The culture of industrial progress and financial wealth is based on the belief that endlessly increasing the exploitation of Earth's resources will endlessly improve the human condition. This strategy of adaptation is now failing; it no longer provides believable guidance for the human future.
Tracking Down Ecological Guidance displays a countervailing worldview; it focuses on what kind of economic adaptation makes sense, given what we know about how Earth's ecosystems actually work; it is equally focused on the means of cultural and spiritual survival through the continuing fallout of economic and environmental disruption.
The author charts a journey through the storm of progress to a culture of ecological guidance that places equity and beauty at the heart of economic and spiritual wellbeing.
Tracking Down Ecological Guidance
Keith Helmuth
Presence • Beauty • Survival
"Holding out a goal of a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship, Helmuth reminds us that what we are attuned to is what we get guidance from. This book offers guidance that we all need." - Pamela Haines, Friends Journal
Read the full review here.
The author in his natural habitat
Tracking Down Ecological Guidance recounts an engagement with science, technology, education, economics, and cultural adaptation over the past fifty years.
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Table of Contents
Preface: “Darkness and Scattered Light”
The Angel of History, the Storm of Progress, and the Order of the Soul
First Light & Last Things: Presence, Beauty, Survival
Indigenous Wisdom and Ecological Guidance
Technology: Tool Kit and Mindset
The Evolution of Environmental Education
In the Ruins of a Faith-Haunted World
“There’ll Come a Day”
Tracking Down Ecological Guidance
Epilogue: Down to Earth With an Eye on the Future
References
About the Author
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About the Author
Keith Helmuth is a founding trustee of Quaker Institute for the Future, serving as its first Board Secretary and Coordinator of Publications. He is a co-author of three books: Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy, How on Earth Do We Live Now? Natural Capital, Deep Ecology, and the Commons, and Paths of Faith in the Landscape of Science. He is a co-editor of two books: It's the Economy, Friends: Understanding the Growth Dilemma, and Fuelling Our Future: A Dialogue About Technology, Ethics, and Public Policy. He has been writing for publication and public presentation for more than forty years. He lives in Woodstock, New Brunswick where he coordinates a community garden project and serves on the board of directors of the Woodstock Farm Market cooperative.
Paperback • 273 pages • ISBN 978-0-9936725-3-8 • Published 2015/06/02