatory, consensus oriented, transparent, equitable and follow the rule of law.
— Mary Robinson
We don't need more walls of separation between nations and peoples. We know they can't protect us from global challenges like AIDS or terrorism or global warming. We need instead, more connections, more bridges of understanding and shared responsibility.
— Mary Robinson
When I fed the poor they called me a saint. When I asked why they were poor they called me a communist.
— Oscar Romero, archbishop
Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
— Franklin Roosevelt
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
The economy needn't be a war, it can be a commons. [...] The commons is a conscious implementation of reciprocal altruism. Reciprocal altruists, whether human or ape, reward those who cooperate with others and punish those who defect. A commons works the same way. A resource such as a lake or a field, or a monetary system, is understood as a shared asset. The pastures of medieval England were treated as a commons. It wasn't a free-for-all, but a carefully negotiated and enforced system. People brought their flocks to graze in mutually agreed-upon schedules. Violation of the rules was punished, either with penalties or exclusion.
...the best hope for transition to a 'post carbon' — or, better, a sustainable society (a much broader goal) — lies in a process of radical societal reconstruction, focused on the building, in the here and now, of self-governing and self-reliant settlements, starting at the micro-local level.
We don't know what details of a truly sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options, we need people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of the critical gangs that are doing that.
— David Suzuki
E. F. Schumacher
Perhaps we cannot raise the winds. But each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it.
Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.
— Eliel Saarinen
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather, teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
If you have time to chatter read books. If you have time to read walk into mountain, desert and ocean. If you have time to walk sing songs and dance. If you have time to dance sit quietly, you Happy Lucky Idiot.
— Nanao Sakaki
Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean
— Ryunosuke Satoro
The only known photograph of Chief Seattle, taken 1864.
The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give to the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
— Chief Seattle
The only known photograph of Chief Seattle, taken 1864.
Teach your children what we have taught our children: that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know. The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
— Chief Seattle
A shared vision is not an idea. It is not even an important idea such as freedom. It is, rather, a force in people's hearts, a force of impressive power. It may be inspired by an idea, but once it goes further -- if it is compelling enough to acquire the support of more than one person -- then it is no longer an abstraction. It is palpable. People begin to see it as if it exists. Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision.
— Peter Senge
But media is actually a triathlon, it's three different events. People like to consume, but they also like to produce, and they like to share.
We're going to look at every place that a reader or a listener or a viewer or a user has been locked out, has been served up passive or a fixed or a canned experience, and ask ourselves, "If we carve out a little bit of the cognitive surplus and deploy it here, could we make a good thing happen?" And I'm betting the answer is yes.
A revolution doesn't happen when a society adopts new tools - it happens when it adopts new behaviours.
— Clay Shirky
In giving food to other beings and species we maintain conditions for our own food security. In feeding earthworms we feed ourselves. In feeding cows, we feed the soil, and in providing food for the soil, we provide food for humans. This worldview of abundance is based on sharing and on a deep awareness of humans as members of the earth family. This awareness that in impoverishing other beings, we impoverish ourselves and in nourishing other beings, we nourish ourselves is the real basis of sustainability.
— Vandana Shiva
It is time to put the ECO back in ECOnomics & promote living with less, not more.
The most powerful force in American democracy is the connection between and among citizens.
— David B. Smith, NCoC's Executive Director, ncoc.net
Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate us whenever we come into our own power Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.
— Starhawk
Reciprocity is key to the power of networks, the alchemy of mutual give and take over time turning to a golden trust...
We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the Earth. Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.
— Thich Nhat Hanh
Local authorities will not and can not sit around and wait, but Local ACTION 21 will be seriously weakened if national governments do not recognize our pivotal role in fostering sustainable development.
— Kaarin Taipale, Chair of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).
Henry David Thoreau
For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.
— Henry David Thoreau
With the increasing awareness of movements like Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future, citizen activism is a social trend that's here to stay. There's incredible technology at our fingertips and when used strategically, it has the potential to influence millions.
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
— Mother Teresa
The proper role of government in capitalist societies is to represent the interests of the future to the present.
— Lester Thurow, US Economist
In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.
— Alexis de Tocqueville
So the environment is not a luxury, not a Gucci accessory bag or a fancy silk tie affordable only when all other issues have been resolved. It is the oxygen breathing life into all the Goals. It is the red ribbon running around our common aspirations for a healthier, more stable and just world.
— Klaus Toepfer, Commenting on assessment of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals, prior to the 2005 World Summit.
