6) SOLIDARITY

 

                                                                  Ohenton Karihwatehkwen, Thanksgiving

Douglas F. Jack, OuEeIiJayIi    Words that come before all else        Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs                          

 

Solidarity means to stand (work, invest, harvest and nourish) with all the people of the earth willing to work together to provide essential goods and services for each person.  We can help all those who will contribute effort and resources towards common well-being.  In solidarity with people here and in an interdependent world, we conserve resources so that systems may be established to recognise and employ the gifts of everyone and the environment in investment and exchange.  In integrity (equally respecting all components and systems at every scale from micro to macro), we include every person as a positive resource and contributor to their livelihood requirements.  In this sense we live and work simply, conserving our resources till worldwide, everyone, every being and the environment is empowered to create and have at least enough resources to continue and thrive.

There are many ways to stand in solidarity with each other.  Below are:  quotes from Socrates, a personal Vow of Solidarity, links with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a Financial Integrity Program, the Two Row Wampum, the Institute for Economic Democracy and the Ecological Footprint Network

 

a)Socrates: "He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature."  "What a lot of things there are a man can do without."

                      "If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it."

                      "The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."  "How many are the things I can do without!"

                      "Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune."

 

PERSONAL SOLIDARITY Attached and left is a Vow of Livelihood Solidarity by Douglas Jack a founder and organiser of Indigene Community.  It takes personal commitments by each person in order to heal the world.  Many examples are needed. The following is my personal statement:

 

b) VOW OF LIVELIHOOD SOLIDARITY 1979 - 2012

 

Attending to the polyculture orchard-garden, harvesting the life-force in its nuts, seeds, greens, fruit and more,

Separating chaff, shells, garbs, husks and refuse, feasting the life thus lifted,

In order to make the essential resources for Food, Shelter, Clothing, Warmth and Health,

Available for all of our world’s community, beginning with my family and myself,

In the ‘indigenous’ (Latin = ‘self-generating’) welcome tradition of the Longhouse and String-shell, I openly structure my economy in a full-cycle of formal giving and receiving, so that all may partake equitably.

My passion is to recognise what is essential to life and to be part of it, eco-montreal@mcgill.ca

* Acting towards the fulfillment of essential purposes is a human right and obligation.  We may use the means and any steps necessary to achieve essential needs.  Example: The planting of trees may not realize produce for a few years, and the tools necessary be they mechanical, electronic etc. may not fall within the scope of essential resources in themselves but are engaged towards essential aims, as our individual and collective choices allow us.  Hence the capital building of ecological infrastructure, tools, water systems, housing, transportation, storage, transformation facilities, biosphere tools, bio-diversity etc may all be used towards the purposes of essential goods and services.

"Remember the poorest people you know, the beings you have seen more abandoned.  Ask if the act or that you plan your way of life is somehow beneficial to them.  If so, you will find these to be acts of god." Mohandas Gandhi

Douglas Frederick Jack, Ou Ee Ii Jay Ii (My name told to me in a dream circa 1972 at Ootischenia (Castlegar).

________________________________________________________________________

SECURING THE MEANS OF LIVELIHOOD is a most fundamental human concern and right.  When means are insecure then human existence is as well.  When we have resources such as money, time or other assets, they are the result of many people having worked together in harmony with nature.

 

EATING & LIVING SIMPLY for greatest personal or family health as well as planning for collaboration with the livelihood needs/efforts of others in community is necessary in order to generate the most effective ecological footprint.  Developing critical masses of actors working together in ‘community’ service is personally and collectively empowering.  The Latin origin of the words: community, communication, municipality is ‘com’ = ‘together’ + ‘munus’ = ‘gift or service’.

 

STEWARDSHIP lies within each one of us individually and all have gifts to offer.  It is my privilege to use my resources as investment to mobilise my household, family, friends and all who are receptive in community, to organise the means of production or invest capital towards creating feasible livelihood.

