Wednesday, October 30, 2019

 

The Whole of a Life


Taking the time to deeply and irrevocably connect with the earth can take the whole of a life. (Tara Houska, Anishinaabe) I spent the first part of my life being formed in elite institutions into a scientifically literate citizen, with tools of analysis that led to a PhD in interdisciplinary humanities. Though I spent time outdoors, most of my connection to the earth was through fantasy, and most forays ended in the comfort of home, or at least with a well-stocked backpack. I have more or less spent the whole of a life becoming a privileged white man and a highly educated elitist. On the other hand, I have had a passion for earthcare since the first Earth Day, and quit academia at the Millennium to dedicate myself (imperfectly) to educating about climate science and trying to help awaken others to the global ecological crisis. But am I truly awake?

In the early days, I anchored each presentation by teaching some basic climate science. Later, I would give a quick summary of the crisis, giving the latest climate news. But what was always most effective was leading group interactions around feelings and values in response to these momentous changes, especially doing grief work, and explorations into deep time. But I have yet to dedicate to deeply and irrevocably connect with the earth, and certainly have not given my whole life to it.

Once, when I gathered Celo Friends Meeting to pray for the safety of the water keepers at Standing Rock as they faced eviction by the state police, spirit came upon me and I rose to plead that we all adopt our local places as sacred, worth defending with every means available. No, I and my listeners are not natives to this place, where we displaced the Cherokee (Gaduah). We are a nomadic, opportunistic species, and I am a European colonialist. As my respected friend/sage Joe Hollis has said for decades, we are a species that has lost its niche, wandering uprooted in our technological play-world. As Joe says, "We have replaced natural diversity with human diversity." But setting a deep intention to honor our places as sacred, and renewing it daily, is profoundly different from the admonition from some environmental groups to "do one thing for the Earth each day."

I cast my lot with Greta Thunberg and the millions of young people rising up all over the planet. The science speaks loudly, but not loudly enough to reach the reactionary forces on the rise worldwide. We can only hope that as the wave of strikes increases, it will finally overwhelm an over-civilized world which prefers the illusory comfort of business-as-usual to living in daily deep connection to the Earth. It is quite probable that these strikes will not bring change fast enough to avoid climate catastrophe, but the effort has dignity and nobility and courage.

More importantly, I have recently connected with Cherokee (Gaduah) elders, and come to recognize just how sacred is the valley I inhabit, and the majestic massif overlooking it, the Black Mountains. This land was their gods. I am humbled by this, and I will spend my elder years going as far into these mountains as I am able, sometimes without provisions, so that I may listen more deeply. Whatever happens to global civilization and our species during this sixth great extinction, the Earth will endure, and so will the gods in this land. No matter the circumstances, it can take the whole of a life.


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# posted by Robert McGahey @ 4:05 PM 0 Comments

Wednesday, October 09, 2019

 

What Do We Do Now?


What does an awakened world do now? Some of us have been awake to the climate crisis a long time, and more people awaken with every new crisis. The problem is that as the masses awaken - right now it's the world's youth, with their climate strikes - reactionary forces harden their positions. For decades now, my sunny liberal friends have pointed to the political cycle involved here, confident that our time will come. But time is now at the brink of running out. It is tempting to summarize the kinds of things that a rational world needs to do to stop catastrophic climate change before we pass the brink. Alas, the world is not rational, and unless the strikes go viral and we shut down the whole system, those entrenched reactionary forces - especially Trump and Bolsonaro - are going to tip the world into runaway climate disruption.

Because climate change is a global threat to one interconnected earth system, we need internationalism more than ever before. A strong network of treaties and the potential of leading by example given in the Paris Climate Accord is the only way we will be able to turn back imminent catastrophe. This accord should have been a treaty, with real enforceable measures, but the entrenched obstructionism of the Republican Party in the US forced a different kind of agreement, relying on the psychology of peer pressure. If the major polluters were all committed to this approach, it would have a very small chance of working. The reactionary wave convulsing the world is either very poor timing, or the death-knell of a failed species.

Eschewing air travel, my hero Greta Thunberg (photo, above) sailed to New York on a solar-powered sailboat to boost the school strikes she inspired September 20 and 27, and to address the UN climate summit September 23. Since she started the school strike movement a year ago, each strike has grown in numbers. I attended the strike September 20 in Asheville, NC, along with my grandsons, aged 13 and 11. About 500 were present, roughly half of them students. It was organized by Sunrise, and all of the speakers were young women, mostly from Asheville area high schools. They held a die-in for 11 minutes, tolling a gong for each year leading up to 2030, which the latest IPCC report gives as our deadline to turn back the climate beast or lose that possibility forever. Four million struck worldwide that day, and another two million on the 27th. Meanwhile, at the Summit, Greta gave her most impassioned, angry speech yet. 

But true to its past record, the summit produced very little progress in advancing the Paris Accord. Trump blew in for 15 minutes, and had nothing to say about climate. Greta Thunberg stood just yards away from him, and gave him a withering stare. Trump chose, instead of addressing the Paris Accord- from which he has withdrawn our country- to give a speech on the importance of religious liberty. With the Amazon still burning, Bolsonaro preposterously denied the fires, emphasizing Brazil's right to develop as it pleased.

The only progress came from the business community. At a separate site, 87 businesses, representing 15% of the world's stock market value, pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 (Amazon by 2040). Unfortunately, these companies represent only 2% of the world's carbon, whereas the 100 energy giants account for 70% of emissions (Economist, 9/28).

