[Iowa-dx] Fwd: A greenworld is possible
hhart@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
hhart@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
Tue, 1 May 2007 22:06:37 -0500
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Most hopeful thing I have read in a while. Greg
A Global Democratic Movement Is About to Pop
By Paul Hawken
Orion Magazine
Tuesday 01 May 2007
Something earth-changing is afoot among civil society - a significant social
movement is eluding the radar of mainstream culture.
I have given nearly one thousand talks about the environment in the pas=
t
fifteen years, and after every speech a smaller crowd gathered to talk, ask
questions, and exchange business cards. The people offering their cards were
working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty,
deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more.
They were from the nonprofit and nongovernmental world, also known as civil
society. They looked after rivers and bays, educated consumers about
sustainable agriculture, retrofitted houses with solar panels, lobbied state
legislatures about pollution, fought against corporate-weighted trade
policies, worked to green inner cities, or taught children about the
environment. Quite simply, they were trying to safeguard nature and ensure
justice.
After being on the road for a week or two, I would return with a couple
hundred cards stuffed into various pockets. I would lay them out on the
table in my kitchen, read the names, look at the logos, envisage the
missions, and marvel at what groups do on behalf of others. Later, I would
put them into drawers or paper bags, keepsakes of the journey. I couldn't
throw them away.
Over the years the cards mounted into the thousands, and whenever I
glanced at the bags in my closet, I kept coming back to one question: did
anyone know how many groups there were? At first, this was a matter of
curiosity, but it slowly grew into a hunch that something larger was afoot,
a significant social movement that was eluding the radar of mainstream
culture.
I began to count. I looked at government records for different countrie=
s
and, using various methods to approximate the number of environmental and
social justice groups from tax census data, I initially estimated that there
were thirty thousand environmental organizations strung around the globe;
when I added social justice and indigenous organizations, the number
exceeded one hundred thousand. I then researched past social movements to
see if there were any equal in scale and scope, but I couldn't find
anything.
The more I probed, the more I unearthed, and the numbers continued to
climb. In trying to pick up a stone, I found the exposed tip of a geological
formation. I discovered lists, indexes, and small databases specific to
certain sectors or geographic areas, but no set of data came close to
describing the movement's breadth. Extrapolating from the records being
accessed, I realized that the initial estimate of a hundred thousand
organizations was off by at least a factor of ten. I now believe there are
over one million organizations working toward ecological sustainability and
social justice. Maybe two.
By conventional definition, this is not a movement. Movements have
leaders and ideologies. You join movements, study tracts, and identify
yourself with a group. You read the biography of the founder(s) or listen to
them perorate on tape or in person. Movements have followers, but this
movement doesn't work that way. It is dispersed, inchoate, and fiercely
independent. There is no manifesto or doctrine, no authority to check with.
I sought a name for it, but there isn't one.
Historically, social movements have arisen primarily because of
injustice, inequalities, and corruption. Those woes remain legion, but a new
condition exists that has no precedent: the planet has a life-threatening
disease that is marked by massive ecological degradation and rapid climate
change. It crossed my mind that perhaps I was seeing something organic, if
not biologic. Rather than a movement in the conventional sense, is it a
collective response to threat? Is it splintered for reasons that are innate
to its purpose? Or is it simply disorganized? More questions followed. How
does it function? How fast is it growing? How is it connected? Why is it
largely ignored?
After spending years researching this phenomenon, including creating
with my colleagues a global database of these organizations, I have come to
these conclusions: this is the largest social movement in all of history, no
one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysterious than what meets
the eye.
What does meet the eye is compelling: tens of millions of ordinary and
not-so-ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable
odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to
this world.
