The Earth - Our Home
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Integral Eco-Centers
© Michael Pergola 2009 all rights reserved
The prevailing ethos that has driven western civilization for the past 300 years, and that came to dominate the globe in the second half of the 20th century has run its course. We face serious challenges in the economy, the environment, education and health care, not to mention the decline of civility and the rise of political and religious extremism. Increased population and the global proliferation of industrial capitalism are seriously testing the carrying capacity of the planet. The well being of our children and our grandchildren demand that we create a more organic culture and a more conscious brand of capitalism. An organic culture would provide a richly textured fabric of meaning that weaves together the many experiences of the human family – geographically and historically – and the many aspects of a humane life – physical, emotional, mental and spiritual – into a single cloak of many colors. That single fabric would offer a creative framework that allows us to meet the future successfully. It would encourage a high level of interpersonal resilience and create a foundation that is economically viable, environmentally sustainable, and provides for the many as well as the few.
While the challenges we face today as a species are grave, the human and technical resources we have at our disposal are unprecedented. We have access to the entire heritage of human wisdom – from within and beyond our individual cultures, exoteric and esoteric, ancient and modern. At our fingertips is an extraordinary amount of knowledge. In comparison to the historical past, there is today an unusual level of information transparency, a cornucopia of communication methods and an unbelievable speed of global communication. Psychological knowledge of the human condition – and of child development in particular – is far more accurate today than ever before, our understanding of the physical world expands daily and life expectancy has risen steadily based on a better understanding of health and wellness. The potential for a world-wide renaissance that provides for the many as well as the few stands side by side with the probability of global catastrophe. What then is the root problem and what can be done?
Our culture – a global culture for the first time in human experience – has lost its resiliency. We are no longer able to respond in timely and creative way to the challenges that threaten the 15,000 year experiment in human civilization (with the rise of agriculture around 12,000 BCE the human experiment moved on to a new phase). For the human species to persevere we must re-create a hospitable relationship between the human and physical eco systems and we must create, for the first time, an equitable distribution of resources between the few and the many. This needs to be accomplished within the context of a system that encourages initiative and rewards individuals fairly for their contribution. For this to happen we must understand the interconnected nature of every aspect of civilization and the fundamental oneness of life. This is the great teaching of the wisest saints and sages through out the ages. But today we must embody that insight in all the institutions of daily life as well as in our inner state, and many more of us must rise to the occasion now.
In addition to re-casting our cultural and spiritual meaning making systems in a more universal light, we must re-cast our economic framework on a more inclusive, organic and sustainable foundation. We must create a new brand of capitalism (conscious capitalism) that retains those aspects of the system that encourage human initiative but discourages those aspects of the old system (of industrial-financial capitalism) that limit access to information, encourage greed or extreme self centeredness, and reward “phony productivity”. At the same time we must find ways to:
• foster better markets (for goods, services and capital) with more transparent information and lower cost of participation
• facilitate an outpouring of relevant, coherent and useful information
• strengthen penalties for deception that distort the market and cause serious harm
• make capital more widely available for socially valuable initiatives (learning for instance from micro finance)
• take all real costs into account (significantly reducing externalities and the tragedy of the commons)
• focus innovation on real productivity that benefits the many as well as the few
• allocate rewards in a way that encourages socially valuable risk taking and ambition while simultaneously discouraging greed
• reduce, rather than expanded, income disparity
• place a premium on civility and cooperative competition that creates widespread social benefit
• justly rewards those responsible for successfully launching socially beneficial enterprises
• strongly encourage leadership and management the brings out the best in people at all levels of the society
In order to accomplish this momentous task we must energize the unique talents of a wide variety of citizens across the globe in this common purpose. Many such initiatives are already underway. To a large degree, however, many of these initiatives have a single focus of attention, rather than a holistic approach that recognizes the profoundly interlaced nature of the challenges we face today. We believe that a systemic approach – one that integrates a variety of existing initiatives in a holistic mesh-works – can catalyze a higher level of intelligent energy and significantly increase the probability of successful outcomes.