Led by Michael Bloomberg, the Climate Finance Leadership Initiative (CFLI), pledged to invest $20 billion over the next five years (Economist). However, trillions are needed, so the main accomplishment of this organization is to model the attraction of its strategies for removing risk from renewable energy investments. Overall, the rich nations - with the exception of some small countries in Northern Europe- are being stingy with their commitment to helping poor nations leapfrog into a carbon neutral lifestyle. this is a disturbing and consistent pattern in face of the climate emergency.

Greta's infective passion is inspired by science, and she consults with her climate scientist friends before every public speech, to make sure she gets it right. But I have often pointed out that we are driven by the limbic system more than the later evolutionary development of the neocortex. Accordingly, we are more convinced by the most satisfying story, not by facts, figures and graphs. In Greta's case, it's her remarkable story that grabs us more than the alarming facts she cites. She's deep into the Asperger's spectrum, and this helps her be unshakable in her ferocious tenacity in decrying the cynical stone-heartedness of the world's leaders as they refuse to respond to the climate crisis.

Even the scientists undercut the rational results of their climate research. A study by Naomi Oreskeset al illustrates the power of social pressure, which "healthy" individuals respond to (Greta doesn't), which results in scientists consistently underestimating climate damage. Fearful of the rule of the mob, the IPCC repeatedly understates its case. So, sadly, the story-line of 11 years for a global Green New Deal, which Greta highlights in her speeches, is the result of just this waffling; the situation is much more dire. Rationalism and the acceptance of facts, with agreed methods of verification, could have perhaps saved us from climate doom, but as Schopenhauer pointed out, the mind is a puny little creature riding on the shoulders of a powerful giant, the will.

We are not rationalists, yet radical doubt has propelled us too far to go back to the direct, childlike experience like the tribal man in Northeast India, who responded to news of climate change from a fellow villager who had gone off to college, "Stop talking like that. Dont' you know you are offending our mother, the Earth? How dare you speak such slander?" LINK: Dark Mountain. Tara Houska, a Minnesota Anishinaabe lawyer, points out that 70% of the world's wilderness is defended by First Nations. In an article on learning to listen to true elders, she remarks, Taking the time to deeply and irrevocably connect with the earth can take the whole of a life.

Ah, I ask myself, but are you awakened to the Earth, even more deeply than to science and climate statistics? How might this change your behavior? Some individuals serve as bridges between the native world and modern science. Tara Houska is one. Robin Wall Kemmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, is another. Robin is a Native American with a PhD in ecology who achieved a hard-earned balance between her native world view and science. I have heard her speak, and she is a quietly eloquent defender of the sacred land mentality.  Because her faith gives her leverage over the US evangelical community, Katherine Hayhoe, who is a member of the IPCC, is perhaps an even more important bridge. She addressed a full house and a rapt audience at a ministers and rabbis breakfast in Asheville which I attended a few years ago.

Taking the time to deeply and irrevocably connect with the earth can take the whole of a life. I spent the first part of my life being formed in elite institutions into a scientifically literate citizen, with tools of analysis that led to a PhD in interdisciplinary humanities. Though I spent time outdoors, most of my connection to the earth was through fantasy, and most forays ended in the comfort of home, or at least with a well-stocked backpack. I have more or less spent the whole of a life becoming a privileged white man and a highly educated elitist. On the other hand, I have had a passion for earthcare since the first Earth Day, and quit academia at the Millennium to dedicate myself (imperfectly) to educating about climate science and trying to help awaken others to the global ecological crisis. But am I truly awake, as I claimed in the first paragraph?

In the early days, I anchored each presentation by teaching some basic climate science. Later, I would give a quick summary of the crisis, giving the latest climate news. But what was always the most effective was leading group interactions around feelings and values in response to these momentous changes. But I have yet to dedicate to deeply and irrevocably connect with the earth, and certainly not given my whole life to it.

Once, when I gathered Celo Friends Meeting to pray for the safety of the water keepers at Standing Rock as they faced eviction by the state police, spirit came upon me and I rose to plead that we all adopt our local places as sacred, worth defending with every means available. No, I and my listeners are not natives to this place, where we displaced the Cherokee. We are a nomadic, opportunistic species, and I am a European colonialist. As my respected friend/sage Joe Hollis has said for decades, we are a species who has lost its niche, wandering uprooted in our technological play-world. As Joe says, "We have replaced natural diversity with human diversity." But setting a deep intention to honor our places as sacred, and renewing it daily, is profoundly different from the admonition from some environmental groups to "do one thing for the Earth each day."

I cast my lot with Greta Thunberg and the millions of young people rising up all over the planet. The science speaks loudly, but not loudly enough to reach the reactionary forces on the rise worldwide. We can only hope that as the wave of strikes increases, it will finally overwhelm an over-civilized world which prefers the illusory comfort of business-as-usual. It is quite probable that these strikes will not bring enough change fast enough to avoid climate catastrophe, but the effort has dignity and nobility and courage.

But more importantly, I have recently connected with Cherokee (Gaduah) elders, and come to recognize just how sacred is the valley I inhabit, and the majestic massif overlooking it, the Black Mountains. This land was their gods. I am humbled by this, and will spend my elder years going as far into these mountains as I am able, sometimes without provisions, so that I may listen more deeply. Whatever happens to global civilization and our species during this sixth great extinction, the Earth will endure, and so will the gods in this land. No matter the circumstances, it can take the whole of a life.



# posted by Robert McGahey @ 3:28 PM 0 Comments

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