That in this globalized world, Every Man and Woman is Neither an Island nor a Continent but ever increasingly part of a global community, mutually impacting on each other socially, economically and last, but not least, environmentally.
— Klaus Toepfer
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.
— Leo Tolstoy
Please remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.
— @TransitionLag
...if we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
— Ivan Turgenev
Allowing ordinary people to participate in the policy-making process is a way of, if not overcoming, then greatly reducing a government's inability to see the bigger picture.
He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.
— Lao Tse, Tao Te Ching
To see things in the seed, that is genius.
— Lao Tse, Tao Te Ching
A journey of a thousand [miles] starts with the first step.
— Lao Tse
Above all, do not compete.
— Lao Tse
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
— Lao Tse
The good leader is the one the people adore; the wicked leader is the one the people despise; the great leader is the one the people say "we did it ourselves".
Appropedia is a stunning achievement! Well done. I like the clean design, presentation and accessibility of Appropedia. I think there is a need for constructive comment and critique of many appropriate technologies, pointing out quality, climatic and cultural constraints, etc. (e.g., solar cookers and biogas converters).
[...] I also checked out the Whole Earth Catalogue, last edition 1968 (so no competition there), subtitle 'Access to tools', edited by Stewart Brand et al, inspired by Buckmaster Fuller. My memories were rekindled see their website [...].
I like the clean design, presentation and accessibility of Appropedia (cf Whole Earth Catalogue, even in 1968!). As we discussed, I think there is a need for constructive comment/critique of many appropriate technologies, pointing out quality, climatic and cultural constraints etc. (e.g. solar cookers and biogas converters).
Having looked around I also think that there is an important need for more comment on policy and related issues - with a background in engineering, S&T policy and innovation, the main tub I've been thumping over the last few years (eg as illustrated in the UNESCO Engineering Report) is the need to get appropriate technology on the the policy and development agendas. Policymakers, decision takers and the development community need to be more aware of the important role of technology in development, otherwise little will change. Appropedia could be an important agent in this.
— Tony Marjoram, editor of the UNESCO Engineering Report
Too many people are against this or that, we want to be FOR something!
— UNEP
The twentieth century has transformed the entire planet from a finite world of certainties to an infinite world of questioning and doubt. So, if ever there was a need to stimulate creative imagination and initiative on the part of individuals, communities and whole societies that time is now. The notion of creativity can no longer be restricted to the arts; it must be applied across the full spectrum of human problem-solving.
Environmentalism can't succeed until it confronts the destructive nature of modern work - and supplants it.
— The Ecology of Work by Curtis White, Published in the May/June 2007 issue of Orion magazine / Sustainable livelihood
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate (but) that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, "who am I to be brilliant, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? As we let our light shine, we give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence liberates others.
— Nelson Mandela, after Marianne Williamson
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely. The more closely we identify ourselves with the rest of life, the more quickly we will be able to discover the sources of human sensibility and acquire the knowledge on which an enduring ethic, a sense of preferred direction, can be built.
— E. O. Wilson
By all rights this founding of a new peace is a spiritual mission and at the same time an economic mission, an environmental mission, and a humanitarian mission. It will require a collaboration of individuals and cultural organizations working together to succeed. Its sign of success will be the renewal of local communities around the world.
— Susan Witt
Heal my wounded heart. Grant me the courage to change my heart. Let Peace live in my heart.
Fill me with compassion for those suffering in war. Help me care for those in war. Help me bring Peace to those in war.
Help me stop wars. Help soldiers stop wars. Help leaders stop wars.
Fill me with Peace and Justice. Help me to work for Peace with Justice. Let there be Peace with Justice among all peoples.
Yet individual initiatives alone do not necessarily help to build strong, healthy communities (although they can free up time that could lead to greater community involvement), nor can they address the structural obstacles to genuine consumer choice the lack of organic produce in the supermarket, for instance. Some critics even argue that, pursued in isolation, individual initiatives can be counterproductive.
An "individualization of responsibility", as political and environmental scientist Michael Maniates notes, distracts attention from the role that such institutions as business and government play in perpetuating unhealthy consumption. Moreover, to the extent that individuals see their power residing primarily in their pocketbooks, they may neglect their key roles as parents, educators, community members, and citizens in building a society of well-being.
Muhammad Yunus at World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, 25 January 2012.
I avoid grandiose plans. I start with a small piece that I can do. I go to the root of the problem and then work around it. It's building brick by brick.
— Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus at World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, 25 January 2012.
The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world — all we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them.
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