On the occasion, Dr. Jones remarked, “The environment today faces more challenges than at any previous point in time. Large multi-national companies are extracting all types of natural resources from the land, leaving large environmental disasters in their wake. Rising sea levels are threatening islands and coast lines around the world. Obesity, heart disease, and other diseases are killing millions of people each year. In order to help combate these increasing problems, the Bauu Institute and Press, in conjunction with the Ecosphere network published I Am Sustainability:
Based out of St. John in the US Virgin Islands, Ecosphere is a global network providing powerful cross-cultural education for personal and global sustainability. The book introduces a new approach to global sustainability, one that links conversation, action and research in a continuous cycle of exploration and discovery. The first part of this approach is called I Am Sustainability. It is a curriculum for personal and global sustainability that we continually create and recreate together across all cultures of the world.
While competition can bring out the best in us, it also brings out the worst in us. For instance, it results in our over consumption and exploitative behaviors toward the environment and other humans. Who we are, our “self,” is almost entirely defined, maintained and lost in the competitive social groups we chose to belong to. As described in this book, the best way to sustain the self is to ground our individuality in the body. An individual in a healthy balance between their “self” in their body and their group is also less likely to be exploitative of others and the environment. So you get your self and save the planet too!
