One Purpose

Visiting nature is not getting away from it all, it's coming back to it all. One comes home to what’s important. One comes home to oneself.

The Sustainability Street Approach is, above all, about deep love and respect for the Earth.  It's a chance to re-discover in ourselves, the age old awe in which humans have held our magnificent planet. For thousands of human generations reverance for the Earth has been the foundation for living. Re-capturing this respect is the foundation for modern sustainable living.  

Moreover, this precious relationship with our planet is a two way street.  On the one hand, of course, we need food, we need water.  However, more than that, we also need nature for what it is.  Refreshing contact with nature is deeply nourishing for our humanity.  In the words of Peter Dombrovskis, photographer to the Franklin River ... if you go to the wilderness, you not getting away from it all, you are coming back to it all. Coming home to what's important. Coming home to yourself.

Two Social Drivers

humany history is a speck in the context of the geological time of the earth's history ... right now, we have only two things to do ... which are more important than any human achievment to date ... namely ... get along better with each other and get along better with all the other species of life and landforms on Earth … it is that simple

Three Areas of Daily Focus

This is an intensely complicated time in human history. There are so many modern issues … social, economic, personal, political, but at least the most important of all, the ecological sustainability challenge, is an easy one to tick off.

Healing our mother, planet Earth is easy when guided by the Three Areas of Daily Focussed Effort … the 3ADFE … which are … water, waste and energy! We each make scores of Earth Decisions every day. Choices which are directly connected to the magnificent forests, the frozen wilderness, deep oceans, species, habitat, the stratosphere, rivers, sand-dunes, the miraculous natural systems and cycles of the natural world. Every single strand of life on the Earth is connected to our switches, car keys, socks and undies, tram tickets, globes, rubbish bins, pink bats, taps, shops, the heater, gardens, blankets, etc, ad finitum.

Every decision we make about each of these connectors to nature fall under the umbrella of the Three A.D.F.E.

But wait! Is there more or what? Oh yeah!

1. Sustaining with "inside knowledge"! Don't forget the the SSA waste, water and energy shortcuts. Simple understanding to boost your conservation power!

2. It's bigger than just good behaviour! Tim's mum Sue, from the City of Whitehorse sustainability streets, gave one of the best ever wake up calls. The "Wake Up Call" is a speech which forms a part of the SSA Train the Mentor and graduation ceremony. Tim's mum's speech argued, so eloquently and persuasively, that the wars, hunger and alienation which result from the splits in our world, have never been solved by politics, churches, culture, markets, the United Nations, fashion, money, class, sport ... or whatever! Instead, she argued, the universality and commonality of nature to all peoples, if you like, the need of all peoples to breathe oxygen, will finally gift us a uinified, caring and peaceful world. Protecting nature and life on Earth will unite us, more than the petty things divide us! The 3 Areas of Daily Focussed Effort will give us the justice, meaning and fulfillment of a clean, green, peaceful future, where all other things in history have failed, declared Sue!

So, the Three Areas of Daily Focussed Effort will succeed, where the enlightenment, Socrates, the renaissance, Lano & Woodley or even the United Nations could not!!. Is that bigger than the Beatles or what eh?

Four Stages of Learning & Growth …

… of continuous personal & community growth

Mulch, Grow, Harvest, Sow ... or ... Learn, Do, Celebrate then Teach … in a constantly evolving cycle … just like the Earth teaches.

It is a template for "self-determination".  A blank canvas for us to individually, or as a Village, decide what we’d like to learn, to do and how to celebrate the very fact that we’re actually on this Earth healing journey together.  And celebrate our inevitable  accomplishments. Celebrate that we are part of the solution, chipping away at sculpting a new future and creating the DNA of the "coming world".

And then, best of all, Sow!!  Deciding on human scale and loving ways to reach out and teach, and learn from others.  We are all learners and we are all teachers!!  M.G.H.S. fosters a magnificent maelstrom of mentoring, modelling, influencing, inspiring … each other … and the whole world! 

After all, as Margaret Mead said, never doubt that a small group of passionate people can change the world, indeed, it is the only way that change has ever been spawned in this World.

Five Beacons … or Blockers. Our choice.

It’s all pretty huge now that we’ve decided we are going to help save the world. The whole “environment debate” can be very complicated, vested and sadly, adversarial. There are green issues, blue issues, brown issues, there are issues of justice and jobs, vivisection, and then there’s uranium, salinity and polychlorinatedbiphenyls to think about. Two snippets to assist are, firstly, the words of an SSA

community member and pioneer, Jason, who said, “Hey, I can’t fix the whole world, but I can work on my little bit of it.” Not bad. Secondly, the five Beacons, or Blockers. They ... Beacons if we act on them and Blockers if we don’t.

• preciousness of biological diversity • the health of the soil, air and water • dispensing with waste, the incrdible "eco-flab" which is the pillar of our society and economy • understanding our "addiction" to fossil fuels and working to kick the habit • understanding that the population explosion is a matter of justice more than numbers and arithmetic, and that 20% of us in the minority world are consuming and damaging 80% of the Earth.

Six Starting Steps

Seven Ongoing Tools

Content to come

Eight Principles

1. Biological Diversity is the most precious of nature’s gifts to us, if we want it. 2. Spurn doom and gloom. Notwithstanding the critical importance of issues, spurn the doom and gloom! 3. Imagine the future to be clean, green, and sustainable. We are what we think! It is both a great salve and of great practical benefit to imagin a clean, green, prosperous future. 4. Avoid the ‘Holier than Thou’ soap box. And that’s an order! Only joshing. Really, who wants the finger of another waggling at them while being told what to do? We need to be positive with and supportive of each other, rather than all knowing about the best for others. 5. Enjoy purposeful informality, build relationships and savour new susty street, eco-focussed-friends. The pace of life is so mad! It’s a mad, mad, mad World. The SSA can teach us and provide opportunities for us to instead savour life and the like minded & life minded people in it. Remember be local, local, local, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy and take the time, time, time. 6. Celebrate the ever increasing number of good news stories; Celebrate the exponentially increasing stories of inspiration. They are critical fuel for the journey. There are great sustainability initiatives happening every day in the wider world, not to forget taking pride in our own local achievement. 7. Take baby steps and trust common sense. S’OK to start small and you don’t need a Phd. degree in environment to know what to do. You are the expert because you have common sense. Trust your common sense, we all basically know what pollution and waste looks like. Your gut feeling or instinct will 99.97251 times, be spot on. 8. See and revel in the Enviro-links. Could a major part of the problem be that we are disconnected from the natural world? Profoundly disconnected, despite the emerging research that tells us that experiencing or even thinking about the natural world improves wellbeing, health and performance. Boost this!! When your energy flags, think of and smile at the Burrymis Possum. One beneficiary or two?