 

WELCOME is humanity’s greatest gift, which we accomplish through open inclusive organisation of labour. Everything we want for the world is linked to the essence of gifts within ourselves, our families, communities, cities, provinces, nations, continents, hemispheres and world manifested at many levels.

 

The multi-level ORCHARD-GARDEN is the earth’s most productive living resource, cultivated for the collection of solar energy, storage of water, multiple species generation and abundance of resources.

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“Be the change that you want to see in the world.” “Live simply, so that others may simply live.” “Regard human labour as more even than money and you have an untapped and inexhaustible source of income, which ever increases with use.” 1945, Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1869-1949

 

Tao Te Ching ~ 500 BC by Lao Tzu  The Three Treasures

Simplicity, Patience and Compassion, these are your greatest treasures,

Simple in action and in thoughts, you return to the source of being,

Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are,

Compassionate towards yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

 

“Wei Wu Wei”, Chinese saying meaning “Doing, not-doing”.  Does our method align with our purpose?

“If you love this planet, you will change the priorities of your life and work every second of every day to save it, and you’ll never feel depressed again. You’ll feel a sense of great joy and fulfillment.”

Dr. Helen Caldicott, 2 Jan. 2003 at Smith College in Massachusetts.

 

c) HIERARCHY OF NEEDS Abraham Maslow (1908 - 70)'s published in Motivation and Personality 1943 is represented by the pyramid above.  It is difficult to pay attention to higher needs when basic needs are not met.  The fulfillment of each level of needs allow for higher more transcental levels to be attended to.  As these needs are important for the individual, they are also important for the community.  Both the individual and the community have rights and responsibilities to attend to these needs in caring for self, family, each other and community.  In this sense resources needed for the fulfillment of these needs are not the property of any individual unless they are stewarding the resources for the best interests of everyone.  In a world economy which is interdependent whereby each is contributing to the wellbeing of everyone and at the same time benefitting from the labours of everyone, it is important to discern between needs and wants.  Considering that the world economy has degenerated with the overconsumption of a relative few (industrial-consuming nations destroying biosphere through tree cutting, monocrop plantations, dams, mines etc.) with many (3rd World peoples based in traditional biosphere productivity) being denied basic resources, it is important that those from over-consuming nations cut back to our needs and allow for the 3rd world to regenerate their biosphere's productivity.  "Maslow’s hierarchy of needs represents part of an important shift in psychology. Rather than focusing on abnormal behavior and development, Maslow’s humanistic psychology was focused on the development of healthy individuals."  The Hierarchy of Needs is discussed at About.com Psychology  http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm

 

d) FINANCIAL INTEGRITY PROGRAM from the New Road Map Foundation http://financialintegrity.org helps individuals and groups bring Personal Financial Management to empower life & vision realization.  Solidarity by all community members to enable, invest-in, to work

& share together. Personal financial management programs are available from Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin. http://yourmoneyoryourlife.info/  provides a personal Road Map for each person to implement their personal values financially.  The chart on the left describes an audio program with worksheets by which individuals 1. Chart earnings and spending, 2. Calculte real hourly wage, 3. Tabulate a monthly income statement, 4. Discern life priorities, 5. Keep track day to day on a wall chart, 6. Personally discern meaningful expenditures from others, 7. Maximize satisfying income, 8. Plan for meaningful capital investment, 9.  Manage investment. 

The Voluntary Simplicity www.simpleliving.net movement with Duane Elgin has many materials.

Reseau Quebecois pour la Simplicite volontaire  http://simplicitevolontaire.info/ressources-documentaires/

 

http://english.ttu.edu/KAIROS/3.1/features/smith/episodes/1789/comments/Cher/wampum.html

e) TWO ROW WAMPUM Treaty as part of the Covenant Chain between First Nations and the original Dutch, English and French colonies showed the ongoing intention by First Nations since a century a welcoming Europeans. 

The Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Haudenosaunee, began the Covenant Chain in 1692. This treaty is recorded in the Two Row Wampum belt called the Guswenta.

