Local educator Bert Cohen, co-founder of the Portsmouth Sustainability Initiative, has been selected by the Bahá’ís of the Greater Seacoast Area to receive the 2007 Sarah Farmer Peace Award. He will accept the award during a ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 22, in recognition of the United Nations’ International Day of Peace.

The Sarah Farmer Peace Award “recognizes the contributions of area individuals and groups who take effective local action to promote world peace and understanding among nations and members of the human family.”  Sarah Jane Farmer was the 19th century founder of the Green Acre Conferences in Eliot, Maine, where the first peace flag in the world was hoisted in 1894. The award gives Cohen a chance to generate larger conversations about our community system and peace.

The public is invited to the award ceremony, which will include jazz and discussion, at Green Acre’s Kelsey Center on Route 103 in Eliot at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. Cohen will take part in a weekend-long conference on sustainability that coincides with the award presentation.

When Bert Cohen begins talking about peace, he brings to mind the root etymology of the word sustain: to hold up, support, endure. It is difficult to imagine what an enduring peace might look like. Cohen’s 40 years of teaching and 70 years of living reflect a combination of joy, consciousness and will. He understands that peace won’t manifest itself. Peacemaking is a process that comes from personal reflection, consciousness, exploration and empathy for other human beings and natural systems.

“We’re all learning as we move forward, for ourselves and our children’s futures,” Cohen said during a recent interview with The Wire. After reflecting and learning, people must head out into the world with a clear plan of action.

Cohen has spent much of the last two decades teaching courses on systems theory and sustainability. “How do we become the best teacher?” Cohen asked. “We teach who we are. We’re integrated systems. When we look at the world and issues of peace, we explore it as an integrated system. When the system is efficient and fair, we build and sustain important social relationships.” Hence, in a system that’s out of balance, says Cohen, “scarcity of basic resources means responding, as a system, to resolve conflicts in complex ways so we can all get what we need to survive.”

Knowing yourself helps you forge an identity as a citizen. “If we are to live generatively in the present, to be full, happy, present human beings, we must be conscious of how to create peace, starting with ourselves,” Cohen said.

Cohen has been involved in a number of important forums about sustainable practices in Portsmouth, including development of a 10-year master plan, participating in the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Sustainable Practices and collaborating in a program of study circles called Portsmouth Listens. Gleanings of accumulated wisdom acquired during these experiences and dialogues helped Cohen and Skye Maher co-found the Piscataqua Sustainability Initiative, aimed at generating conversations on sustainability.

The program began when a dozen people came together to form an eight-week study group and initiate an inquiry, generating questions about self and community. “It was an organic, self-energizing process, getting to know folks and getting folks to know their neighborhoods,” Cohen said.

Their text for exploring sustainability issues was “The Natural Step for Communities.” Its accompanying study guide was written in Minnesota. The group began to revise and adapt that study guide specifically to the Seacoast, which has its own regional context, population density, unique climate and other issues.

The group visited Portsmouth’s new “green” public library to see sustainable ideas and energy conservation methods in practice. A second study circle continued the inquiry. They further revised the study guide and talked about how to bring this style of inquiry to a wider audience. The third study group served as a prototype, an experimental practice class, if you will. They polished questions and practiced facilitating the inquiry process.

PSI aspires to create a common will to move sustainability forward in the Piscataqua region. The goal is to build a constituency through education. A study circle launch will be held at Portsmouth Public Library on Saturday, Sept. 29 at 10 a.m. That morning, PSI hopes to sign up 50 to 100 people to commit to eight-week study circles of eight to 10 people. Participation is free (aside from the cost of a book). The facilitated groups will provide an extended forum to “get to know each other, to dialogue about issues of sustainability that are important to our community,” Cohen said.

“The study circles offer a structure. They make this opportunity formal and practicable by providing a focus and a framework.” The PSI Web site, www.thepsi.net, outlines some important issues and considerations to be addressed.

PSI’s methodology is to look at cause and effect relationships to begin a personal inquiry into sustainability. Personal consciousness is then diligently applied to explore sustainable systems: Start by identifying a particular problem or event, then look for a pattern that infers an imbalance. Lastly, a hypothesis about what might be causing the imbalance is developed and sustainable practices to correct or balance the system are applied. For example, if toxic algae blooms appear in a body of water, it might indicate increased runoff from unsustainable agricultural practices. Looking deeper, the agricultural practices might be the result of an increased need for food due to population growth or density. Compromised water quality, therefore, is one of the myriad indirect consequences of unsustainable population growth. Greater emphasis on sustainable practices could mitigate those consequences, and even begin to address other imbalances.

Cohen asserts that humans are integrated systems. Hence, we can balance ourselves and move that balance outward. If a lack of personal balance can create lack of peace of mind, then certainly a lack of balance in our environment can create lack of peace among nations. How can we address that lack in order to balance the world as a system?

“Empathy is daily work,” Cohen said. “To build empathy and compassion creates peace—peace in the world, peace in our community, peace within ourselves.”