Ecology and Community Awareness

Creating a Life Together - Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities   By Diana Leafe Christian Creating a Life Together is the only resource available that provides step-by-step practical information distilled from numerous firsthand sources on how to launch and sustain an ecovillage or intentional community. Through anecdotes, stories, and cautionary tales about real communities, and by profiling seven successful communities in depth, the book examines "the successful 10 percent" and why 90 percent fail.  It deals in depth with structural, interpersonal and leadership issues, decision-making methods, vision statements, and the development of a legal structure, including sample vision and legal documents. Diana Leafe Christian is the editor of Communities magazine and has contributed to Body & Soul, Yoga Journal, and Shaman's Drum, among others.  Paperback: 272 pages; New Society Pub; (June 2003) ISBN: 0865714711 Creating a new culture of living peacefully with each other and the planet is our number one need-and this is the right book at the right time. Creating a Life Together will help community founders avoid fatal mistakes. I can't wait to tell people about it.  - Hildur Jackson, cofounder, Global Ecovillage Network (GEN); co-editor, Ecovillage Living: Restoring The Earth and Her People Before aspiring community builders hold their first meeting, confront their first realtor, or drive their first nail, they must buy this essential book: it will improve their chances for success immensely, and will certainly save them money, time, and heartbreak. In her friendly but firm (and occasionally funny) way, Diana Christian proffers an astonishing wealth of practical information and sensible, field-tested advice.  - Ernest Callenbach, author, Ecotopia and Ecotopia emerging Unequal Protection: The rise of corporate dominance and theft of human rights  by Thom Hartmann With impeccable research, Thom Hartmann, reveals the untold history of a profit-driven legal assault on American democracy that is now leading to unrestrained control by corporate-minded power seekers who use these legal veils to prevent government interference and avoid responsibility. Then, he presents an insightful proposal of legal reform to recover the government intended by our founding fathers of, by and for the people. This book provides a deeper understanding and restores hope! Thom Hartman, see info below.  Paperback: 360 pages, Rodale Press; (April 24, 2004) ISBN: 1579549551 "If you wonder why the corporate world constantly lurches from malaise to oppression to governmental corruption and back, Unequal Protection reveals the untold story.  Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear.  This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies."       -- Paul Hawken, author, Natural Capitalism "I am grateful for this gift. It should be in the hands of every thinking American. If we do not awaken soon, democracy will be replaced by a new 'Third Reich' of corporate tyranny. To be aware of the danger is the responsibility of each of us. No one has told us the truth better than Thom Hartmann. Read it!"       -- Gerry Spence  author, Give Me Liberty! "Essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of democracy, both here and abroad. With devastating precision and well-reasoned passion, Thom Hartmann shows the reader precisely how the corporate entity gained such a perilously dominant role in the life of a nation whose founders meant for its politics to respond to the concerns of people and communities, not return-seeking corporations."      -- Jeff Gates, president, Shared Capitalism Institute, author, Democracy At Risk The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation by Thom Hartman "One of the most important books you will ever read in your life."  - Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God As the world's population explodes, cultures and species are wiped out, and we have now reached the halfway  point of our supplies of oil, humans the world over are confronting difficult choices about how to create a future that works. Thom Hartmann proposes that the only lasting solution to the crises we face is to re-learn the lessons our ancient ancestors knew - those which allowed  them to live sustainably for hundreds of thousands of years - but which we've forgotten. Hartmann shows how to find this new yet ancient way of seeing the world and the life on and in it, allowing us to touch that place where the survival of humanity may be found. Paperback - 336 pages (October 10, 2000) Three Rivers Press; ISBN: 0609805290 "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight shines like a beacon in the darkness, an education about reality, a needed wake-up call, and a guidebook  through the swamps of denial and ignorance into a brighter, sustainable future."  - Dan Millman, author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior and Everyday Enlightenment  "Thom Harmann writes one of the most rousing, raging, and right-thinking works of our time."  - Jean Houston, author of Jump Time and A Mythic Life "Thom Harmann is one of those  people who puts it all together for us, explaining not only what has seriously gone wrong in the world but, even more important, all that can still go right.  He is an awakener of the highest order."  - Marianne Williamson, author of The Healing of America THOM HARTMANN is an award-winning author, international lecturer, teacher and psychotherapist.  His books have been written about in Time magazine, he has been on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and he has been a guest on numerous radio and TV shows, including NPR's "All Things Considered,"  CNN, and BBC. A former  journalist, editor, and occasional woodsplitter, he lives in Vermont with his wife.