The Enviropaedia and an Eco-logical future.

 The 2011 edition of the Enviropaedia, South Africa’s leading Environmental Encyclopaedia, was launched at the Eco-Logic awards evening on 26 nov 2011.  A one-stop guide to understanding and changing the relationship between people and the planet for future prosperity, it comes with a health warning.  It could change your thinking.

Photo of David Parry-Davies, publishing editor of  The Enviropaedia.

 The Enviropaedia is a large volume divided into 5 chapters:

 An Environmental Encyclopaedia in which a range of experts cover subjects directly relevant to South Africans, from Acid Mine Drainage to Zero Waste, to encourage understanding about the processes – physical, economic and sociological – behind our current exploitation of the Earth’s natural capital.

 A Thought Leadership Chapter with 26 articles written by leaders in the fields of green alternatives, environmentally sustainable economics and a value system of respect for each other and the Planet.  Publishing editor David Parry-Davies’s article promoting the concept of an Eco-Logical versus an ego-logical approach heads up the Thought Leadership chapter.

 A Networking Directory provides a current and comprehensive list of hundreds of organizations nationwide with an environmental mandate.  They are resources for local action and information. There is no longer an excuse for not knowing who to ask or what to do. 

 The list of Environmental Media Resources identifies publications and websites that both inform, educate and act as whistle blowers.

 The Eco-Logical Living Guide sets out the essential steps to ecologically sustainable living at work, at home and on holiday. 

 It is becoming increasingly apparent that a change to an eco-logical way of living and doing business is going to need a bottom up approach.  The wheels of government move too slowly and big business is stuck in the groove of business as usual in spite of the increasing numbers of ecological redflags.  As soon as we realize that collectively our choices are what stands between us and a sustainable future for our children and theirs we will be motivated individually to reduce our material demands on the Earth. The Enviropaedia will go a long way in helping us understand the issues and connect us with people who do so that we can move with confidence from awareness to action.  David Parry Davies likes to remind us that it is a convenient untruth that our individual actions can not make a difference.  In the words of Margaret Mead “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.

 KimK

Click here to email Kim for your copy of the Enviropaedia or phone on 467.   Buy a copy for your local school, your library or for your business network.  At R395 including Vat and Postage, it is an investment in an Eco-Logical future.

Click here to read about the Eco-Logic award evening on 26 november 2011

David Parry-Davies is the publishing editor of the Enviropaedia, South Africa’s leading Environmental Encyclopaedia. 

 He has a special combination of soul, skills and business sense, which he has used successfully to produce the Enviropaedia a valuable bridge between business and the environmental lobby.  With a background of 20 years in the corporate and marketing sectors he is comfortable interacting with CEOs from big business and speaking in public.  But his desk has funky gumboots on its office legs and when David needs to clear his head, he goes sea-kayaking along the Simon’s Town coast.

From Pinstripes to Eco-Logic:  David recounts how, when his son was just a kid, he jolted him out of corporate comfort with the words: “Daddy, What do you do? I want to be like you!” A question that would usually connect father and son opened a flood of memories of his childhood in Africa and the doubts about where his generation was taking the world bubbled to the surface.  David thought about his special relationship with his grandfather, a long-legged man who danced with wild blue cranes and who had taught him to admire the intelligence of Nature, and realized that the work he was doing was not feeding his soul. It was also at odds with the kind of world he wanted his son to inherit.

Leaving the security of well paid work and the trappings of success to navigate a way into working for a better relationship with the environment was scary at first.  His first foray was to market membership to The Friends of the Earth where he was living in London. 

Fast forward to today where he shares a growing frustration that although awareness about environmental problems is growing, action still lags far behind. Awareness and most of the action still focuses on the symptoms and on challenging ongoing environmental destruction or on raging against the perpetrators. 

David joins a growing number of environmental activists who believe that stopping the behaviour that is destructive to the environmental requires that we address the beliefs, value systems and emotions that drive our destructive behaviour.   An essential step requires us to fully acknowledge that we humans are dependent on the Earth’s eco-systems for our survival and that we need to develop a set of value systems and resulting behaviour that is consistent with us being part of Nature and not above it.  He has developed a set of principles that reflects this, and whilst he calls this new paradigm of thinking  ’eco-logic’ – it actually goes beyond mental intelligence – to include emotional intelligence and reconnection with Earth intelligence.

This concept of Eco-Logic is a key theme in the 2011 edition of the Enviropaedia, but he is not relying on text alone to promote Eco-Logic thinking and decision–making. He plans a series of speaking engagements in 2012.  For more information contact him on:

“Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking,

So that humanity stops threatening its life support system.

We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own.”  Wangari Maathai

KimK