Conserve Communities/Solutions

When I first began writing this tome, I envisioned only a short introduction to the accompanying Syllabus.  But somewhere along my journey, it began to metamorphosize into a chimera, a utopian or unrealized dream.

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself?  If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox.  One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once, life would collapse.  There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions.  You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into light.[1]

            We live in a world poised between the crude decimation of life and the wondrous eclipse of that heartache when we bite into a majestically purple, orange, yellow, red, black, blue and perfectly ripened peach, plum, nectarine, raspberry, blackberry, and, of course, blueberry.  Our heartache erased, momentarily, by the exhilaration of sweetness and water.

My heart is moved by all I cannot save.  So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.[2]

            Dancing on a razor’s edge between the agonies and the ecstasies, we are asked to find that fine intellectual and energetic arabesque among the horrors and an ascendancy toward beauty.[3]  By which trajectory comes solace.  Only the letter “s” intervenes between laughter and slaughter.

            So the class kills you.  It kills me.  Then I navigate, then you navigate, from the addictive and repetitive narratives of what is wrong, away from those storms that could swallow our boats whole, toward the “narratives of imagination and correction.”

This is the story without apologies of what is going right on this planet, narratives of imagination and conviction, not defeatist accounts about the limits.  Wrong is an addictive, repetitive story; Right is where the movement is.  There is a rabbinical teaching that holds that if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, you first plant a tree and then see if the story is true.  Islam has a similar teaching that tells adherents that if they have a palm cutting in their hand on Judgment Day, plant the cutting.  Inspiration is not garnered from the recitation of what is flawed; it resides, rather, in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.  “Consider” (con sidere) means “with the stars”; reconsider means to rejoin the movement and cycle of heaven and life.  The emphasis here is on humanity’s intention, because humans are frail and imperfect.  People are not always literate or educated.  Most families in the world are impoverished and may suffer from chronic illnesses.  The poor cannot always get the right foods for proper nutrition, and must struggle to feed and educate their young.  If citizens with such burdens can rise above their quotidian difficulties and act with the clear intent to confront exploitation and bring about restoration, then something powerful is afoot.  And it is not just the poor, but people of all races and classes everywhere in the world.  ‘One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice’ is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

 

Although the six o’clock news is usually concerned with the death of strangers, millions of people work on behalf of strangers.  This altruism has religious, even mythic origins and very practical eighteenth-century roots.  Abolitionists were the first group to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know.  Until that time, no citizen group had ever filed a grievance except as it related to itself.  Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists then, just as conservatives taunt liberals, progressives, do-gooders, and activists today by making those four terms pejoratives.  Healing the wounds of the earth and its people does not require saintliness or a political party, only gumption and persistence.  It is not a liberal or conservative activity; it is a sacred act.  It is a massive enterprise undertaken by ordinary citizens everywhere, not by self-appointed governments or oligarchies.[4] 

            Must we inculcate an enlightened restraint on demand,[5] or ameliorate the political and economic strains between cultures by adopting a posture of minimum ownership.[6]  What is the distinction between “eco-efficient” and “eco-effective”?[7]  Do we recognize that calls for “sustainable development” both contribute to and detract from “a language which speaks to the future’s shadow?  “’Sustainable’” is the language of balance and limits; ‘development’ is the language of the expectation of more.’”[8] 

The pressing questions today are:  “After Development, What?  What concepts?  What symbols?  What images?

In order to find an alternative language, one must return to the past—to discover the history of those invented certitudes that are the mythological crystallization points around which modern experience is organized, certitudes like “need,” “growth,” “participation,” “development.”

* * *

The ‘human condition’ once described a way of life bound by immutable necessities.  Each culture cultivated commonly shared desires or projects of a symbolic nature.  In the instance I just described, before transportation and refrigeration, or scientifically produced seed strains, great varieties of food, like blue corn, were grown, complex diets formalized, and seasons ritualized.  “The Good” was defined within the “commons”---life bounded by accepted limits.

‘Development,’ on the other hand, is one of those modern terms which expresses rebellion against the “necessity” that ruled all societies up to the 18th century.  The notion of “development” promises an escape from the realm of necessity by transforming the “commons” into “resources” for use in satisfying the boundless “wants” of the possessive individual.

