Reflections on "The Earth Charter" created by Earth Charter Comission

"Affirm that with increased freedom, knowledge, and power comes increased responsibility to promote the common good." - Earth Charter

I think that every person has in inherit good. People know how to distinguish right from wrong. Politicians, scientists, farmers, and consumers must make smart decisions to promote the good. As technology advances scientists must realize that it is not always beneficial. Politicians in places of power must make wise decisions to serve all the people and not give into greed. If we want to be free we have to know our place. The decisions we make reflect who we are. If people abuse their freedom they trample on other people's freedom. When people take more than they need they are abusing their freedom.

Earth Charter

• "Secure Earth's bounty and beauty for future generations."
• "Prevent pollution of any part of the environment and allow no build-up of radioactive, toxic, or other hazardous substances."
• "Eliminate nuclear, biological, and toxic weapons and other weapons of mass destruction."

The Earth is a beautiful place with boundless life and seemingly endless seas. It home and we have to treat it like our family. Keeping pollution and waste to a minimum is necessary if we want our children to live happy healthy lives. We have to collectively protect the life here on Earth. Protecting all life means protecting ourselves too. The other day in class we talked about corals approaching extinction at the quickest rate. It is scary to thing the things at the base of the food web are threatened. We have to respect all life, and respecting all life means reducing our pollution.

Some pics I took:

"Promote a culture of tolerance, nonviolence, and peace." -Earth Charter

Being human means being spiritually intact. A culture lacking peace and tolerance loses it spirituality. Today people consume the culture instead of creating the culture. If we expect to live sustainably we have to promote strong relationships with the Earth. Its impossible to make wise decisions if there is no respect or tolerance for others. The only way to be progressive is to collaborate. The following is a quote from one of my favorite books Siddhartha by Herman Hesse: "It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone." Tolerance can only come if people are happy with their own lives. We only know what we personally experience. If you haven't lived someone else's life then you can't tell them what is right for them. Many things in today's culture are about dominance. You can't be happy if you are busy trying to dominate and control people. Happy people are accepting, nonviolent, and peaceful. We need to adopt universal morals and teach our children peace. People have to find love to have peace.

"Where there is life there is love."- Mahatma Gandhi

Thoughts on David W. Orr's excerpt from "Earth in MInd- Love it or Lose it: the coming biophilia revolution"

Page 210-211 of colloquium reader
"A sane civilization that loved more fully and intelligently would have more parks and fewer shopping malls; more small farms and fewer agri-businesses; more prosperous small towns and smaller cities; more solar collectors and fewer strip mines; more bicycle trails and fewer freeways; more trains and fewer cars; more celebration and less hungry; more property owners and fewer millionaires and billionaires; more readers and fewer television watchers; more shopkeepers and fewer multinational corporations; more teachers and fewer lawyers; more wilderness and fewer landfills; more wild animals and fewer pets."

This pretty much sums up how I feel about our modern world. There are a lot of evil things today. We have the power to create an incredibly loving community, but we choose to divide ourselves. We reward competition and we live life with the business as usual attitude. I always feel like I'm trying to stay afloat. Its not a very good feeling to know the thing I love so much is corrupted and polluted. I have always dreamed of a simpler world with no cars, planes, trains, automobiles, corporations, currency, power plants, law books, landfills, zoos, and cities. I dream of a place where we can carry on as a human race. A place where you wake up and eat straight from the trees and the rivers. Music, love, and nature are the only things that save my soul from drowning in this world of insanity.

Page 188 & 192 of colloquium reader
"I think it is evident that tribal cultures possessed an ecological innocence of sorts because they did not have the possibilities or the knowledge given to us." "Is mass biophobia a kind of collective madness? In time I think we will come to know that it is."

We have to go back to the nomadic ways of weaving through the damage we have created. We have to go back to our roots if we want this planet to support the human race. We can't replace the natural REAL world with our INVENTED technologies. Everything we know can be linked to the creation of a language. Language is the liquid we're all dissolved in. Perhaps people should stop talking and take it easy for a while. People need to stop talking, stop trying to dominate, and listen to what nature is trying to tell us. We live a life so distanced from nature that we have cut ourselves off. Without a sense of biophilia we create a biophobia. There are so many people drowning in a world cut off from love and emotion.



Page 198 of colloquium reader
"We are now engaged in a great global debate about what it means to live sustainably on the Earth."

I chose this quote because I feel like there is nothing to argue about. We all know in our hearts what it takes to be "sustainable". We have to live alongside nature. That is sustainability. Taking only what you need is sustainability. If we try to argue that anything else is sustainable then we are lying to ourselves.

Field Trip Reflection

ECHO

So echo was definitely my favorite field trip. I really believe in what they are doing. Echo is trying to help feed the 870 million hungry people on our planet. They are developing sustainable farming techniques and teaching them to the public. I would love to volunteer or work at this place. I enjoyed the humor of our tour guide. He kept the tour interesting with the facts and the random jokes thrown in( when he ate the uncooked Chaya leaf). I had never seen an avocado as big as the one at echo. One thing that really sparked my interest at echo was the aquaponic system. Growing fish in a small space and circulating the nutrients to a hydroponic garden is a fantastic idea. What a great use of such a small space! And the pump was powered by solar panels which made it WAY better. I will probably take ideas from echo whenever I get my own place to live and grow my own garden. I think we could really change the world by using echo's farming techniques all around the world. We don't need industrialized food where chickens and cows are raised inhumanely. We can feed ourselves by creating our own local gardens and communities. Companies like Mansanto must stop ruling the food industry. Save your seeds!
I didn't even know places like echo existed until we went on our field trip.
There is nothing better than eating the fruit of your own crop. Crops that weren't shipped half way across the world and ripened with ethylene gas.