Clayton Thomas-Muller speaks to a community gathering of the Cree natio=
n
about waste sites on their native land in Northern Alberta, toxic lakes so
big you can see them from outer space. Shi Lihong, founder of Wild China
Films, makes documentaries with her husband on migrants displaced by
construction of large dams. Rosalina Tuyuc Vel=E1squez, a member of the
Maya-Kaqchikel people, fights for full accountability for tens of thousands
of people killed by death squads in Guatemala. Rodrigo Baggio retrieves
discarded computers from New York, London, and Toronto and installs them in
the favelas of Brazil, where he and his staff teach computer skills to poor
children. Biologist Janine Benyus speaks to twelve hundred executives at a
business forum in Queensland about biologically inspired industrial
development. Paul Sykes, a volunteer for the National Audubon Society,
completes his fifty-second Christmas Bird Count in Little Creek, Virginia,
joining fifty thousand other people who tally 70 million birds on one day.
Sumita Dasgupta leads students, engineers, journalists, farmers, and
Adivasis (tribal people) on a ten-day trek through Gujarat exploring the
rebirth of ancient rainwater harvesting and catchment systems that bring
life back to drought-prone areas of India. Silas Kpanan'Ayoung Siakor, who
exposed links between the genocidal policies of former president Charles
Taylor and illegal logging in Liberia, now creates certified, sustainable
timber policies.
These eight, who may never meet and know one another, are part of a
coalescence comprising hundreds of thousands of organizations with no
center, codified beliefs, or charismatic leader. The movement grows and
spreads in every city and country. Virtually every tribe, culture, language,
and religion is part of it, from Mongolians to Uzbeks to Tamils. It is
comprised of families in India, students in Australia, farmers in France,
the landless in Brazil, the bananeras of Honduras, the "poors" of Durban,
villagers in Irian Jaya, indigenous tribes of Bolivia, and housewives in
Japan. Its leaders are farmers, zoologists, shoemakers, and poets.
The movement can't be divided because it is atomized - small pieces
loosely joined. It forms, gathers, and dissipates quickly. Many inside and
out dismiss it as powerless, but it has been known to bring down
governments, companies, and leaders through witnessing, informing, and
massing.
The movement has three basic roots: the environmental and social justic=
e
movements, and indigenous cultures' resistance to globalization - all of
which are intertwining. It arises spontaneously from different economic
sectors, cultures, regions, and cohorts, resulting in a global, classless,
diverse, and embedded movement, spreading worldwide without exception. In a
world grown too complex for constrictive ideologies, the very word movement
may be too small, for it is the largest coming together of citizens in
history.
There are research institutes, community development agencies, village-
and citizen-based organizations, corporations, networks, faith-based groups,
trusts, and foundations. They defend against corrupt politics and climate
change, corporate predation and the death of the oceans, governmental
indifference and pandemic poverty, industrial forestry and farming,
depletion of soil and water.
Describing the breadth of the movement is like trying to hold the ocean
in your hand. It is that large. When a part rises above the waterline, the
iceberg beneath usually remains unseen. When Wangari Maathai won the Nobel
Peace Prize, the wire service stories didn't mention the network of six
thousand different women's groups in Africa planting trees. When we hear
about a chemical spill in a river, it is never mentioned that more than four
thousand organizations in North America have adopted a river, creek, or
stream. We read that organic agriculture is the fastest-growing sector of
farming in America, Japan, Mexico, and Europe, but no connection is made to
the more than three thousand organizations that educate farmers, customers,
and legislators about sustainable agriculture.
This is the first time in history that a large social movement is not
bound together by an "ism." What binds it together is ideas, not ideologies.
This unnamed movement's big contribution is the absence of one big idea; in
its stead it offers thousands of practical and useful ideas. In place of
isms are processes, concerns, and compassion. The movement demonstrates a
pliable, resonant, and generous side of humanity.
And it is impossible to pin down. Generalities are largely inaccurate.
It is nonviolent, and grassroots; it has no bombs, armies, or helicopters. A
charismatic male vertebrate is not in charge. The movement does not agree on
everything nor will it ever, because that would be an ideology. But it
shares a basic set of fundamental understandings about the Earth, how it
functions, and the necessity of fairness and equity for all people partaking
of the planet's life-giving systems.