‘Development’ combines a faith that technology will free us from the constraints which bound all past civilizations with the root certainty of the 20th century: evolution.  As interpreted by optimistic politics, ‘evolution’ becomes ‘progress.’  The term ‘under-development,’ in fact, was first used by Harry Truman in 1949, when the colonialism shattered by World War II ‘revealed’ a world that was not on the track of industrial growth.

Parallel to the construction of this idea of industrial progress, another concept, which implied the assent of the ‘masses’ to development, came into vogue: participation.  Since development reduces the constraints of necessity, people must, for their own good, transform their vague and sometimes unconscious desires into ‘needs,’ which then must be fulfilled.

‘Needs’ redefine ‘wants’ as ‘lacks’ to be satisfied by ‘resources.’  Since ‘wants’ are boundless, resources become ‘scarce’ because of the value ‘lack’ places upon them.  This is the basis for the insatiable demand for more.

‘Needs’ are not ‘necessities.’  They are ‘wants’ that have been redefined as claims to commodities or services delivered by professionals from outside the vernacular skills of the community.  The universal appearance of “needs” during the past 30 years thus reflects a redefinition of the human condition and what is meant by ‘the Good.’[9]

            We ask more questions than there are stars; some are reverential, existential, others practical or silly or dreamy.  I have some, you have some, and they come by way of our soulkeepers, the Indigene, schoolyard bullies, wisewomen and wisemen, the wrong-headed and the wisecrackers, boilerroom cokers, Acapulco surf-divers, beer brewers, apes, chimps, and frogs, cows, cats, and dogs, slugs, pugs, and thugs, snow, ice, and wind, and you get the point.

            After several weeks in the course, we all have balanced calamity and nurture, studied the forensics of why we are here, in our trepidant ecological condition, at this moment of human existence on Planet Earth.  Our journeys forward necessarily are individual, seeking like-minded realities.  Who do I consult—who are my philosophical virtuosos?—to create my utopian version of the future of human life?

           ‘Tell me, what do your Golden Archives contain, more or less?’

 

           ‘A hundred volumes exactly.  The Myths of Crete.  The Myths of the Ancient World.  The Brief History of the World in nine volumes.  The Canon of Poetry in fifteen.  Four books of ancient melodies: two of recent ones.  The Book of Sums and Numbers. Twenty-eight Registers—of plants, birds, fishes, stars and so on.  Thirteen Manuals—of surgery, dyeing, metallurgy, navigation, meteorology, apiculture and so on.  Twelve dictionaries.  Three Books of Maps.  Five volumes of The Book of Precedents.  Five volumes of The Book of Secrets, The Book of Death.  And that’s all.  It took a century or more for these records to be gathered, sorted, simplified and engraved on gold plates, but once this had been done the subsequent additions and emendations weren’t very numerous.  The editors spent as much thought on discussing what didn’t need to be included, as on what did.  They argued that it was better to record too little than too much.’

 

           When I questioned See-a-Bird further, he told me that the archives gave no information whatever about philosophy, advanced mathematics, physics or chemistry, nor about the motivation of any machine more complicated than the waterwheel, pulley or carpenter’s lathe.  Silver plates, he said, were used for records which, though believed to be durable, were still on probation.  For example, every poet on the occasion of his ‘acceptance’ was given twenty small silver plates on which to record his life’s poems; it was assumed that no poet could write enough true poems in his lifetime to cover more than twenty.  He was expected to keep a record on clay-boards of all he wrote and consult his friends, from time to time, as to which of them, if any, should be transferred to silver.  He might take their advice or not, as he pleased, and everyone respected him if he ‘kept his plates bright’ until he was about to become an elder, when he could judge the value of his work more objectively.  If he kept his plates bright to the end, this earned him posthumous praise, whether or not a poem worthy of engraving on either silver or gold was found among his clay-boards.  See-a-Bird quoted the record of Solero: ‘the Goddess tormented him greatly and when he was killed by the fall of a poplar at the shrine of Mari the Silent, a pile of clay-boards and slates were found on his cupboard-top.  There are now forty plates in gold of Solero, who had kept his silver plates bright.’

 

           ‘Never to commit one’s poems to silver seems an easy way of getting a poetic reputation.  In practice, does anyone ever use up his plates?’

 

           ‘The poet Robnet had used all his twenty within a year of receiving them.’

 

           ‘The Goddess must have tormented him pretty badly.’

