Sound Of Sirens

An EcoTipping Point is a lever that reverses environmental decline, setting in motion restoration and sustainability.

The EcoTipping Points Project is dedicated to disseminating this paradigm, its stories, and its lessons through many media: books, magazine articles, seminars, workshops, and direct collaboration with community groups. As it investigates and analyzes cases from around the world, its scientific goal is to better understand the principles for how EcoTipping Points work. The pragmatic goal is to help average citizens identify potential tipping points right at home.

Sociologists coined the phrase “tipping point” fifty years ago. Malcolm Gladwell popularized the phrase in his book The Tipping Point. Here “EcoTipping Point” means a lever that can “tip” an eco-social system from one set of mutually reinforcing processes (called a “stability domain” or “attractor basin” in systems jargon) to a stability domain that carries system change in a completely different direction. EcoTipping Points are catalytic, turning the system from decline to health and sustainability.

An example:

Gaia Education, a project of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), is an international team of educators developing curricula and courses on the Sustainable Development of Urban and Rural Settlements. They created an Ecovillage Design Curriculum, which is the basis of an four weeks course. It is an official contribution to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD). To supply the courses they developed four books in corporation with worldwide leaders of sustainable education and others like Vandana Shiva and Starhawk. The sources are read as Who is Who of Deep Ecology. The first book “Beyond You & Me - Inspirations and Wisdom for Building Community” with 289 content pages is available for free to download as an pdf document.

Beyond You & Me is the first in a series of four books that introduces the curriculum. It is for anyone seeking sustainable solutions to the complex problems of climate change, peak oil and the global inequalities of North and South. These volumes are also intended to supplement to the Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) teaching programme for both students and teachers and are edited by ecovillagers from all over the world who designed the EDE.

Get the document. (click right, save target as…)
Visit the Gaia Education website.

The great thing about the States is that beside the most ignorant politicians and the most unethical corporate system you will find a lot of people with a sense of self-responsibility and creativity who put ideas into action.

For example….

‘The Sustainable Living Roadshow (SLR) is a caravan of educators and entertainers who tour the country in a fleet of renewable fuel vehicles to empower communities and individuals to utilize sustainable living strategies for a healthier planet. Visiting k-12 schools, university campuses and community festivals across the United States, the caravan sets up off-the-grid eco-carnivals with experiential learning villages, featuring workshops, speakers and entertainment.’

Read into their principles and ethics, it’s inspiring! Have a look at the diversity of offerings/elements, it’s fun! Makes me want it to happen in Germany…

‘Art, Ecology & Education provides pathways to an integrated and sustainable way of living. We participate in the development and integration of an ecologically conscious and systemic worldview.
Using a holistic and transformative approach in our work, we support individuals and groups in the process of transition towards a life sustaining society.’

Upcoming workshops (in german and english):
12+13 July CHANGE - a different worldview for sustainable living
20-24 August ‘EFTERFESTEN Gathering for Sustainability’, Sweden
3-7 September SHIFTING TERRAIN - dancing new ways of perceiving
20+21 September PERMACULTURE - the Basics

Next AEE Evening at the HUB, Berlin:
9 July, 8pm, CSA / Community Supported Agriculture - Conscious consumption one step ahead

Art, Ecology & Education (www.art-ecology-education.org) works as international, intercultural consortium based in Berlin.

Participate in shifting the paradigm / feel free to get in touch!

Check them out!

The Global Oneness Project is a web-based video initiative exploring how the simple notion of oneness can be lived in our increasingly complex world.

We’re traveling the globe interviewing creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the fundamental understanding that we are all connected and thus bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world. Our living library of films is available for free from our website or on DVD for events and educational use.

We are committed to documenting what is being born during this time of planetwide transformation. While we are confronted with unmistakable signs that our current way of life is no longer sustainable, inspiring and innovative people and programs are blossoming in all areas of our collective society. From a pay-it-forward café in Ahmedabad, to a youth program that brings African wisdom to Los Angeles, from the General Secretary of the Andean Nations, to the spiritual guardian of Ayers Rock, our film subjects live and work with many of the following values, attitudes, and beliefs:

* We are responsible to each other, the earth, and future generations.
* There are enough resources for us all, if we share.
* Free exchanges of information allow for greater, collective creative potential.
* Love, care and compassion have the power to transform the fabric of society.

