Emma Olivia

Community Development Research, Board of Directors

What Sustainability Means to Me

By and large, our present problem is one of attitudes and implements.  We are remodeling the Alhambra with a steam-shovel, and are proud of our yardage.  We shall hardly relinquish the shovel, which after all has many good points, but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for successful use.
    -Aldo Leopold, from A Sand County Almanac

At the New S.H.I.R.E Institute we do not oppose technology.  We oppose the use of technology to wreck the environment, to ruin the ability of the land to support the biodiversity that has evolved on earth over the course of millennia.  This quote Aldo Leopold quote exemplifies what I feel must be considered if we are to redirect our culture and economy towards a future will sustain a comfortable human existence here on Earth.  This is truly beyond the preservation of natural wonders, cuddly endangered species, or polar icecaps.  The Earth, as a planet, will continue to exist until our Sun expands into a Red Giant and swallows the planet whole.  Species will evolve and change, long after we have made the planet uninhabitable for ourselves.  I want my descendants a hundred years in future be able to visit Florida, see the Everglades, and marvel at the seemingly infinite life teeming on our planet.

Why I am Involved With the New SHIRE Institute

First and foremost, I wanted to be a member of an organization that said "Yes!" instead of the "No!" so often heard at protests and from the general discussion about what is wrong with our world.  The way we say "Yes!" is by actively working towards the world we want to see.  You don't get change by holding signs, yelling, demonizing people and organizations with whom you don't agree. Change happens when concerned global citizens take their lives and futures into their own hands, empowering themselves through knowledge, networking and skill-sharing.

What I Offer

Originally, I pursued a fine art degree at an art school.  My involvement in the anti-war movement prior to the invasion of Iraq spurred my interest in the politics of "Yes!".  In the protest environment I was surrounded by people who knew what they did not want.  I realized the movement needed direction: clear goals of the world the movement wanted to inhabit and a coherent plan of how to build this future.  I transferred schools and once at Hampshire College, I pursued a course of study I referred to as "Sustainable Development". This investigation of homesteading, environmental history, transportation, urban planning, and communitarian experiments culminated in a research project titled "Looking Forward: Tracking the Contemporary Intentional Community Movement".This project involved visiting eight Intentional Communities within the USA and evaluating the visible and invisible structures of the communities, examining them as potential examples of sustainable development. This academic interaction with Intentional Communities tempered my optimism about "Utopianism", but I still am interested in the potential of groups willing to experiment on the technologies needed to address the real issues of sustainability we currently face. These communities represent answers to the question "How do we live together to improve our quality of life?"  The diversity of answers contain a common thread: the individual benefits when all those around them are  similarly benefited.  Our quality of life is improved through the conscientious stewardship of our environment and resources, learning to live in a tenable balance with what we have.