Caring for people + planet = real wealth 

Caring Economy Leadership Program cohorts begin April 9 (weekday) and May 11 (weekend).

A dynamic weekend CELP cohort concluded last week. Participants feedback included: "...an enormously powerful experience for me." "My life feels bigger as a result of this class." "...this course can give wings to thought and action.” "Awesome!"

Let your colleagues and friends know-- they can join nearly 100 certified Conversation Leaders around the world speaking out for a caring economy rooted in the principles of a partnership society.

Learn more at http://www.caringeconomy.org/content/caring-economy-leadership-program 

Email Ann for more information at annamberg.cps@gmail.com

Climate change in a world without hope

To introduce this post, here's a 'thought bubble' on tar sands oil extraction by Naomi Klein:

Naomi's next book will be on climate change. This TEDWomen talk gives an indication of what she's thinking:

  
In this interview with Bill Moyer Naomi says: 

“Let’s rebuild by actually getting at the root causes. Let’s respond by aiming for an economy that responds to the crisis both through inequality and climate change. You know, dream big.”

Clive Hamilton addresses similar issues in Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change. This is highly recommended reading, but will leave you without much hope for the future of civilisation. Which may not be such a bad thing.

Check out Clive's video page, including this Royal Society of Arts lecture:  

Today there will be mass rallies and demonstrations across the USA to oppose construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and demand action on climate change. But what will force a change of direction in a capitalist economic system that's dependent on perpetual growth?    

Climate change - and our apparent inability to avert ecocide and our own extinction - confronts us with a major psychological challenge: how to stay sane and positive in a world without hope?

This is what I'm presently working on. Margaret Wheatley's latest book So Far From Home and some of her articles speak to this.  

Update From UK on Caring Revolution Initatives

Hi All,
I am excited to share developments here in spreading the word. I have highlighted the campaign to Professor Andrew Yip of the University of Nottingham sociology faculty, who I understand conducted a lecture on Caring Economics, in December 2012. I gave him some copies of the power points we were provided with on the course with Riane.

He is helping me with providing PHD students to do some research for my first book Vital Women, Valuing our care and contribution in the economy, a personal development perspective. I am conducting an on line survey targeting 100 women in business with caring responsibilities in leadership positions to explore what they value and how business culture could be more caring! I plan to follow up with a few interviews with some high profile business women too! I intend with thier permission video these as bit size key points. Though this a whole new techy area for me to learn and up load on u tube!

My Vital Women social action enterprise is slowly taking shape, go to www.vitalwomen.biz for the current position. Big Love Karen O

Alumni Action Update: Eve Purdew

Eve Purdew (Cohort B) - our woman at the Sorbonne - wrote in to share that she is now teaching two courses at the Sorbonne with a Caring Economy and Partnership flair.  One is an introductory English class called "Caring Economics and Partnership," and the second is a course called "Tourism, Caring Economics and Partnership.  Both are open to all students whatever they are studying - Law, Art, Math’s, Archeology, Philosophy or History.

Eve's course descriptions include:   "We will be studying why people who have read Riane Eislers books have written such things as “Riane Eisler offers a way to transform our business, our community, and ourselves.  It is a must for any person who is looking for more meaning than the bottom line.'  Barbara Stanbridge, past president of the National Association of Women Business Owners”.  Past students have written – “These classes opened my mind to a subject I didn’t know existed”.  “This is the first time that I have enjoyed English”

Thanks so much Eve for staying in touch and for being such a powerful leader for a caring economy!

Super Bowl Human Trafficking --Remember that invisible, illegal-economy puzzle piece of our current economic system? According to the US Attorney General's Office, the Super Bowl is the single largest human trafficking incident in the USA, impacting thousands of women victims every year. See HuffPost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/03/super-bowl-sex-trafficking_n_2607871.html

Riane article in Huff Post on Violence Against Women

Hi all, 

Please read and help us circulate this article "The Double Standard for Violence" posted to the Huffington Post yesterday.

Riane writes:  "A few days ago VAWA was re-introduced in both the Senate and House as S. 47 and H.R. 11. Now it is up to us to see to it that reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act is a first order of business for the 113th Congress."

Read and comment on the full text of the article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riane-eisler/violence-against-women_b_2584808.html

Thank you for adding your voice to the outcry over the double standard which creates such a legislative blind spot around women and intimate violence.

- Sara