The promise of this unnamed movement is to offer solutions to what
appear to be insoluble dilemmas: poverty, global climate change, terrorism,
ecological degradation, polarization of income, loss of culture. It is not
burdened with a syndrome of trying to save the world; it is trying to remake
the world.
There is fierceness here. There is no other explanation for the raw
courage and heart seen over and again in the people who march, speak,
create, resist, and build. It is the fierceness of what it means to know we
are human and want to survive.
This movement is relentless and unafraid. It cannot be mollified,
pacified, or suppressed. There can be no Berlin Wall moment, no
treaty-signing, no morning to awaken when the superpowers agree to stand
down. The movement will continue to take myriad forms. It will not rest.
There will be no Marx, Alexander, or Kennedy. No book can explain it, no
person can represent it, no words can encompass it, because the movement is
the breathing, sentient testament of the living world.
And I believe it will prevail. I don't mean defeat, conquer, or cause
harm to someone else. And I don't tender the claim in an oracular sense. I
mean the thinking that informs the movement's goal - to create a just
society conducive to life on Earth - will reign. It will soon suffuse and
permeate most institutions. But before then, it will change a sufficient
number of people so as to begin the reversal of centuries of frenzied
self-destruction.
Inspiration is not garnered from litanies of what is flawed; it resides
in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, recover, reimagine,
and reconsider. Healing the wounds of the Earth and its people does not
require saintliness or a political party. It is not a liberal or
conservative activity. It is a sacred act.
Reprint Notice: This article appears in the May/June 2007 issue of Orio=
n
magazine, 187 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230, 888/909-6568,
($35/year for 6 issues). Subscriptions are available online:
www.orionmagazine.org.
Paul Hawken is an entrepreneur and social activist living in California=
.
His article in this issue is adapted from "Blessed Unrest," to be published
by Viking Press and used by permission.
----- End forwarded message -----
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Most hopeful thing I have read in a while. Greg
A Global Democratic Movement Is About to Pop
By Paul Hawken=20
Orion Magazine
Tuesday 01 May 2007
Something earth-changing is afoot among civil society - a significant socia=
l
movement is eluding the radar of mainstream culture.
I have given nearly one thousand talks about the environment in the pas=
t
fifteen years, and after every speech a smaller crowd gathered to talk, ask
questions, and exchange business cards. The people offering their cards wer=
e
working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty,
deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more.
They were from the nonprofit and nongovernmental world, also known as civil
society. They looked after rivers and bays, educated consumers about
sustainable agriculture, retrofitted houses with solar panels, lobbied stat=
e
legislatures about pollution, fought against corporate-weighted trade
policies, worked to green inner cities, or taught children about the
environment. Quite simply, they were trying to safeguard nature and ensure
justice.
After being on the road for a week or two, I would return with a couple
hundred cards stuffed into various pockets. I would lay them out on the
table in my kitchen, read the names, look at the logos, envisage the
missions, and marvel at what groups do on behalf of others. Later, I would
put them into drawers or paper bags, keepsakes of the journey. I couldn't
throw them away.
Over the years the cards mounted into the thousands, and whenever I
glanced at the bags in my closet, I kept coming back to one question: did
anyone know how many groups there were? At first, this was a matter of
curiosity, but it slowly grew into a hunch that something larger was afoot,
a significant social movement that was eluding the radar of mainstream
culture.
I began to count. I looked at government records for different countrie=
s
and, using various methods to approximate the number of environmental and
social justice groups from tax census data, I initially estimated that ther=
e
were thirty thousand environmental organizations strung around the globe;
when I added social justice and indigenous organizations, the number
exceeded one hundred thousand. I then researched past social movements to
see if there were any equal in scale and scope, but I couldn't find
anything.
