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The old button from the Environmental Club days which I just happened to find on Earth Day! It is a little beat up (particularly the ends of the ribbon), but no worse for the wear, I think. And it is one of the few items that I have left from those days, so it carries a lot of great memories for me! Nothing Changes Until You Do!
Here is a picture of a very similar logo, with the same message, that was on the t-shirt that I purchased from the BCC Environmental Club and, if memory serves me correctly, may even have helped to make. There were a few projects like that which club members, myself included, were regularly involved with. It has been so long, however, that I no longer recall specifically if I actually helped to make these or not, although I do believe so, since I remember seeing the process of the t-shirts being dyed. In any case, I loved this t-shirt, and have kept it ever since, even if I do not regularly wear it. Since it was part of my experience with the BCC Environmental Club days, as well as more generally having an environmental theme, it seemed appropriate to share it here.
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."
~Mahatma Gandhi
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
~John F. Kennedy
Daniel Quinn, author of some incredible books (most famously Ishmael), once projected a future where people begin to break away from "civilization" (he made a point of putting these quotes around that particular word) bit by bit, until there was a large segment of the human population that lived separately from the so-called "civilized" world.
I believe that he may be right. We see an increasing number of people who feel completely disgusted by the excesses of our global culture, and who want to generally move in a very different, more sustainable direction.
Indeed, if humanity is to survive, chances are we will need many, many more communities that are self-sustaining, and where the people residing in these communities want no part of the exclusive focus on growth, growth, and more growth. Growth of resources and wealth, growth of corporate entities, growth of nations, of towns and cities, growth of the human population overall.
Ultimately, we will need people to step back from the rat race, and provide an alternative possibility, another way of possibly existing. For a while in the sixties and seventies, there was a movement towards communes, although by and large, these did not last.
There may be a new wave of these kinds of communities arising, with the emphasis now being on long-term self-sustainability.
It would be an impressive feat, but here are some encouraging signs that such communities might not be that far away, and may already even exist:
The first completely sustainable island is in Scotland By Eevee G:, 11 Nov 2014:
Lasqueti is a secret Canadian island where the vast majority of residents are completely off-grid. by Sophie McAdam, February 27, 2015:
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