In addition to highlighting positive solutions, it is important to keep in mind that people’s situations and perspectives are different. We all have different passions or priorities. One size or one approach does not fit all. Therefore, we need to integrate our green justice and Regeneration messages with the specific issues and concerns that are most important to grassroots constituencies, and then lay out, in everyday language, a strategy that makes people understand that we can actually solve the problems they care about the most, while also solving a host of other pressing problems at the same time. Only by starting from where people are at, and then connecting the dots, can we capture the attention and imagination of a critical mass of the global grassroots and get them to start thinking about how they can participate in our new Movement and new economy.

Objective and subjective conditions for change are different in every country in the world, and to some extent differ as well in the sub-regions and local communities of these 195 countries. Everyday people everywhere, including the most impoverished and vulnerable communities, have their burning issues as well as their secondary issues, and an inherent desire to alleviate and, if possible, solve the problems that are pressing down on them, in many cases threatening their very survival. In the activist community, major focus areas, in most cases reflecting the concerns of everyday people, include inflation and the high cost of living, freedom of choice and Constitutional liberties, climate change, environmental pollution, health, social justice, jobs and economic justice, peace, and democracy. Unfortunately, campaigners, both on the local and national/international levels, often work in isolation from other sectors, each in their own separate silos. This perpetuates tunnel vision in the body politic, parochial or sectarian attitudes, political polarization, and an overall weakness in global civil society.

Like most of you, we at OCA and Regeneration International are sick and tired of gloom and doom, false promises, and authoritarian/technocratic schemes. We’ve had enough of the mad science, genetic engineering, war-mongering, fear-mongering, political corruption, corporate greed, cancel culture, and media censorship.  We’re tired of political posturing and sectarianism (“my issue or my constituency is more important than your issue or your constituency”). We’re done with name-calling and yelling at one another instead of sitting down and figuring out how we, the 99%, can move forward on real solutions for the U.S. and the world’s most pressing and dangerous crises—while agreeing to disagree on many of the secondary issues that will likely still divide us for the foreseeable future.

I like to call this ecumenical approach '21st Century Populism,' even though the liberal and conservative Establishment want us to believe that grassroots populism is a dirty word, a synonym for intolerance and unlettered ignorance. But as Thomas Frank points out in his 2020 book, The People No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism, nearly everything we hear about populism in the mass media is wrong. For many, "populism" is seen as a frightening thing, a term pundits use to describe the racist statements of politicians such as Donald Trump and European extremists.

Will Harris, a regenerative farmer in Georgia, is an inspirational example of how to convert from conventional to regenerative agriculture and thrive.

There’s a buzz around regenerative organic agriculture, says Elizabeth Whitlow, executive director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA). Farmers, scientists, big food companies, and even the U.S. government are paying keen attention to soil—its health, its availability, and its huge potential to repair a “broken” agricultural system and help alleviate the dire impacts of global warming.