The phrase "Think globally, act locally" or "Think global, act local" has been used in various contexts, including town planning, environment, and business.
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"Think globally, act locally" urges people to consider the health of the entire planet and to take action in their own communities and cities. Long before governments began enforcing environmental laws, individuals were coming together to protect habitats and the organisms that live within them. These efforts are referred to as grassroots efforts. They occur on a local level and are primarily run by volunteers and helpers.
The original phrase "Think global, act local" has been attributed to Scots town planner and social activist Patrick Geddes.[1] Although the exact phrase does not appear in Geddes' 1915 book "Cities in Evolution,"[2] the idea (as applied to city planning) is clearly evident: " 'Local character' is thus no mere accidental old-world quaintness, as its mimics think and say. It is attained only in course of adequate grasp and treatment of the whole environment, and in active sympathy with the essential and characteristic life of the place concerned."[3]
The first use of the phrase in an environmental context is disputed. Some say it was coined by David Brower,[4] founder of Friends of the Earth, as a slogan for FOE[5] when it was founded in 1969, although others attribute it to Rene Dubos[6] who originated it as an advisor to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. Canadian "futurist" Frank Feather also chaired a conference called "Thinking Globally, Acting Locally" in 1979 and has claimed the paternity of the expression.[7] Others suggested that this phrase is coined by French theologian Jacques Ellul.[8] Other possible originators include Buckminster Fuller, Hazel Henderson, and American activist Saul Alinsky. Others suggested that this phrase is coined by American sociologist Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy in the 1960's or earlier, or by artist Yoko Ono.[9] Ono did say the phrase in a 1981 interview but did not claim to have invented the phrase or the concept.
Pauly Shore uses the term in the spoof film Bio-Dome.[10]
The term was increasingly applied to initiatives in international education and was advanced by Stuart Grauer in his 1989 University of San Diego publication, Think Globally, Act Locally: A Delphi Study of Educational Leadership Through the Development of International Resources in the Local Community. In this publication it was attribed to Harlan Cleveland.[11]
The term is also used in business strategy, where multinational corporations are encouraged to build local roots. This is sometimes expressed by converging the words "global" and "local" into the single word "glocal," a term used by several companies (notably Sony Corporation and other major Japanese multinationals) in their advertising and branding strategies in the 1980s and 1990s.
The phrase is an in-joke among mathematicians, as it is often used in situations where the global structure of an object (e.g., a manifold, a Diophantine equation, or a group) can be inferred from the local structure. (See Hasse principle for a detailed description of one such example.)