 

           ‘She did.  She also put into the minds of his poet-friends to present him with twenty-one more plates, three from each so that she could torment him further.’

 

           ‘He could surely have kept his poems on clay-boards like Solero?’

 

           ‘The Nymph Fand, whom he loved, wouldn’t let him do so.’

 

           ‘What happened then?’

 

           ‘He used all the new plates within six months; and then he took his life and became Fand’s servant.’

 

           ‘Say that again!’

 

           ‘When the Goddess torments a man beyond his power to suffer further he goes to her principal shrine, removes his name from her register, and expires.  He’s re-born under a new name into the servants’ estate; unless, of course, as sometimes happens, he has expired completely.’

 

           ‘What did Fand do then?’

 

           ‘She took another young poet as her lover; and presently disappeared.’

 

           ‘You mean, that the jealous Robnet strangled her and disposed of her remains?’

 

           ‘But I had said the wrong thing again and had to make another apology.    No:  Fand, it seems, simply disappeared.[10]

 

            On the Island of Mallorca in the Balearics, in a small northwestern town called Deia, at the base of the Sierra Tramuntana, the houses are crafted of indigenous stone and topped in red tiles.  There is a small hilltop cemetery in the village entered via an arched gateway of lime-washed cob and chunks of rock.  Next to a wondrously radiant dark green jade plant lies the grave of Robert Graves.  In the year 2000, I plucked a fat branch and nurtured it in moist kerchief until it came into soil several weeks later.  It grows still today alongside admiration of the late author of The White Goddess.[11]  A short walk away from Graves’ rest, down the town’s escarpments, past the sweet smell of tangerines, is a majestic cala of cerulean blue.  This memory is where I go when I read my newest collection of authors-provocateurs.  I have scribed some of them here next to a compendium of titles, from which materials I compose the Syllabus.  An extended compilation of my resources is found in the Appendices following the latest Course Syllabus.

BOOKS AND ARTICLES

·         Abram, David

            The Spell of the Sensuous

            (Pantheon Books 1996)

·         Ackerman, Frank & Heinzerling, Lisa

            Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing

            (The New Press 2004)

·         Barnes, Peter

            Capitalism 3.0

            (Quill/William Morrow 1997)

·         Bass, Rick

            The War of the Senses

            Orion, September/October 2004

·         Benyus, Janine

            Biomimicry

            Quill/William Morrow 1997

·         Berry, Thomas

            The Mystique of the Earth

            Caduceus, Spring 2003

·         Berry, Wendell

            The Idea of a Local Economy

            Orion, Winter 2001, p. 28

·         Brown, Lester R.

            Plan 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress And A Civilization In Trouble

            (W. W. Norton & Co. 2006)

  • Cokinos, Christopher

            The Consolations of Extinction

            Orion, May/June 2007, p. 44

  • Declarations of Interdependence, Special Section, Orion, Winter 2002

            What the World Needs Now, Special Section, Orion, Winter 2002

·         Eisler, Riane

            The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics

            (Berrett-Koehler 2007)

·         Hawken, Paul

            Blessed Unrest: How The Largest Movement In The World Came Into Being
            And Why No One Saw It Coming

            (Viking Press 2007)

·         Hawken, Paul

            To Remake The World

            Orion 60, May/June 2000

  • Illich, Ivan

            The Shadow Our Future Throws

            NPQ Special Issue 1999, p. 14

·         International Forum on Globalization

            Paradigm Wars: Indigenous Peoples Resistance to Economic Globalization
            (Sierra Club Books 2005)

·         Jensen, Derrick

            Beyond Hope

            Orion, May/June 2006

·         Korten, David

            Agenda For a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth

            Berrett-Koehler 2009

  • Kumar, Satish

            Following in Gandhi’s Footsteps

            Lapis, Issue Nine

·         Kurzweil, Ray

            The Singularity Is Near

            (Viking Press 2005)

·         Mander, Jerry & Goldsmith, Edward

            The Case Against The Global Economy

            (Sierra Club Books 1996)

·         McDonough, William & Braungart, Michael

            Cradle to Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things

            (North Point Press 2002)

·         McDonough, William & Braungart, Michael

            The Next Industrial Revolution

            (The Atlantic Monthly, October 1998)

·         McKibben, Bill

            Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

            (Times Books 2007)

·         Okot p’Bitek

            Song of Lawino

            (Heinemann 1966)

