terminology, movement, webinar
OK, ‘eco-communitarianism’ might be intimidating verbiage.
We could just say ‘green.’ But that’s kind of amorphous.
I think the world needs to bite the bullet and deal with the big word. Or, at least … the concept …
Anyway, next Monday (June 12) the Cohousing Association of the US will be sponsoring a webinar: “Ecovillages as Regenerative Models for American Housing” …
https://cohousinginstitute.org/courses/6-12-ecovillages-as-regenerative-models-for-american-housing/
I’ll be attending.
Here are some reflections on it that culminate in the big word:
* * * *
Ecological consciousness advanced greatly between the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 and Charles Reich’s The Greening of America in 1970. For example: 1970 also saw the initiation of the annual Earth Day celebrations.
The Greening of America contained quite a few flakey-Sixties ideas, but also had an essential theme of social change: “There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. It promises a higher reason, a more human-scale community, and a liberated individual. Its ultimate creation will be a renewed relationship to the Self, to society, to nature, and to the land.”
With the publication of that book the “greening” meme started to be referenced in common discourse. Green energy. Green transport. Green infrastructure. Green political parties. “Our lifeways must go green.”
An environmental movement sprang up in the wake of Silent Spring. But something broader and deeper also emerged, a movement that I call “the greening of society.” Ever since, there have been myriad manifestations of it: Earth Day worldwide, deep ecology, voluntary simplicity, bioregionalism, Transition Towns. And the attempt to construct ecovillages.
The email notification about the Coho webinar said: “Did you know that cohousing communities can also be ecovillages? The principles of ecovillages can be applied to traditional cohousing communities in pursuit of ecological stewardship and regeneration.”
What are those principles? The Global Ecovillage Network (www.ecovillage.org) delineates:
Social Practices
Nurture diversity and cohesion for thriving communities.
Build trust through transparency and accountability.
Empower collaborative leadership and participatory governance.
Promote health, healing and well-being for all.
Cultural Practices
Enrich life with art and celebration.
Honor indigenous wisdom.
Innovate in order to simplify, otherwise sparingly.
Reconnect to nature and embrace low-impact lifestyles.
Move towards equitable stewardship of land and resources.
Ecological Practices
Protect the soil through regenerative agriculture.
Clean and replenish sources and cycles of water.
Move towards 100% renewable energy and transport.
Adopt and spread green building technologies.
Work with waste as a valuable resource.
Increase biodiversity and restore ecosystems.
Economic Practices
Shift away from globalization toward communitarian economics.
Commit to responsible production, consumption, and trade.
Generate wealth through sharing and collaboration.
Use banking and exchange systems that strengthen communities.
Cultivate a high quality of life based on sufficiency rather than affluenza.
* * * *
Constructing ecovillages as models to be emulated is key. But, more generally, the ecovillage ethos can be applied in various ways to rural communities, suburban townships, and urban neighborhoods. Diversity of implementations is anticipated and desirable.
For the entire expanse of our species history (“homo” goes back about six million years; the emergence of “sapiens” is dated from about 300,000 years ago), until the relatively recent rise of cities, states and empires, our lifeways were communitarian — bands, tribes, villages. Cohousing represents a revival of communitarianism. It’s a very important phenomenon of our time. Even more encouraging would be a turn toward eco-communitarianism:
