Resources for becoming an eco-citizen
Here you will find articles categorised using the model I have created for becoming an eco-citizen. They cover topics help me understand how I might make a useful contribution to a changing world. I hope they help you similarly; please let me know if there are other resources you think are worth including.
Climate Crisis Coaching
“As groups self-organise around the world to process this collective anguish, virtually all experts agree on two therapeutic components: sharing the grief with others and transforming it into collective action on behalf of life” (Joanna Macy, Active Hope. How to face the mess we are in without going crazy)
Energy is Everything
Increasingly we’re all experiencing storms. We’re all leaders all of the time apparently. It was with these two propositions that I began an exploration of leading through storms at the fantastic St. Ethelburga’s. Where I ended up was an unexpected and welcome surprise (if not a neat and tidy set of answers).
Adapting Deeply
What is your relationship with the unfolding climate situation? How are you processing the constant stream of extreme weather stories and apocalyptic predictions? Time spent in nature often provides me with insights that I don’t imagine getting otherwise, which is ironic given the battering the planet is receiving right now. Away from the mediated, on-line carnage there is a sort of peaceful wisdom in trees and fields that seems to inspire creativity in a very visceral way.
Nature Immersion For Climate Distress
The eagle-eyed among you will notice I’ve not published any articles on the environment for a few months. I tell myself it’s because I’ve become busy with work and life in this post-pandemic period. Or that perhaps I’m distracted by more imminent crises. The truth of it though is that I’ve got stuck in my own enquiry about what it means to be an ordinary person fully present to, and in service of, a changing world – a term I call being an eco-citizen.
Let’s Go Local
I’ve been a follower, and occasional advocate, of the the Local Futures community for a few years now, having met the founder, Helena Norberg-Hodge, at Schumacher College in 2015. It’s an international non-profit organization dedicated to renewing ecological and social wellbeing by strengthening communities and local economies worldwide. And it’’s latest offering is a Localisation Action Guide, that I really like.
Rethink X
In the 2020s we stand at a crossroads. In one direction we face collapse, caused by resistance to change and a clinging on to the age of extraction as it falls apart around us. In the other we see a breakthrough to the Age of Freedom, where embracing new, largely technology-led, ways of being takes us to a bright future we can barely imagine. So speaks James Arbib and Tony Seba, the authors of the ambitiously titled Rethinking Humanity, published in June 2020.
Is It The Hope That Kills You?
Will Monday 9th August be the day the world finally woke up to the probable/inevitable impact of climate change on our planet and the lives of everything and everyone living on it? I’ve asked myself this sort of question many times in the past, a heart filled with hope. Each time I ask, my hopes end up being dashed and the nausea in my stomach grows. But perhaps this time will be different…?
How To Save Our Planet
The title of this book is unsubtle and the ultra-simple way the book has been written also offers no place for ambiguity or nuance. Even the subtitle – “The Facts” gives no wiggle room. Professor Mark Maslin wrote this book during Covid lockdown and he’s pulling no punches.
Being A Citizen
In using the term eco-citizen as part of Still Waters I am tapping into a long-running and not entirely resolved debate about what it means to be a citizen. Scholars can’t even agree when the concept of citizenship began. The modern interpretation, based on a legal definition applied to being a member of a nation-state, is different to the more classic Greece-invented idea. For Still Waters I am going more with the Greek definition.
There Is No Planet B
“When the challenges are so global, and each one of us so small, it can be tempting, but wrong, to think there is nothing an individual can do to help humans get a grip. To do so is a cop out.” I was so happy not to have read this book before I thought up the section of Still Waters on becoming and eco-citizen. And I was even happier to read it almost immediately after my new website went live.
Climate Solutions 101
If you are looking for a powerful, easy to understand lesson on potential solutions to the climate change challenges we are facing then I would certainly try out this short series of videos from the good people of Project Drawdown.
A Promised Land Not Promised
I have just finished reading A Promised Land, Barack Obama’s first presidential memoir. Weighing in at a hefty 700 pages, it tells the story of his life before the presidency (in summary) and most of his first term (in detail). The presidential action starts in 2008 with the financial crisis and finishes with the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011. I am not reviewing the book here, but rather focusing on something right at the end that I found sad and confirmation, if any were needed, that the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible is not going to be delivered conventionally by the establishment, even when the most powerful leader on the planet is charismatic, progressive and on the side of a fairer, greener, more sustainable world.
A New And Ancient Story
I have been a fan of Charles Eisenstein’s writing for a long time now and actually attended one of his courses at Schumacher College in 2015. I guess I would describe him as a thinker and a dreamer; someone who applies intellectual rigour to some pretty radical ideas. While I accept that he won’t be to everyone’s taste, his words resonate deeply with me. And so when I was invited to join his new on-line community, called A New And Ancient Story, I didn’t hesitate.
Joining The Green Party
Although it may not seem to have an immediate impact, one of the small changes you might consider is joining the Green Party. You can be a fully paid up member for around £10 per month. Membership means you get access to loads of useful information on the environmental movement (as well as all their other policy areas, such as social justice). You also get the chance to participate locally, vote on policy and people and go to their conference. And psychologically you get to feel like you are part of something that is part of the solution.
The more beautiful world…
The Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible is a 2013 book by Charles Eisenstein that had a profound effect on me by describing something that I sort of knew in an unspoken, physical/spiritual way but at the same time had not thought about, let alone said. It’s in the tile really – what Charles describes is known to our hearts more than our brains.
Grappling with being green
I first got interested in the environmental movement in the run up to the 1987 election. It was the second time I could vote in a general election and already I had become sceptical about what the mainstream parties were saying. The Green Party in those days were very much a pressure group with electoral ambitions and I didn’t agree with everything they stood for. But in their environmental policies they spoke in a way that resonated with me. In essence, the way we were carrying on as a global human species was unsustainable and no-one was doing anything about it.
Deep Adaptation And The DA Forum
Deep adaptation, both as a concept and a movement start life in July 2018 with a paper written by Professor Jem Bendell of the University of Cumbria. It’s an academic paper so as a read not for the faint hearted, but I found it relatively accessible. It’s basic idea is that humanity needs to prepare for a possible, or probable, or certain collapse in the face of a changing climate.
Project Drawdown
Project Drawdown brought me hope when I was facing the enormity of climate change implications. It also offered structure and credibility to something that seemed complex and hopeless. And so when it came to becoming an eco-citizen I decided I would use it as a template and framework for my focus on supporting large change in the world.
Collecting Elastic Bands
A few months ago, just before Christmas, I had need of an elastic band. I realised we had none so added them to my shopping list (it’s a wild life I live!). On the way to the shop I found one on the pavement and so picked it up – problem solved, money saved, happy days.
Ending Extreme Poverty
I found out about the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and their Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI) via this Ted Talk.