Oxymorons?
* "sustainable prosperity"
* "ethical consumerism"
* "sustainable prosperity"
* "ethical consumerism"
The continuum of paradigm change
"We're each on a journey, toward this future called Sustainable. ... each of us is simultaneously sitting at multiple locations along a continuum from 'quite sustainable' to 'outrageously unsustainable.'"
--character Lauren in chapter 6 of Legacy
* Hummers, Tahoes, Expeditions, other monster SUVs. The meanest cars for the environment, from GreenerCars.com
* "Born to shop," the mall life, the Edie character in Legacy
* golf courses in desert areas, ornamental lawns in Los Angeles
* an attitude of hopelessness about our potential for environmental change.
* GreenLAGirl blog, showcasing "fair trade coffee, local politics, and ethical consumerism in Los Angeles"
* Plenty magazine, which frames Green within a glossy mainstream magazine format
*
TreeHugger blog - showcasing greener products worldwide
*
GreenBiz - highlighting efforts by major corporations to become more environmentally conscious
* Center for a New American Dream
* green consumerism, where we continue our habitual patterns, merely substituting organic, renewable, or other "green" products for un-green. But it's still consumerism, it's still in excess of our sustainable or fairshares ecological footprint, and it's still got to change.
* Legacy character Tia in chapters 1-4, beginning to "divorce" her consumerist lifestyle
* Transition Culture blog - a UK based blog which explores potential avenues for society in a post-oil world
* "The Death of Stillness" article by Richard Mahler contemplates our present view of life pacing
* Definitions of Sustainability
* Permaculture Principles, essays on David Holmgren's website (the co-founder of the Permaculture concept)
* Legacy characters in chapters 3-5, mulling the underlying concepts necessary for movement toward Sustainability: the meaning of "Sustainability"; concepts of purpose and commitment to a cause; concepts of leadership, positive action, Alan AtKisson's Change Agent and Transformer roles; the role of business versus deep ecology; the potential of partnership between religious communities and the environmental movement; the combination of grassroots versus top-down solutions.
[further content coming]
* World Ark magazine, which celebrates the maxim "if you teach a man to fish ...". World Ark is the magazine of Heifer International, a charity which gives animals to impoverished families, with the commitment that they contribute the first-born offspring to another needy family and share the gift.
* Legacy characters in chapters 5-8, coming together to create solutions which move society in the direction of Sustainability.
* Path To Freedom urban homestead in Pasadena, CA where a family raises most of their own food on a city lot
* Earth Home Garden a car-free retired couple in the
mountains of Southern California
* The Simple Living Network explores various aspects of increasing the sense of fulfillment we derive from life
* Permaculture Activist, a magazine which captures portions of the worldwide network of Permaculture
* Legacy characters in chapters 8-10, living quite differently than our year 2006 paradigm, yet still deeply within the Transition period.
* many aspects of the lifestyle in Ecotopia, by Ernest Callenbach. The shortcoming of Ecotopia is that only one portion of the world evolves into a more Sustainable lifestyle. The fact that the transformation is not global prevents this story from being a complete vision of Sustainability.
* Legacy characters Arissa and Janus in the Preface, living in a style in which the planet could sustain life for a lengthy period of time.
"We won't see it in our lifetimes, Tia. Perhaps even Annis won't. I hope her children will. But just because we won't see Sustainability now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying, trying with everything we have, to move steadily in that direction. What we do now, every step we take to move in that direction, every bit of it brings us one step closer. We have to start now if we're ever going to get there. We have to do the work now to turn the mainstream, so that then, humanity will make the mark. "
-- character Ari, in Chapter 7 of Legacy
* David Holmgren expects that society's journey to Sustainability will take 500 years. In Legacy, I shortened that to 100 years, yet the concept remains: the balance point of Sustainability, where intake balances with output, is quite some distance in our future. But we must start implementing the changes now, if humanity is ever going to make the mark.
Photo credit: Colonial Williamsburg Garden 3 by Brian Deihl, New Berlin, PA