The more I probed, the more I unearthed, and the numbers continued to
climb. In trying to pick up a stone, I found the exposed tip of a geologica=
l
formation. I discovered lists, indexes, and small databases specific to
certain sectors or geographic areas, but no set of data came close to
describing the movement's breadth. Extrapolating from the records being
accessed, I realized that the initial estimate of a hundred thousand
organizations was off by at least a factor of ten. I now believe there are
over one million organizations working toward ecological sustainability and
social justice. Maybe two.
By conventional definition, this is not a movement. Movements have
leaders and ideologies. You join movements, study tracts, and identify
yourself with a group. You read the biography of the founder(s) or listen t=
o
them perorate on tape or in person. Movements have followers, but this
movement doesn't work that way. It is dispersed, inchoate, and fiercely
independent. There is no manifesto or doctrine, no authority to check with.
I sought a name for it, but there isn't one.
Historically, social movements have arisen primarily because of
injustice, inequalities, and corruption. Those woes remain legion, but a ne=
w
condition exists that has no precedent: the planet has a life-threatening
disease that is marked by massive ecological degradation and rapid climate
change. It crossed my mind that perhaps I was seeing something organic, if
not biologic. Rather than a movement in the conventional sense, is it a
collective response to threat? Is it splintered for reasons that are innate
to its purpose? Or is it simply disorganized? More questions followed. How
does it function? How fast is it growing? How is it connected? Why is it
largely ignored?
After spending years researching this phenomenon, including creating
with my colleagues a global database of these organizations, I have come to
these conclusions: this is the largest social movement in all of history, n=
o
one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysterious than what meet=
s
the eye.
What does meet the eye is compelling: tens of millions of ordinary and
not-so-ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable
odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to
this world.
Clayton Thomas-Muller speaks to a community gathering of the Cree natio=
n
about waste sites on their native land in Northern Alberta, toxic lakes so
big you can see them from outer space. Shi Lihong, founder of Wild China
Films, makes documentaries with her husband on migrants displaced by
construction of large dams. Rosalina Tuyuc Vel=E1squez, a member of the
Maya-Kaqchikel people, fights for full accountability for tens of thousands
of people killed by death squads in Guatemala. Rodrigo Baggio retrieves
discarded computers from New York, London, and Toronto and installs them in
the favelas of Brazil, where he and his staff teach computer skills to poor
children. Biologist Janine Benyus speaks to twelve hundred executives at a
business forum in Queensland about biologically inspired industrial
development. Paul Sykes, a volunteer for the National Audubon Society,
completes his fifty-second Christmas Bird Count in Little Creek, Virginia,
joining fifty thousand other people who tally 70 million birds on one day.
Sumita Dasgupta leads students, engineers, journalists, farmers, and
Adivasis (tribal people) on a ten-day trek through Gujarat exploring the
rebirth of ancient rainwater harvesting and catchment systems that bring
life back to drought-prone areas of India. Silas Kpanan'Ayoung Siakor, who
exposed links between the genocidal policies of former president Charles
Taylor and illegal logging in Liberia, now creates certified, sustainable
timber policies.
These eight, who may never meet and know one another, are part of a
coalescence comprising hundreds of thousands of organizations with no
center, codified beliefs, or charismatic leader. The movement grows and
spreads in every city and country. Virtually every tribe, culture, language=
,
and religion is part of it, from Mongolians to Uzbeks to Tamils. It is
comprised of families in India, students in Australia, farmers in France,
the landless in Brazil, the bananeras of Honduras, the "poors" of Durban,
villagers in Irian Jaya, indigenous tribes of Bolivia, and housewives in
Japan. Its leaders are farmers, zoologists, shoemakers, and poets.
The movement can't be divided because it is atomized - small pieces
loosely joined. It forms, gathers, and dissipates quickly. Many inside and
out dismiss it as powerless, but it has been known to bring down
governments, companies, and leaders through witnessing, informing, and
massing.
