Biodiverse for Life



EVERYONE CAN EASILY DO THESE SUGGESTIONS,
MANY TIMES, EVERYDAY!
Education • Connection • Action • Empowerment       

A happier, more satisfying, and more interesting way to live!

We have a lot of power to positively affect multiple world problems, several times a day,
just by making more informed choices.

Education:
  • Develop active information gathering and evaluating skills. Use books, films, and web sites to understand how the food and goods you consume are produced and what happens to your waste. Read books and news articles about the importance of healthy, diverse, natural biological systems for ensuring world stability and our survival. Learn how current business models affect the environment. Find out how all these systems are interconnected. Go to 'The Story of Stuff' site to see some great overviews of some of these issues.
Connection:
  • Practice humility. We are part of a world system that we did not create, and can never fully comprehend or control. Our brain, a subsystem of our body, cannot keep us alive if our heart stops beating.  Do things because they need to be done or because they give you lasting, long term, enjoyment, not for recognition or distraction. Be open to evaluating new ideas and new sources of information.
  • Practice compassion for ourselves and others, including all our fellow, nonhuman, life forms.  Thinking only of 'me', or 'me first', is what infants do. Mature humans know the rewards of looking at the broader, inclusive, and longer term view. Science has advanced our knowledge of the world, and can be of great benefit, but only if we use the knowledge we gain with mature humility and compassion for all life. We lessen ourselves whenever we disrespect others.  Extending compassion to human and nonhuman beings is a no-cost activity!
Action:
  • Make better food choices. Collectively, these are the most important choices individuals can make for improving most global issues. We do this many times a day, every day, for our entire life. There are so many people on the planet  that food growing, food consuming, and food waste disposal activities have some of the largest impacts on our environment. A good starting point: “Why is real food better than processed food, nutritionally and ecologically?”

    Vote with your fork! How you spend, or don't spend, your money now speaks more for your interests than how you cast your vote in elections. Big institutions have the big money to control politics, and to attempt to control our desires; we have the money to control big institutions!
  •  Develop real-world skills to experience real human satisfaction. A great place to start is to organically grow and eat some of your own food in gardens that sustainably support native biodiversity. One of the most fundamental sources of human pleasure and satisfaction comes from sharing self-prepared, healthy, delicious food with family and friends! Learn a craft  where you  use your hands to shape the physical world :  cooking,  origami,  sewing,  making furniture or jewelry, building electronic devices, mechanical work, etc.
Empowerment:
  • Choose not to be a brainwashed consumer-slave for nonessential goods and services! Ask "Is this device or activity improving my active, real world, creativity and face-to-face interaction with other beings or is it limiting them to manufactured choices controlled by someone else?" Physical engagement with the real world, and the achievements that are generated, are the source of true satisfaction!
  • One good individual choice, in even one area, positively impacts at least 10 other problem areas. One bad individual choice, in even one area, negatively impacts at least 10 other problem areas. Understanding how the different parts of our environment are connected to each other gives us the power to choose actions that will positively affect society and nature, and truly enrich our lives.

BUSINESSES ARE NOT BAD. TECHNOLOGY IS NOT BAD.
SCIENCE IS NOT BAD.

It is the use we make of them that determines if they are beneficial or harmful. They only reflect what, collectively, each of us do.
There is no, one, right answer. There are just better choices.

But we can't make better choices if we don't stop and ACTIVELY think.
There are huge amounts of money  being spent on advertising to make us forget this. 

Stop and ask some questions........ the answer may be yes or no, but at least stop long enough to ask!

  • Are the technological objects my child is using creating more face-to-face intimacy between us, or lessening it?

  • When we meet face-to-face with our friends or acquaintances, are  we face-to-face with them or with a  device?

  • Do we always need to have instant access to everyone, and visa versa?  We have been  told  what  we gain,  but what do we lose?

  • Are there any downsides to limiting the use of technology in ways we define for ourselves?

  • Is someone offering you a 'magical' no effort fix to a problem if you buy their product? What are we doing to ourselves by 'buying' into this type of thinking?

  • What affect on the environment, other people, other creatures, and on me does the purchase of this product have? In it's production, in its use, and in its disposal? In light of this do I really need it? If the answer is yes, what actions can I take to make a positive effect?

We welcome suggestions for more thoughtful questions to add to this list!

Interact with the real world !    Open to real wonder !    Experience true satisfaction !    Cultivate a garden now !