Change your inner life and change the world

`Be the change you want to see in the world.’ For every pair of sneakers it sells, emblazoned with Gandhi’s immortal words, shoe company TOMS will buy a pair of shoes for a shoeless child in the developing world. Such compassion in action helps ensure this most powerful rally cry amounts to more than just an overworked aphorism on a postcard, button badge, t-shirt or tattoo.

But how often do we take the time to actually consider the real implications of what Gandhi meant?

Is it possible that what he really meant was not only to act in the direction of our dreams, but also to consider that it’s who we are – who we are being – when we act that actually creates the conditions in which a better society can grow? If so then we must by default also consider which parts of the environmental movement itself represent the change we want to see in the world.

To what extent does the embittered vengefulness of some globalisation protesters, whose violence steals the headlines and skews the public image of a movement otherwise committed to non-violence, reflect the change we want to see? Not to mention the environmental campaigners who still so often describe their struggle...

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