The movement has three basic roots: the environmental and social justic=
e
movements, and indigenous cultures' resistance to globalization - all of
which are intertwining. It arises spontaneously from different economic
sectors, cultures, regions, and cohorts, resulting in a global, classless,
diverse, and embedded movement, spreading worldwide without exception. In a
world grown too complex for constrictive ideologies, the very word movement
may be too small, for it is the largest coming together of citizens in
history.
There are research institutes, community development agencies, village-
and citizen-based organizations, corporations, networks, faith-based groups=
,
trusts, and foundations. They defend against corrupt politics and climate
change, corporate predation and the death of the oceans, governmental
indifference and pandemic poverty, industrial forestry and farming,
depletion of soil and water.
Describing the breadth of the movement is like trying to hold the ocean
in your hand. It is that large. When a part rises above the waterline, the
iceberg beneath usually remains unseen. When Wangari Maathai won the Nobel
Peace Prize, the wire service stories didn't mention the network of six
thousand different women's groups in Africa planting trees. When we hear
about a chemical spill in a river, it is never mentioned that more than fou=
r
thousand organizations in North America have adopted a river, creek, or
stream. We read that organic agriculture is the fastest-growing sector of
farming in America, Japan, Mexico, and Europe, but no connection is made to
the more than three thousand organizations that educate farmers, customers,
and legislators about sustainable agriculture.
This is the first time in history that a large social movement is not
bound together by an "ism." What binds it together is ideas, not ideologies=
.
This unnamed movement's big contribution is the absence of one big idea; in
its stead it offers thousands of practical and useful ideas. In place of
isms are processes, concerns, and compassion. The movement demonstrates a
pliable, resonant, and generous side of humanity.
And it is impossible to pin down. Generalities are largely inaccurate.
It is nonviolent, and grassroots; it has no bombs, armies, or helicopters. =
A
charismatic male vertebrate is not in charge. The movement does not agree o=
n
everything nor will it ever, because that would be an ideology. But it
shares a basic set of fundamental understandings about the Earth, how it
functions, and the necessity of fairness and equity for all people partakin=
g
of the planet's life-giving systems.
The promise of this unnamed movement is to offer solutions to what
appear to be insoluble dilemmas: poverty, global climate change, terrorism,
ecological degradation, polarization of income, loss of culture. It is not
burdened with a syndrome of trying to save the world; it is trying to remak=
e
the world.
There is fierceness here. There is no other explanation for the raw
courage and heart seen over and again in the people who march, speak,
create, resist, and build. It is the fierceness of what it means to know we
are human and want to survive.
This movement is relentless and unafraid. It cannot be mollified,
pacified, or suppressed. There can be no Berlin Wall moment, no
treaty-signing, no morning to awaken when the superpowers agree to stand
down. The movement will continue to take myriad forms. It will not rest.
There will be no Marx, Alexander, or Kennedy. No book can explain it, no
person can represent it, no words can encompass it, because the movement is
the breathing, sentient testament of the living world.
And I believe it will prevail. I don't mean defeat, conquer, or cause
harm to someone else. And I don't tender the claim in an oracular sense. I
mean the thinking that informs the movement's goal - to create a just
society conducive to life on Earth - will reign. It will soon suffuse and
permeate most institutions. But before then, it will change a sufficient
number of people so as to begin the reversal of centuries of frenzied
self-destruction.
Inspiration is not garnered from litanies of what is flawed; it resides
in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, recover, reimagine,
and reconsider. Healing the wounds of the Earth and its people does not
require saintliness or a political party. It is not a liberal or
conservative activity. It is a sacred act.
Reprint Notice: This article appears in the May/June 2007 issue of Orio=
n
magazine, 187 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230, 888/909-6568,
($35/year for 6 issues). Subscriptions are available online:
www.orionmagazine.org.
Paul Hawken is an entrepreneur and social activist living in California=
.
