ProGloball
Hi Doug, This reminded me of your work. I'm Cc Gary Kaeter, the author of this page. The relevant website of yours is : http://www.socialtechnology.org/index.html (to remind folks help Gary). Cheers, Steve Kurtz We all want to help our planet and our future. Thats a natural fact! Most compassionate individuals throughout the world are concerned about finding a way, no matter how big or small, to contribute something useful with-in their means. Question is How? All people have certain contributions with-in their means that can be used to assist in helping our environment and the future of the human race. Most would help a lot more if it were easier to find a place that suited them. Our new web site http://www.progloball.com (still under construction) is going to try to provide a place for most, who feel they want to help in some way, to place themselves on a level that is comfortable for them. You might call it an Internet Planet Placement Service. We also believe in the unlimited power of the World Wide Web when it comes to communications and bringing people from all over the planet together. This is an invitation for anyone who wants to contribute to this effort (progloball.com) to send any and all information that would add to this service. Opinions, articles, fact sheets, links, earth friendly product information, data on environmental jobs and careers, creative input on the continuing design and direction of the site, graphics or anything you can think of that could assist in providing: * A web site that helps people who want to help .. find a place to help. * A meeting place for creative and concerned individuals to build a web site that will grow into a much needed public service. The very first building blocks have been started in creating this new web site and can be viewed at www.progloball.com (still under construction and not yet submitted to any browsers). If you have something you would like us to consider adding to this site please don't hesitate to contact us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks, Gary Kaeter eGroups.com Home: http://www.egroups.com/group/footprints www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications
Oregon Will Issue Sustainability Order
Greetings, I don't agree with: "In this instance, "Sustainability" means that business and population growth could continue at no expense or degradation to the environment..." but they have recognized that there is a problem. Steve --- Oregon Will Issue Sustainability Order by Michelle Cole Noting Oregon's historic role in passing the USA's first bottle bill, promoting land-use planning, and protecting its beaches, Governor John Kitzhaber is preparing to take what may be the most dramatic step yet: requiring state government to conduct business in an environmentally sustainable manner. In this instance, "Sustainability" means that business and population growth could continue at no expense or degradation to the environment, a circumstance unrealized anywhere in the United States. Details are sketchy on how state government would make that vision a reality. But Kitzhaber, now drafting an executive order for spring release, revealed his plan recently at a Portland banquet hosted by Sustainable Northwest, which promotes economic development and resource conservation. "The state directs investment for economic development, sets the rules for where and how communities can grow, and establishes the parameters for environmental management," he said. "It also consumes reams of paper, builds offices, buys power, paves roads, manages forests and rangeland. "Does this all happen with the overarching goal of fostering sustainable economic growth that is respectful of both our environment and our communities? I cannot tell you that it does. But I should be able to." "Sustainable" is a term used frequently by government officials, environmentalists, and private industry to describe a world in which natural resources are consumed sparingly and replenished within a lifetime. Paula Burgess, the governor's assistant for natural resources, said she prefers to define sustainability as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." "The problem we have now is that our collective actions are clearly leading to the decline of natural systems," she said. Data from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality indicates the amount of waste and pollution generated between 1994 and 1997 mirrored the state's surging population growth. In the future, a "sustainable" Oregon would see population grow but waste and pollution decline. Kitzhaber's executive order will not have the power to change law. But as the state's chief executive, the governor does have the power to direct agency policies and priorities. As a result of an executive order on sustainability, Burgess said agencies might buy recycled, nontoxic or biodegradable goods. The state would also become a more efficient consumer of energy, water and fuel. And there's a possibility the administration could ask the Legislature to make tax and regulatory changes designed to encourage landowners and businesses to live more sustainably, she said. During an interview earlier, Kitzhaber said it may be appropriate for state agencies to follow the Natural Step, a set of guidelines for sustainability developed 11 years ago by a Swedish physician. Natural Step was brought to the United States by Paul Hawken, founder of the garden products retailer Smith Hawken, and has been adopted by several Oregon companies, including Nike Inc. and the wood products manufacturer, Collins Pine. Sarah Severn, director of environmental action at Nike, describes Natural Step as "a way of opening people's eyes to the physical limits that exist in our world and then stimulating their imagination to create products and services that are in line with that framework." As a result of Natural Step and other sustainability initiatives, Nike now blends 3 percent of organic cotton into its T-shirts. Converting even that small amount of organic cotton prevented tens of thousands of pounds of agricultural chemicals from being released into the environment in 1998, according to Nike. "Ultimately our goal is to have a percentage of organic cotton in all our cotton products," Severn said. Collins Pine's plant in Klamath Falls adopted a zero-waste policy after 600 employees received Natural Step training. "Zero waste" means the plant is committed to eliminating waste or putting it back into use. For Collins Pine, the strategy helped save $1 million the first year, said Duke Castle, a member of the executive committee for the Oregon Natural Step Network. Sweden, Holland and other Northern European countries were the first to incorporate sustainability into government and business practices. In the past year, a handful of states -- Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Florida and North Carolina -- have begun to talk about how they might adopt sustainable practices. "If done right, Oregon could be the first state to really weave together sustainability into an effective, overall
unemployment stats
Could someone on the list (maybe Ed Weick?) tell me the basis for the official unemployment stats? Are they just the number of people collecting EI benefits calculated as a percentage of the total work force, or do they use some other method of determining the number of people "actively seeking work"?