This can be accomplished by seeding a series of interconnected trans-local communities that are in close communication and mutually beneficial commerce with similar communities in their region and across the globe. These communities must embody a richly textured meaning making system that gathers wisdom and color from a wide variety of perspectives and a diverse mix of historic cultures. At the same time it must have immediate access to the latest knowledge in a wide variety of disciplines and be able to turn that knowledge into know-how in highly innovative and effective ways. The economic order should encourage and reward creative efforts to provide greater real value across the broadest swath of the society. It should also place a premium on providing
meaningful work for young people seeking to find an authentic place in society. Initially a small number of model communities should be established as proof of concept projects to work out challenges and perfect the concept. These communities should benefit from existing efforts and integrate current initiatives wherever possible.
The center of these educational communities, which draw people from and provide services to the surrounding geographic area, would be a locally based food system that provides high nutritional value and offers meaningful work. These Integral Eco-Centers would use the latest educational and communication approaches to educate people about the health implications of our diets and the issues surrounding many of the outputs of the current food system. It would provide an alternative supply of information and nutritionally rich foods that create the basis of long term health and well being. It would help people learn how to prepare these foods in nutritious and delicious ways that are compatible with a busy life style, while also providing a periodic respite from the negative implications of that life style. Participants would also have access to the deep cultural wisdom surrounding how we eat from a wide variety of cultures and cuisines, and would learn to create contemporary experiences that strengthen family bonds, encourage healthy psychological development for both young and old, and provide a delicious way to build strong bodies, lively minds and vibrant spirits.
In addition to the tangible value offered to individuals and families, the Integral Eco-Center will provide an action learning environment that provides time tested insight into the human condition in a form appropriate to modern life. Within this context regular evening and Sunday gatherings will provide a forum to support individuals and families on their life journeys and to encourage curiosity and the capacity to move easily through different perspectives, two capacities vital in today’s diverse world. In addition, the action learning environment of the Integral Eco-Center will provide a living laboratory to model and investigate new organizational arrangements and more integrated leadership approaches. Such models and approaches will be cognizant of the conditions and challenges of our emerging global society and the need to foster a strong sense of connection and a local – albeit non-exclusive – identity within the larger context of global participation for both individuals and organizations.
This orientation will provide a rich learning environment that can be shared with the wider community via both traditional research and writing, as well as through more cutting edge channels. These would include various forms of video and electronic media, social networking, blogging and other emerging communications forms. This type of integrated approach, which addresses a variety of inter-related needs – individual, organizational and social; physical, economic, cultural and spiritual – in a coherent way, is vital if we are to better address the complex and rapidly changing conditions of contemporary society. By creating a virtuous learning cycle we can leverage our experience to simultaneously improve conditions on a variety of social issues and at the same time provide a proving ground for new or improved approaches to a number of the most pressing challenges of the day. These include the use of new technologies (neo-local food production and distribution, organic soil revitalization, regenerative science etc.), new organizational models, new educational efforts, new leadership approaches and new expressions of the wisdom vital to living a meaningful life. Taken together, within an iterative learning framework, these endeavors will provide significant leverage in creating a framework for a vibrant, sustainable 21st century local/global society.
This sort of Integral Eco-Center will be most effective and have the greatest impact on the wider society if they are built around a fundamental need of the human community. There are compelling reasons why the model for large scale social transformation should be centered economically and culturally around food. These include:
• Civilization began to develop after the domestication of plants and animals led to enough excess food to free certain groups of citizens to move away from subsistence activities and begin to specialize in various culture creating endeavors
• Life depends on the transformation of energy from the sun, working with the earth’s soil, into a form with sufficient nutritional value to support a variety of increasingly complex activities
• Food is the sun’s energy transformed into nutritional value, directly or indirectly through resources such as wise agricultural techniques, proper attention to the organic cycle, irrigation, agronomy, fossil fuels etc.
