Life as Activism

Many of us have found ourselves in situations where we are making less than ideal choices environmentally due to time pressures, the need to work for money, or other reasons. This workshop will explore the relationship between what we do in our daily lives and our activism. It is hoped that by honestly examining our own relationship to consumption and industrialization, we can come to a better understanding of what needs to change within our own lives if we are to be successful advocates for a more general shift in society to a more environmental way of living.

The workshop will also encourage participants to question their concept of what constitutes ‘activism’? The need for societal transformation in the face of the climate crisis is extremely urgent and yet our movement often feels small relative to the size of the general population. Collectively, we will ask ourselves what are our strengths as a movement and what are our weaknesses? The discussion will focus on the need to identify and overcome the barriers to establishing a movement which is large enough and active enough to shift our society from the industrial to the ecological age.

Lastly, from the above discussions, the workshop will conclude by attempting to assemble some general principles that we can all take forward with us for how to be sustainable in both the way we live our lives and the way we express our activism.