Chip Ward Essays: security

The purpose of this "blog" is to make my essays that have been

published online accessible in one place. Current essays are on

top and older pieces farther down, though they are not presented

in strict chronological order. The postings or "blog archive" list

serves as a kind of index. Since most of my essay links were posted

at once in May of 2009, click "2009" under the blog archive column

and a list of essays will appear. Each essay is briefly described and a

link provided.

My formative writing experiences were as a grassroots organizer

and activist in campaigns to make polluters accountable. I wrote

newsletters, pamphlets, press releases, op-ed pieces, and statements

to be read at hearings, debates, and panel discussions. I did hundreds

of interviews for outlets as diverse as NPR, CBS, BBC, and CNN.

During this time I was also a library manager and administrator.

Although one might not suspect so, the role of the librarian and

the role of the activist share much in common. Effective activists

provoke public dialog. Effective librarians invite such dialogue.

Although they employ different methods, the ends are the same.

Eventually, I wrote two books about my political adventures,

Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West (Verso,

1999) and Hope's Horizon: Three Visions for Healing the

American Land(Island/Shearwater, 2004).

We spent the last two centuries learning how Nature can create wealth.

We will spend the next century learning how Nature creates health.

Ultimately, as we learn to live in reciprocal and sustainable

relationship with the ecosystems that sustain us, we will replace

the cultural language of wealth that both expresses and guides our

behavior today with a new language of health.

I am not talking here about mere words. I mean the way we see the

world, the way we express our values, and the way we make choices

together. The difference between those two ways of seeing and being

in the world are profound.

Wealth says more; health says enough. Wealth says accumulate;

health says flow. Wealth says compete and win; health says

reciprocate, integrate, reconcile. Wealth says manage and

measure; health says jam and dance. Wealth assigns value; health

assumes it. Wealth adds, subtracts, and divides; health makes whole.

To learn this new language, we begin by listening. When we translate

what we learn into behaviors, we are practicing what I call ecological

citizenship. Ultimately, the health of our natural/physical

environment is directly related to the vitality of our civic

environment. And if you dig deeper, environmental crises are

also about our disconnection from nature and from each other.

And so we confront not only entrenched powers and their

destructive interests, but a culture that enables us, even

encourages us, to think and feel and act as if we live apart from

nature. As I try to explain in the essays that follow, nature is

embedded in us as we are embedded in the ecosystems that sustain us.

Chip Ward

moonbolt3@hotmail.com

Showing posts with label security. Show all posts

Showing posts with label security. Show all posts

Sunday, May 31, 2009

After the Green Economy, Green Security: How to Build Resilient Communities in a Chaotic World

After the Green Economy, Green Security: How to Build Resilient Communities in a Chaotic World

A friend who has advocated green jobs and a green economy for several years said he felt a bit disoriented when President Obama endorsed his vision in his own agenda for the nation's future. The greening of the economy was the cutting edge, he said, so where do we go next? This essay is my answer.

As the recent swine flu outbreak hinted, global commerce could be shut down in a global pandemic and, if so, we will quickly learn that our food and energy come from far away. Pandemics are just one possible disruption on a planet troubled by climate chaos and ecological collapse. Security in the face of those inevitable challenges and the chaos that will follow will be redefined as a matter of local resilience. This theme is a continuation of the emphasis on resilience found in an earlier essay, "Diesel-Driven Bee Slums and Impotent Turkeys," found below.

This essay became a chapter in the book How the West Was Warmed: Responding to Climate Change in the Rockies edited by Beth Conover who assisted John Hickenlooper (mayor of Denver, governor of Colorado) on environmental issues. The link is to the piece as it first appeared at tomdispatch.com that also includes my introduction to the essay.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175039/chip_ward_the_department_of_homegrown_security

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