• Every great spiritual tradition has had a significant orientation toward food both practically and metaphorically, for example
o The Kosher laws in Judaism, and the restrictions around pork
o The restrictions around cows in Hinduism
o The focus on vegetarianism in many of the eastern religions
o Fasting at Ramadan during the day and feasting at night
o The focus of early Christianity on the Last Supper, and the symbolism of the loaves and the fishes
• Many highly developed cultures – e.g., Indian, Chinese, Italian and French – have developed complex cuisines that encourage cultural and familial cohesion and are significant forums for transmitting values to future generations
• Food is a significant segment of the economy of every society and impacts directly or indirectly on virtually every major sector of modern society and natural ecology from the individual to the global level
o These include: energy, finance, health, social & governmental policy, transportation, science, communication, spirituality & meaning making, family cohesion and social integration (e.g., the one significant indicator of reduced teenage use of drugs and alcohol is the frequency of family dinners)
• And finally, we are what we eat and how we eat it
The diagram below illustrates this reality:
The prevailing ethos that has driven western civilization for the past 300 years, and that came to dominate the globe in the second half of the 20th century has run its course. We face serious challenges in the economy, the environment, education and health care, not to mention the decline of civility and the rise of political and religious extremism. Increased population and the global proliferation of industrial capitalism are seriously testing the carrying capacity of the planet. The well being of our children and our grandchildren demand that we create a more organic culture and a more conscious brand of capitalism. An organic culture would provide a richly textured fabric of meaning that weaves together the many experiences of the human family – geographically and historically – and the many aspects of a humane life – physical, emotional, mental and spiritual – into a single cloak of many colors. That single fabric would offer a creative framework that allows us to meet the future successfully. It would encourage a high level of interpersonal resilience and create a foundation that is economically viable, environmentally sustainable, and provides for the many as well as the few.
While the challenges we face today as a species are grave, the human and technical resources we have at our disposal are unprecedented. We have access to the entire heritage of human wisdom – from within and beyond our individual cultures, exoteric and esoteric, ancient and modern. At our fingertips is an extraordinary amount of knowledge. In comparison to the historical past, there is today an unusual level of information transparency, a cornucopia of communication methods and an unbelievable speed of global communication. Psychological knowledge of the human condition – and of child development in particular – is far more accurate today than ever before, our understanding of the physical world expands daily and life expectancy has risen steadily based on a better understanding of health and wellness. The potential for a world-wide renaissance that provides for the many as well as the few stands side by side with the probability of global catastrophe. What then is the root problem and what can be done?
Our culture – a global culture for the first time in human experience – has lost its resiliency. We are no longer able to respond in timely and creative way to the challenges that threaten the 15,000 year experiment in human civilization (with the rise of agriculture around 12,000 BCE the human experiment moved on to a new phase). For the human species to persevere we must re-create a hospitable relationship between the human and physical eco systems and we must create, for the first time, an equitable distribution of resources between the few and the many. This needs to be accomplished within the context of a system that encourages initiative and rewards individuals fairly for their contribution. For this to happen we must understand the interconnected nature of every aspect of civilization and the fundamental oneness of life. This is the great teaching of the wisest saints and sages through out the ages. But today we must embody that insight in all the institutions of daily life as well as in our inner state, and many more of us must rise to the occasion now.
In addition to re-casting our cultural and spiritual meaning making systems in a more universal light, we must re-cast our economic framework on a more inclusive, organic and sustainable foundation. We must create a new brand of capitalism (conscious capitalism) that retains those aspects of the system that encourage human initiative but discourages those aspects of the old system (of industrial-financial capitalism) that limit access to information, encourage greed or extreme self centeredness, and reward “phony productivity”. At the same time we must find ways to:
• foster better markets (for goods, services and capital) with more transparent information and lower cost of participation
• facilitate an outpouring of relevant, coherent and useful information
• strengthen penalties for deception that distort the market and cause serious harm
• make capital more widely available for socially valuable initiatives (learning for instance from micro finance)
• take all real costs into account (significantly reducing externalities and the tragedy of the commons)
• focus innovation on real productivity that benefits the many as well as the few
• allocate rewards in a way that encourages socially valuable risk taking and ambition while simultaneously discouraging greed
• reduce, rather than expanded, income disparity
• place a premium on civility and cooperative competition that creates widespread social benefit
• justly rewards those responsible for successfully launching socially beneficial enterprises
• strongly encourage leadership and management the brings out the best in people at all levels of the society
In order to accomplish this momentous task we must energize the unique talents of a wide variety of citizens across the globe in this common purpose. Many such initiatives are already underway. To a large degree, however, many of these initiatives have a single focus of attention, rather than a holistic approach that recognizes the profoundly interlaced nature of the challenges we face today. We believe that a systemic approach – one that integrates a variety of existing initiatives in a holistic mesh-works – can catalyze a higher level of intelligent energy and significantly increase the probability of successful outcomes.
