We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Chris Jordan on Midway Atoll and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (13m audio and 6:24m video)

In the audio "photographer and activist Chris Jordan speaks with Eve Bowen about his recent photographs, taken at one of the world's most remote marine wildlife sanctuaries, of albatross chicks killed by plastic waste that their parents have mistaken for food."


Video showing his photographs