I'd like to invite you to learn about an initiative called Community Earth Councils. Groups of elders (50+) and youngers (16-28) (and everyone in between!!) meet to learn about each other and what we can do to make the earth a kinder, greener place. I'd love you to join our Earth Council. If you aren't in our local area, consider starting one in your area!
Now is a good time for wise people who value respect to work together to create positive change. It is important that the different generations come together and learn from each other's unique perspectives, so we can build lasting solutions greater than the sum of our input.
The foundation of the South Bay CEC is respect. All members are asked to speak and act respectfully, to focus on positive action and positive ideas for positive change. Constructive, respectful, balanced discussion and debate are welcomed and encouraged. Not every member will have the same opinion on every topic, which is a natural result of valuing diversity.
If you are interested in joining, go to the website http://www.earthcouncils.org/ and sign up. That's really all there is to it. There are some wonderful resources and a budding forum on the website, the service they provide is to connect people together who sign up from the same area. But there is no need to wait for them to connect us up if we already know we want to be in the same council. What we do at the meetings is entirely up to us.
The South Bay CEC meets the last Thursday of every month, at 7pm starting March 25th at John-Paul Riley and Mark Johnson's house. The South Bay CEC maintains a Blog, organized into various initiatives and information, available to anyone, member and non-member alike at http://southbaycec.blogspot.com. Members are encouraged to contact johnpaul.riley@gmail.com to become co-authors, with the ability to post and help maintain the Blog.
The South Bay CEC had a very successful founding meeting on February 27th, 2010. To get a feel for the type of discussion at this meeting, view the meeting minutes at http://southbaycec.blogspot.com, there are links on the left hand side to all the meeting minutes. Out of this meeting, the following initiatives/functions of the CEC arose:
1- The CEC maintains a Library, containing resources to help members reduce their environmental footprint in practical, common-sense ways. Some of these resources include Kill-A-Watt meters to gain awareness as to how much money our appliances cost us, Drying Racks to air-dry clothes instead of a power dryer, a series of books on energy efficiency, and a list of simple ideas such as using an electric kettle to heat water instead of a microwave. Members are welcome to check out items from the Library. Some items are tools, and others are try-before-buy items, allowing members and opportunity to evaluate efficient products before buying them.
2- The CEC sponsors the Simple Changes Support Group, where members come together each month and commit to one simple environmentally friendly change to try before the next meeting, and to discuss their experiences with the change committed to at the last meeting. There is no judgment here; this is a friendly, encouraging, supportive forum where we each help one another to adopt small, simple changes to live more sustainably.
3- The CEC is a forum to respectfully discuss and debate political and scientific issues affecting the environment, and to provide respectful, balanced position statements to help inform members trying to decide how to vote on particular issues.
4- The CEC is a forum to pose difficult questions regarding unintended side effects of attempting to live sustainably. For example, what is the true carbon impact of replacing an appliance? How do we respectfully recycle old electronics?
5- The CEC maintains a recommended buy list of sustainable products to purchase, arising from the experiences of the Simple Changes Support Group.
Everyone come with your ideas! Ideas for collaboration, for volunteer service, ideas for political activism, ideas for individual change, all ideas are welcome.
You can contact me at johnpaul.riley@gmail.com for directions if you are interested in participating or if you wish to post your ideas to the Blog.
Please, let all of your friends you think would be interested know about this!