This can be accomplished by seeding a series of interconnected trans-local communities that are in close communication and mutually beneficial commerce with similar communities in their region and across the globe. These communities must embody a richly textured meaning making system that gathers wisdom and color from a wide variety of perspectives and a diverse mix of historic cultures. At the same time it must have immediate access to the latest knowledge in a wide variety of disciplines and be able to turn that knowledge into know-how in highly innovative and effective ways. The economic order should encourage and reward creative efforts to provide greater real value across the broadest swath of the society. It should also place a premium on providing
meaningful work for young people seeking to find an authentic place in society. Initially a small number of model communities should be established as proof of concept projects to work out challenges and perfect the concept. These communities should benefit from existing efforts and integrate current initiatives wherever possible.
The center of these educational communities, which draw people from and provide services to the surrounding geographic area, would be a locally based food system that provides high nutritional value and offers meaningful work. These Integral Eco-Centers would use the latest educational and communication approaches to educate people about the health implications of our diets and the issues surrounding many of the outputs of the current food system. It would provide an alternative supply of information and nutritionally rich foods that create the basis of long term health and well being. It would help people learn how to prepare these foods in nutritious and delicious ways that are compatible with a busy life style, while also providing a periodic respite from the negative implications of that life style. Participants would also have access to the deep cultural wisdom surrounding how we eat from a wide variety of cultures and cuisines, and would learn to create contemporary experiences that strengthen family bonds, encourage healthy psychological development for both young and old, and provide a delicious way to build strong bodies, lively minds and vibrant spirits.
In addition to the tangible value offered to individuals and families, the Integral Eco-Center will provide an action learning environment that provides time tested insight into the human condition in a form appropriate to modern life. Within this context regular evening and Sunday gatherings will provide a forum to support individuals and families on their life journeys and to encourage curiosity and the capacity to move easily through different perspectives, two capacities vital in today’s diverse world. In addition, the action learning environment of the Integral Eco-Center will provide a living laboratory to model and investigate new organizational arrangements and more integrated leadership approaches. Such models and approaches will be cognizant of the conditions and challenges of our emerging global society and the need to foster a strong sense of connection and a local – albeit non-exclusive – identity within the larger context of global participation for both individuals and organizations.
This orientation will provide a rich learning environment that can be shared with the wider community via both traditional research and writing, as well as through more cutting edge channels. These would include various forms of video and electronic media, social networking, blogging and other emerging communications forms. This type of integrated approach, which addresses a variety of inter-related needs – individual, organizational and social; physical, economic, cultural and spiritual – in a coherent way, is vital if we are to better address the complex and rapidly changing conditions of contemporary society. By creating a virtuous learning cycle we can leverage our experience to simultaneously improve conditions on a variety of social issues and at the same time provide a proving ground for new or improved approaches to a number of the most pressing challenges of the day. These include the use of new technologies (neo-local food production and distribution, organic soil revitalization, regenerative science etc.), new organizational models, new educational efforts, new leadership approaches and new expressions of the wisdom vital to living a meaningful life. Taken together, within an iterative learning framework, these endeavors will provide significant leverage in creating a framework for a vibrant, sustainable 21st century local/global society.
This sort of Integral Eco-Center will be most effective and have the greatest impact on the wider society if they are built around a fundamental need of the human community. There are compelling reasons why the model for large scale social transformation should be centered economically and culturally around food. These include:
• Civilization began to develop after the domestication of plants and animals led to enough excess food to free certain groups of citizens to move away from subsistence activities and begin to specialize in various culture creating endeavors
• Life depends on the transformation of energy from the sun, working with the earth’s soil, into a form with sufficient nutritional value to support a variety of increasingly complex activities
• Food is the sun’s energy transformed into nutritional value, directly or indirectly through resources such as wise agricultural techniques, proper attention to the organic cycle, irrigation, agronomy, fossil fuels etc.
