Feeling powerless?

Do you yearn to move beyond protest and cynicism towards a positive vision?

Then you may like Gary Alexander's eGaia, Growing a peaceful, sustainable Earth through communications. The style is light and easy, full of little stories, sprinkled with cartoons, and with disarming fragments of dialogue between author and reader that pre-empt the reader's objections. He is very good at articulating the kind of radical vision that many people have been musing upon. It goes well beyond reform to a genuinely co-operative, self-governing society that looks after the environment. There are certainly the beginnings of that around, with new economic experiments such as microfinance and local currencies, new co-operatives and communities, and a large group of people who put their energy into protest and who could put some into new social forms. No need to wait until Green parties come to power to begin. Gary Alexander's added ingredient, which just might be that extra bit to make it take off, is communication. He envisages lots of local groups - islands of relative sanity - using communication technology to link up to form a network of growing sanity.

His emphasis on learning practical skills of understanding each other are common practises in conflict resolution. He uses communication in two senses, as it should be, as a social skill and as technology that is there to support it. A cynic might say, "But isn't competition the basis of evolution and aren't people inherently competitive?" A fascinating chapter presents the evolution of life from a perspective in which symbiosis is at least as important as competition. It shows the co-operative roots of human evolution and describes how we have become progressively more detached from the natural world and each other over more recent history.

A crucial issue the book tackles is 'how do you get around the problem that most economic activity is driven by the need for money instead of directly by social and environmental need?' The answers in eGaia are to provide information about 'real costs' (the impact of consuming something on the environment and its social costs), and to build a new Fair Trade co-operative economy around existing groups where a relationship of trust exists. This is perhaps not the whole answer, but it is a useful contribution to the discussion. There is a good review of principles of sustainability, such as food and land use, sustainable energy and methods of production. Although it would have been good to have more detail on the transition from the starting points he describes to the end vision. This book is important. Read it and tell your friends about it.

Dr Gary Alexander is one of the Open University's pioneers of online learning.

More about the book

Visit Gary Alexander's website

It can be ordered online from GHP Books