Image credit: Rachel Bollen
A continuing blog which asks questions that might lead us to a deeper understanding of our predicament, and points to the power of bottom up change.
The baby-boomers – and I include myself – have ‘had it so good’. We’ve seen the warnings, and we’ve looked the other way. We’ve allowed ourselves to become trapped in a spiral of consumption and travel that destroys the biosphere and drives up inequality. We’ve told ourselves we’re doing enough by switching to hybrid/ electric cars, buying Fairtrade and carbon credits, and giving to charity. To put it kindly – we’ve become locked in; or more objectively – we haven’t acted responsibly according to the evidence in front of our eyes.
More and more, Gen-X and Gen-Y are urging us to listen, and they’re changing their behaviours too. They’re switching to eating vegan, refusing to buy foods wrapped in plastic, buying second hand clothes and giving up their cars and flying. This is necessary and essential, and we should all follow.
But is this personal change sufficient?
My reading and understanding suggests it isn’t. And that doesn’t mean I won’t be continuing to follow the example of Gen-XY. But I believe we need systemic change too, hence Changing Our Course.
Where We’re At
Right now many of us are also really concerned about the climate emergency, de-forestation and bio-diversity loss.
And if we have the time to think about it we’re concerned about soil erosion, the lowering of water tables through overuse in agriculture, the poisoning of our rivers with manure & fertilisers & weedkillers, massive over-fishing, the acidification of our oceans. In short, the industrial scale destruction of the biosphere that supports us all.
Some of us are concerned about the bursting of mining dams that seriously affect whole communities, the land grabs to grow industrial cash crops which drive sustainable peasant and indigenous communities into destitution, the massive migrations of people who can’t farm their land any more through overcrowding, climate change and poor agricultural practice, the wars that result from these migrations, and the wars for global dominance which destroy huge cities and whole nations.
And we’re all really concerned about UK policies which have brought about decreases in employment rights for people in casual, self-employed and zero hour work, driven the decline in our public services, schools and hospitals; lowering and restricting access to the welfare safety net; and yes, 72 people burning to death in the horrific Grenfell fire. And perhaps most importantly we’re worried about the restrictions on our right to protest.
And so the list goes on.
But these are all symptoms. Symptoms of a failing system in which we’re all stuck, with failing concepts and failing institutions, while we’re told fanciful stories (or even tell them ourselves) of how this same system will improve and survive. Think Brexit. Think “Global Britain”. Think “the Saudia Arabia of offshore wind”.
And yes there are malign individuals and groups who have cornered excessive wealth and power, but together we’ve created a system that is ‘locked in’ – and we have varying degrees of complicity.
We are indeed locked in – aka trapped in ‘vicious spirals’ – in many ways:
- Why do we all buy from the likes of Amazon when we know it directly leads to the decline of the high streets we all morn?
- Why did the Gilet Jaune start their demonstrations in Oct 2018 when Macron raised taxes to discourage fossil fuel usage for heating and travel?
- Why do we still eat meat, when we know it takes 25Kg of soy feed to produce on 1Kg of beef, and that growing that soy probably involves destruction of the Amazon rainforest – and not forgetting the cruelty involved?
- Why are we building new oil refineries when we know we’ve got to move away from fossil fueled travel?
- Why do oil refineries have to carry on delivering profits for 30 years?
Where We Might Be Heading?
I believe – as do many of the authors I’ve read – that we’re some considerable way through a 100 year transition as we search for a different, kinder, more sustainable way of living on this planet. Many suggest that this transition started with the publication of books like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, and the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth in 1972.
As part of this search we’ll need different stories about who we are, our relationship with each other and with nature – of which we’re an integral part. We’ll stop using stories like ‘conquering nature’, ‘economic growth being essential’, and ‘we humans are fundamentally selfish and competitive’. Jeremy Lent’s The Patterning Instinct argues convincingly for me that, throughout human existence, there are very clear connections between the stories we tell ourselves, and the way we relate to others, and to nature and the whole biosphere.
There are some (see this in The Guardian) who’ve understood all this and have concluded we’re destined for civilisational collapse and extinction of most humans. I agree there’s some probability of this, but believe we still have the opportunity of Changing Our Course.
It’s a bit rich – you might say – for me a retired baby-boomer – to be preaching all this. Well yes it is. But I am making changes, although perhaps not fast enough. So challenge me to go faster! But I have had the luxury of time to read and think and write over the last eight years.
And What to Expect
This continuing blog will aim to ask questions that might lead us to a deeper understanding of our predicament, and hopes to show how bottom up change (along with top down change) can be so powerful, especially at moments of crisis. It will tell of my journey to these understandings, along with stories of grassroots initiatives. It will start to imagine how all these different small initiatives might come together to form a new future based on a different set of stories, values, behaviours and institutions.
Do please comment on the assertions I make, Do please come back and read more.
And to find out a bit more about me, checkout the About pages.
Let’s start together in Changing Our Course!
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
Arundhati Roy