Going Green Is Not Enough with Chuck Burr

Program Description

You’re doing your part. You’ve replaced all your incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, recycle your plastic and paper, and carpool whenever possible. But even if everyone on the planet does those things, according to Chuck Burr, it won’t keep us from running out of water and food. Even when we factor in the best our green technology has to offer, at our current rate of consumption the human species will deplete our planet’s ability to sustain us within a few generations. Solutions exist, but they require learning to see our relationship to the earth and her resources in a radically different way. Mr. Burr explains, “We need to indigenize the white man. We need to go from ‘the earth belongs to man’ to ‘man belongs to the earth.’ It’s that simple. As long as we keep consuming, it makes programs like recycling pointless. We need to wake up regarding the limits of our bioregion, and also as a spiritual awakening.” He brings us a host of intriguing ideas that will change the way you think about “being green,” and at the same time offer a new understanding of this beautiful planet and our relationship to it.

Chuck Burr is a certified permaculture designer, a retired software entrepreneur, and a cultural creative. He developed a knowledge base called Evolving Culture based on his review of hundreds of books, articles, and reports and thousands of websites about the state of our culture and environment. He serves on several nonprofit boards, and is the author of Culturequake: The End of Modern Culture and the Birth of a New World (Trafford 2007). To learn more about the work of Chuck Burr go to www.culturequake.org

Topics Explored in this Dialogue:

• Why the aquifers we rely on for drinking and irrigation are being depleted
• How many people could be fed by tiny farms in the heart of a big city
• Why solar panels, wind turbines, and ethanol burn more energy than they produce
• What is the single form of energy production that generates more than it uses
• Why you should plant “green side up”

Program Number: 3251           Host: Michael Toms           Interview Date: 3/24/2008