A Brighter Shade of Green
Alex Steffen, 9 Mar 08
The WIE magazine piece we mentioned before, A Brighter Shade of Green: Rebooting Environmentalism for the 21st Century, is now online. It's worth a read:
"Another world is possible,” goes the popular slogan of the World Social Forum, a yearly gathering of antiglobalization activists from around the world. No, counters Worldchanging in a conscious riff on that motto: “Another world is here.” Indeed, bright green environmentalism is less about the problems and limitations we need to overcome than the “tools, models, and ideas” that already exist for overcoming them. It forgoes the bleakness of protest and dissent for the energizing confidence of constructive solutions. As Sterling said in his first Viridian design speech, pay-ing homage to William Gibson: “The future is already here, it’s just not well distributed yet.”
Great article, and a nice intro to Worldchanging... tho I wouldn't necessarily dis McKibben's POV as "going backwards." It's kinda similar to my small quibble with Kathryn Koromilas' article on the Slow movement -- to me, the point isn't to stop, turn around, or to back up, it's to know that we have options available, and maintain the ability to accelerate or decelerate as conditions require. Why speed up if not to make some time for Slow moments? And on the flip side, how can we have those Slow moments if we're not really efficient and effective with the rest of our time? It's gotta be a matter of balance - local/global, fast/slow, bright/dark, whatever. Me, I like Bach *and* Bjork, know what I mean?
Posted by: Skip Mendler on 10 Mar 08
