Rethinking Lifestyle

In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear, to give hope to one another. That time is now.

Activities that devastate the environment and societies continue unabated … The Norwegian Nobel Committee has placed the central issue of the environment and its linkage to democracy before the world.

The challenge is to restore this home … and give back to the children a world of beauty and wonder.

The world needs lifestyle rethinkers. Consider the example of this courageous and brilliant Kenyan woman.

With humble beginnings in a small village, she became the first East African woman to earn a PhD, then taught in a Kenyan University. From her position of relative privilege, she was moved by the poverty of rural women. Noting their limited access to water and fuel, she found the grass roots Green Belt movement. To date it has planted more than 35 million trees.

She empowered rural women to believe they could be foresters and to challenge rampant forest destruction. In the 1980s and 90s, she and others were beaten and imprisoned for speaking out in defense of democracy and the environment. She lost her academic position.

In 2004, she said the above words in her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. By then, trees planted by the first Green Belt women’s groups were being harvested for lumber, arid lands were reforested, streams were again flowing, and soldiers were planting trees alongside villagers.

The inspiring story is told in a documentary video, Taking Root: the Vision of Wangari Maathai. Who?? Most of us have never heard of her. She was a lifestyle rethinker, and her thinking led to practical action … the simple act of collecting tree seeds, propagating them, establishing local nurseries, and then planting and tending the seedlings –  eventually by the millions. The Kenyan countryside is being transformed and revived by these simple, practical activities. The Green Belt movement has spread throughout East Africa.

Initially, the women did not believe they were capable. Many were illiterate. Culturally tree planting was not considered women’s work. “You need a diploma to plant a tree,” professional foresters told them.

But Maathai doggedly questioned all the assumptions – the women’s, the foresters’, the corporations’, the governments’ – and pushed for change.

There was push back by those in power – beatings, death threats, imprisonment – but changes came. And finally recognition and acceptance for Wangari Matthai. She died of cancer September 25, age 71.

Some lessons for me emerge from her story …

I need to watch more good documentary and fewer “entertainment” videos. Like Wangari Maathai’s story, they inspire!

I can sit back and let the “powers” run the show, but eventually my family and I will feel the environmental impact of greed, mismanagement and bad policy.

Look around. What is obviously incongruent in our lifestyle? What is clearly destructive and unsustainable? I need to respond with personal lifestyle changes, but also question and challenge government and corporate practice and policy.