On Taking a Positive Approach to Climate Change

Full version with Footnotes

INTRODUCTION

As the signs of impending climate change become more evident and less deniable, at least to those who are prepared to face them, reactions among scientists and climate activists have become more despairing of any commensurate action being taken. This applies to action at all levels: internationally, nationally, locally and personally. Is there anything that we can do?

It depends upon how we define the problem.

At one level it is fairly obvious. The scientific evidence keeps accumulating, not only of the effects of climate change but also of the rate of change, and of the great danger of positive feedback loops and points of no return and runaway climate catastrophe. And yet the bulk of corporations seem determined to pursue 'business-as-usual', come what may; governments either take some action, block the action of others, or undermine their rhetoric with woefully insufficient action; local governments are denied power and resources to take much effective action; and the actions of individuals to make lifestyle changes are regarded as having little effect other than making us feel we are 'doing our bit'. This is the pragmatic, rational definition of the problem, which has largely been the focus of scientists and activists to date.

However, it is not the only way of defining the problem.

On a philosophical level climate change is regarded as the most overwhelming sign of a crisis in western civilisation, which now encompasses the globe - economically, militarily, financially and linguistically. This crisis is defined in a number of ways, but common to all of them is the supremacy of self-interest over collective interest, not just as far as human beings are concerned, but over the collective interest of all other species and resources.

From this point of view, the devastating loss of biodiversity, disruption of ecosystems, exhaustion of natural resources, increasing concentrations of wealth and impoverishment of already poor people, pollution, climate disruption, lack of food and water - are all the symptoms of this one overriding cause. There are other ways of defining the problem, in terms of globalisation of markets and trade, economic crises, terrorism, security and immigration, but they all stem, directly or indirectly, from the supremacy of self-interest over all-inclusive interest. All-inclusive, that is, of everything on this planet.

What we can do, under the first definition, would be to take pragmatic and political action if only we knew how to make it effective. What we do, under the second one, is to change our priorities and values completely, if only we knew how - and quickly enough in order to avert catastrophe.

However, there is at least a third major way of defining the problem, and that is that catastrophe is not to be resisted at all costs, or in its entirety. For many of the structures and systems which spring from giving supremacy to self-interest have necessarily to break down before they can be replaced by those that express all-inclusive interest instead. In which case, a part of what we need to do, is to understand and accept this process instead of resisting it, help others to view it positively also instead of engaging in conflict and violence in the course of resisting it, and to present an alternative, sustainable way of living as something to be welcomed.

These points of view do not necessarily exclude one another. In Save our World we engage in campaigning in order to prevail on government, local government and corporations to take pragmatic action, as well as working in coalitions, presenting our Climate Change Action Programme in primary schools and promoting energy saving through lifestyle changes. Our on-line campaign to Value Life Itself Above All Else !!!, which has been introduced over the past three Boiling Point issues, is a direct response to the second perspective. The third one, however, now seems to be increasingly necessary in order to respond to the crises that are unavoidable, as well as to provide stepping stones between pragmatic action and the high aspiration of our on-line campaign.

BREAKDOWN AND BREAKTHROUGH

There are signs that the breakdown of institutions giving supremacy to self-interest is already happening. 'Markets begin 2008 in turmoil' and 'Selfish capitalism is bad for our mental health' are the subjects of two broadsheet newspaper articles published on yesterday as I write. [1] Time and again governments meet in order to agree targets for stabilising carbon concentrations in the atmosphere, only to encounter the wrecking tactics of the highest carbon emitting one, in thrall to corporate interests. Porritt writes "Many governments are now predisposed against decisive interventions in the marketplace ...(and) have become adept at shedding both risk and responsibility", and "Governance as such would have appeared to become more about individual consumer choice than about decisions taken through the ballot box"[2].

Porritt cites Homer-Dixon drawing a comparison between Ancient Rome and America today [3]: "Today, just as in the late Roman Empire, deep stresses are rising and system resilience is declining. Just as was true then, the coherence of world order depends critically on the economic, political and military might of a single superpower. The foundation of this might is access to abundant energy... And America survives, as the ancient city of Rome did, on lifelines of energy from distant regions." But Homer-Dixon goes on to say: "All highly adaptive systems go through cycles of breakdown and regeneration. Breakdown is greatly disruptive to parts of the system, but it needn't be catastrophic overall, and it can produce exactly the conditions required for a burst of creativity, reorganisation and renewal."

