Facing Our Future from Denial to Environmental Action - Softcover

Cole, Jim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0960120076 ISBN 13: 9780960120079

Publisher: Growing Images, 1992

Synopsis

Predictions of gloom seem to abound. We learn of new and frightening information almost daily on the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, chemical waste, acid rain, overpopulation and nuclear proliferation to name but a few. Dr. Cole studied the research on the effects of these threats upon child behavior family relations and social order. Facing Our Future examines our personal responses to these threats and suggests ways we might respond. It has a foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and is endorsed by Mike Clark, President of Friends of the Earth; Paul Ehrlich, and many others.

About this title

About the Author

While attending college Dr. Cole worked as a camp counselor and then as summer camp director for the Easter Seals Society. He has also worked as the arts and crafts director and bus driver for a Boy's Club in a Hispanic area of Southern California. At Chico State College, Dr. Cole was active in the civil rights movements of the 1960's belonging to both the NAACP and CORE.While attending graduate school at Oregon State University, Dr. Cole wrote a small book about self disclosure, self acceptance and the dynamics of sharing personal feelings. Later, while working on a doctorate at the University of Northern Colorado, he published this book himself. Within three years The Facade had sold over twenty thousand copies and received an unsolicited review from the Guidepost, the newspaper of the American Personnel and Guidance Association (now called the American Counseling Association). Dr. Cole has taught elementary school and has been an elementary and junior high school counselor. For seventeen years he was with the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. There he worked as a counselor, the Director of Counseling, the Director of the Center for Health and Counseling, and held academic rank in education and psychology. In 1990 the Cole Family left Alaska and moved to Ellensburg, Washington. This move allowed more time for Dr. Coles writing and consulting on issues that he sees as vital to human survival. His two most recent books both have forewords by Nobel Peace Prize winners. Facing Our Future: from denial to environmental action, has a foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama and has endorsements from Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups. Filtering People: understanding and confronting our prejudices, has a foreword by Desmond Tutu, The Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town South Africa. Filtering People also has endorsements by a number of other major groups in the United States including the National Urban League, and the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith.

Review

The Earth needs all the friends it can get -- but the problems that confront us can seem so complex and overwhelming that we recoil from them and retreat into what we hope will be the safe refuge of saying 'What can I do? I'm only one person'. Jim Cole's Facing Our Future gently shows how to recognize the symptoms of denial and how to dissolve the walls of isolation that denial builds between us. This wise book, brilliantly illustrated by Tom Woodruff, will be a boon to grassroots organizers, workshop participants, and indeed to anyone . . . . . .struggling with the challenge of how to face the problems that threaten us all.

Mike Clark, President, Friends of the Earth

Jim Cole's eloquent drawings and images tell us more vividly than mere words could what we can lose by denying the realities of the human predicament -- and what we could gain by cooperating to overcome the problems.Paul R. Ehrlich, Stanford University I thought it an inventive and creative way to raise consciousness.

Reah Janise Kauffman, Worldwatch Institute

When I returned from space I was better informed, more aware, of the oneness, uniqueness, and fragility of Planet Earth. This, in turn, sharpened my sense that the future is threatening, even bleak--or worse. Cole's book deals constructively, frankly, and engagingly with the dilemma posed by my species to myself and to my planet.

Loren W. Acton, Challenger 8 Astronaut The simple truth and poignancy of the drawings and text gave me chills of recognition. . . . At times this book pierced me with the sharp clarity of its depiction of our daily tragedies. The truth can be bitter, but facing it is truly the most beautiful and joyous thing we can do.

Chuck Johnson, Executive Director, Nuclear Free America -- From the Publisher

Edition details

• Publisher: Growing Images
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0960120076
• ISBN 13: 9780960120079
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English