We hope that by showing the diverse ways oneness is expressed—in the fields of sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture, and social justice—others will be inspired to create solutions to personal and community challenges from their own lived understanding of oneness.

www.globalonenessproject.org

‘Art, Ecology & Education’ bietet Wege zu einer integrierten und nachhaltigen Art zu leben.
Es gibt eine Webseite als Wissensresource, es gibt Workshops und Kooperationen in verschiedenen Bereichen, es gibt ein Netzwerk innerhalb des ‘Wiserearth’-Portals, es gibt diesen Blog….
Dazu kommt jetzt: ‘Art, Ecology & Education’ schafft eine Möglichkeit in ‘real life’, um sich kennenzulernen, auszutauschen, zu feiern, zu diskutieren, brainzustormen, einen gemütlichen und inspirierenden Abend zu verbringen, und durch ausgesuchten Input Neues zu lernen.

Die ersten zwei Abende haben schon statt gefunden.
Der erste Abend war ein Screening von ‚A Crude Awakening/Oilcrash’ (OV), mit anschliessender, sehr spannender Diskussion über ‘Wahrheitsgehalt’ und Machart des Films bis hin zur Frage: ‘Wie können wir auf Peakoil reagieren?’.
An dem zweiten Abend ging es um Paradigmen Wechsel als Grundlage für Sustainability. Ausgangspunkt für eine offene Diskussion waren zwei kurze Videobeiträge: ‘The Web of Life’, eine Einführung von Fritjof Capra (Physiker, Systemdenker und Autor, Mitgründer des Center for Ecoliteracy in Kalifornien) und ‘Beyond Deep Ecology’, ein Interview mit Satish Kumar (NGO Director, Peace Activist, Herausgeber des Resurgence Magazine and Programm Director am Schumacher College, U.K.). Beides sehr inspirierende Persönlichkeiten und herausfordernde Denker! Dieser Input in Kombination mit dem Interesse und der Unterschiedlichkeit der Anwesenden ergab einen reichhaltigen Abend…

Auch der Veranstaltungort trägt zur Atmosphäre bei: im selfHUB spürt man Offenheit, Vielfalt und Synergien.

Weitere Veranstaltungen folgen, die Themen und Formen werden variieren, aber es wird immer einen Bezug zu einer ganzheitlichen Wahrnehmung des Lebens und zu integrierendem Denken geben.

Check it out and feel invited!

First of all, I have to tell you that we had difficulties in deciding wether to write in english or german. Still have…So if any of you would like to know more or get some german input, let us know. Otherwise we’ll keep it english. We are in the process of meeting/exploring/exchanging with people working in similar areas or with similar interests, and there is a lot of great stuff happening in the UK, so here we go.

These are some of the activities on our list:

There will be a talk with Toni Spencer of the Schumacher College:
An Ecology of Making: A Community of Things
An exploration of crafts, design and the aesthetics of sustainability

a talk with Vandana Shiva:
The transformation of Societies. What comes after development?

There will be practical input like a pruning workshop, loads of permaculture and other projects to visit, we will participate in a Transition Town Training in Totnes and then head to London, meeting people from an acting school and more. That’s the rough outline. We will see what emerges around it…Maybe we’ll just enjoy spring for a minute!…

We’ll let you know about all that right here!…

This is an text excerpt from Fritjof Capra’s ‘Hidden Connections’. Enjoy…

…We do not need to invent sustainable human communities. We can learn from societies that have lived sustainably for centuries. We can also model communities after nature’s ecosystems, which are sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. Since the outstanding characteristic of the biosphere is its inherent ability to sustain life, a sustainable human community must be designed in such a manner that its technologies and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature’s inherent ability to sustain life…

The german title of ‘Hidden Connections’ is ‘Verborgene Zusammenhänge’…