How to Heal the World

I think about this as I plant my garden.  I remember John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed;  Jean Giono’s story of Elzéard Bouffier, “The Man Who Planted Trees;”  John Todd’s vision to restore the devastated mountains of Appalachia.  I think about ecological design instead of geoengineering, the small seeds planted and tended over time with modesty and patience rather than the heroic technology of global scale for immediate results and long-term unintended consequences.  

One of my favorite videos is this short piece on Greening the Desert, a permaculture installation in Jordan near the Dead Sea.  It reaffirms my faith in the idea that “You Can Fix All the World’s Problems in a Garden.”

Greening the Desert Follow-Up, Six Years After the Funding Ran Out

“The Man Who Planted Trees” is Jean Giono’s allegorical story of a shepherd who plants a forest.  It is beautifully written and, unfortunately, fiction.  You can read it in English

and en Français or watch the Academy Award winning animation.

John Todd’s Ecological Design for Appalachia won the first Buckminster Fuller Design Challenge.  He proposes using biological waste treatment to clean up coal slurry and tree planting and biomass production to restore the landscape and provide jobs.

One Man Creates a Forest in India shows that what Giono imagined can happen in reality.  Abdul Karim is a living Elzéard Bouffier

Auroville is still planting trees and you can help build their Sadhana Forest.

There is also the Green Belt Movement in Africa founded by Wangari Maathai.

Trees for the Future promotes tree planting all around the world.

Arbor Day varies from state to state but usually happens in April.

cross-posted to dailykos, eurotrib.com, globalswadeshi.net, and greenmassgroup.com