His article in this issue is adapted from "Blessed Unrest," to be published
by Viking Press and used by permission.
--B_3260892568_215354
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<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>A greenworld is possible</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<FONT FACE=3D"Palatino"><SPAN STYLE=3D'font-size:14.0px'>Most hopeful thing I h=
ave read in a while. Greg<BR>
<BR>
</SPAN></FONT><FONT SIZE=3D"4"><FONT FACE=3D"Arial"><SPAN STYLE=3D'font-size:15.0=
px'><B>A Global Democratic Movement Is About to Pop</B> <BR>
By Paul Hawken <BR>
Orion Magazine<BR>
<BR>
Tuesday 01 May 2007<BR>
<B><I><BR>
Something earth-changing is afoot among civil society - a significant socia=
l movement is eluding the radar of mainstream cultur</I></B>e.<BR>
I have given nearly one thousand talks about the en=
vironment in the past fifteen years, and after every speech a smaller crowd =
gathered to talk, ask questions, and exchange business cards. The people off=
ering their cards were working on the most salient issues of our day: climat=
e change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human =
rights, and more. They were from the nonprofit and nongovernmental world, al=
so known as civil society. They looked after rivers and bays, educated consu=
mers about sustainable agriculture, retrofitted houses with solar panels, lo=
bbied state legislatures about pollution, fought against corporate-weighted =
trade policies, worked to green inner cities, or taught children about the e=
nvironment. Quite simply, they were trying to safeguard nature and ensure ju=
stice.<BR>
<BR>
After being on the road for a week or two, I would =
return with a couple hundred cards stuffed into various pockets. I would lay=
them out on the table in my kitchen, read the names, look at the logos, env=
isage the missions, and marvel at what groups do on behalf of others. Later,=
I would put them into drawers or paper bags, keepsakes of the journey. I co=
uldn't throw them away.<BR>
<BR>
Over the years the cards mounted into the thousands=
, and whenever I glanced at the bags in my closet, I kept coming back to one=
question: did anyone know how many groups there were? At first, this was a =
matter of curiosity, but it slowly grew into a hunch that something larger w=
as afoot, a significant social movement that was eluding the radar of mainst=
ream culture.<BR>
<BR>
I began to count. I looked at government records fo=
r different countries and, using various methods to approximate the number o=
f environmental and social justice groups from tax census data, I initially =
estimated that there were thirty thousand environmental organizations strung=
around the globe; when I added social justice and indigenous organizations,=
the number exceeded one hundred thousand. I then researched past social mov=
ements to see if there were any equal in scale and scope, but I couldn't fin=
d anything.<BR>
<BR>
The more I probed, the more I unearthed, and the nu=
mbers continued to climb. In trying to pick up a stone, I found the exposed =
tip of a geological formation. I discovered lists, indexes, and small databa=
ses specific to certain sectors or geographic areas, but no set of data came=
close to describing the movement's breadth. Extrapolating from the records =
being accessed, I realized that the initial estimate of a hundred thousand o=
rganizations was off by at least a factor of ten. I now believe there are ov=
er one million organizations working toward ecological sustainability and so=
cial justice. Maybe two.<BR>
<BR>
By conventional definition, this is not a movement.=
Movements have leaders and ideologies. You join movements, study tracts, an=
d identify yourself with a group. You read the biography of the founder(s) o=
r listen to them perorate on tape or in person. Movements have followers, bu=
t this movement doesn't work that way. It is dispersed, inchoate, and fierce=
ly independent. There is no manifesto or doctrine, no authority to check wit=
h.<BR>
<BR>
I sought a name for it, but there isn't one.<BR>
<BR>
Historically, social movements have arisen primaril=
y because of injustice, inequalities, and corruption. Those woes remain legi=
on, but a new condition exists that has no precedent: the planet has a life-=
threatening disease that is marked by massive ecological degradation and rap=
