OntheWilderSide

and the Eco-Municipality movement at Summer Gathering/Membership Meeting

The membership of the Wisconsin Green Party passed a resolution endorsing The Natural Step and the Eco-Municipality movement at their Summer Gathering and Membership Meeting held on Saturday at Anathoth Farm in Polk County, Wisconsin.

“The four principals of The Natural Step are right in line with our Ten Key Values,” said Ruth Weill, Co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party. “The Eco-Municipality movement is closely aligned with the vision that Greens are working towards all over the state.”

Beth Garrett, The Natural Step study group facilitator from Fort Atkinson, Greg David, Green elected Jefferson County Board Supervisor, and Paul Moderacki, Administrator of the Village of Johnson Creek gave a short presentation on Saturday morning to gathering attendees. The membership unanimously passed the resolution of endorsement immediately following the presentation.

Garrett, David and Moderacki gave a second presentation at the Café Wren in Luck Saturday evening to a crowd of more than 60 Greens and Polk County residents.

“This movement is about ensuring that children born seven generations from now have a chance at survival, and a quality life,” said Jeff Peterson, Green elected Polk County Supervisor, and organizer of the event. “We held this event to invite citizens and community leaders to join the statewide effort and to work towards making Polk County sustainable.”

Wisconsin, with eleven communities self-designated as Eco-Municipalities, is a national leader in The Natural Step movement.

The Wisconsin Green Party Gathering was held at Anathoth Community Farm, which is dedicated to sustainable living, alternative energy, and a peaceful planet. The farm is celebrating its 20th anniversary this summer. The community, founded by Green Party members Mike Miles and Barb Kass, is home to social activists and homesteaders, composting toilets and solar showers, photovoltaic electric systems and a straw bale home.

Resolution to Endorse The Natural Step and the Eco-Municipality movement throughout Wisconsin

WHEREAS the 4 principles of The Natural Step affirm these key values of the Wisconsin Green Party: Ecological Integrity, Respect for Diversity, and Human Rights, and

WHEREAS the process used to implement the 4 principles of The Natural Step, one of creative and inclusive participation, seeking to empower local communities to determine their own future, resonates with these key values of the Wisconsin Green Party: Personal and Collective Empowerment, Emotional Awareness and Honesty, Participatory Democracy in Economic and Political Life, Local and Regional Autonomy, and Feminism, and

WHEREAS Green Party members all over the state are working within the Eco-Municipality movement to make their communities sustainable using The Natural Step,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that on this day, August 25th, 2007, the membership
of the Wisconsin Green Party endorses The Natural Step, and the Eco-Municipality movement that is occurring throughout Wisconsin.
______________________________________________________________

The 4 principles of The Natural Step

In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing
1) concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust,
2) concentrations of substances produced by society,
3) degradation by physical means, and in that society,
4) people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.

The 10 Key Values of the Wisconsin Green Party

Personal and Collective Empowerment
As Greens, we believe that patterns of dominance must be replaced with a culture of liberation. Dominance and other forms of oppression are barriers to personal and collective empowerment. We combat societal prejudices and inequities based on race, gender, class, age, sexual orientation, and other social divisions. We seek to develop societal ethics that nurture the full potential of each human being. We utilize cooperative decision-making processes. We try to remain sensitive and receptive to continual change
as both positive and inevitable.

Ecological Integrity
The cycles of life and the interconnectedness of all things must be acknowledged and respected. This means developing a politics that is based on the assumption that people are part of nature, not on top of it. We must think and act in terms of the viability of ecosystems. We work under the principle that economic justice and ecological integrity are mutually consistent and achievable. Greens are willing to take strong action to protect and restore the earth.

Global Responsibility
We seek to establish friendly relations with other nations in the spirit of mutual respect and assistance. We work to identify and resist forces in our country that hinder the democratic self-determination of other peoples. We respect and encourage indigenous models of development rather than the imposition of Western industrialization. We seek to provide genuine assistance to grassroots groups in the Third World and help them in
their efforts towards self-determination, and liberation.

Participatory Democracy in Economic and Political Life
We struggle to create a political economy that allows citizens to control the decisions that affect their lives, and establishes human and ecological work structures, appropriate technologies, and equitable distribution of social resources and jobs for all.

Local and Regional Autonomy
We support efforts of grassroots communities to empower themselves. An equitable distribution of wealth and power among regions must he insured. We seek to promote and nourish regionally based culture, while guaranteeing the human rights of all ethnic, cultural, and racial minorities.

Nonviolence
Greens promote effective alternatives to the patterns of violence that afflict families and nations.

Respect for Diversity
Greens welcome and honor cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious, political, biological, and spiritual diversity within the context of social and ecological interdependence.

Emotional Awareness and Honesty
We believe that awareness of feeling and unconscious behavior patterns in ourselves and others-and of their social and historical roots-act as a foundation for the creation of a cooperative community, participatory institutions, social harmony with nature, and self-empowerment. We value the integration of intuition with intellect in human consciousness.

Human Rights
We believe that every human being is entitled to quality health care, nutrition, shelter, economic security, relevant education, meaningful and rewarding work, full reproductive rights, childcare, and a safe and healthy environment. The opportunity for the fulfillment of creative potential-both individual and societal-can only be realized through a fully
democratized society, where everyone has equal political access to decision-making
and enjoys complete freedom from political persecution.

Feminism
We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control, with more cooperative ways of interacting which respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we
want.

Filed under: Ecology, events, grassroots democracy, Green Party Websites, international politics, New York State Politics, Our Favorite Radio Stations