Thirty years after the first State of the World report was published in book form, we know that there are still many challenges facing us. Three things are clear:  1) we are depleting our resources, poisoning the air, water, and soil; 2) there are alternatives to the industrial model that has taken over the world; and 3) we need all hands on deck to turn things around.

Sanjen Miedzinski, PhD, psychologist and Green Sangha member, has compiled a wealth of information and ideas on how the environmental crisis came to be and what we can do about it. To arrange for Sanjen to speak at your service club, social organization, school, or business, contact linda@greensangha.org.

Sanjen has written a comprehensive primer on these issues, with a single purpose in mind: getting friends, family, and community leaders activated in ways that are realistic, effective, and even fun. Here’s an excerpt from her introduction:

OUR ASSAULT ON THE ENVIRONMENT AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

By Sanjen Miedzinski, Ph.D.

I believe that many of you are where I was just a few years ago — aware that there are major environmental problems but not really clear about what they are and what to do about them.

Four years ago, while working as a professor training therapists, I began to feel a stronger and stronger sense of dis-ease concerning the environment.   I would run across a news story, an article, a publication about climate change, or toxic chemicals, or litter.  I knew that there were major environmental concerns, but was not clear about them.

I felt a more and more incessant urge to find out about what was happening.  Finally, I decided that it was time for me to leave 40 years of work as a therapist and professor, and being fortunate enough to have other income, I turned to researching our environmental issues.

I have spent the last four years gathering as much information as I could from books, scientific journals, websites, publications of environmental organizations, talking with people.  Before I became a psychologist, I had worked as a biochemist, so the material was not too alien for me.

From all the reading I’ve done, I have come to the conclusion that we must act within the next twenty years to contain the damage we have been doing to the environment.  Fortunately, there are many solutions, some of them relatively easy, that we can follow.  The problems are solvable.

However, there is much resistance to change.  I felt the most important thing I could do is make this knowledge easily available and to urge you to share it with everyone you know.  We need to go “viral.”

The first step?  Read more, and then share with your friends who need to get motivated:  Chapter 1, on Global Warming, is coming soon!