Gardening and tree planting community projects that kids get in on from a very early age, that is the answer.

Let them feel that connection to nature when the feelings that will predominate through their while lives are developing.

As the sprol article about prisons in america pointed out, the uS has just surpassed russia for percentage of population incarcerated.

Why?  Mandatory sentencing in the drug war.  Get rid of the drug war and things will change.

Efforts are underway in my community as well.  Focusing on areas that have had high crime and dropout rates in the past.

So far it's unofficial and of course running up against official roadblocks, although individual teachers love the idea.

The volunteers working on it also volunteer in the school, it really helps get more individual attention to kids since class sizes are continually getting larger as teachers are layed off to save money.

Federal tax dollars that used to come back to local communities are now going to bushco inc. contractors to run torture and murder squads to "free" the people of Iraq (from their oil).

This is a profound interview:  understated, precise, and devastating.  Apollo Alliance connects green jobs with disenfranchised communities in its vision, but where does that vision get articulated in living terms, from the point of view of individuals who experience the reality of environmental injustice first hand? Right here.  Grist couldn't get more relevant than this.  Now what about hosting an online forum for the kind of collaborative talking through of these painful realities that Khaleaph Luis points to as the first step towards expanding public awareness to prepare for effective transformative action?

Jail spin made my head spin.....Really powerful stuff....Adrienne Maree Brown really woke me up with that article....And I really admire the two interviewees because it takes a lot of nerve to stand up and speak your mind from within any institution....not to mention from a prison institution....I would like say something about what I have seen in my own country......Many years previous Scottish families and communities where driven from their lands by ruthless landlords in a historical moment called the Highland Clearances.  This served two purposes, it freed land for sheep production and it provide a huge amount of cheap labour to fuel industrial workhouses in the cities.  Many people left on boats for greener pastures e.g. the States and Canada (to name a few countries)some stayed and accepted their industrial fate.  

Several generations later the workhouses and factories are closed and the offspring from these indigenious Scottish and Irish people have been born into, and have been growing up in, crime ridden housing schemes and concrete jungle type environs.   Many children pass to adulthood with no inkling of their own humanity as they have been denied all contact with the natural world.  Them, like everyone else require an interaction with the natural world in order to sense their place within the wider natural world.  It is clear that being denied this natural experience has resulted in many nihilistic tendancies within the general psyche obviously resulting in drug taking, violence and criminal activity.  People have lost their natural purpose.  However steps are being taken, by some Scottish organisations, to reconnect the people to their forgotten past and the traditional skills that where once used by the ancient communities and forefathers.  This takes the form of working with natural materials including wood and stone and basket making materials.  Work involves sculpture and crafts and ultimately the construction of boats from timber.  And, I am not taking about small boats I am taking about master crafted 30ft and soon 90ft sailing craft.  The theory behind these organisations is to reconnect the person to him or her self by allowing them expression through sculpture and art.  This helps build self confidence and allows one to interact and learn from and to trust in others and their judgement.  It also encourages the person to connect to nature, the provider, as the woodlands and landscape are the place that the necessary materials ultimately come from.  A point that is emphasised from the beginning of the education. Using the timber from local forest also sparks an appreciation of the natural world and the human need and dependance on it.  Many jail bound and drug using individuals are benefiting from this type of activity to the greater good of family and community alike.

  Imagine for one moment that you are one of those lost souls without a feeling of purpose in life with no prospects and most people you know are leading criminally orientated lifes. One day you are sitting considering your next jail term, away from the light of day, and then by some sort of miracle one year later you are on a large wooden boat that you have helped create.  You going somewhere beautiful with people you trust and admire. By chance you just happen to spy a salmon as it leaps from the water not 10ft away from the hull.  Can you imagine the impact of that wonderful experience on the individual. With his or her humanity restored the individual starts to ask questions like 'how can I start to benefit the natural world and those around me?. It may be a bit of a cliche but think the world is a better place if just one person can benefit from this type of real world experience.  For what is the real world but the natural world and an awareness of mans role in it.  

Thank you for a vital conversation.  I agree it's important to "green" our local neighborhoods and cities as much as possible, so that nature is bigger part of our everyday life.  But let's also remember that when young people from the inner city (or anywhere) go to remote places of wild nature, it's not necessarily "something that belongs to somebody else."  America is filled with tens of millions of acres of beautiful public lands, from the Adirondacks to the Grand Canyon.  These places belong to everyone equally.  These places are the birthright of every child. Connecting with places like this can be tremendously inspiring and empowering, so that they can discover, as Luis so eloquently said, "all of that is you."  That's true on a spiritual level and also on a basic citizenship level - as an American, you're an equal co-owner.  And it's not just kids in the projects who need to partake of this.  Many of us are living in a self-imposed, spirit-starving TV/computer/pavement-saturated kind of prison (even if it's more comfortable than actual incarceration.)  The vast wonder of the natural world can help us all "break out" and also discover how much we all have in common -  equal in awe before such beauty.