by Brian Tokar
This piece was originally published in Home! A Bioregional Reader, edited by Van Andruss, Christopher Plant, Judith Plant, and Eleanor Wright, New Society Publishers, copyright 1990.
Bioregionalists, ecofeminists, community activists, spiritual healers, earth-guided poets and curious people of all walks of life are raising hope for the evolution of new attitudes and new ways of relating to the earth and to our fellow beings.
…Greens in the United States are working today in many different spheres and using many different approaches. Some people are focusing their attention on specific issues of local and regional concern. They are working to curb the excesses of industrialism and to head off the social and ecological disruptions rooted in our present way of life. This current is basically oppositional in nature, embracing political methods such as community organizing, lobbying for legislative reforms and a variety of direct nonviolent efforts to protest or obstruct especially threatening policies and projects.
The second major current is reconstructive in its approach. It includes a wide variety of efforts to create living alternatives to our present ways—a wealth of experiments in co-operation and local democracy—both in the community and the workplace. It includes the development of alternative technologies and the raising of bioregional awareness. For a Green movement to develop and to grow in North America, there will need to be a merging of oppositional and reconstructive strategies that allows these two currents to support and strengthen each other.
Issue-orienting politics without an alternative vision can be politically limiting and personally frustrating. Many people are uncomfortable with the way things are, but are not motivated to act on their beliefs because they see no other way. Others might choose to work on a particular issue of concern, but are easily exhausted as each small victory reveals new complications. One might work for many months to block a particularly devastating project or to achieve a particular reform in the system, only to find that new injustices crept in the back door while your attention was focused on one small piece of the problem. The ecological crisis cannot be simply controlled within the limits of the existing system. In fact, some Greens believe that reformist efforts merely forestall the impending collapse of the industrial economies, a collapse which may need to occur before the real work of reconstruction can begin.
It can be equally limiting to work to create new institutions without actively seeking to understand and oppose the injustices of our present ways. Such efforts can be slowly bought off and accommodated into the service of the present system. One can point to food co-ops that have become more involved in elaborately marketing their goods than in fully challenging the limitations of the existing food supply system. A once-vibrant alternative energy movement in New England has become tied to the ecologically-devastating vacation home industry, as solar builders have drifted toward affluent resort areas in their search for steady employment and the freedom to experiment. Should healthy food and solar-heated homes become the luxury goods of an affluent minority seeking to purchase an ecological “lifestyle?” How can a Green sensibility guide us toward a better way?
The West Germans have borrowed a phrase (originally attributed to the ecologist Rene Dubos) that has become a slogan for the worldwide peace movement; ‘Think globally, act locally.” Local ecological problems, local symbols of the military-industrial complex, and local attempts to create alternatives in housing, food distribution and other basic needs all offer a focus for local activities that carry a global message. By working primarily on the local level, Greens are demonstrating the power of people to really change things and creating the grassroots basis for a real change in consciousness.
Excerpted from The Green Alternative: Creating an Ecological Future. San Pedro: R. & E. Miles, 1987.)
Brian Tokar (b. 1955) is an activist, lecturer, author, and teacher specializing in social ecology, food justice, and the link between environmental and social movements. He is a board member for 350 Vermont and the Institute for Social Ecology, and also a lecturer in environmental studies at the University of Vermont.
