Social Ecology n
1: a coherent radical critique of current social, political, and anti-ecological trends.

2: a reconstructive, ecological, communitarian, and ethical approach to society.

SEEDS

The mission of the Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School (SEEDS - Tax ID#20-4740965) is to develop and offer educational experiences that enhance people’s abilities to knowledgeably and creatively address the interwoven social and ecological crisis of our time. Through an intensive and interdisciplinary study, students are assisted in gaining a rounded and critical understanding of current approaches to social and ecological reconstruction. Students are provided opportunities to test various reconstructive strategies by means of individually designed practicums.

The purpose of SEEDS programs is to prepare students for roles as agents for positive change in their home communities and as members of a global community. SEEDS is located on Vashon Island, Washington, USA. SEEDS is a 501c3 tax exempt non-profit organization and all contributions are tax deductible to the full extent the law allows.

Much of the wisdom guiding SEEDS formation came from members of The Institute for Social Ecology (ISE). For over 30 years, from the antinuclear and ecology movements to the current one against pervasive militarism and the bleak side of globalization, the ISE has inspired individuals involved in social change to work toward a humane, ecological, and liberatory society. More than 3,000 students from around the globe—from Liberia to the Philippines, Italy to Iran, Norway to Uruguay, Israel to Ethiopia, the United States to Japan, and many more—have attended the ISE in order to not only remake themselves but remake society as well.

Two of SEEDS three founding board members, Bob Spivey and Beverly Naidus, have taught at the ISE for ten years, and four ISE faculty, co-founder Dan Chodorkoff, Chaia Heller, Brian Tokar, and Grace Gershuny, are assisting with the development of SEEDS and are potential faculty for SEEDS as well. Our Executive Director, Patricia Birgen-Redwolf,the other SEEDS co-founder, has traveled the globe extensively, working with Peace and Justice projects worldwide for more than 20 years.

In July 2007, SEEDS faculty began offering weekend courses in Social Ecology, Community Development, Healing the Health Care System, Labor and Globalization, Organic Agriculture and Food Security, Alternative Energy and Eco-technology, and Eco-feminism, as well as shorter workshops and presentations by faculty and guest speakers on Engaged Spirituality, Dismantling Institutional Racism, and Organizing Principles and Strategies.

The Social Ecology Education & Demonstration School is currently in the process of securing demonstration, education, and lodging space on 10 acres of ecologically diverse land with organic gardens and mixed forest.

Context of Crisis

The enormity of the global ecological crisis we face in the twenty-first century scarcely needs enumerating. The more conventionally-framed issues confronting environmental movements, threats such as air pollution, deforestation, soil degradation, toxic contamination, pollution and over fishing of the oceans, the rapid disappearance of habitat and the endangerment of more and more species, have grown more serious during the past few decades of the imposition of the global neoliberal agenda.

However, the looming spectre of global warming has come in recent years to overshadow these threats, as more and more studies point to a process occurring far more rapidly than anticipated, driven by positive feedback loops such as sunlight reflectivity shifts resulting from melting polar ice, and carbon release with melting permafrost. In addition to coastal inundation, rapid climate change threatens food and water supplies already becoming increasingly fragile through privatization and corporate control, as surviving subsistence networks give way to export crop production.

There has also emerged a growing awareness of the dwindling of world oil reserves and the urgent need for the transformation of energy systems and patterns of use, in a way that would minimize the inevitable disruption of the transition period from oil dependency, as well as minimize the further production of greenhouse gases.