Invitation to a Renaissance

Invitation to a Renaissance, a collection of short essays,
is essential to every Environmental Studies program,
because it provides the students with a heightened sense of purpose.

Students want to leave behind the shackles of the 20th century—the pollution, the plundering, the poverty, the wars—so that they can design and build their own 21st century.

They want to build a world unprecedented in all of human history, where people learn to live in harmony with each other, and with their planet Earth.

As a teacher, John Slade believes that we need to ask the Big Questions, so that we can engender vibrant discussions in our classrooms.

How does the melting of the polar ice cap affect our weather, our economies, our fate for the next several centuries?

How can we build a global classroom, preparing young people around the world to meet the global challenges?

Who shall determine the course of our human journey, the oil companies, or young people who will live their lives in the 21st century?

What happens when we plunder and poison the oceans, the Cradle of Life?

Will the Arctic Ocean become our final military battleground?

Will climate change create a new kind of refugee, a new kind of war?

Can the democratic sun and the democratic wind create a more democratic economy for the peoples of the world?

Can that democratic economy bring us stability, equality, and peace?

In 1776, America was the most innovative nation in the world. Can we do it again?

What are the moral questions? The religious questions? The spiritual questions, as we design a new way of thinking in the 21st century?

Shall we give unto our children and our children’s children a great gift, or a great curse?

Let us look with vision that reaches around our planet. Let us look with vision that reaches through the decades to the end—and beyond—of this hopeful century.

Let us design and build a Renaissance—the first since 1500—for the 21st century.

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Book categories: Climate Change and Clean Energy