First Nations fed, clothed, healed and nurtured European colonists intimately.  They saw our divisions and individual isolation from each other as a feudal militaristic society.  First Nations seeing our diseased social relations and having military advantage could have wiped Europeans out any time during the first two hundred years, but instead chose to help us understand their Great Law of Peace.  While some whites joined with democratic First Nations to escape these cruel societies, most remained chained and subservient even to this day.  The epidemics of Euro-Asian-African diseases killed some 95% of First Nation populations, policies of genocide and apartheid broke the ability of whole communities to demonstrate their methods to the newcomers.

The Two Row Wampum represents a belief in the integrity of each person and the inevitability that truth will find its way as well as the Caucusing process by which those with unique differences, truths and mannerisms are invited to walk parallel paths with the main body in order so that each can further learn from each other.  During the invasions, Europeans not having this civility did not understand their obligations as well as understood but feared their own societies more and therefore did not act responsibly.

 

Two Row is included here in this section on Solidarity because it evokes the importance of individual compassionate responsibility for all those in our community and a role for individual voluntary simplicity in nurturing enough for all.  The practices of the Financial Integrity program share this same respect for individual understandings and action.

 

f) INSTITUTE for ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY JW Smith and associates have published well researched books on what has become western Plunder of Third World resources available at http://www.ied.info  They provide many books free online as well as selling published paper copies.  Here are two major works for those wanting to understand the world's economic system. Money: A Mirror Image of the Economy, Revised 2nd edition    June, 2010 $32.00

Economic Democracy: A Grand Strategy for World Peace and Prosperity, Revised 2nd Edition    June, 2010 $35.00

 

g) ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT www.footprintnetwork.org

What We Do

Creating a world where everyone can live well, within the means of one planet, is going to take all of us pulling together toward this common goal.  The scale of our challenge is enormous. Nothing short of a revolution in our economies, societies, energy choices and lifestyles is required.  At Global Footprint Network our programs are designed to influence decision makers at all levels of society and to create a critical mass of powerful institutions using the Footprint to put an end to ecological overshoot and get our economies back into balance.

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle. For 2006, humanity's total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.4 planet Earths – in other words, humanity uses ecological services 1.4 times as fast as Earth can renew them.[1] Every year, this number is recalculated — with a three year lag due to the time it takes for the UN to collect and publish all the underlying statistics.While the term ecological footprint is widely used,[2] methods of measurement vary. However, calculation standards are now emerging to make results more comparable and consistent.[3]

Overview

The first academic publication about the ecological footprint was by William Rees in 1992.[4] The ecological footprint concept and calculation method was developed as the PhD dissertation of Mathis Wackernagel, under Rees' supervision at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, from 1990–1994.[5] Originally, Wackernagel and Rees called the concept "appropriated carrying capacity".[6] To make the idea more accessible, Rees came up with the term "ecological footprint," inspired by a computer technician who praised his new computer's "small footprint on the desk."[7] In early 1996, Wackernagel and Rees published the book Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth.[8]

Ecological footprint analysis compares human demand on nature with the biosphere's ability to regenerate resources and provide services. It does this by assessing the biologically productive land and marine area required to produce the resources a population consumes and absorb the corresponding waste, using prevailing technology. Footprint values at the end of a survey are categorized for Carbon, Food, Housing, and Goods and Services as well as the total footprint number of Earths needed to sustain the world's population at that level of consumption. This approach can also be applied to an activity such as the manufacturing of a product or driving of a car. This resource accounting is similar to life cycle analysis wherein the consumption of energy, biomass (food, fiber), building material, water and other resources are converted into a normalized measure of land area called 'global hectares' (gha).

