Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox
September 2, 2019
The Future is Local*
Guest: Helena Norberg-Hodge
Topic: Localization v. Globalization
Helena Norberg-Hodge
Biography
Helena Norberg-Hodge is a pioneer of the new economy movement. Through writing and public lectures, she has been promoting an economics of personal, social, and ecological wellbeing for four decades.
She is a widely respected analyst of the impact of the global economy and international development on local economies, agriculture, and cultural as well as personal identity. She is a leading proponent of “localization,” or decentralization, and was awarded the Arthur Morgan award in 2017, and the prestigious Goi Peace prize in 2012 for contributing to “the revitalisation of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.”
Since 1975, she has worked with the people of Ladakh, or “Little Tibet,” to find ways of enabling their culture to meet the modern world without sacrificing social and ecological values. For these efforts she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, or “Alternative Nobel Prize.”
Helena’s seminal book, Ancient Futures has been described as “an inspirational classic,” offering guidelines for a better future. Together with the film of the same title, it has been translated into more than 40 languages, and sold over half a million copies. She is also the producer and co-director of the award-winning film, The Economics of Happiness. Helena has written numerous articles, essays, and book chapters, and is the co-author of two groundbreaking books on food and farming: Bringing the Food Economy Home and From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture.
Helena has lectured in seven languages at numerous Universities including Oxford, Harvard, Melbourne, Tokyo, Stockholm, and Munich - and was Regents’ Lecturer in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. She has also taught regularly at Schumacher College and appeared in broadcast, print, and online media worldwide, including MSNBC, The Times (London), The Morning Herald (Sydney), and The Guardian.
The Earth Journal counted Helena among the world’s ‘ten most interesting environmentalists,’ while in Carl McDaniel’s book Wisdom for a Liveable Planet, she was profiled as one of ‘eight visionaries changing the world.'
Helena is the founder/director of Local Futures and The International Alliance for Localisation (IAL). She is also cofounder of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, the International Forum on Globalisation, and the Global Ecovillage Network. She is a member of the Global University in Hong Kong.
Local Futures works to renew ecological, social, and spiritual wellbeing by showing the way towards a genuinely sustainable future - one of interconnected, localized economies. At the same time, the organization’s wide-ranging programs examine the economic root causes of today’s crises — from unemployment to climate change, from depression and anxiety to loss of biodiversity. The non-profit has worked in countries all over the world, including the UK, the US, Mexico, Italy, Australia, India, Thailand, Bhutan, South Korea, and Japan.
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