Re: Fw: One Country Two worlds [more than 2...]
It is because I admire Brad that I continue this and he may answer what I say but I can speak only from my own perceptions in my work and life and the experience of those perceptions. So here goes but I cannot continue the discussion beyond this post. Ray "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." wrote: (snip) If Ray is disturbed by my denigration of unreflected life in all its forms (what I intentionally provocatively call: "ethnic formations"), (snip) Actually I am disturbed by what you expressed. As the poet Jerome Rothenberg has said on many occasions, "there is no culture or people that has survived by twiddling their thumbs and speaking in half-formed thoughts." A good case can be made for that belief as a left over piece of 19th century Utilitarian thought that was used to justify aggression. Edward T. Hall had to train that attitude out of the American Diplomats and businessmen because they were in danger of failure in both areas. The multi-linguistic future on the internet puts us all in danger if we see ourselves "above" ethnicity rather than a part of it. I can only say that I hope I made it clear that my critique is not aimed at "primitive peoples" but at everything which is *primitive* (i.e., not radically grounded in self-accountable reflective reconstruction of all that which merely is given) -- wherever it occurs. (snip) Nothing is primitive in that sense. Just relative to its place in time/space and its growth structure. Primitive more accurately means Primal but to me it is a fake issue. I never met a primitive but I have met provincials and ignorance. Neither will it do to reply to this that: "Everyone makes mistakes." Galilean natural science, Hegelian dialectic and Husserlian phenomenological reflection are all self-grounding projects for [albeit iteratively and asymptotically] overcoming error in every aspect of life. The books of C. Castenada caused a stir a while back because no one wanted to admit that the people, he claimed taught him, existed. Don Juan was compared to Husserl and as one scientist said to me, "If these people exist then we have committed a monstrous three hundred years." Well I believe the books are fake but the beginning of any young Shaman's instruction is "be observant!" and "put your feet where no one else has stepped." My teachers were far more reflective, artistic and outrageous than Castenada's stories. They also dealt with some of the nation's greatest scientists both Newtonian and Quantum from a place of equals. They were neither afraid of science nor worshiped it. They also had a healthy believe in the evolution of consciousness but in much too complicated a way to consider one cultural universe more important than another. That the 17th Century Chinese recognized in Galilean natural science "something new, because true for everyone who took the effort to learn it", and not just true for those childreared to believe it (--Joseph Needham), seems to me to lead to one of two possibilities: (1) The Chinese understood that *their own limited form of life* was superseded by the Universality of Science, or (2) That the Chinese are just like "The West" and so their admiration for Science just proves they aren't "real peoples" any more than the Jesuits who brought Galilean science to them Jerome Rothenberg spent several years with the Iroquois studying the poetry contained within their everyday life and the ceremonials. From that point on he concluded that most of the Indigenous people's he worked with were "Technicians of the Sacred" and far more subtle and complicated than the Jesuits whose rigidity made science seem both universal and profound. How could you compare the Chinese language with its tones and subtleties as well as the calligraphy to such "limited" forms as most Western languages and science? Europe has its genius and science is just another adolescent in its history. Its genius is in its art. More about that later. Finally, there is Margaret Mead's _New Lives for Old_, and a recent report in the NYT of one traditional culture in Africa, where the elders have undertaken a thoroughgoing inventory of their traditional culture, to see what parts of it are still viable and which are not worth preserving (e.g., ritual genital mutilation of children). Another shamanic rule is that one must always know the past while living in the present and manifesting the future. It's in the language. (check out Benjamin Lee Whorf and his exploration of the Pueblo verbs). Of course we are not all the same. Cherokees were wonderful at language, science and business in the 19th century. It was our success that created the envy that destroyed what writers at the time were calling an "American Athens." I don't know much about Africa, they have little problem speaking for themselves these days. I see these developments as somewhat similar to our recently having taught some apes to speak (ASL, etc.): I'm not sure where you are going here but I'm not aware of any humans that can
