Posted in Sustainability

May 6, 2010

Collaboration for Sustainability 3: Who?

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|Photo by jordigraells|http://www.flickr.com/photos/jordigraells/2097554407|

“In dealing with complex problems, our ability may be bounded, but our diversity is not. Diversity – be it based on identity, training or vocation — may be our best asset.”

– Scott E. Page

In last Thursday’s post, we talked about the importance of developing a shared identity among stakeholders, and doing this early in a collaborative process, as a way of developing greater commitment to collective interests as well as bolstering the inclination to think about and act in accordance with more long-term risks and benefits. Clearly more needs to be said about the WHO that is engaged in this work and how this aligns with sustainability.

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April 29, 2010

Collaboration for Sustainability 2: Framing

WholeCommunities2

|Photo by Peter Forbes|http://www.wholecommunities.org/programs/|

“To work at this work alone is to fail.”

-Wendell Berry

Picking up from where I left off last Thursday . . .  How might collaboration be a key to making the sustainability shift?  At its best, collaboration is the act of modeling complex systems at work, and with awareness and intention comes critical adaptive capacity.   The goal is to achieve collective and distributed intelligence that can respond in timely ways to threats to sustainability (stressed ecosystems, injustice, etc.) and that can be proactive in creating optimal conditions for future generations to meet their needs.  That’s the ideal, right?  How do we get there?

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April 22, 2010

Collaboration for Sustainability 1: Intro

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|Photo by mind_scratch|http://www.flickr.com/photos/mind_scratch/2434031231|

Wishing you a hopeful Earth Day, and thinking of the good people gathered in Bolivia for the World People’s Summit on Climate Change . . .

For the past few decades, the Interaction Institute for Social Change and Interaction Associates have worked to develop the collaborative capacity of individuals, organizations, and communities with the conviction that this holds the promise of greater effectiveness with respect to shared missions and goals.  We have long upheld and witnessed the importance of bringing more minds and hands together for the purposes of creating insight, understanding, alignment, agreement, strategy, and shared ownership.  Lately, I have been trying to specifically clarify the value all of this has to offer the unsustainable relationship we have with our planet.

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April 20, 2010

This Paradigm Shift

Paradigm

I am honored to be presenting at the Symposium on Sustainability that is being organized by the Institute for Sustainable Social Change at Prescott College in Arizona. Following are some ideas on the themes we want to explore together:

Everything is changing, we are in the midst of a significant – and desperately needed – paradigm shift. The industrial models of the dominant paradigm no longer serve us, they are in fact holding us back.  But what does this emergent paradigm look like?  And how do we live our way into it? Read More

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January 28, 2010

Finding Our Place

It is rare for any of us, by deliberate choice, to sit still and weave ourselves into a place, so that we know the wildflowers and rocks and politicians, so that we recognize faces wherever we turn, so that we feel a bond with everything in sight.”

Scott Russell Sanders, “Local Matters”

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|Photo by Muffet|http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/150903281/|

Some dozen years ago I went on a road trip with my grandfather to our ancestral home in Arkansas.  Leaving from upstate New York at this time of year was not exactly a recipe for easy driving and awe-inspiring views.  After a particularly dreary stretch in Ohio, I was ready to snooze the rest of the way when we crossed over into Kentucky.  Suddenly things opened up.  As we continued south on Route 75, I felt my body started settling into the lovely rolling farm-studded landscape.  I remember how my breathing eased and the extraordinary sensation of “being home,” though I had only been to the state once before.

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December 17, 2009

Claiming Nonindependence

ice storm

|Photo by Digital Agent|http://www.flickr.com/photos/specialagent/2241064739|

It was at this time a year ago that I made the trip to Keene, New Hampshire to teach my final weekend Change Models class of the semester at Antioch New England.  Just a few days prior, the entire region had been rocked by an ice storm for the ages.  When the storm hit I was in Maine.  Driving home the next day I heard reports about the worst damage being concentrated in western Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.  All that had slipped my mind when I got up early on Sunday morning to drive to Keene.  It came rushing back when I got off of Route 2 heading north and the world turned dark and quiet.  Everything in sight was cocooned in ice.  Trees sagged.  Homes along the roadside for miles were without lights.  Businesses were shuttered.  The awesome force of nature really began to sink in.

