Mission Statement

Culture Change mobilizes people to slash petroleum consumption immediately. Our reasons are well understood: drastically reduce pollution, avert complete climate chaos, stop the assault of petrochemical toxins on our bodies, end war for oil, and localize economics. So that these needs are understood to a greater degree by more and more people, we engage in education and activism oriented toward the big picture and fundamental change, rather than reforming the system we often refer to as the dominant paradigm. Because of the ecological crisis unfolding, we see that a coordinated and massive reduction in petroleum use could, in promoting bioregional living and foregoing purchases of long-distance corporate products, help bring down the wasteful consumer economy. This would help put the brakes on species extinction and thus accelerate the development of a more cooperative, less hierarchical society. Dislocation from petrocollapse cannot be avoided at this point, and the longer it is put off the more painful it will be. At the same time, even if a mass attempt through a social movement to save our great numbers and avoid total collapse is hopeless and in vain, then our efforts have at least gone toward illuminating sustainable living or models thereof (such as Sail Transport Network and Pedal Power Produce). We also believe that telling the alarming truth about collapse and die-off is necessary to get people out of the seductive trance of the renewable energy technofix. We have found the latter to be over-hyped; it cannot allow for a seamless transition, nor realistically offer a future green consumer economy. Living our future now is our safest course in perilous times.

Methods:

• Publishing (original in print and online, plus syndication)
• Speaking and multi-media presentations (peak oil, petrocollapse, climate, plastics)
• Media interviews and outreach (print, radio and web)
• Demonstration projects (e.g., Pedal Power Produce, depaving)
• Music (The Depavers, recording and concertizing)
• Activist alerts (saving threatened old trees and forests, stopping road construction)
• Conferences (Petrocollapse Conference and helping other parties with theirs)
• Education (plastics and their toxicity, petroleum dependence, climate change)
• Testifying for government initiatives to ban or place fees on plastics
• Developing models of sustainability (Sail Transport Network, minimum-energy living)
• Supporting activists' projects (Food not Lawns, tree-sitting)
• Participating in peace marches and environmental protests and publicizing them
• Preparing books to publish on culture change
• Fasting and other direct action on behalf of the climate or threatened ancient forests

Founder Jan Lundberg’s statement:

“My own genesis for Culture Change was to realize that there is a fundamental flaw in the dominant culture's values, whereby we can pave over the best farmland and stab family members in the back for individual, material gain.”

Jan Spencer works on culture change via “suburban renewal” in Eugene Oregon, and offered his insight into what Culture Change (culture change) means:

“Culture Change is about making profound changes in the way we take care of human needs. Global trends such as climate change, increasing economic instability, the natural environment in steep decline, an increasingly militant US foreign policy, resource depletion, to name only a few, are clearly telling us that humans are in urgent need to live far more within what planet Earth can support.

“From a social perspective, Culture Change also addresses the issues of economic and social inequity. Culture Change can nurture our greatest renewable resource, positive human creativity. Culture Change is about taking care of our needs within our own bioregions, and is about building community cohesion and real democracy."

“Culture Change looks to existing models and assets to build on. Strategies for a peaceful world, a healthy environment and uplifted human relations are all vital and mutually supporting elements of Culture Change."