Learning Together. Building Community.

We've been inundated with bad news these last few years—the pandemic, climate change, racial injustice, the threat of massive species extinction and now military invasion. It gets overwhelming—these problems feel too big to tackle. But with biodiversity, there is something we can do—you and me, right in our own backyards. Why Take Action? First, the bad news. If we continue on our current path, nearly 1 million species face extinction in the next 20 years. Why does this matte

Our current economic system has us stuck in “money thinking” where everything valuable has a price and what doesn’t get measured in dollars isn’t valued. But there’s so much in our world that is valuable regardless. If we rethink our wealth in terms of air, water, the biosphere, we are rich indeed. But that also means stewarding this wealth. Take water, for instance. What if we think of water as our currency? Having clean water to drink would be our wealth. We could use that

We live in a money economy. I know that sounds obvious, but it has profound implications for how we see the world. We measure everything in terms of money in this society. Even “time is money.” We decide if something is worth doing by how much money it can bring in. We judge the value of a thing by how much profit it can generate. We decide what to do or not do by how much money it will cost. But we’re measuring the wrong things. Arthur Dahl’s recent article, Global Systems A

I recently talked with Aaron Enyetu, who arrived here from Uganda just a few months ago. Aaron has worked both as a volunteer in the community-building work of the Baha’i community, and as a professional for Kimanya Ngeyo, an organization based in Jinja that promotes the empowerment of rural people to participate meaningfully in the development of their communities, families and themselves. One of the organization’s areas of focus is sustainable organic farming methods. Eager

Jo Noren is a gifted gardener. Having retired from teaching kindergarten, she’s now able to combine her love for gardening with her love for teaching by assisting with the school garden at Mary Woodward Elementary School. Amazingly, this public school has a two-acre garden. The property is owned by the city of Tigard, but the school has full use of it. And use it, they do! Jo and her colleague, Nancy Ross, are the Garden Coordinators for the school. They work with the teacher

Interview with Micah McCarty Micah has an incredible story. From growing up away from the Makah Indian Reservation and nearly dropping out of high school, he went on to become the Tribal Chairman of the Makah Nation for three straight terms. He has a firm grasp of the intricacies of tribal and governmental relations. And he sees very clearly the urgent need for all parties—tribes, federal and state governments, environmentalists, fishermen and all concerned citizens— to work

Interview with Katherine Deumling Katherine has an incredible perspective on prosperity, at both the society level and the individual level. Her work in the Slow Food movement focuses on ensuring that food is Good, Clean and Fair—that is, food that is delicious (Good), healthy for us and the environment (Clean) and equitable (Fair) both in terms of wages for producers and prices people can afford. Her work in her own business focuses on helping individuals discover that simpl

I went to meet Kate Wildrick at the Ingenuity Innovation Center recently and the place just blew my socks off. After 3 ½ hours of touring the facility, my brain was ready to explode. So here’s a woman, a couple, a family, a community (it’s hard to separate them) whose resources were reduced to nothing during the economic downturn of 2009, but who had a handful of explosive ideas. Aaron is the inventor, the “MacGyver” of the group, the idea guy. He created an energy device out