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.
Labels: deep time work, Gaduah elders, global ecological crisis, Greta Thunberg, grief work, Standing rock, water keepers, white male privilege
Friday, March 15, 2019
School Climate Strikes Come to the US
Yesterday, local high school students helped load my truck with horse
manure from the Appalachian Therapeutic Riding Center for use in our
community garden in Celo Community (six families). Banter among the
boys, showing off for the lone girl present, was broadly horsey. One
boy sported a full Confederate flag as his shirt. Another boy wanted
to know what I thought about chewing tobacco. I said it was bad, and
the girl agreed. Then someone inevitably brought up politics. The
boy who likes to chew said, "I like Trump because he's going to
bring the Bible into the schools." I wanted my truck filled
with manure, so I didn't take the bait.
This is a youth
movement. I'm a Boomer, a worn-down climate warrior who resigned a
tenured position to fight the climate wars almost twenty years ago.
In that time, carbon emissions have increased hugely, with no
legislation having been passed limiting/taxing them, even though many
businesses are poised to change their strategy, given the right
political leadership. But straight-talking Greta will have none of
either. According to her, politicians have done virtually nothing,
and are not be trusted. Companies will change, but only if they can
continue to make money, which is more important to business interests
than the survival of their children and grandchildren, let alone the
flourishing of the non-human world.
It may be too late,
but the youth of the world - in Sweden, the UK, parts of Europe, and
Australia - have awakened to their dire plight. Seeing that
education for "good jobs" or being an "informed
citizens" is useless in the face of failed ecosystems,
economies, and civil institutions, they are taking to the streets.
Today is the first big strike date in the US, with a big action
scheduled in DC, contemporaneous with gatherings of mostly high
school aged youth in many cities, including nearby Asheville. We
Boomers, along with a life-web on heightened alert, are acutely
interested in how this one goes. And the next, and the next, growing
in strength until what business and government do will be moot.
That is Greta's vision, and I pray she is right. Even if it's too
late, to have a display of love for humanity and the Earth which
cradles us, a display of dignity and idealism in the face of
widespread sordid politics, would feel like vindication of "God's"
creation of a creature who might mirror "Him." Adjusted,
to be sure, for immense grief and irony.
Postscript: One and a half million schoolkids worldwide left school for some "home schooling," street-learning style on Friday. This was the biggest climate action thusfar. Greta has her own analysis of the action and what it will take to make a difference: "we need a whole new way of thinking." She emphasizes that we will not be able to solve the climate crisis by working within a capitalist system as currently defined (sorry, Al Gore). She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Postscript: One and a half million schoolkids worldwide left school for some "home schooling," street-learning style on Friday. This was the biggest climate action thusfar. Greta has her own analysis of the action and what it will take to make a difference: "we need a whole new way of thinking." She emphasizes that we will not be able to solve the climate crisis by working within a capitalist system as currently defined (sorry, Al Gore). She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Labels: Appalachian Therapeutic Riding Center, climate strike, Greta Thunberg
Friday, December 14, 2018
Inconvenient COP
“We cannot fail in Katowice.” So Secretary General Guterres warned in Poland last week at the outset of the COP 24 conference of parties to the UNFCCC convention, which began in 1992. Nine years ago, at the pivotal COP 15 in Copenhagen, I was among those who saw a glimmer of hope. But the politicians, those who manage the form the awakening must take for humanity to unite to prevent climate catastrophe, have provided scant leadership over these 25 years, during which CO2 emissions have increased 65%.
It’s that time of year again, when Advent coincides with the COP. The challenge in Katowice, which is to outline a firm mechanism for achieving the carbon reduction goals pledged by 197 nations in Paris in 2015, is inconvenient for the nations of the world. They would rather deal with slightly less intractable issues. And it is inconvenient to Christians who don’t yet understand that, unless we have a viable species, we can’t worship the coming of the Christ-child.
I recently had an online debate with a colleague who claimed that “Politics is the major determinant of our lives.” I disagreed, pointing to instances where individuals overcame the external determinants of politics through inner spiritual development. But if we do not have a form to ensoul in, my point is moot. So, building upon his point, I will amend it to “Climate politics is the major determinant for the survival of our species.” Some people, their numbers probably accelerating as we approach the Event Horizon (not a Christianized Saturnalia, but the Incarnation as we never imagined it), will achieve enlightenment/moksha. But the billions who will require bodies in which to reincarnate to complete their spiritual perfection will be out of options – at least in the universe as we know it.
When I carried hope for the UN-led process, Barack Obama was president. He went personally to COP15, where he brokered the outlines of an agreement with the president of China, then our biggest opponent in the process of drawing up an international treaty to fight climate disruption. At COP 24, China is the leader of the forces attempting to drive a wedge against the Climate Beast, while the US is working with Russia and the Saudis to weaken the framework set in Paris. At COP 24, with Donald Trump having served notice that the US will withdraw form the Paris Accord as soon as contractually possible, the US has been further reduced from irrelevancy to laughing stock. Our executive, executor of the international goodwill towards the US that has been built since WWII, seized the COP24 stage to sell US coal, his agents improbably arguing that the right mix of fossils would help in the climate war. This may have delighted his base in the US, but the assembled company in Katowice literally laughed at the presentation. Sadly, extinction is no joke.
