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Item Information
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 4 1/4 x 7, 144 pages
ISBN: 9781931498661
Old ISBN: 1-931498-66-0
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Release Date: 2004-09-15
What Can I Do?
An Alphabet for Living
Lisa Harrow; Introduction by Roger Payne
What Can I Do? is a joy. May it spread through the republic and be kept handy by all who need a quick, useful answer to the question posed in the title."--E. O. Wilson, recipient of the National Medal of Science and author of Naturalist
Hundreds of Great Ideas!
Concern for the health of our planet led award-winning actress Lisa Harrow and her husband, internationally renowned whale biologist Roger Payne, to create the performance piece Lessons from Copernicus. But Lisa and Roger found that, following performances of their show, audience members frequently wanted to know: What can I do to help? What can we all do to stop the destructive impact of our current way of life?
What Can I Do? is Lisa's response, a guidebook on how to take action. What Can I Do? initially accompanied performances of Lessons from Copernicus as a resource for audiences to take home. Its immediate success led Lisa to expand the guide for public and educational use.
Now available to the general public, What Can I Do? is at once practical and charming. The book is written as "An Alphabet for Living," providing readers with an extensive annotated list of Web sites where anyone can begin to explore the practices of sustainable living. Each site in the book has been selected for its wealth of information and links, and each serves as a valuable tool for finding fresh ways to view the world and live gently in it.
A wonderful resource for both new and renewed interest in sustainable living, What Can I Do? makes a great gift. The advice inside covers a broad array of subjects: from stopping the junk mail in your mailbox to reaping the economic and social benefits of green business; from buying sustainably harvested seafood to donating and recycling your obsolete electronics; from finding local food producers to getting your town to turn garbage into soil-improving compost.
See Lisa's practical advice for environmentally-minded people on the web. Visit whatcanidousa.org.
Lisa Harrow and Roger Payne have written and performed a companion performance to What Can I Do? entitled SeaChange: Reversing the Tide. This play offers an exposé of the consequences of humanity's current indifference to natural laws. It includes the poetry of Shakespeare, Shelley, Robert Frost, Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and others. Visit www.seachangeinstitute.org to watch an excerpt of their performance.
About the Author
Lisa Harrow has played many lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England and starred in film, television, and other theater productions. Her New York stage debut was as Vivian Bearing in Wit. She is married to Dr. Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance and internationally recognized expert on whales. Lisa and Roger live in Woodstock, Vermont.“I have witnessed the monumental waste of resources all over the world and goverments’ inertia or simple indifference. Now Lisa Harrow has given us a handbook that means each of us can make a personal start on doing our bit to preserve the planet for future generations.”--Patrick Stewart, actor
"Emotion and science, warm and cool, familiar and new. With Lisa's resonant voice, familiar writings are reborn and you hear them as if for the first time. A textured and compelling presentation."
Ronnie Levin, Senior Scientist, US EPA and Joel Schwartz, Harvard Professor, MacArthur awardee
Photo © John Sherman
LESSONS FROM COPERNICUS
Written and Performed by Lisa Harrow and Dr. Roger Payne
Is man truly the center of the earth, around which all other creatures revolve? Or will this narrow and self-centered viewpoint lead us to destruction?
Those are the questions addressed by the theater piece Lessons From Copernicus, a stunning mix of art and science that vividly demonstrates how mankind has gone horribly wrong-and how it is not too late to change course.
Just as the great 16th century scientist Copernicus shocked the world with his heretical assertion that the earth revolves around the sun-the opposite of the conventional wisdom of the day-Lessons From Copernicus illustrates that man is not the center of the animal kingdom. The earth's survival depends upon a carefully calibrated balance of its inhabitants.
Lessons From Copernicus offers a stunning exposé of man's indifference to his natural environment, punctuated by the poetry of among others, William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as the wisdom of cosmologist Carl Sagan and the Old Testament.
The result is a greater understanding of man's role in the natural world. Lessons From Copernicus provides the tools we need to view the environment in a new way and to take positive action.