Visit after visit, they've plucked pesky Scotch broom from the hillsides, and it occurs to them that they've won. Every mature plant is gone, a first for The Nature Conservancy's 41 Washington reserves, and a boon to the native golden paintbrush, a wildflower that grows here - and almost only here.

Some social surveyors see evidence that such small steps taken by large armies of people are creating a cultural shift in values in our society. Issues such as ecology, social justice and a rejection of materialism are quietly leaving the fringe and joining the mainstream, they say.

The Nature Conservancy, for instance, has so many volunteers that its paid staff works overtime setting up enough tasks to keep in front of them.

People may despair that they can't change the world, but enough are changing the way they live that it's making a difference overall.

A survey commissioned by The Merck Family Fund, a foundation that promotes environmental sustainability, found 28 percent of U.S. citizens voluntarily made changes in the past five years that resulted in a drop in income. They live more lightly now. They don't want bigger SUVs. They want time to spend with their families and their communities, including volunteering.

These people are not all New Agers, not all old hippies and not, as has been suggested, all from California.

Market researchers Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D.s who believe there may be as many as 50 million people in the U.S. who are realigning their lives to better reflect their values, call this group "Cultural Creatives."

These wide-ranging folks have lost faith in the large institutions of modern life, including both major political parties, according to Ray and Anderson, who've written a book, "Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World," based on 14 years of research.

So instead of working through those large institutions, these people get their own back yards in order - donating time, getting involved in local politics or, literally, putting in drought-friendly gardens instead of watering their lawns. They start with local and personal change and then look at their impact on the world: Does our need for cheap goods and high profits, for instance, create sweatshops in foreign countries and damage the environment?

Ray and Anderson argue that because the "creatives" don't see themselves reflected in the media or in government or corporate behavior, they tend to think of themselves as isolated.

"The ultimate revolution," says one observer, "is to realize there may be millions of people who share the same constellation of values."

Americans confront themselves

That observer is Sarah Ruth van Gelder, executive editor of "Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures."

From a quiet office on Bainbridge Island, van Gelder and her staff produce a quarterly magazine that starts by looking at the world's problems but then says: "OK, so what are people doing to make a difference?"

Last Earth Day, for example, "Yes!" looked at what to do about climate change and then gave away 25,000 copies to groups working on that issue.

Van Gelder's sponsoring group, the Positive Futures Network, a nonprofit group founded in 1996, believes we are in the midst of a historic shift in the way people view their life priorities, including the way they spend time and money.

The U.S. is the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world. Citing the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle as just one example, van Gelder says she sees people questioning the cost of keeping up our lifestyle - to the planet, society and our own well-being. "Americans on the whole are an enormously caring nation, so it's hard to come to terms with that," van Gelder says, "but I think people are coming to that understanding."

'Is this how I want to live?'

Here's how van Gelder sees mainstream America changing:

• The market for organic foods is growing 20 percent a year, she says.

• If, as the Merck Family Fund survey found, nearly 30 percent of Americans are voluntarily cutting back, it means they're questioning the message that they need to work more and buy more to be happy, she says.

• Alternative medicine, once on the fringe, is now a part of the overall health approach for many Americans and it's supported by insurance companies.

"People get sick and they get into acupuncture or changing their diet and they start questioning some of the assumptions that technology will fix everything," van Gelder observes.

• The self-help book phenomenon is proof that people are asking themselves: "Is this how I want to live? Is this how I want to be?"

From those first thoughts, people take from five to 15 years to align their values with how they live, according to researcher Ray.

"People don't leap into full-blown change," says Ray, who believes the whole greater consciousness movement is slow growing but up from 5 percent in the 1960s to about 26 percent of Americans today.

In their own back yards

There's no shortage of concern for the environment, but people don't know what to do about it, Ray says.

Sitting in the dark with the heat off is not the answer to our energy shortage. It's not so much doing without, he believes, as it is learning to live more efficiently.

That's true for households and especially true for corporations, government and other institutions.

In the 1970s, we were making dramatic improvements in energy efficiency, Ray says, and then we quit. As a society, we need to return to those thoughts.

"That's what Earth Day is all about," he says. "It's about changing our entire way of life to save the planet and ourselves."

The Nature Conservancy doesn't call its 1,700 volunteers "Cultural Creatives," but officials there see similar traits. Most of the volunteers live their values. Many feel a sense of disenfranchisement from national politics, but they still feel they can make a difference.

More than 500 people donated money so The Nature Conservancy could keep one of the state's best bluff trails at Ebey's Landing safe from potential development. That land is part of 20,000 acres the nonprofit group owns in Washington, where it has partnered to protect 320,000 more.

Volunteers grow at a rate of 10 to 15 a week with almost no outreach.

They aren't saving the world, but they are buying an acre of old-growth forest or replacing invasive weeds with native plants, which lures native birds.

"Instead of embracing cynicism, people are trying all the harder," says The Nature Conservancy's Leslie Brown. "At least that's what I see."

Copyright © 2001 The Seattle Times Company

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