November/December 1985 RAIN Page 17 assuring more participation by individuals and less concentration of power in a few remote and unresponsive bodies and offices. It increases efficiency by allowing government to be more sensitive and flexible, recognizing and adjusting to new conditions, new demands from the populace it serves. It advances welfare because at the smaller scales it is able to measure people's needs best and to provide for them more quickly, more cheaply, and more accurately. And, because of all that, it actually improves security because, unlike the big and bumbling megastates vulnerable to instability and alienation, it fosters the sort of cohesiveness and allegiance that discourages crime and disruption within and discourages aggression and attack from without. Even if we haven't modern experience to ratify it entirely, the logic certainly suggests that becuase biore- gional governance stands in a direct and vital relation to the natural environment and its resources, and because it can deal with a population of cultural and ecological homogeneity, it can do more effectively for the populace those things that governments are supposed to do. □ □ ACCESS: Bioregionalism “Bioregionalism," special issue of The Tarrytown Letter, September 1984, inquire for price from: The Tarrytown Letter PO Box 509 Academic Building Sawmill Road West Haven, CT 06516 This special issue contains an interview with Thomas Berry, bioregional ideas from "post-Schumacher thinkers" Kirkpatrick Sale and Jane Jacobs, and various ideas for the Hudson River bioregion, including a proposal to bring commuter ferries back to the Hudson. —FLS "Bioregionalism and World Order," special issue of Breakthrough, Spring/ Summer 1985, $3 from: Global Education Associates 552 Park Avenue East Orange, NJ 07017 Breakthrough is usually concerned with questions of world order. In this special issue, it seeks to integrate the bioregional perspective into the world order framework, seeing both of these levels as necessary in facing the problems inherent in the nation-state. "The nation-state is too large a unit to solve some problems; and too small to solve others. Bioregionalism is a response to the too-largeness. World order inititiatives are a response to the too-smallness." The issue contains an insightful essay by Thomas Berry, a few essays on the application of bioregional principles to specific places, a short essay on ecological politics by David Haenke, a statement of the ten key values of Green politics in America, and an extended reader exchange on the subject of bioregionalism. A bibliography on bioregionalism and related subjects is included. —FLS
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