Helena Norberg-Hodge
Helena Norberg-Hodge
Helena Norberg-Hodge is founder and director of Local Futures, previously known as the International Society for Ecology and Culture. Local Futures is a non-profit organization "dedicated to the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide."...
NationalitySwedish
ProfessionActivist
CountrySweden
desire looks development
Throughout the world today there is a gowing awareness of the failings of the Western model of development and a corresponding desire to look for more human-scale, ecological ways of living.
believe culture earth
It may seem absurd to believe that a 'primitive' culture in the Himalaya has anything to teach our industrialized society. But our search for a future that works keeps spiraling back to an ancient connection between ourselves and the earth, an interconnectedness that ancient cultures have never abandoned.
land community way
I have seen that community and a close relationship with the land can enrich human life beyond all comparison with material wealth or technological sophistication. I have learned that another way is possible.
healing keys diversity
Economic localization is the key to sustaining biological and cultural diversity - to sustaining life itself. The sooner we shift towards the local, the sooner we will begin healing our planet, our communities and ourselves.
agriculture world pesticides
Globalization, which attempts to amalgamate every local, regional, and national economy into a single world system, requires homogenizing locally adapted forms of agriculture, replacing them with an industrial system-centrally managed, pesticide-intensive, one-crop production for export-designed to deliver a narrow range of transportable foods to the world market.
holistic lack mainly motivates system understanding
What motivates me is the conviction that our problems are mainly a consequence of a lack of holistic understanding of the man-made system in which we are entwined.
argued discussion happiness huge
There's often a discussion about, 'Well, how do we know what happiness is? Is it real?' I've always argued that all of us know that there's a huge difference between how we feel when we feel happy and when we don't feel happy.
allow best both closer co2 contact emissions keeping maintain pattern reducing social south strengthen towns villages ways
One of the best ways of reducing both CO2 emissions and poverty in the South would be to strengthen the existing, decentralised demographic pattern by keeping villages and small towns alive. This would allow communities to maintain social cohesion and a closer contact with the land.
bit cream food happiness images nice product seen selling smiling sort stupid
Happiness, as a word, has become sort of equated with these smiling images on television, selling some nice cream or food product or something. It's seen a bit as being a stupid consumer.
bit change contribute focus middle money rather time
I think we should focus more, rather than less, on mobilising the middle classes. They often have a bit of time and money to contribute to change.
cleaner people
Even in America, people have said again and again that they would be willing to sacrifice for a cleaner environment.
radical rapid signs
As signs of climate instability increase, radical and rapid action is becoming ever more urgent.