Time has become a currency We no longer

Time has become a currency. We no longer “pass” time, we “spend” it. University of Michigan study – 2000 About 33 percent of Americans say they always feel rushed. About 33 percent of Americans say their lives are out of control. Juliet Schor – 2006

Sustainability Triangle

Treat the world well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was lent to you by your children. Kenyan Proverb When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. Aldo Leopold – 1949 All human institutions, professions, programs and activities must now be judged by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a human and Earth relationship. Thomas Berry

Americans spend an average of seven hours per week in their cars, primarily commuting and doing errands. John Robinson – 1997 About 43 percent of American families spend more than they earn each year. American Bankruptcy Institute – 2006

Sustainable Living: A life that is deeply satisfying, fulfilling, and appealing because it is socially, environmentally, and economically responsible. It is about making changes and informed choices, even small ones, that improve the quality of our lives and of the planet for future generations. National Network for Sustainable Living Education – 2008 True quality of life … a small house, a large garden, a few good friends and many good books. Viviane Simon-Brown – 2001

Every day U. S. consumers purchase 154, 000 pounds of Starbucks coffee, 125, 000 Barbie dolls, and 25 million cans of Mountain Dew. Gary Cross – 2006 The average American family has 9, 918 pounds of belongings. American Moving and Storage Association

The ecological crisis … is the ultimate expression of a human mistake – a mistake about our place in the order of things. It is the delusion that we can set ourselves apart, immune to what we do to other beings. It is the denial of our deep, systemic interdependence. Joanna Macy – 1998 We need a new system of values, a system of the organic unity between humankind and nature and the ethic of global responsibility. Mikhail Gorbachev

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created – created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination. John Schaar

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once. Calvin Coolidge To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering. Aldo Leopold – 1949

We have met the enemy and he is us. Pogo Repeating the same behavior over and over again with the expectation of different results is the definition of insanity. Albert Einstein

The wealthiest man is the one who needs the least. Lao Tse Tao Te Ching The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects. Thomas Berry

Scientists estimate that worldwide we are losing at least three species every hour. Extinction is natural but the current rate of extinction is alarming. Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection What makes something special is not what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose. Andre Agassi

Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively that in any comparable period of time in human history resulting in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth. Approximately 60 percent of global ecosystem services are being degraded or used unsustainably. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment – 2005

Normal is … getting dressed in clothes you buy for work, then driving through traffic in a car you are still paying for, in order to get the job you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it. Ellen Goodman

Adopting an “environmental ethic” is easy for most of us today because it imposes the primary burden to act on someone else. Doug Mac. Cleery Any individual, if asked, will profess a deep affection forests, streams, and other natural resources, but as a society, where we put our money is into stripping them away and converting them into something different. Keith Argow

American consumption far exceeds consumption in any other country, in fact, if everyone in the world lived a typical American lifestyle, four planet Earths would be required to sustain that level of consumption. John de. Gaaf, David Wann, Thomas Naylor, and Vicki Robin – 2005

More “stuff” is not making us happier, and yet we can’t, as a society, seem to break out of a cycle that simply offers more “stuff” as our only goal. What we really want is more community, more meaningful contact with fellow human beings. Bill Mc. Kibben

We need to move; from a spirituality of alienation from the natural world to a spirituality of intimacy with the natural world; from a spirituality of the divine as revealed in words to a spirituality of the divine as revealed in the visible world about us; from a spirituality concerned with justice merely to humans to a spirituality of justice to the devastated Earth community; from the spirituality of the prophet to the spirituality of the shaman. Thomas Berry – 1996

The average American, beginning when he or she is a small child, is bombarded with an average of 3000 commercial messages a day. Juliet Schor – 1999 Nothing that is essential needs to be advertised. Judith Levine – 2007

Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment, people everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to use the good of the Earth as we have in the past. A new ecological awareness is beginning to emerge. The ecological crisis is more a issue. The Earth is ultimately a common heritage, the fruits of which are for the benefit of all. It is manifestly unjust that a privileged few should continue to accumulate excess goods, squandering available resources, while masses of people are living in conditions of misery at the very lowest level of existence. The dramatic threat of ecological breakdown is teaching us the extent to which greed and selfishness – both individual and collective – are contrary to the order of creation, an order which is characterized by mutual interdependence. Pope John Paul – 1989

Any ethical or moral foundation for ecological sustainability is weak indeed unless there is a corresponding focus on the consumption side of the natural resource equation. Doug Mac. Cleery It is difficult to make an ethical argument that people in the world’s richest country need “more” when the disparity of the world’s resource use is so vast and that strong evidence exists that we are already consuming beyond the capacity of the Earth to provide. Juliet Schor

The changes that are now needed in society are at a level that stirs religious passions. The debate will be a religious one, made explicit or not. The whole understanding of reality and the orientation to it are at stake. [The solutions will be created by] those who can draw forth these deepest energies of the centered self and give them shape and direction. Getting there, if it happens at all, will be a religious event … Herman Daly and John Cobb, Jr. – 1994