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Jim’s Story:

When a young arms dealer discovers his work is harming families in less affluent societies, he has an ethical crisis and begins a decades-long journey to redeem himself and make the world a better place. SAVING WALDEN’S WORLD is a revealing new film following Jim Merkel as he raises Walden, a budding scientist, in an off-the-grid homestead and wonders: could the very people his past-life’s work targeted, hold the keys to a sustainable planet?

A journey ensues, meeting powerful women who reshape society to work for all. Far from affluent utopias, Kerala, Cuba and Slovenia offer women free college, access to contraception, maternity leave, childcare, dentistry and healthcare. Services unimaginable in much of Jim’s blue-collar America.

As earth temperatures soar, the stakes couldn’t get higher.

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Powerful women reduce infant mortality, poverty and family size while increasing longevity.

Gender Equality & Sustainability

Immerse yourself in this intimate father-son exploration of a global shift, where personal and collective decisions about procreation and consumption ripple through generations, resulting in fewer yet healthier children.

Our story uncovers how:

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Land reform, literacy and universal higher education dramatically increase well-being.

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Family planning, child care and public health programs yielded results similar to advanced European social democracies in "poor" societies.

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Many of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals were achieved by empowered women.

Some were not pleased.

Declassified documents reveal covert plots to undo these efforts.

  • Societies that enacted agrarian reforms faced military intervention — to control land and labor.
  • Programs aimed to lower poverty and expand education were targeted as “socialist.”
  • Jim became entangled in this “Secret Government” exposed in a 1987 Bill Moyers documentary.

Imagine…

the world’s wealthy consume less,

the poor exit poverty,

fewer — yet healthier children are born,

easing extinctions, hunger and climate change.

A self-reinforcing cycle where all win.

A Spiritual Emergency

About the director & the film

The 1987 Iran Contra hearings exposed how the KL-43 that I help design was used by Ollie North to illegally arm dictators favorable to US business interests. Two years later, I watched T.V. coverage of the EXXON Valdez oil spill in a bar-room in Stockhlom while marketing the KL-43. Something snapped.

I began questioning everything.

Along the way I wrote “Radical Simplicity” as a way to learn and share ways of living in harmony with this miraculous planet.

  • Can my daily life ease gender violence, inequality, poverty, climate change, white supremacy… the 6th extinction?
  • Can I leave a healing planet and society for the world’s children?
 

Blog

7 Great Reasons to Cycle this Earth Day

With Earth Day upon us, I’m thinking of Slovenia, and the dividends from decades of programs that ensure all citizens have a right to a decent quality of life. As I cycle the network from cities to countryside, and met with movers and shakers, another world seemed more possible.

US Embargo Against Cuba Squander 17 Sustainable Development Goals

Cuba’s decades of remarkable progress toward the 17 sustainable development goals are being squandered by US foreign policy and cold war ideology. This week’s headlines about Cuba’s food and fuel shortages and frustrated citizens is heart wrenching. News channels and “experts” have several narratives, to either lay blame on Cuba or on the US.

Is Feminism Sexy or for Everybody?

Looking for more substance on feminism on International Women’s Day, Women’s History Month, I looked up the life of the late writer bell hooks.  Her title “Feminism is for Everybody” caught my attention. I’d not heard of bell hooks or read any of her some 40 books, but once I started to dig in, wow. Hooks writes, “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.”

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Fascinating Ideas that all sides can agree on

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How will we live tomorrow?

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Vt. Engineer Designs A Good Life for $5,000 a Year

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