green jazz.

gus speth, my new dean, enlightens us. some highlights: (i've used quotations incorrectly so you can see what goes together and what i just love.)

"In 1970, we were against; today, we must be for. Then, we defined problems; today, we must design solutions. Then, we responded; today we must anticipate."

"In 1970, it was national; today, it is “global.” Pollution has gone global, species have gone global—and so must environmental management. Global governance must come to the environment. We need a WEO as strong as the WTO. Environmental diplomacy is not a sideshow; it’s the main event. But, in the end, we know that all action is local. Our lives are local lives. The struggle begins locally.

In 1970, we took a top-down approach; now, we must encourage innovative bottom-up, grass-roots approaches—green jazz that is unscripted, improvisational and creative.

In 1970, we were too elitist. Now we must stress justice and equity: equity among nations, equity within nations, equity between the sexes, all in addition to equity for future generations. We have created wonderful protected areas but sometimes neglected the poor, the minorities, the victims, the indigenous peoples. Let their environmental rights now be asserted.

In 1970, it was species; today it is ecosystems. We should have always known this: human societies are utterly dependent on provisioning by nature’s ecosystems. But we forgot it. "

"In 1970, we looked for government leadership. Today, we must often do it ourselves, with or without government. Business is often ahead of government; scientists are often ahead of government; consumers and environmentalists are often ahead of government. We should not wait for government. We must push it forward with us. Politicians ride the waves, as everyone knows. Citizens make waves.

In 1970, we were from Mars; today, we must be from Venus. Then, we broke things down to the component parts and laid out rational plans of attack. Now we know the most important resource is human motivation—hope, caring, our feelings about nature and our fellow humans. Today we need the preachers, the philosophers, the psychologists and the poets! In one poem, W. S. Merwin said: “On the last day of the world / I would want to plant a tree.” And in another: “I want to tell you what the forests were like / I will have to speak a forgotten language.” “After the final no,” Wallace Stevens wrote, “there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.” Despite the daunting projections of environmental decline, we affirm that we will win this struggle for the future. Yes.

And here we come full circle, for there is something vital from 1970 that we need to rekindle and rebuild, rather than move beyond, and that is the extraordinary spirit of that moment and the widespread popular demand for far-reaching change. One can hear that demand plainly in the words that citizens of Santa Barbara sent to the U.S. Congress in 1970 shortly after the devastating oil spill there: “We, therefore, resolve to act. We propose a revolution in conduct toward the environment. ... Today is the first day of the rest of our life on this planet. We will begin anew.” It can seem that we are now a long way from the prosaic subject of environmental management, but we are actually at the heart of the matter."

now i fear i've shared too much and you may not read it, but i still hope you will.