• Every great spiritual tradition has had a significant orientation toward food both practically and metaphorically, for example
o The Kosher laws in Judaism, and the restrictions around pork
o The restrictions around cows in Hinduism
o The focus on vegetarianism in many of the eastern religions
o Fasting at Ramadan during the day and feasting at night
o The focus of early Christianity on the Last Supper, and the symbolism of the loaves and the fishes
• Many highly developed cultures – e.g., Indian, Chinese, Italian and French – have developed complex cuisines that encourage cultural and familial cohesion and are significant forums for transmitting values to future generations
• Food is a significant segment of the economy of every society and impacts directly or indirectly on virtually every major sector of modern society and natural ecology from the individual to the global level
o These include: energy, finance, health, social & governmental policy, transportation, science, communication, spirituality & meaning making, family cohesion and social integration (e.g., the one significant indicator of reduced teenage use of drugs and alcohol is the frequency of family dinners)
• And finally, we are what we eat and how we eat it
The diagram below illustrates this reality:
By bringing together a series of Integral Eco-Centers that:
Such Centers would embody:
- produce, process, and distribute healthy food,
- employ young and old in meaningful productive work,
- foster an atmosphere of socially meaningful and personally rewarding creative innovation
- provide an educational environment that addresses the soul of education across the generations, and
- offers the heritage of human wisdom in a practical form that helps us live satisfying lives in the fast paced
environment of contemporary society,
Such Centers would embody:
- the latest knowledge in a wide variety of existing and emerging disciplines, and
- incorporate a holistic ecology that consistently accesses the deepest wisdom resident in the human experience
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Ecological and Social Facts
Not very long ago most of us lived in self sustaining local villages. Few of us travelled very far from the place we were born. We had our own set of religious, cultural and familial beliefs protected from the intrusion, or even the awareness, of novel ideas that challenged our way of life. Today we live in a global village where we are exposed to a panoply of competing ideas, information and misinformation. We are faced with a world that is frequently difficult to understand. Our capacity to influence the natural world has grown large, but our ability to understand the limits of that activity, as highlighted by the April 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, are quite inadequate. We live in a time of crisis, at the precipice of a sea change that most of us are only dimly aware of.
Our society is based on an ethos of individual achievement that has provided more of us with the basic necessities of life then at any time in
human history. Since World War II, Americans have experienced unprecedented wealth, never before have so many people had the opportunity to advance themselves. However since 1970, and in particular since 1980, we have been taken over by an almost virulent form of hyper individualism. The gap between rich and poor has accelerated and the availability of opportunities for the middle class
eroded while our overall happiness has declined.
As a people, we have misused our wealth. The system we are a part of is very powerful and for too many of us it sets the limit of the
possible. We need to be more aware of some of the challenges we face today if we are to create a more sustainable and satisfying future. A few examples of issues that have gotten worse in the last 40 years include the following:
> Since 1970, US energy consumption has risen by 50%.
> In 2007 the United States used 21 million barrels of oil a day, equivalent to the use of Japan, Germany, Russia, China, and India.
> Since 1982. We have paid over an area the size of New York State,or 35,000,000 acres of rural land.
> At the same time, we have protected an area the size of California as "forever wild"
> Each year in the United States, we lose 2,000,000 acres of open space of that 1.2 million acres is farmland with prime quality farmland disappearing at a 30% greater pace.
> After decades of effort, the environmental laws, put on the books in the 70s are not working.
> Endangered species, are many. 40% of fish, 35% of amphibians and flowering plants and 15 to 20% of birds and mammals and reptiles.
> Between 1970 and 2003. We have increased the miles of paved roads by 53%.
> In the same time. Vehicle miles traveled are up 177%.
> The size of a new single-family home is 50% larger than it was in 1980.
> The amount of municipal solid waste per person is 33% greater.
> Three decades after the toxic substances control act. We have seen you to put massive amounts of pesticides into the environment.
> At least 5 to 6,000,000,000 pounds of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides rodenticide and other pesticides are aired to the area each year and 25% of this is in the United States.
> An EPA inventory in 2005 said that 4.3 4,000,000,000 pounds of chemicals were disposed of, rather than treated or recycled and 40% of those went into the air or water.
> Each American has the largest environmental impact of any human being on the planet
> Three decades of environmental laws have only marginally impacted our degradation of the natural environment.
> Population growth, landscape transformation, natural resource use, and waste generation,
> Average densities of cities, suburbs and towns in 1920 was 10 per acre. In 1999 it was four per acre. Even as the population doubled.
> Most recent housing developments, have a population density of two per acre.
> Today we have eight times as much developed lands as we did 80 years ago.
> The average new house size has doubled since 1970, while the number of people living in it has shrunk.
> In 1987 Margaret Thatcher said there is no such thing as society. Only individuals and their families.
> In religion at many mega-churches that provide video games for the kids to play during church time.
> The ideological shift to hyper individualism has sunk into many areas of society.
> New houses are designed with large amounts of private space for the dysfunctional family 80s.
> 85% of Americans are Christian in some form.
> Biblical illiteracy is widespread.