Per capita ecological footprint (EF) is a means of comparing consumption and lifestyles, and checking this against nature's ability to provide for this consumption. The tool can inform policy by examining to what extent a nation uses more (or less) than is available within its territory, or to what extent the nation's lifestyle would be replicable worldwide. The footprint can also be a useful tool to educate people about carrying capacity and over-consumption, with the aim of altering personal behavior. Ecological footprints may be used to argue that many current lifestyles are not sustainable. Such a global comparison also clearly shows the inequalities of resource use on this planet at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

In 2006, the average biologically productive area per person worldwide was approximately 1.8 global hectares (gha) per capita. The U.S. footprint per capita was 9.0 gha, and that of Switzerland was 5.6 gha per person, while China's was 1.8 gha per person.[9][10] The WWF claims that the human footprint has exceeded the biocapacity (the available supply of natural resources) of the planet by 20%.[11] Wackernagel and Rees originally estimated that the available biological capacity for the 6 billion people on Earth at that time was about 1.3 hectares per person, which is smaller than the 1.8 global hectares published for 2006, because the initial studies neither used global hectares nor included bioproductive marine areas.[8]

A number of NGO websites allow estimation of one's ecological footprint (see Footprint Calculator, below).

Ecological footprinting is now widely used around the globe as an indicator of environmental sustainability.[citation needed] It can be used to measure and manage the use of resources throughout the economy. It can be used to explore the sustainability of individual lifestyles, goods and services, organizations, industry sectors, neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations.[12] Since 2006, a first set of ecological footprint standards exist that detail both communication and calculation procedures. They are available at www.footprintstandards.org and were developed in a public process facilitated by Global Footprint Network and its partner organizations.

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate. ...    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint

A measure of how much biologically productive land and water area an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates using prevailing technology and resource management practices. [1]

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ecological_footprint

The amount of biologically productive land and water that is needed to supply resources and absorb wastes. Ecological footprints are usually expressed in units of global hectares.   www.science.org.au/nova/107/107glo.htm

The number of hectares of productive land or sea required to support one average person at the world average consumption level.

www.eartheconomics.org/ecolecon/ee_definitions.html

The ecological impact of our activities and operations on our environment    www.citywestwater.com.au/about/glossary.htm

An ecological footprint is the total area of productive land and water required to support an organism and can be expressed as the number of planets that would be required to support the global population if everyone lived a certain lifestyle: in the UK this figure is three planets.

www.carbondescent.org.uk/glossary.php

An ecological footprint (or eco-footprint) is a measure of our ecological performance. It tracks the quantity of resources individuals (or organisations, cities, regions, nations or the global population) consume and compares this amount to the resources nature can provide. ...

vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/science/glossary.html

a measure of the area of land and water a human population would hypothetically need to provide all the resources required to support itself and to absorb its wastes.    www.climatesmart.qld.gov.au/get_informed/glossary

The area of land and water required to support a defined economy or human population at a specified standard of living indefinitely, using prevailing technology.    www.esd.rgs.org/glossarypopup.html

A link between human lifestyles and ecosystems, which allows people to visualize the impact of their consumption patterns and activities on ecosystems.     environment.nelson.com/0176169040/glossary.html

A person or organization's cumulative impact on natural resources   www.tc.umn.edu/~aec/glossary.html

a calculation that estimates the area of the Earth's productive land and water required to supply the resources than an individual or group demands, as well as to absorb the wastes that the individual or group produces. Substitute: carbon footprint

www.worldwildlife.org/climate/curriculum/item5957.html

A measure of consumption each human places on the environment they live within. The ecological footprint of each modern city dweller has been figured at 12 acres - about three city block squares (Callenbach, 1998).   www.med.uwo.ca/ecosystemhealth/education/glossary.htm

A tool for determining if our lifestyles are sustainable . Categories of human consumption translate into areas of productive land required to provide resources and assimilate waste products. ...   www.csbsju.edu/EnvironmentalStudies/curriculum/greenbuildingplan/Green%20Building%20Plan%20p12.htm

is the amount of land required to provide the natural resources consumed by the population of various nations and to absorb their wastes. ...

www.global-awareness.net/Singapore/definitions.htm

Gandhian Trusteeship in Theory and in Practice http://theosophytrust.org/tlodocs/GandhianTrusteeship-2.htm  by Hermes the Avatar