Sustainability: The Journal of Record (S]oR) editor Jamie Devereaux speaks with Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC), pioneer of the new economy movement, and winner of the 2012 Goi Peace Award. Norberg-Hodge explains how a more localized economy could usher in change on many levels of our culture—from increased food security to slowing down a 24/7 work day—and how a happier way of living is the end result.Helena Norberg-Hodge: The social and ecological problems we are facing today are, to a great extent, a consequence of the fact that business has become too large. The scale of business and banking has become so big that it is virtually impossible for individuals to comprehend the impact of their actions. And large-scale institutions, including large, centralized governments, structurally demand an ever more narrow, reductionist perspective.Global businesses that truly have a reach across the world cannot respond to the diversity and complexity of cultures, or of the natural world. The resources and the water may be in one country, the labor in another, and then somewhere else is the consumer. Operating at that global scale precludes experiential knowledge and the feedback loops we need to act intelligently, and it is linked to the imposition of a global monoculture, both human and biological.
展开▼
