Kurt Archer

My Choice! is a project that aims to raise awareness among the youth about Sustainability. We offer a holistic understanding of sustainability taught through a simple model known as Society, Economy and Environment.

The Environment is impacted by our human footprint; this footprint is the result of diverse community interactions (economy, leisure, family) in any given society. Social activism, or civil society, is shaped by embedding values in the people that are part of the society and who will take up responsibility for that society. It is therefore vital for youth to grab this inclusive picture of sustainability to ensure a positive future generation of prosperity and increased quality of life.

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Often in conversation you may hear comments about growing water shortages, or the fact that bottled water is no better than tap water.  Of course both of these are true, however the depth of this situation is far graver than we imagine it to be. What seems to miss the media’s attention is the massive protests that are led in against water giants like Nestle, Coca-Cola, Suez, Vivendi and others. All over the world, water privatization is on the increase, and at what cost?

The building of dams around the world have displaced millions of people in the 20th century. Water ways, aquafers, and natural irrigation channels are being dried up or pumped into plastic bottles and sold to us. That is like someone coming into your home, stealing your most prized family heirloom, wrapping it in a nice package and selling it back to you at 10x the price you paid for it in the first place.

Is it so hard to keep water healthy and accessible to everyone? It seems that more and more politicians are failing to stand up for what should be their jobs – to protect the basic security of citizens! There certainly is nothing more basic than water.

I just finished watching “FLOW: For love of water“.

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The story of the 100th Monkey
(Quantum leap in behaviour)

There is a legend I’d like to tell you about. In its message may lie hope of a future for your organisation. Here is the story of the Hundredth Monkey.

The Japanese monkey Macaca Fuscata had been observed in the wild for a period of over thirty years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes but they found the dirt unpleasant. An 18 month old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too. This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists.

Between 1952 and 1958, all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement … other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes. Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958 a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes – the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let’s further suppose that later that evening the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes … THEN IT HAPPENED. By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice. A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea – colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes. Thus, when a certain number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind. Although the exact number may vary, The Hundredth Monkey phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of just those people. But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!

Your awareness is needed. You may be the “hundredth monkey”.

Please note that this story, taken from the book, “The Hundredth Monkey” by Ken Keyes Jr., is not copyrighted.

Please note, original source was posted here: http://atfindia.org/content/you-may-be-hundredth-monkey