·         Orbach, Susie

            Bodies: Big Ideas/Small Books

            Macmillan 2009

·         Orr, David

            Law of the Land

            Orion, January/February 2004

·         Pollan, Michael

            In Defense of Food – An Eater’s Manifesto

            (Penguin Press 2008)

·         Pollan, Michael

            The Omnivore’s Dilemma

            (Penguin Press 2006)

·         Roszak, Theodore

            The Ecology of Wisdom

            Lapis, Issue Seven

·         Sachs, Jeffrey

            Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet

            (Penguin Press 2008)

  • Sachs, Wolfgang

            The Virtue of Enoughness

            NPQ Special Issue 1999, p. 10

·         Sale, Kirkpatrick

            There’s No Place Like Home

            The Ecologist, Mar2001, Vol. 31 Issue 2, p40

·         Shepard, Paul

            Nature and Madness

            (U. Georgia Press 1982)

·         Singer, P. W.

            Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century

            The Penguin Press 2009

·         Stillgoe, John

            Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Inspiration in Everyday Places

            Walker and Co. 1998

·         Stillgoe, John

            Landscape and Images

            University of Virginia Press 2005

  • Terkel, Studs

            On Hope and Activism

            http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1111-09.htm

·         Tutuola, Amos

            The Palm-Wine Drinkard

            (Grove Press 1984)

·         Weisman, Alan

            The World Without Us

            (St. Martin’s Press 2007)

·         Wilson, Edward O.

            The Future of Life

            (Alfred A. Knopf 2002)

  • Wolkomir, Richard and Joyce

            Reading the Messages in Everyday Things

            Smithsonian, April 2000, p. 75

  • Zinn, Howard

            The Optimism of Uncertainty

            http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1108-21.htm

            In the Syllabus just ahead, I have annotated the works of these and several other philosophical architects who are bending the light toward a recognition of a global ecology.  I am reluctant to usurp your imagination by reducing their large canvasses to small miniatures of words.  Here, in summation I am referential and remain cognizant of my role as a toolmaker, as a clearinghouse.

            It, too, is daunting to collate and destill the vast literature, for example, on climate change and proposals for turnaround.[12]  Likewise, there exist numerous publications and organizations for socially responsible investing and microlending,[13] to transformational economics.[14]

            Environmentalism is all around us.[15]  Love may not be everywhere, but green certainly is in our hair.[16]  From biomimicry[17] to solar power initiatives,[18] everyone seems to have answers for the world.[19]  Honor?[20]  Wonder?  Simplicity?  Listening?  Hardness?  Love?  Responsibility?  Resolution?  Subtlety?  Grace?  Militancy?[21]  Dignity?

Militancy
            Only when the well runs dry do we learn the worth of water.

                                                            -- Benjamin Franklin

            The word “militancy” is a provocation, especially within the current world atmosphere of fear.

By militancy I don’t mean blind rage or violence.  The world has more than enough of both already.  I’m talking about loving something so much that you are willing to organize your community and stop the forces that threaten it.  Gandhi was a great militant.  He tried to melt the hearts of his British opponents, but when most of their hearts didn’t melt, he organized a mass nonviolent resistance campaign that pushed them out of power whether they wanted to abdicate or not.  Gandhi wasn’t willing to wait around until the British imperialists changed their minds about colonialism being a good thing.[22]

 

I, too, do not mean to promote here the tactics of what has been poorly labeled “radical environmentalism,”[23] for there are many non-violent manners of protest.[24]  Numerous organizations promote “Culture Jamming” and “Reality Hacking,” and the following compendium references some of my favorites:

  • Merry Pranksters of the New Economy: RT Mark, UTNE 110,

            November/December 2000

            What ultimately derives from these jammers is a translation of serious rebukes into gargantuan fun and pith.  We are all ready for that, for to contain the agonies of inhumanities in one’s body without a smile in one’s heart is to court terrible sickness.  My wife has said that what I must do is be joyful while holding hands with sorrow.

