Over the past couple of months, I’ve been discussing how George W. Bush’s boneheaded environmental blunders, and subsequent fall from public grace, have opened up an opportunity for environmentalists to work to organize a new political consensus.

I also suggested that the most effective strategy for those who seek to create a more just, humane and ecologically sustainable society at this unprecedented moment in human history, is to join together in a constitutional "revolution," based on the 18th-century understanding of "revolution" held by America’s founders.

For those who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the meaning of revolution stemmed from "the revolution of the spheres" -- the planets and constellations revolving through time in a constant motion which, at certain points during the course of human events, require willful action. The specific historical reference was to the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, when the English Parliament voted to assume some of the monarch’s traditional powers to itself -- thus preserving, by this revolutionary act, a tradition of democratic rights going back to the Magna Carta.

This democratic tradition was so important to the Constitution’s framers that they put in a mechanism which future citizens could use to enact revolutionary change in their federal government when it became necessary, by calling a constitutional convention. Thomas Jefferson thought the Constitution should be completely rewritten every nineteen years, to account for generational changes. Of course, he was a radical.

For many years now, those of us working on social justice and environmental issues have subscribed to the wisdom to "think globally, and act locally." This has proven to be very good advice. All over the world, local groups of citizens have banded together to make positive changes in their communities. This is certainly true in West Virginia, where our environment has such great ecological, scenic, historic and mineral value, it puts us on the front lines of the environmental culture war.

But although we’ve had some important victories in this struggle, too often they are only a temporary success, lasting until a little money changes hands in the legislature, or an appeals court negates a ruling. And in the meantime, environmental incursions spring up on other fronts that also require the attention of already thinly-stretched activists. Looking globally, we cannot say we are saving the world.

To the contrary. When the majority of living winners of the Nobel Science Prize joined thousands of their comrades in 1993 to sign a "World Scientists Warning to Humanity," they said we only had a couple of decades to reverse the technological path we were on to avoid incomprehensible climate fury. But eight years later, Bush the Sequel is gearing up to step on the gas; global warming is already happening and speeding up; oceans are dying; water is disappearing; and we live in the middle of the Sixth Extinction.

If we lived in some other nation, we could perhaps escape our responsibility. But we reside here in the heart of the beast -- the voracious smoky engine driving global climate change -- and if we don’t act soon, the world could die. A decent respect for the opinions of humankind, present and future, requires that we take our appointed place on the wheel of time, and deal directly with the destiny that fate has dealt us.

So here’s my suggestion: in addition to thinking globally and acting locally, we also need to think locally and act globally.

What does this mean in practice? To start with, it means rejecting what philosopher William Irwin Thompson calls "the American replacement of nature," by opening our eyes to our immediate surroundings and neighborhoods, and seeing how what is going on here is related to what is happening globally.

It means reclaiming geography, the missing link in American political culture since the demise of precinct-level machine politics. It means, ideally, a new form of neo-tribalism -- bands of citizens living within walking distance of each other’s homes, linked into affinity groups and tribes and clans and bioregional and global confederations, working together on the common and inseparable goal of ecological and social justice.

The problem is, how do we get there from here? And what is our strategic goal?

As those who attended the international progressive gathering at Porte Allegre in Brazil learned, you have to use democratic means if you want to achieve democratic ends. And we all know by this point that, the smaller the scale, the better democracy works. The basic idea of American democracy was the town meeting, not network talking heads.

It seems to me that organizing an international movement of people committed to social and environmental justice -- and an international movement is the necessary response to this corruptly "globalized" political economy -- means that people have to begin organizing on every level simultaneously, from the global to the local.

The strategic goal should be to organically transform the political culture of every nation to reflect the values of protecting the environment and safeguarding the future; to recognize the sanctity, delicacy and oneness of the Earth; to do justice and show mercy; to heal the sick; to teach children and comfort the afflicted; and to return sovereignty to the people. Four in five respondents to an annual Business Week survey agreed that "corporations have too much control" in our American corporate democracy. The jig is up, and people are on our side.

The idea of a "constitutional revolution" implies that those doing the revolving will use existing democratic institutions to effect the desired changes in government. Fortunately, that avenue is still open to us, and offers enormous opportunity -- not only because the 2000 presidential election resulted in the largest center-left majority in decades; but because the half of the electorate who feel too disenfranchised to vote are younger, poorer and more socially libertarian than those who do vote, and so a rich field for a justice movement to harvest.

But there’s going to have to be better coordination among progressives in future elections than there was in 2000 for there to be any hope of radical change. Organizing will have to take place at every level, and electoral strategies will have to be more carefully defined.

As an unintended consequence of Bush’s "election," there’s already more coordination happening inside the Beltway, where labor, environmental, women and civil rights groups have been working together in opposition to Bush initiatives. However, in the short term, there also needs to be more emphasis on coordinating local activities, and connecting those with common goals from the national to the neighborhood level. For example, even though I’m pretty well hooked up in cyberspace, I don’t have a chapter of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy in my neighborhood. I feel this lack as a real void in my social capital. But if I did have a chapter here, would we be coordinating activities with the union local?

At the state level, organizations can serve more of a liaison role connecting national headquarters to local groups. This can be difficult when there are only one or two paid staff members in the whole state; but that’s why it’s important to encourage active participation at the grassroots level. It’s also why setting up local affinity groups as the basic building blocks of a confederated progressive movement -- think of it as a provisional government -- is critical to the movement’s success. We must reconnect with geographic space, and use it as leverage.

There is also potential at the state level to strengthen national alliances among progressives. We have a particularly unique opportunity in this state to help forge a closer working relationship between labor and environmentalists. With the goals of coal miners and greens seemingly so at odds, finding the common ground that will bring these two groups together could do much to advance the agendas of both. It could also be revolutionary.

That’s where I’ll pick up the discussion next month.