Herein is almost everything I have published in backwards chronological order. I have been in the environmental movement both professionally and as a grassroots activist for more than 50 years. You will find thousands of great ideas in these pages. If you’d like a crash course in the environmental movement, this website is for you. If you want to understand violence and nonviolence, the Wycliffe book is for you. May my work over the decades help you in whatever work you choose to do to protect and preserve life on Earth.
I have not created this site to be interactive but you can reach me at ionaconner@pa.net. Thank you for being here with me now, so to speak!
As a nurse, I watched people dying prematurely of cancer. As an air pollution inspector in the middle of New Jersey, I was inside factories writing violations and bringing polluting corporations to court. As an employee of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Hazardous Waste Management, I was a one-woman road show carting slides and huge posters of hazardous waste sites and a car full of non-toxic products to educate people about ways in which traditional consumer activities help create toxic dump sites.
John and I started a worker-owned cooperative with a handful of women who designed and made clothes using organic cotton grown in the U.S. and selling those garments (plus items from other socially responsible companies) in churches and universities. Then we switched our emphasis to climate change. Our shared vision was to work with people to create a more just and loving world. I published global warming newspapers for 15 years and am currently promoting my book about Violence titled Why Was Wycliffe Beaten to Death? So many reasons for violence; how many reasons for love?
When I transitioned from newspaper publisher to book author, I sent this to my newspaper subscribers:
As I type this, I think of the wonderfully different personalities and activities of my readers. Each one of you is precious to me whether you know it or not. And so, I keep going because I care deeply about the fate of the Earth and our shared destiny. I’ll be taking a 3-month break from publishing so that I can work on this while I’m taking Derrick Jensen’s 3-month writing class, hoping to come back stronger.
Love, Iona
Note: Little did I know that this “3-month break from publishing” might be permanent.