What Does it Mean to be a Global Citizen?
At The Global Citizens’ Initiative we say that a “global citizen is someone who identifies with being part of an emerging world community and whose actions contribute to building this community’s values and practices.”
To test the validity of this definition we examine its basic assumptions: (a) that there is such a thing as an emerging world community with which people can identify; and (b)…
Global Poll | Global Citizenship A Growing Sentiment Among Citizens Of Emerging Economies
A Globescan Poll for the BBC World Service, Spring 2016
Download the Full Report (PDF)
For the first time in 15 years of tracking by GlobeScan, findings indicate that nearly one in two people (49%) surveyed across 14 tracking countries see themselves more as global citizens than citizens of their country. This sentiment is being driven by citizens of large emerging economies, according to a new…
‘Encounter’ | A Definition, by David Fleming
An excerpt from Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It, by David Fleming (2016). Chelsea Green Publishing.
Asterisks* point to other entries in the dictionary.
Encounter. The act of recognising something – a person, a *practice, a *system – on its own terms; the particular character and wholeness of the other is acknowledged; *judgment and opinion about him/her/it…
Book Review | Designing Regenerative Cultures
This is the spirit of Daniel’s book. At every turn, it invites us to consider a bigger picture—to see ourselves not as individuals but as living in a pattern of relationship with others; and to see that pattern of relationship not as separate from but as part of the
wider living systems of nature; and to see these patterns not as stable structures but as constantly evolving, emerging processes…
The Enlivenment Manifesto: Politics and Poetics in the Anthropocene
By Andreas Weber, Hildegard Kurt
KOSMOS JOURNAL, SPRING | SUMMER 2016
"Enlightenment thinking is coming to an end. The ‘Anthropocene’ claims to step beyond the dualism of man-nature opposition. Culture is everywhere. This might be an opportunity for sustainable action: Saving nature becomes a cultural endeavour. However, the salute to anthropocene stewardship masks the silent enclosure of…
Three Short Films from Healing Forest | by Nitin Das
By Nitin Das, Healing Forest
What makes you Rich or Poor?
This film was shot in the beautiful but less known Sangti Valley of Arunachal Pradesh, India. The intention of this short film is to make people think about the difference between leading a rich life and having a lot of money.
I am working on a film project called 'Healing Forest'. It’s a journey to explore the healing powers of…
Harmony with Nature
The development goals rightly recognize that constantly accelerating consumption is one of the greatest dangers we face, especially since we know that consumption is tightly tied to climate change. Traditional ecological knowledge offers insights for what sustainable consumption might look like, through the indigenous canon of principles and practices that govern consumption known as The…
Transforming | no birth, no death
Dear Reader,
I am sitting in hospice with my dad. He just made his 78th birthday. His body is light and brittle as a leaf, locked by Parkinson's into a human question mark. When he occasionally opens his eyes, I see a question there too. For the past 100 or so hours spent with him, we have found some comfort in the Buddhist teaching on transformation, 'no birth, no death'. We do not…
Reader’s Essay | Forests Restored After Fire
By Maya Khosla
My colleague Tonja Chi and I are entering a forest two years after fire. Our work is part of a series of surveys directed by Dr. Chad Hanson to search through forests that rapidly recover after wildfire. The trees towering all around us had been engulfed in the flames of the 2013 Rim Fire, which burned massive areas of Yosemite and Stanislaus National Forests.
The tallest…
Reader’s Essay | A New Approach to Stuff
By Martin Oliver
Bagpuss and Emily
In every episode of the 1970s British children’s TV series Bagpuss, a young girl finds a lost and broken object in the village street and leaves it in her shop window for the passing owner to collect. An oddball cast of animal characters inside the shop then repairs the item and imbues it with meaning and value by giving it a history.
It’s quaint,…