Author says movement is hand-made democracy

Paul Hawken looks at the world and sees a movement that's reacting to environmental destruction like our cells do to disease.

He believes that, just as our defense system allows our bodies to persist over time, achieving sustainability will allow humanity to live on.

It may sound like quite a feat, but the activist says we've got a head start. In his latest book, "Blessed Unrest", he shows that people around the globe have been saving the planet for years, bit by bit, underneath the radar.

"The million plus organizations that exist across the world have arisen from the bottom up," Hawken said.

"People have been building hand-made democracy from the ground up in their communities."

Hawken explained that this grassroots movement is different than any other we've ever seen because little pockets of people around the world saw their own environments changing and came to the same conclusions.

If you take organizations value statements and you put them up one by one by one, you look at them all and they're all different, but they don't disagree or contradict," he said.

Technology has brought these underlying values to the global stage. The author says they've always been there, but we're just starting to be able to compare them to see they're the same.

"This movement is humanity's immune response to political corruption and economic disease and ecological degradation," Hawken said. "It's precisely because, in cities around the world, that the top-down is corrupt, that the bottom up is organizing to become surrogates for what people lack."

"It's growing even faster now because of modern communication technology, the internet, texting, and cell phones," he said.

"Blessed Unrest" includes an extensive list of the types of non-governmental organizations in the world, and the website wiserearth.org, the largest international directory of environmental and social justice groups, was created in conjunction with the book.

People can go onto the collaboratively written, free-content site to get information and connect with others who are trying to cope with social and environmental issues.

Stephen Hazell, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, said his organization tries to do similar things to empower Canadians to get involved, but that there doesn't seem to be as much passion for community action as there is south of the border.

"The American psyche is anti-authority, there's a deep-seeded resistance. It's a part of U.S. tradition to join up with small groups distinct from government organizations because of general distrust."

"Canada didn't have a revolution, the country made a slow-paced transition to a democratic government, he said. "The grassroots movement in Canada isn't as extensive as it could or should be."

The Sierra Club, started in California in 1892 by preservationist John Muir, has maintained its grassroots while gaining an international presence with very little funding.

The organization's Canada division, founded in 1989, is comprised of local groups, regional chapters and a national office.

Hazell explained that the three tiers focus on different issues, so people can choose which level to contact based on the issue they'd like to see addressed.

"We act as a source of information for people who can sense that change needs to happen, but don't have the background or education to seed it," he said.

Hawken explained that globalization is allowing people to hear their sense that something isn't right resonate on the global soundstage.

"We're seeing that this is our earth, our cultures, our civilization, our countries, our cities, our waste," he said. "So there is a rising where people are going 'wait a minute, this is not right and this is not humane.'"

Hazell said that feeling stems from people seeing changes in their environment affect their daily lives.

"There's a growing sense that the human enterprise is exceeding the capacity of natural ecosystems and overrunning the planet," he said.

"People aren't realizing it in a broad, conceptual way, they're seeing it in their own communities as the suburbs push closer to their farms, the cod disappears from their river, their winters get shorter and warmer, or the smog in their city is worse than before."

He said that if Canadians want to help but need a little direction, the Sierra Club is just a phone call away.

"When they observe in their personal lives, where they live, that things are out of whack and they ask 'what can I do about it?' the Sierra Club of Canada tries to help them."