Earth911 Podcast: Discover Kuni, Japan's Urban-Rural Connection, with Author Richard McCarthy

<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/urban-suburban-and-rural-residents-views-on-key-social-and-political-issues/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Urban-rural</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3838706/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">youth-elder</a> divisions in society represent some of the most difficult challenges to having a robust conversation about how to reduce emissions and waste, what we value as a society, and the path to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society. A just future will be <a href="https://earth911.com/home-garden/seek-community-share-resources/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">codesigned by all of us</a> to some extent, but we need to reconnect to move from division to collaboration. Richard McCarthy, coauthor of <i>Kuni, A Japanese Vision and Practice for Urban-Rural Reconnection</i> with Tsuyoshi Sekihara discusses how to restore social connections. Richard is the cofounder of <a href="https://www.crescentcityfarmersmarket.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Crescent City Farmers Market</a> in New Orleans and was part of the leadership of Slow Food USA for many years.<br /><br />Kuni is an ancient word in Japanese that means “a nation” or “a small, independent ancient community. Tsuyoshi Sekihara developed the modern practice of kuni when he moved to a village after more than a decade in Tokyo, the world’s largest city. He found older people living in a dying village with little support or hope and decided to develop a democratic governance model for building urban-rural networks of people committed to having egalitarian, sustainable relationships with one another and the earth. You can learn more about Richard and Kuni at <a href="https://thinklikepirates.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://thinklikepirates.com/</a> <i>Kuni, A Japanese Vision and Practice for Urban-Rural Reconnection</i> is available from <a href="https://amzn.to/3XtCf4A" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopen