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INTRODUCTION

What do humans really require to live day in and day out with a quality of life that assures clean water, nutritious food, adequate shelter, and the companionship of other humans and the other-than-humans with whom we share our particular home habitats? The conversations on this webpage are efforts to sort out the necessary from the niceties, the sufficient from the extravagant. This is a challenge in an American culture that generally encourages endless acquisition of material goods. The idea here is to closely understand what truly brings a quality of life that better assures physical and mental health and the conservation of the living natural world in which the human cultural sphere is embedded. How much and in what ways can we shrink our footprint(s) on personal and institutional scales without sacrificing what it means to be fully human?

IN THIS SECTION

Back to Basics »
These days, conversations about learning often focus on public education and all the fuss about "standards" and "No Child Left Behind" and the fact that students in many other developed countries of the world know math and science better than do students in the United States.

The Global Climate Changer Who Lives on My Street »
My fortunate childhood included years on a ranch in Montana where my grandfather taught me the lesson of my life: take care of the land and the land will take care of you. I was shocked, then, when as a young adult in the early 1970s I realized that the very processes and products of America’s prosperity were poisoning our lands, our air, waters, and wildlife.

Shrinking and Greening at the Shorb Homestead »
Here are some things my wife and I have done where we live to shrink our immediate, negative effects on local nature, and to invite local nature to again feel right at home.

photo by Terril Shorb

Back to Basics »
Connecting with our environment.

The Global Climate Changer Who Live on My Street »
Learning how to do less harm and more active good...

Shrinking and Greening at the Shorb Homestead »
How the Shorb family shrinks and greens on a local scale.