For 365 days he and wife Michelle and child Isabella, living in New York City, produced no trash which was not composted, purchased no food except that grown with a 250-mile radius, used no carbon-based transportation (cycling and walking), and used no paper products, including toilet paper. No TV. No fast food. No meat.

I see and hear this boyish person, Colin Beavan, at Illinois Wesleyan University. Two thousand students at IWU, among 30,000 nationwide, have read his book, No Impact Man (2009), as part of their summer reading assignment. Illinois Wesleyan, along with many institutions around the world, have committed this semester to using his principles during No Impact Week.

About 30% of Americans suffer from depression or high anxiety. No Impact Year, for the Beavans, meant life slowed down, the kitchen table became the center of a social network, and they became happier, with less anxiety.

The meaning of ecological crises is not to live small, with self-denial, but to address the big question, How can I help build healthy community?

Photo below comes from Colin’s appearance at Illinois Wesleyan.

Rabbi Jesus in the first century knew snakes and doves as neighbors and teachers, as discussed in chapter 8 of my book, Green Kingdom Come. The Bible states clearly that the neighborhood of creation includes “every green herb.” Genesis 1:30.

So, how do I name who is my green neighbor among the species of the world? By looking up any of 1.7 million species listed in the first data base, Encyclopedia of Life, which is seeking to identify every living species on Earth, including  hibiscus, peregrine falcon, and bulrush. Now for the first time in history, all of us 7 billion folk in the world can open a window, 24/7, on the biodiversity of, for, and by the world.

Stewart Brand writes in his new book, Whole Earth Discipline, that the pocket calculator potentially has made us all math literate and the DNA barcode process in Encyclopedia of Life bio-literate. Now we have every opportunity to meet and to love our green neighbor as ourselves and to be full time university of life students.

Bulrush

Hibiscus

Peregrene Falcon

Author: Stewart Brand

President Nasheed of the Maldives gave a speech about the negotiations leading up to the climate conference held in Copenhagen last December. He said that rich countries are keeping their own carbon emissions high.

“They never make commitments unless someone else does first. This is the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collective suicide. We don’t want a global suicide pact. And we will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere. So today, I invite some of the most vulnerable nations in the world, to join a global survival pact instead.”

With the hottest summer on record in Russia and peat and forest fires causing unprecedented soot and carbon monoxide levels in Moscow, President Medvedev has awaked from denial about global warming.

But generally, the rich nations are not taking decisive action on carbon targets, and have chosen suicide, not survival.

After meeting my Leo classmates in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, I walked familiar paths at my undergrad school, Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, and then myriad trails at my grad school, Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

Over a half-century ago, for four years, I regularly exited the Indiana University Social Science Building to head for the library. Soon I was in a labyrinth of several acres of trees. I revisited that experience last Sunday. For the first time in that total immersion in the woods, I heard a tree singing. Another sang, until there was a chorus. “A good tree,” I heard from all directions, “is the life-blood and master spirit of a precious forest.”

An opening in the forest appeared and revealed the library building. Then, I got close enough to reread the inspiring portal inscription, “A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit.” One transformative book I read there was Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self, which taught me to listen to interior voices. Finally, I could hear within myself previously undiscovered tree harmonics.

Peterson says that as a child she knew that if there were not forests and wildlife in heaven, she did not want to go there. As an adult, she has found heavenly Spirit in exploring interspecies communication with gray whales. Renewing an eco-diverse Garden of Eden here on Earth is for her the way to live rapturously.

image source

Jesus, whose native tongue was Aramaic , also spoke of heaven on Earth. In Luke, he said, “The kingdom of God is (Aramaic, legau) in, among, and around you.” Here, now, on Earth. In the gospel of Thomas he said, “The Father’s imperial rule is spread out upon Earth, and people don’t see it.”

We keep remembering Jesus, and that remembrance is his Second Coming. He’s a cheerleader for Peterson’s Earth-based agenda.

Bonobo primates are as close to homo sapiens genetically (over 98 overlap) as the chimpanzees, and are powerful examples that our genes do not make us violent. The latest research, as documented in Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo, by Vanessa Woods, shows that our species is not alone in showing tolerance and empathy.

Bonobos demonstrate tolerance and empathy systemically. Unlike chimpanzees and humans, there is no abuse of females, no infanticide, and no warfare.

Bonobos make peace because for 6 million years they have not had to be aggressive to eat. They have lived in the tropical forest of Africa (left bank of the Congo River) where food is abundant. Children receive food first. A female network equally distributes food and nurture, and collectively nips male power displays in the bud.

For our species to survive, we must imitate the bonobos, our very close, exemplary cousins.

My book discusses bonobos in chapter 5, which asks the question, Would Jesus picket against warfare?

Follows developments in a bonobo sanctuary called Lola in the Congo which includes a photo comparison of bonobo and chimpanzee faces, a photo of Vanessa Woods and a bonobo and a photo of woman holding a bonobo.

Habiscus At Tree Haven

Photography by Joe Grabill

Balloon Flower At Tree Haven

Photography by Joe Grabill

How did that, and dozens of other holocausts, with final results being zeroes forever, occur in my Ohio birthplace?

A leading cause was the destruction of diverse habitats.  Invading human locusts or army ants, if you please, including my ancestors, ravaged the trees. Ohio in 1800 had 70 percent tree cover. In 1940, nine years after my birth, 10 percent tree cover. No trees, no wild community.

Who became extinct or missing in Ohio, never to return as members of a wild community? In addition to the passenger pigeon, buffalo, elk, wolf, black bear, cougar, and lynx?

above images sourced from

I have just visited the Wildlife Prairie State Park, just east of Peoria, IL, which seeks to present the story of species departed from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

Photography by Joe Grabill