On Happiness

            The joy of delusion,[26] the pathologies of hope,[27] the quest for happiness,[28] the secrets of happiness,[29] the futile pursuit of happiness,[30] the science of happiness,[31] authentic happiness,[32] the importance of collective joy,[33] the happiness gene,[34] the search for happiness.[35]  Please, Zazen![36]

            The class needs an antidote.  I originally designed an academic, scholarly-like segment in positive psychology,[37] complete with “satisfaction” and “optimism” workcharts.  Then I recalled the Human Be-In, the Holy Man Jam in San Francisco, in Golden Gate Park in the Summer of Love.  Baba Ram Das (Dr. Richard Alpert) and assorted Enlightened Beings sat cross-legged on the dais surrounded by a zillion seekers of enlightenment, many of whom had, admittedly, inhaled.  After a seeming-decade of enlightened, swirling words, Alan Watts took his turn to speak.  He stayed silent for a time, then intoned ever so slowly, “ha ha ho ho hee hee,” and he continued to so voice “ha ha ho ho hee hee” until the park had erupted in fits of riotous laughter. 

            Next to that memory, I discovered an article by Jeff Gill entitled, “Messages of Peace Are Blowin’ In The Wind.”[38]  Art teachers in Coconut Creek, Florida, he explained, had formed the community project “Pinwheels for Peace.”  Middle school students planted windmill-like paper crafts—with a peace smbol center—by a fence at their school.  The organization[39] claims that over 1 million pinwheels were spinning for peace, in 2006, in more than 2400 locations around the world.  Later that same day, I googled Prairie Home Companion and aired its annual “Joke Show.”

So, for me, what I and my students needed, I recognized, was to simply laugh.  This forthcoming semester, as noted in the Syllabus, I will spend one week’s class—three hours—having a chuckle and reminding ourselves of the importance of side-splitting.  We’ll be “FUNdamentalists,” “Optimystics,” practice “Fun Shui”, commit random acts of comedy, and undergo “absurdiveness training.”[40]  Please bring your very best laughter.  “People of zee wurl, relax.”



                [1] Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams (1986).

                [2] Adrienne Rich, “Natural Resources,” The Dream of a Common Language: Poems 1974-1977 (W. W. Norton 1993), p. 60.

                [3] Compare these parallel paths of emotional negotiation:  Carla A. Wise (interview with Mary Wood), Green All the Lawyers, UTNE 46, September-October 2008; Jori Finkel, Back to Nature, in Pictures and Action (re: Sebastiao Salgado), NY Times, May 31, 2009.  See also Joanna Macy, The Greatest Danger, YES! Mag. 53, Spring 2008; David Swick, We Live In The Best of All Times (interview with Alice walker), Shambhala Sun 45, May 2007; Paul Hawken, To Remake the World, Orion 60, May/June 2007; Studs Terkel, On Hope and Activism, http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1111-09.htm; Studs Terkel, Hope Dies Last (2004); Kseniya Simonova, Sand Animation, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=518XP8prwZo; James Lovelock, Making Peace with Gaia, Resurgence 59, September/October 2006; Terry Tempest Williams, Finding Beauty in a Broken World (interviewed by David Medaris), available at http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=24345.

                [4] Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest 4 (Viking 2007).  See also Paul Hawken, “How To Stop Our Economic Systems From Stealing,” http://www.alternet.org/story/54920?page=4 (Hawken discusses social movements as humanity’s immune response to political corruption, economic disease and ecological degradation.)

                [5] Wolfgang Sachs, The Virtue of Enoughness, NPQ Special Issue 1999, page 10.

                [6] Ko Un, The Sound of My Waves (Taize Anthony, trans. 1993).

                [7] William McDonough and Michael Braungart, The Next Industrial Revolution, The Atlantic Monthly, October 1998.

                [8] Ivan Illich, The Shadow Our Future Throws, NPQ Special Issue 1999, page 14.

                [9] Id.

                [10] Robert Graves, Seven Days in New Crete (Quartet 1975).

                [11] Robert Graves, The White Goddess (Vintage Books 1948).