id climate change. It crossed my mind that perhaps I was seeing something or=
ganic, if not biologic. Rather than a movement in the conventional sense, is=
it a collective response to threat? Is it splintered for reasons that are i=
nnate to its purpose? Or is it simply disorganized? More questions followed.=
How does it function? How fast is it growing? How is it connected? Why is i=
t largely ignored?<BR>
<BR>
After spending years researching this phenomenon, i=
ncluding creating with my colleagues a global database of these organization=
s, I have come to these conclusions: this is the largest social movement in =
all of history, no one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysteri=
ous than what meets the eye.<BR>
<BR>
What does meet the eye is compelling: tens of milli=
ons of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people willing to confront despair, powe=
r, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justic=
e, and beauty to this world.<BR>
<BR>
Clayton Thomas-Muller speaks to a community gatheri=
ng of the Cree nation about waste sites on their native land in Northern Alb=
erta, toxic lakes so big you can see them from outer space. Shi Lihong, foun=
der of Wild China Films, makes documentaries with her husband on migrants di=
splaced by construction of large dams. Rosalina Tuyuc Velásquez, a me=
mber of the Maya-Kaqchikel people, fights for full accountability for tens o=
f thousands of people killed by death squads in Guatemala. Rodrigo Baggio re=
trieves discarded computers from New York, London, and Toronto and installs =
them in the favelas of Brazil, where he and his staff teach computer skills =
to poor children. Biologist Janine Benyus speaks to twelve hundred executive=
s at a business forum in Queensland about biologically inspired industrial d=
evelopment. Paul Sykes, a volunteer for the National Audubon Society, comple=
tes his fifty-second Christmas Bird Count in Little Creek, Virginia, joining=
fifty thousand other people who tally 70 million birds on one day.<BR>
<BR>
Sumita Dasgupta leads students, engineers, journali=
sts, farmers, and Adivasis (tribal people) on a ten-day trek through Gujarat=
exploring the rebirth of ancient rainwater harvesting and catchment systems=
that bring life back to drought-prone areas of India. Silas Kpanan'Ayoung S=
iakor, who exposed links between the genocidal policies of former president =
Charles Taylor and illegal logging in Liberia, now creates certified, sustai=
nable timber policies.<BR>
<BR>
These eight, who may never meet and know one anothe=
r, are part of a coalescence comprising hundreds of thousands of organizatio=
ns with no center, codified beliefs, or charismatic leader. The movement gro=
ws and spreads in every city and country. Virtually every tribe, culture, la=
nguage, and religion is part of it, from Mongolians to Uzbeks to Tamils. It =
is comprised of families in India, students in Australia, farmers in France,=
the landless in Brazil, the bananeras of Honduras, the "poors" of=
Durban, villagers in Irian Jaya, indigenous tribes of Bolivia, and housewiv=
es in Japan. Its leaders are farmers, zoologists, shoemakers, and poets.<BR>
<BR>
The movement can't be divided because it is atomize=
d - small pieces loosely joined. It forms, gathers, and dissipates quickly. =
Many inside and out dismiss it as powerless, but it has been known to bring =
down governments, companies, and leaders through witnessing, informing, and =
massing.<BR>
<BR>
The movement has three basic roots: the environment=
al and social justice movements, and indigenous cultures' resistance to glob=
alization - all of which are intertwining. It arises spontaneously from diff=
erent economic sectors, cultures, regions, and cohorts, resulting in a globa=
l, classless, diverse, and embedded movement, spreading worldwide without ex=
ception. In a world grown too complex for constrictive ideologies, the very =
word movement may be too small, for it is the largest coming together of cit=
izens in history.<BR>
<BR>
There are research institutes, community developmen=
t agencies, village- and citizen-based organizations, corporations, networks=
, faith-based groups, trusts, and foundations. They defend against corrupt p=
olitics and climate change, corporate predation and the death of the oceans,=
