For many of us, the year 2020 was a year of scary stories and the realisation that the majority of the human race was definitely going the wrong way. For others, it was more or less what we expected, having witnessed the growing demand to change the way we live and how we think about our environment. In either case, we have finally reached a point in our history, where most of us are aware that in order to even survive into the future, we’ll need to re-invent our whole way of seeing our natural world and must collectively learn how to live within its limits.
From deadly viruses and Global Climate Change, loss of biodiversity and Plastic Pollution, loss of arable land and rapidly disappearing fresh water supplies, to human rights, animal welfare and fair distribution of wealth, we have a lot of important work to do in the the coming decade and will need more than good intentions to make it all happen in time to be effective!
So, the big question is ‘what can we do on a personal level to help improve the world we live in?, and this is a very important point to consider, as we make our plans for 2021.
Fortunately, we can still choose to be part of the solution, or continue to be part of the problem, so where do we begin to make the necessary changes in our individual behaviour, towards each other and towards our shared planetary home?
If the problems we now face seem to be unsurmountable, it’s because they are huge problems, but the good news is that there are solutions to every one of them. However, in order to get these solutions into the mind and into the heart of all people, we need to involve all the people in the decision making process, and that seems to be the biggest challenge of our times.
As humans, we’ve tried many different types of governmental ‘Control systems’, but it seems that none of them have really been successful in bringing peace and harmony to the world we live in, so perhaps this is the first thing we should look at in order to find a way out of the global mess we are now experiencing.
Leadership is something we have experimented with in many shapes and forms during our long history here on Earth, and of course there have been as many failures as success stories along the way. Some citizens prefer to be led, others like to lead, and an increasing number of people merely want to be ‘involved‘ in the process of deciding what’s best for their particular community. Perhaps it’s the desire to be involved in the process of leadership which will eventually lead us to a better distribution of wealth and resources and therefore offer a better chance to succeed in finding those necessary solutions we keep talking about, but often don’t manage to achieve due to the personal interests of just a small percentage of the world population.
Personally, I’m not at all interested in the ‘One World Government' ideology, since it’s bound to be abused by those occupying the top tiers of the ‘System’. Neither am I interested in what may be described as ‘Pure Democracy’, which so far hasn’t worked, due in most cases to a lack of correct implementation.
In my view, we still need to seek help from naturally intelligent and visionary leaders, who can work in harmony with the rest of the population, in a kind of decentralised but totally connected society, where every voice is heard, but where there’s no possibility of ‘mob rule’ overriding the intelligent and visionary plans of the elected leaders. I have called this idea a ‘Democraship’, where there are plans presented by elected leaders for a particular action and the citizens are invited to participate in the execution of the plan, therefore making them stakeholders in the success (or failure) of the proposal.
Speaking of Social Leadership initiatives and Public Participation, we’ve been working hard over the Christmas holidays, making a brand new version of the ‘Ibiza Fènix’ website (see https://www.ibizafenix.org/?lang=en), and presenting the latest version of the ‘Ibiza Ecolandia’ project, ready to discuss with the local administration as soon as we can get an appointment to see them.
The Ibiza Ecolandia project, for those who are new to the idea, is perhaps best described as the physical or 3D version of the Ibiza Fénix Social Leadership initiative and is well described in the PDF available on the following link: https://www.ibizafenix.org/proyectos?lang=en
Meanwhile, at Casita Verde Ibiza, we go on working with our small but very efficient team of residents, maintaining and improving the installations, so that whenever we get a chance to do some more events or educational projects here, everything will be working perfectly and the place will also be very ‘presentable’ to visitors wishing to participate in the ‘Ibiza Fènix’ or ‘Ibiza Ecolandia’ projects.
Actually, the way things are going, our style of living is certainly becoming more popular every day, as the possibility of cyber attacks on energy systems, food chains and other vital services looks like a real possibility in the near future.
Lately, we hear of situations emerging that will be even worse than the Covid pandemic and which could affect the world population in a much more severe way.
Obviously, the more automated our lives are, and the more we rely on goods and services that come from far away places, the more we are at risk of suffering when they are no longer there to serve us. We must therefore learn to live more simply, grow our own food, make our own electricity and collect water, cycle, walk or use public transport whenever possible, and stop buying things we don't really need.
If the whole world gets this message and begins to improve their impact on our now very fragile global ecosystem, we may be able to pull our civilization out of this downward spiral into chaos, fear and darkness.
There are many groups and individuals who are finally waking up to the reality of our present situation and are looking for ways to get involved in the global-repair and regeneration movement, so my advice to anyone reading this blog is to make sure you are one of them!
We recommend that you read the new book ‘Local is our future’, Steps to an Economics of Happiness, written by Helena Norberg-Hodge
Available via www.localfutures.org/store
Of course, if you have any questions about alternative lifestyle techniques, or want to know how you can be a more eco-conscious citizen, please get in touch by email, sending your request to info@casitaverde.com, or calling our main office on 971 187353 / 608838190 (English and Spanish)
With warm greetings from Casita Verde,
Chris Dews – coordinator
Recommendations for our followers:
https://www.greengorillas.eco