                [12] See, e.g., Bill McKibben, The End of Nature (2006); Bill McKibben, Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community (2007); Yes! Theme Issue: Climate Solutions, Yes!, Spring 2008; Andrew C. Revkin, A Shift in the Debate Over Global Warming, NY Times, April 6, 2008; James Lovelock, Making Peace with Gaia, Resurgence 59, September/October 2006; Carol M. Rose, From H20 to CO2: Lessons of Water Rights for Carbon Trading, 50 Ariz L. Rev. 91 (2008); The Low Carbon Catalogue, NY Times Mag., April 20, 2008; Carla A. Wise (Interview of Mary Wood), Green All the Lawyers, UTNE 46, September-October 2008 (atmospheric trust obligation);  David F. Victor & Joshua C. House, A New Currency: Climate Change and Carbon Credits, Harvard Int’l. Rev. 56, Summer 2004; Anja Kollmuss, Carbon Offsets 101: A Primer on the Hottest – And Trickiest – Topic in Climate Change, World Watch 9, July/August 2007; Victoria Schlesinger, Carbon Rush: Will The Environment Emerge as the Winner?, Plenty Mag 87, June/July 2008; Jay Walljasper, Down and Dirty, ODE 51, June 2008; BioMass, www.valcent.net/i/misc/Vertigro/index/htmlSee also The Environment and Technology: On the Precipice or In the Crevasse?

                [13] See generally Muhammad Yunus, Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty (1999); Joseph Hart, The New Capitalists: Is it Possible to Make Money and Really Make a Difference?, UTNE 39, May/June 2006; Karol Boudreaux and Tyler Cowen, The Micromagic of Microcredit, The Wilson Quarterly 27, Winter 2008.

                [14] David Leonhardt, The Big Fix, NY Times Mag., February 1, 2009 at p. 22.

                [15] Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest (2007); Wiser Earth, www.wiserearth.com; World Social Forum, www.forum.socialmundial.org.br; Modern Landscape Ecology, Whole Earth, Summer 1998; Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, www.unep.org.

                [16] See The Green Mind, NY Times Mag, April 19, 2009; Stephen Leahy, Toward a Green Economy, www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/01/1602; Green Guide, The Resource for Consuming Wisely, National Geographic, Summer 2008; The Green Guide: For Everyday Living, www.thegreenguide.com; The Low Carbon Catalogue, NY Times Mag, April 20, 2008; Peter Miller, Saving Energy: It Starts at Home, Nat’l Geographic 60, March 2009; Janet Paskin, Blue Sky Thinking, ODE 42, January/February 2008; Alex Williams, Buying Into the Green Movement, NY Times, July 1, 2007, sec. 9, p. 1; Charles Komanoff, Whether Wind?, Orion 30, October 2006.  But see “Green Sprawl,” UTNE, March-April, 2009, p. 11.

                [17] Janine Benyus, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (1997); Tom Mueller, Biomimetics: Design by Nature, National Geographic, April 2008; David Kapfer, The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Janine Benyus on the Virtues of Imitating Nature, The Sun 5, September, 2009; Evolution Meets Creation, Sustainable Industries 22, August 2009.

                [18] George Johnson, Plugging in the Sun, Nat’l Geographic 28, September 2009; Leslie Kaufman, Harnessing The Sun, With Help From Cities, NY Times, March 15, 2009; Kate Galbraith, Europe’s Way of Encouraging Solar Power Arrives in the U.S., NY Times, March 13, 2009, at sec. B, p. 1.  Bob Audette, Senator Backs New Solar Power Initiative, www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/03/10082; 10 Million Solar Roofs Act of 2008, S. 3224; American Solar Energy Society, www.ases.org; Carolyn P. Johnson, Innovation Fuels Solar Power Drive, New Technology To Help Make Such Generation Feasible, Boston Globe, July 11, 2008, www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/11/10284; Go Solar, California!, www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov; The Vote Solar Initiative, www.votesolar.orgBut see Felicity Barrington, Environmentalists in a Clash of Goals, NY Times, March 24, 2009, at sec. A, p. 17.

                [19]] Special Section, What the World Needs Now, Orion 17, Spring 2002; Jeffrey Sachs, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008); Bioneers, www.bioneers.org; Kent E. Portney, Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously: Economic Development, The Environment, and Quality of Life in American Cities (2003); Hannah Cassidy, Forty Initiatives That Are Changing Our World, Resurgence 70, September/October 2006; What the World Needs Now, Ode 52, January/February 2008; Ode, 11 Things We Can Learn From The Rest Of The World, www.alternet.org/story/65847; Susan Saulny, Cutting Out the Middleman, Shoppers Buy Slices of Farms, NY Times, July 10, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/us/10farms.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=print&adxn.

                [20] David P. Barash, How Did Honor Evolve?, http://chronicle.com/temp/rcprint.php?id=x4b3czpc6vjdzhjb8mz4mnctyxsn/fhz.

                [21] These eleven questions are explored by various commentators in the Special Section, What the World Needs Now, Orion 17, Spring 2002.