> Only 40% knew five of the 10 Commandments
> only 50% could name one of the four Gospels.
> 12% were confident that Joan of arc was no was wife.
> 75% thought that the phrase God helps those who help themselves comes from the Gospels. Not from Benjamin Franklin.
> Environmental changes have happened much more quickly than anyone predicted in the 1980s.
> Hydrological cycles have been altered. Warm air holds more water vapor than cold air, meaning that there is more drought in arid areas, and more deluge and floods in moist areas.
> North American rainfall is up 7% and more of it is in downpours.
> Flood damage is in now increasing by 5% a year.
> We are experiencing a dramatic increase in extreme weather conditions across the planet. For example, extreme weather emergencies in Vermont have increased each decade since the 60s when there were three, in the 90s there were 10 and between 2000 and 2010 there where 12.
> Climate change has the biggest impact on the poor. A recent report from Oxfam, tells us that even with the best actions hundreds of millions of poor people are at serious risk in the next 25 years.
> Retail space per person has doubled from 1990 to 2005. Going from 19 to 38 ft.² per person.
> A few years ago, Alan Greenspan made the comment that "I made a mistake. Presuming that self interest of organizations and a bank specifically was capable of protecting them and their shareholders."
> The rate of bank failure is seven times greater for those banks with assets over $1 billion.
Throughout most of human history Society was small and Nature was large. In the last few hundred years society grew larger as we discovered fossil fuels and drew on the inventory of energy that the sun had given the planet over billions of years. That well is running dry, and the evidence is overwhelming that the current financial/industrial system no longer works, . We need to readjust how we imagine our lives and our conception of what brings us happiness in order to make major changes in our meaning making system. It's time for slower, smaller and more sustainable.
Despite the many challenges we face today however, the time is ripe for us to become more conscious and to re-create our society and our culture
so that it moves beyond sustainability to actually regenerate its capacity for renewal and ongoing personal and collective evolution. The only way for this to happen is if we simultaneously recreate the economic, legal, governmental, health, food and related systems that structure our lives and provide for our needs; at the same time that our family and cultural models are revitalized. And all of this must happen as large numbers of us become wiser, more skillful and more highly developed in many of the ways we make sense of the world and each other. What is called for is no less then a third "Great Awakening", a spiritual renewal that permeates to the very depths of who we are, individually and as a people. This task, daunting as it seems, is left at the feet of the next generations, the Millennials and beyond. No generation in history as been as educated or has had at its disposal the level of knowledge or the sophisticated technology that is available to this next generation of leaders. At the same time no generation has faced the challenge of redressing the extraordinary imbalance in the relationship between the natural and human worlds. An imbalance that puts the future of the planet at serious risk. It is left to the rest of us, and most especially those of us who grew up in the great abundance of Post World War II America, to provide our best efforts and our deepest wisdom to stand behind this new generation of leaders as they are called to face ,what may well be, the human species most pressing evolutionary challenge.
Our society is based on an ethos of individual achievement that has provided more of us with the basic necessities of life then at any time in
human history. Since World War II, Americans have experienced unprecedented wealth, never before have so many people had the opportunity to advance themselves. However since 1970, and in particular since 1980, we have been taken over by an almost virulent form of hyper individualism. The gap between rich and poor has accelerated and the availability of opportunities for the middle class
eroded while our overall happiness has declined.
As a people, we have misused our wealth. The system we are a part of is very powerful and for too many of us it sets the limit of the
possible. We need to be more aware of some of the challenges we face today if we are to create a more sustainable and satisfying future. A few examples of issues that have gotten worse in the last 40 years include the following:
> Since 1970, US energy consumption has risen by 50%.
> In 2007 the United States used 21 million barrels of oil a day, equivalent to the use of Japan, Germany, Russia, China, and India.
> Since 1982. We have paid over an area the size of New York State,or 35,000,000 acres of rural land.
> At the same time, we have protected an area the size of California as "forever wild"
> Each year in the United States, we lose 2,000,000 acres of open space of that 1.2 million acres is farmland with prime quality farmland disappearing at a 30% greater pace.
> After decades of effort, the environmental laws, put on the books in the 70s are not working.
> Endangered species, are many. 40% of fish, 35% of amphibians and flowering plants and 15 to 20% of birds and mammals and reptiles.
> Between 1970 and 2003. We have increased the miles of paved roads by 53%.
