We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Worlds apart: Indigenous leaders abandon faith in UN to find climate solution

Click here to access article by Douglas Fischer from The Daily Climate
Organized by the Bozeman, Mont.- based American Indian Institute, the gathering drew about 65 people from across North America.

Here amid the hills and mesas that painter Georgia O'Keeffe made famous, these elders presented a different palette with which to look at environmental woes. They placed little faith in the weighty United Nations process that opened Monday
[COP19] and will draw thousands of people to Warsaw over the next two weeks to try to find a way to stem emissions of greenhouse gases.