                [22] Steve Chase, Militancy, Orion 40, Spring 2002.

                [23] See Matt Rasmussen, Green Rage: Radical Environmentalists Are Caught Between Their Love of Earth, Trespass of the Law, and the U.S. Government’s War on Terror, Orion 60, January/February 2007.

                [24] See generally Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The Hidden History of a Revolutionary Idea, Orion 58, September/October 2006; James P. Troxel, The Recovery of Civic Engagement in America, in Beyond Prince and Merchant: Citizen Participation and the Rise of Civil Society (John Burbridge ed. 1998); James P. Troxel, “Creating a ‘Civil Society’ in the Workplace,” www.ica-associates.ca/Resources/CivilSocietyatWork.pdf;  Gene Sharp, The Methods of Nonviolent Action: Part Two of the Politics of Nonviolent Action (Harvard U. Center for Int’l Affairs, Extending Horizons Books 1973); James Geary and Marco Visscher, New Model Army, Ode 54, May 2008; Julia Silverman, Hundreds of Professors Hold Green Teach In, Associated Press, February 1, 2008, www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/01/6792; [Sonja Katyal]; Chaddus Bruce and Erica Alini, Inside a Hacker School, Foreign Policy 93, November/December 2007; Rebecca Solnit, Some Monsters Die Slowly: Attention Deficit and Activism Don’t Mix,Orion 12, January/February 2007; Sharon LaFraniere, Facing Counterfeiting Crackdown, Beijing Vendors Fight Back, NY Times, March 12, 2009, at sec. A, p. 6.

                [25] There are many graphic activists.  See, e.g., Beandrea Davis, Graphic Activist, UTNE 20, January/February 2008; Paul Jobling & David Crowley, Graphic Design: Representation and Reproduction Since 1800 (1997).  Caryn Jones, An Alternative Universe Where Beautiful People Have Repulsive Babies, NY Times, October 8, 2006.

                [26] Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness (2006).

                [27] Barbara Ehrenreich, Pathologies of Hope, Harper’s Magazine 9, February 2007.

                [28] Darrin M. McMahon, The Quest for Happiness, Wilson Quarterly 62, Winter 2005; The Happiness Project, http://www.happiness-project.com

                [29] Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen to Good People (2007).

                [30] Jon Gertner, The Futile Pursuit of Happiness, NY Times Mag., September 7, 2003, ____, p. 42.

                [31] Bruce E. Levine, The Science of Happiness: Is It All Bullshit?, July 4, 2008, www.alternet.org/story/90411; Cover Story, The Science of Happiness, Time Mag., www.time.com/time/2005/happiness; World Database of Happiness, www.worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl.

                [32] Martin E. P. Seligman, Authentic Happiness (Free Press 2002); D. T. Max, Happiness 101: Can Classes on Positive Psychology Teach Students Not Just To Feel Good But Also To Do Good?, NY Times Mag., January 7, 2007, p. 46; Authentic Happiness, www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx.

                [33] Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Henry Holt & Co. 2007); Laura Barcella, Barbara Ehrenreich on the Importance of Collective Joy, April 7, 2007, www.alternet.org/story/50126.

                [34] Robert Michael Pyle, The Happiness Gene, Orion 68, May/June 2006.

                [35] Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World (Twelve 2007).

                [36] Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche, Training the Mind to Transform Adversity into Awakening, Shambhala Sun 37, May 2007; Mandalit del Barco, Laughter Yoga: Relaxing, If A Bit Kooky, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6641178; TED Talks: Matthieu Ricard, Habits of Happiness, http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/191.

                [37]See Bruce E. Levine, The Science of Happiness: Is It All Bullshit?, July 4, 2008,www.alternet.org/story/90411; Cover Story, The Science of Happiness, TIME MAG.,www.time.com/time/2005/happiness; World Database of Happiness, www.worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl.

                [38] Jeff Gill, Messages of Peace Are Blowin’ In The Wind: GMS Students Plant ‘Pinwheels for Peace’, The Gainesville Times, September 22, 2007, www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/22/4030.

                [39] www.pinwheelsforpeace.com.

                [40] Swami Beyondananda, Life Purpose: Ten Guides to Enlightenment, www.aspirenow.com/Purpose_0201_Swami_10_Guidelines_to_Enlightenment.htm.