> In the same time. Vehicle miles traveled are up 177%.
> The size of a new single-family home is 50% larger than it was in 1980.
> The amount of municipal solid waste per person is 33% greater.
> Three decades after the toxic substances control act. We have seen you to put massive amounts of pesticides into the environment.
> At least 5 to 6,000,000,000 pounds of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides rodenticide and other pesticides are aired to the area each year and 25% of this is in the United States.
> An EPA inventory in 2005 said that 4.3 4,000,000,000 pounds of chemicals were disposed of, rather than treated or recycled and 40% of those went into the air or water.
> Each American has the largest environmental impact of any human being on the planet
> Three decades of environmental laws have only marginally impacted our degradation of the natural environment.
> Population growth, landscape transformation, natural resource use, and waste generation,
> Average densities of cities, suburbs and towns in 1920 was 10 per acre. In 1999 it was four per acre. Even as the population doubled.
> Most recent housing developments, have a population density of two per acre.
> Today we have eight times as much developed lands as we did 80 years ago.
> The average new house size has doubled since 1970, while the number of people living in it has shrunk.
> In 1987 Margaret Thatcher said there is no such thing as society. Only individuals and their families.
> In religion at many mega-churches that provide video games for the kids to play during church time.
> The ideological shift to hyper individualism has sunk into many areas of society.
> New houses are designed with large amounts of private space for the dysfunctional family 80s.
> 85% of Americans are Christian in some form.
> Biblical illiteracy is widespread.
> Only 40% knew five of the 10 Commandments
> only 50% could name one of the four Gospels.
> 12% were confident that Joan of arc was no was wife.
> 75% thought that the phrase God helps those who help themselves comes from the Gospels. Not from Benjamin Franklin.
> Environmental changes have happened much more quickly than anyone predicted in the 1980s.
> Hydrological cycles have been altered. Warm air holds more water vapor than cold air, meaning that there is more drought in arid areas, and more deluge and floods in moist areas.
> North American rainfall is up 7% and more of it is in downpours.
> Flood damage is in now increasing by 5% a year.
> We are experiencing a dramatic increase in extreme weather conditions across the planet. For example, extreme weather emergencies in Vermont have increased each decade since the 60s when there were three, in the 90s there were 10 and between 2000 and 2010 there where 12.
> Climate change has the biggest impact on the poor. A recent report from Oxfam, tells us that even with the best actions hundreds of millions of poor people are at serious risk in the next 25 years.
> Retail space per person has doubled from 1990 to 2005. Going from 19 to 38 ft.² per person.
> A few years ago, Alan Greenspan made the comment that "I made a mistake. Presuming that self interest of organizations and a bank specifically was capable of protecting them and their shareholders."
> The rate of bank failure is seven times greater for those banks with assets over $1 billion.
Throughout most of human history Society was small and Nature was large. In the last few hundred years society grew larger as we discovered fossil fuels and drew on the inventory of energy that the sun had given the planet over billions of years. That well is running dry, and the evidence is overwhelming that the current financial/industrial system no longer works, . We need to readjust how we imagine our lives and our conception of what brings us happiness in order to make major changes in our meaning making system. It's time for slower, smaller and more sustainable.
Despite the many challenges we face today however, the time is ripe for us to become more conscious and to re-create our society and our culture
so that it moves beyond sustainability to actually regenerate its capacity for renewal and ongoing personal and collective evolution. The only way for this to happen is if we simultaneously recreate the economic, legal, governmental, health, food and related systems that structure our lives and provide for our needs; at the same time that our family and cultural models are revitalized. And all of this must happen as large numbers of us become wiser, more skillful and more highly developed in many of the ways we make sense of the world and each other. What is called for is no less then a third "Great Awakening", a spiritual renewal that permeates to the very depths of who we are, individually and as a people. This task, daunting as it seems, is left at the feet of the next generations, the Millennials and beyond. No generation in history as been as educated or has had at its disposal the level of knowledge or the sophisticated technology that is available to this next generation of leaders. At the same time no generation has faced the challenge of redressing the extraordinary imbalance in the relationship between the natural and human worlds. An imbalance that puts the future of the planet at serious risk. It is left to the rest of us, and most especially those of us who grew up in the great abundance of Post World War II America, to provide our best efforts and our deepest wisdom to stand behind this new generation of leaders as they are called to face ,what may well be, the human species most pressing evolutionary challenge.
