Care for the World
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but on
thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are
bound together. All things connect. Continue to contaminate your own bed, and
you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
-
Chief Seattle
When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals
have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe
to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
-
Cree Prophecy
All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls
the children of the earth.
-
Chief Seattle
I
do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of
concrete are, but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their
environment and fellow humans.
-
Sun Bear of the Chippewa Tribe
The goal
in Care for the World is to enable self-sustaining communities where the basic
existential needs for respect and security of present and future generations
are recognized and protected – sustainability through localism, where the key
virtue is stewardship.
Virtue of Stewardship
The practice of localism – the creation
of self-sustaining and self-governing local communities – is the practice of
implementing the virtue of stewardship. Here are five principles that could
provide a framework for such twenty-first century communities. They are: responsibility,
reduction, replacement, regeneration, and reconnection.
Responsibility – we should govern our local
communities through equal power relationships and peer practices of town hall
meetings, citizen councils, rotational stewardship positions, and mentors. We
can learn the competencies of self-government and experience the happiness of
public engagement at the local level by gathering with our neighbors
face-to-face. We can decide how to live together and naturally generate civil
cooperation and successful solutions to our local problems. We need to return
to some sense of real and genuine self-government and public participation.
Even if funding from more distant sources, whether public or private, will be
necessary, the management of these resources must be local.
Reduction – we should reduce our dependence on
distant sources, whether governmental or commercial, for the provision of the necessary
goods and services we need to live our lives. Whether food, housing, clothing,
entertainment, public health, health care, education, job creation and
training, etc. we must, where possible, reduce our reliance on nonlocal sources
for these items and encourage local public and private organizations to do the
same. We should give preference to those businesses, which are locally owned
and make use of local suppliers. This principle in practice would be good for
the environment by decreasing our use of energy in transportation.
Replacement
- we should replace goods and services acquired from remote sources with
goods and services produced and provided locally. It would require we build the
capacity in local communities and with local control to be self-sufficient in
providing what we need to lead lives of human flourishing. It would provide
meaningful employment to our local under- and unemployed. We could find ways of
using barter, local currencies, co-ops, CSA’s, urban gardens, Farmers’ Markets,
and our retired community of seniors to ensure every member of our community
had sufficient employment and sufficient resources to meet their needs to live
a good life. It is only at the local level that we can and should ensure that
none of our neighbors goes hungry, homeless, or lacks needed education,
employment, or health care.
Regeneration – we can regenerate the world through
the practice of local innovation and creativity in finding new ways, and
improving old ways, of meeting our needs. We are creative enough to be able to
provide housing, educate our children, manage public health, deliver adequate
health care, and provide employment and training, information, and even public
entertainment at the local level. Here also, we can best initiate energy conservation
programs and even discover ways of generating local “green” energy through wind
and solar technologies locally managed and maintained. Bike-share and car-share
programs can even solve transportation problems locally.
Reconnecting – This is not a strategy of isolation
or secession form either the national or global community, but a return to the
only authentic source of political power – the people governing themselves at
the local level. Upon the foundation of self-sustaining and self-governing local
communities, we can reconnect community-to-community and then to our
governments in the exchange of ideas, best practices, and in assisting less
fortunate communities. Success in one community can be shared and modeled by
other communities, where such sharing with current technologies, need not be
limited by geographic proximity. Such interconnected communities will hold
government and business answerable to the people. Power must rest with people
at the local level, who then are empowered to hold accountable government,
finance, and corporate bodies and regulate their activities at the local level
through citizen councils of peers and neighbors.
