Being realistic is what got us into this mess, Earth Pilgrim warns

[struggle4progress]

Satish Kumar has spent decades walking the Earth to connect with nature; now he wants environmentalists to forget gloomy predictions and follow in his footsteps

By John Vidal
THE GUARDIAN, DEVON, ENGLAND
Saturday, Jan 19, 2008, Page 9

... Forty-six years ago, when he was 19, Satish Kumar was sitting in a southern Indian cafe with a friend when they heard that 90-year-old English philosopher Bertrand Russell was going to prison as a protest against the spread of nuclear weapons.

As Kumar tells it, the two companions were so impressed by Russell's commitment to non-violence and civil disobedience, and so appalled at the potential destructive power of the weapons, that they "talked and talked" about what they could do.

In the end, Kumar, who had been trained, as a wandering Jain monk, to revere nature, but who had run away from the monastery to become a disciple of Vinoba Bhave, Gandhi's spiritual successor, vowed with his companion to set off on a peace walk to the four corners of the nuclear world -- Washington, London, Paris and Moscow -- as an act of protest and non-violence.

Thirty months and almost 13,000km later, carrying no passport or money and having no idea what would happen when he finished, Kumar ended up at John F. Kennedy's grave in the US. The pilgrimage was over and, on one level, there was nothing to show for their effort. The world had more nuclear weapons than ever, and Kumar and his companion had worn out dozens of pairs of shoes ...

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/01/19/2003397942