Why Craft is Worldchanging

This morning Living on Earth (LOE) reviewed Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (described as the Whole Earth Catalog for the 21st century) and talked about Worldchanging's founder, Alex Steffan, and his philosophy:

"Don't just live sensibly," he says, "Live well."

According to LOE, Steffan's

vision of the future isn't granola and porridge. It's what he calls "bright green": Creating and buying products and systems that are smart, sexy, sleek, and sustainable. . . .

Steffan says that "things are bad. Problems are huge. But despair is a trap. None of the problems we face are insurmountable. The biggest barrier to a bright green future may be entirely in our heads--we simply can't imagine it."

The LOE interview led me to the Worldchanging website--the precursor to the book--and I was immediately taken with the Jan. 26 post about Why Craft is Worldchanging . My favorite part is this:

Craft is radical. In this age of corporate-driven mass-production, the act of an individual making a useful thing is radical. The act of buying a useful thing made by an individual is radical. It is akin to living off the grid: trading outside the big box.