“Our world leaders have been behaving like children.” This is the judgment of my latest climate hero, Greta Thunberg, the Swedish 15-year-old who has been on strike from school in an effort to get political leaders to awaken from their moral torpor. Greta speaks from Stockholm every Friday. At first, she stood outside Parliament, where the cameras delivered a clear message. Now Parliament has forced her to move over the bridge, but those who are initiated into her courage don’t need the government trappings to get her point. In Katowice, where she has been featured in several venues, including an address to the hall of delegates, Greta has made it clear that “we” - the youth who are present in force at the conference, “are not here to beg world leaders to act,” but to serve notice that, since those leaders have consistently failed us, the people, led by those in their teens and twenties, will get the job done themselves.
In the UK, where Theresa May has withdrawn the Brexit deal for lack of votes, and public unrest like that tearing France apart is waiting in the wing, the other wing is soaring. The Extinction Rebellion, which means exactly what it says, was able to stop traffic in London, simultaneously occupying five bridges. Then with a sit-in of over one thousand, they blocked access to Parliament,. In just a matter of weeks, they have over 100,000 members world-wide. I am one of them.
Back in the US, the youthful Sunrise Movement blocked access to Nancy Pelosi’s office two weeks ago to demand that she lead a Green New Deal package as her top priority for the new Congress in January. A colleague drives his high school daughter to the actions, and reports an impressive degree of political sophistication and passion among the youthful protesters.
Greta Thunberg has called for a global climate strike by students today, December 14. There are already large-scale school strikes in Australia, with Canada also gaining energy and numbers. I sense that this is just the beginning, and my readers can help drive the momentum. Stand with Greta on Fridays at government offices, schools, and other public places. Write letters to the editor. More importantly, recored your own strike event and share it widely. This is what an extinction rebellion looks like.
It’s that time of year again, when Advent coincides with the COP. The challenge in Katowice, which is to outline a firm mechanism for achieving the carbon reduction goals pledged by 197 nations in Paris in 2015, is inconvenient for the nations of the world. They would rather deal with slightly less intractable issues. And it is inconvenient to Christians who don’t yet understand that, unless we have a viable species, we can’t worship the coming of the Christ-child.
I recently had an online debate with a colleague who claimed that “Politics is the major determinant of our lives.” I disagreed, pointing to instances where individuals overcame the external determinants of politics through inner spiritual development. But if we do not have a form to ensoul in, my point is moot. So, building upon his point, I will amend it to “Climate politics is the major determinant for the survival of our species.” Some people, their numbers probably accelerating as we approach the Event Horizon (not a Christianized Saturnalia, but the Incarnation as we never imagined it), will achieve enlightenment/moksha. But the billions who will require bodies in which to reincarnate to complete their spiritual perfection will be out of options – at least in the universe as we know it.
When I carried hope for the UN-led process, Barack Obama was president. He went personally to COP15, where he brokered the outlines of an agreement with the president of China, then our biggest opponent in the process of drawing up an international treaty to fight climate disruption. At COP 24, China is the leader of the forces attempting to drive a wedge against the Climate Beast, while the US is working with Russia and the Saudis to weaken the framework set in Paris. At COP 24, with Donald Trump having served notice that the US will withdraw form the Paris Accord as soon as contractually possible, the US has been further reduced from irrelevancy to laughing stock. Our executive, executor of the international goodwill towards the US that has been built since WWII, seized the COP24 stage to sell US coal, his agents improbably arguing that the right mix of fossils would help in the climate war. This may have delighted his base in the US, but the assembled company in Katowice literally laughed at the presentation. Sadly, extinction is no joke.
“Our world leaders have been behaving like children.” This is the judgment of my latest climate hero, Greta Thunberg, the Swedish 15-year-old who has been on strike from school in an effort to get political leaders to awaken from their moral torpor. Greta speaks from Stockholm every Friday. At first, she stood outside Parliament, where the cameras delivered a clear message. Now Parliament has forced her to move over the bridge, but those who are initiated into her courage don’t need the government trappings to get her point. In Katowice, where she has been featured in several venues, including an address to the hall of delegates, Greta has made it clear that “we” - the youth who are present in force at the conference, “are not here to beg world leaders to act,” but to serve notice that, since those leaders have consistently failed us, the people, led by those in their teens and twenties, will get the job done themselves.
In the UK, where Theresa May has withdrawn the Brexit deal for lack of votes, and public unrest like that tearing France apart is waiting in the wing, the other wing is soaring. The Extinction Rebellion, which means exactly what it says, was able to stop traffic in London, simultaneously occupying five bridges. Then with a sit-in of over one thousand, they blocked access to Parliament,. In just a matter of weeks, they have over 100,000 members world-wide. I am one of them.
Back in the US, the youthful Sunrise Movement blocked access to Nancy Pelosi’s office two weeks ago to demand that she lead a Green New Deal package as her top priority for the new Congress in January. A colleague drives his high school daughter to the actions, and reports an impressive degree of political sophistication and passion among the youthful protesters.
Greta Thunberg has called for a global climate strike by students today, December 14. There are already large-scale school strikes in Australia, with Canada also gaining energy and numbers. I sense that this is just the beginning, and my readers can help drive the momentum. Stand with Greta on Fridays at government offices, schools, and other public places. Write letters to the editor. More importantly, recored your own strike event and share it widely. This is what an extinction rebellion looks like.
Labels: Advent, COP24, Copenhagen COP 15, Event Horizon, Extinction Rebellion, global climate strike, Greta Thunberg, Paris Accord, Sunrise Movement, UNFCCC
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