Green Horizon Magazine    

The following short article appeared in a recent issue of Green Horizon Magazine. It gives you a sense of the nature of our international journal. Below it is a letter we have just sent to the recipients of the magazine.

Thought Strategy Action

Last Spring ’09, we launched an experiment in structure. We featured two parts, Thought and Action. The articles divided themselves pretty well into these two parts.
Doing that made us realize that there is an interval, or a “continent of possibilities”, expectations, regrets. disappointments, and excitement, between the two. We were pleased by the response (see “Our Readers Respond”) and want to continue with that structure but add Strategy.

Strategy focuses on the following: how do you get from what your Thought informs and inspires you to think to the Action that leads you there, or could lead you there? What barriers stand in the way? What can you learn about your Thought as you apply it to Action and how can you adapt your Thought accordingly? What actions may get you there, what don’t? What adjustments make sense, what don’t? These are huge questions and should preoccupy the minds of thinkers and doers alike. But strangely enough, there is a dearth of serious thinking about this. Many are content with doing the thinking, and many do it well. And by the same token, many are happy with just concentrating their efforts and energy on practical actions, and do it well. But the gap between them -- that puzzling, risky, complicated terrain -- receives by comparison little serious attention. One notes, for example, the brilliant and startling new book by David Orr, Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse. It’s very good, but little if anything about how actually to go about getting out of our terrible fix to a better place. Somehow, just uttering the Thought seems to many of our intellectuals to be sufficient.

So we are introducing as a new category a section on Strategy: Getting There from Here (or not). The reader will note that the three articles in the following pages dealing with strategy in some fashion are all illustrations of what not to do. But one can learn from these negative examples, too. We expect in future issues to have more articles of a positive kind – as we have had, to a limited degree, in previous issues. We also hope to have more Action articles in forthcoming issues than we have in this one.

We are delighted by our five Thought pieces in this issue and hasten to note that, in addition to doing some very serious and inspiring thinking, they also to some degree, if only by implication, deal with the puzzling question of how we can, should, must! go about getting there from here.

JR





Hard Copy Editor: John Rensenbrink
Editorial Advisers: Holly Hart and Sam Smith
Membership and Bookkeeping: Liz Rensenbrink
Graphic Design: Sharon Pieniak
Logo Design: Sean Hill

HI,

Here is a hard copy letter we just sent to the recipients of our Green Horizon Magazine. It introduces you to the magazine and includes an opportunity to join our Green Horizon
Community of Donors. If you are moved to contribute or it you are curious to find out about the content of the magazine in detail you can donate by clicking on Pay Pal or you can print out the contribution form at the end of letter and send it with your contribution to P.O. Box 476, Topsham, Maine 04086.

Thank you,

John Rensenbrink, Co-Editor


June 7, 2010





We sent you the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of Green Horizon Magazine in early May. The cover had a big question mark on it with the words: "Questions Facing the Green Party of the United States." We hope you received it. It is sent with our compliments. We will also be sending you gratis the Fall/Winter issue in October. You may also have received one or both of the issues we produced last year.

We are doing this as part of our outreach effort to help get the magazine known and read by a growing number of people like you with a Green outlook on life -- people who care about the state of the nation and the planet and are willing to take action to do something about it. We now mail to over a thousand people in the United States and in several other countries.

Would you like to contribute to this endeavor? We would be extremely happy to welcome you as a member of our growing Green Horizon community. If so, and if it's alright with you, we will add your name in the next issue (page 31) to the list of donors. Please make out your check to: Green Horizon Foundation. Your donation is tax exempt.

Whether you can make a donation at this time or not, please fill out page 3 and send it back to us in the self-addressed envelope.

Our readers tell us Green Horizon fills a void. It not only brings new perspectives to the forefront in thought-provoking articles, it also reports on actions related to these new perspectives. Moreover, our journal has established a reputation for being willing to delve into the most difficult and contentious strategic questions facing the global green movement.

Green Horizon is a self-financing endeavor. This year, to date, 63 people have come forward with donations, including the eleven members of our Board. The names of these donors appear on Page 31 of the Spring/Summer issue we sent you. We are not subscription-based and we don't accept any advertising; we rely entirely on voluntary donations and on the labor donated by our writers, editors, and support staff. We do pay for a design/layout person and for printing and mailing. Our expenses this year will total about $9000. To expand our mailing list we'll need to expand our funding base.

We are turning to you to help us maintain the magazine and expand its readership.

In addition, we are always interested in finding new writers! We've been fortunate to benefit from the contributions of many good, green writers during our seven years of publication. If you have an article up your sleeve or you want to write a shorter piece as a letter-to-the-editor, please don't hesitate to contact us. For John, [rensen@suscom-maine.net]; for Steve (].

Also, please note: We are looking for a person who has the skill and motivation to work on our website [www.green-horizon.org], to work with us toward producing a fine electronic companion to our hardcopy magazine. Let us know if you are interested in helping out in that way.

In solidarity,

John Rensenbrink and Steve Welzer, Co-Editors


Name ___________________________

Email address ____________________

I would like to continue receiving a complimentary copy of Green Horizon Magazine. Yes ___ No ____

I wish to make a donation to the Magazine. My check to Green Horizon Foundation is enclosed in the amount of: $____________

Instead of a donation via check, I am using PayPal on your website [www.green-horizon.net] $__________

I cannot donate now, but I am supportive of your efforts, so please ask me again in the future (when I may be in a position to help out). _____

Please drop me from your list. ______