governmental indifference and pandemic poverty, industrial forestry and far=
ming, depletion of soil and water.<BR>
<BR>
Describing the breadth of the movement is like tryi=
ng to hold the ocean in your hand. It is that large. When a part rises above=
the waterline, the iceberg beneath usually remains unseen. When Wangari Maa=
thai won the Nobel Peace Prize, the wire service stories didn't mention the =
network of six thousand different women's groups in Africa planting trees. W=
hen we hear about a chemical spill in a river, it is never mentioned that mo=
re than four thousand organizations in North America have adopted a river, c=
reek, or stream. We read that organic agriculture is the fastest-growing sec=
tor of farming in America, Japan, Mexico, and Europe, but no connection is m=
ade to the more than three thousand organizations that educate farmers, cust=
omers, and legislators about sustainable agriculture.<BR>
<BR>
This is the first time in history that a large soci=
al movement is not bound together by an "ism." What binds it toget=
her is ideas, not ideologies. This unnamed movement's big contribution is th=
e absence of one big idea; in its stead it offers thousands of practical and=
useful ideas. In place of isms are processes, concerns, and compassion. The=
movement demonstrates a pliable, resonant, and generous side of humanity.<B=
R>
<BR>
And it is impossible to pin down. Generalities are =
largely inaccurate. It is nonviolent, and grassroots; it has no bombs, armie=
s, or helicopters. A charismatic male vertebrate is not in charge. The movem=
ent does not agree on everything nor will it ever, because that would be an =
ideology. But it shares a basic set of fundamental understandings about the =
Earth, how it functions, and the necessity of fairness and equity for all pe=
ople partaking of the planet's life-giving systems.<BR>
<BR>
The promise of this unnamed movement is to offer so=
lutions to what appear to be insoluble dilemmas: poverty, global climate cha=
nge, terrorism, ecological degradation, polarization of income, loss of cult=
ure. It is not burdened with a syndrome of trying to save the world; it is t=
rying to remake the world.<BR>
<BR>
There is fierceness here. There is no other explana=
tion for the raw courage and heart seen over and again in the people who mar=
ch, speak, create, resist, and build. It is the fierceness of what it means =
to know we are human and want to survive.<BR>
<BR>
This movement is relentless and unafraid. It cannot=
be mollified, pacified, or suppressed. There can be no Berlin Wall moment, =
no treaty-signing, no morning to awaken when the superpowers agree to stand =
down. The movement will continue to take myriad forms. It will not rest. The=
re will be no Marx, Alexander, or Kennedy. No book can explain it, no person=
can represent it, no words can encompass it, because the movement is the br=
eathing, sentient testament of the living world.<BR>
<BR>
And I believe it will prevail. I don't mean defeat,=
conquer, or cause harm to someone else. And I don't tender the claim in an =
oracular sense. I mean the thinking that informs the movement's goal - to cr=
eate a just society conducive to life on Earth - will reign. It will soon su=
ffuse and permeate most institutions. But before then, it will change a suff=
icient number of people so as to begin the reversal of centuries of frenzied=
self-destruction.<BR>
<BR>
Inspiration is not garnered from litanies of what i=
s flawed; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, =
recover, reimagine, and reconsider. Healing the wounds of the Earth and its =
people does not require saintliness or a political party. It is not a libera=
l or conservative activity. I<I>t is a sacred act.<BR>
<BR>
Reprint Notice: This article appears in the May/Jun=
e 2007 issue of Orion magazine, 187 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230,=
888/909-6568, ($35/year for 6 issues). Subscription<FONT COLOR=3D"#343F23"><U=
>s are available onlin</U></FONT>e</I>:<I> www.orionmagazine.org.<BR>
Paul Hawken is an entrepreneur and social activist =
living in California. His article in thi</I>s<FONT COLOR=3D"#343F23"><U> issue=
is adap</U></FONT>te<I>d from "Blessed Unrest," to be published b=
y Viking Press and used by permission.</I></SPAN></FONT></FONT>
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