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October 28, 2009

Climate (of) Change

It has been quite a week or so on the climate action/activism/advocacy front.  From the 350.org global day of action to the Bioneers conferences happening around the country, to some interesting personal conversations I’ve had with staff members of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Conservation International (CI), to ongoing preparations for the upcoming UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagan, it seems clear that momentum is gathering towards taking serious and significant steps to help mitigate and adapt to changes in our global climate that have already begun.

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October 23, 2009

Day of Action

Curtis passed this along to me today. A video from 350.org which explains how tomorrow, October 24, 2009,  is a Day of Action focused on climate change. 350.org is focused on reducing global CO2 levels to a healthier 350 parts per million (ppm) compared to the current 387 ppm we are currently hovering around.

The video and site go over exactly what tomorrow means and how you can participate. To find out what is going on around you, take a look at their map. Enjoy!

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September 25, 2009

Less = More: A Dare

Friends, what if less really IS more?

What if in order to spend more time on the things that matter, we really do need to spend less time working on those things and on everything else, too?

What if its true that our energies, time, intellect, creativity and gifts — if concentrated, focused, harnessed, smartly— really will yield more, better, longer-lasting, more potent results and legacies than they will if we are everywhere-and-no where in particular, all things to all people, jack of all trades, and eh….spread too thin?

And, what if it is true that in a more focused, streamlined, measured, discriminating, approach to life and work will thereby make the experience of our working and living itself more rewarding? Read More

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September 3, 2009

Wholeness and Reciprocal Transformation

knoll-farm

Source

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit with staff of a few unique organizations in central Vermont, including a conversation with Peter Forbes at the Center for Whole Communities in Fayston.  What Peter, his wife Helen Whybrow, and their colleagues have created at Knoll Farm, a working organic farm, is truly inspiring, not just for the beauty of the land it occupies and the amazing views that are afforded of the surrounding mountains of Mad River Valley, but also because of the thoughtful attention that has been given to every detail of the Center and the programs that it offers.

The Center for Whole Communities is focused on reconnecting people to land, to one another, and to community as a way of healing the divisions that exist between those who are working for social justice and environmental conservation.  To this end they have created a setting and experiences that carefully tend to this mission of reconnection, from immersing people in the landscape, to engaging them in dialogue and storytelling, to grounding them in creative expression and contemplative practice. Read More

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August 19, 2009

Health, Social Change and the Food Movement

Yesterday I started writing about health and social change and I alluded to the promises of the food movement and its implications for social transformation. Let me be completely clear – I am not currently affiliated with any formally organized aspect of the food movement. However, as I think about the type of social change that will truly make a difference, the change that keeps people like my father physically healthy while also augmenting our collective experience of freedom, it seems to me that the food movement has a lot to offer.

Industrialized food and the commercialization of edible goods that have no benefit for our bodies is one of the key reasons why Americans are falling ill, poor communities and people of color bear the burden of this problem.  Building movement around food allows us to do a number of things: Read More

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August 18, 2009

Our Health and Social Change I

Where does social change begin? I’ve been asking myself this question for a long time but it hit me especially hard this weekend. I was sitting with my father, who is in his early fifties, we were waiting for my uncle and chatting with a friend who is also about their age, all of them have diabetes. At that point I had to wonder why it has almost become a rite of passage for Puerto Rican men of a certain age to sit around and discuss the onset of diabetes.

The Health Care debate has been sad and frustrating. Even with the best president in a generation there seems to be so little we can do. And it feels so far away from the day to day lives of those who are getting sick by virtue of simply living and eating in our society. So where does social change begin? Is it by slowly bringing progressive voices into state power? Is it by organizing people to feed themselves better? Is it all about personal responsibility? Read More

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