"Evolution towards breakthrough", Laszlo describes as: "the mindset of a critical mass of people evolves in time, shifting the development of a society towards a more adaptable mode. As these changes take hold, the improved order - governed by more adaptive values, world views and ethics - establishes itself" [4].

I am not convinced, however, that either Homer-Dixon or Laszlo get to the core of the matter. For, if the challenge to western civilisation really is to the supremacy of self-interest, it will run a great deal deeper than to just "parts of the system". In the last Boiling Point issue I referred to Neale Walsch's and other world teachers' conviction that humanity is now faced with a once in five hundred year solid wall of apparently insuperable crises which necessarily precedes an unavoidable leap into a different view of the world (the last being in the Renaissance) if a civilisation, or, in this case, humanity as a whole, is to survive. [5] The Mayan calendar, which is more like an accurate record of creation and evolution, in nine accelerating stages over the last 16.4 billion years, similarly predicts a leap in consciousness for humanity by the time it terminates, in the astonishingly short period of time up till October 2011. [6]

Hawken writes[7] "It has been said that we cannot save our planet unless humankind undergoes a widespread spiritual and religious awakening. In other words, fixes won't fix unless we fix our souls as well." Porritt quotes Victor Havel, former President of Czechoslovakia as saying: "Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better" [8]. Some take inspiration for holistic consciousness from Nature. Hawken refers to Emmerson in "Nature" constantly speaking of "nature as a path to self" and "a manifesto for transcendentalism". In our last Boiling Point, I have contrasted the western concept of 'self' as separate individuality, from the eastern one, which can be directly experienced, as being one with everything. Hawken says: "We are nature, a realisation that stopped Emerson in his tracks in Paris, and it may stop us in ours. We live in community, not alone, and any sense of separateness that we harbour is illusion." [9]. Capra, quoted by Porritt, has written "Ultimately, deep ecological awareness is spiritual or religious awareness. When the concept of the human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels a sense of belonging, of connectedness, to the cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest essence." [10]].

In the last Boiling Points I suggested that the values by which the national and global institutions presently operate are an aberration from those which apply within all species including so-called Homo Sapiens. These are the values of reciprocity and co-operation. Beneath our aberrant and dysfunctional values and ideological systems lies a natural recognition of these same essential ones. They appear spontaneously at times of community crisis and among oppressed people. E. O. Wilson in 'Biophilia' claims that "the urge to affiliate with other forms of life is to some degree innate" [11].

I have also written earlier there are many people who are already engaged in parts of the transformation of consciousness and in breakthrough, although they may call it by many names. It is a matter of practical enquiry, in order to find out which groups of people are thinking and working along similar lines, and then form coalitions or affiliations with them.

The time is now ripe to consider how these values and groups of people contribute to a positive approach to climate change, partly because more information about them is now getting around, and partly because of claims that the environmental movement has been too concerned with technical solutions to discrete problems (e.g. Climate change in isolation), too doom-laden, too little concerned with vision and values, and failing to attract the young, the disenfranchised, the dispossessed and the disengaged.

POSITIVE APPROACHES TO CLIMATE CHANGE

One of the most significant and exciting new approaches is the subject of Paul Hawken's book Blessed Unrest. It is an exploration of a spontaneous world-wide movement of ordinary citizens safeguarding nature and ensuring justice and healing the wounds of the earth and its people, which he claims to be the largest movement in the world. He soon realised that his initial estimate of 100,000 environmental and social justice organisations around the globe was out by at least a factor of ten, and concluded that there must be 'over one - and maybe even two - million organisations working toward ecological sustainability and social justice' . They 'arise one by one, generally with no predetermined vision for the world, and craft their goals without reference to orthodoxy'. The movement appears to be arising from the bottom up and organic, and, lacking a specific leader and intellectual pivot point, represents a completely new form of social phenomenon [12].

Hawken likens the movement to the body's immune system, with obvious associations with Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis for the world. Connectivity allows organisations to be task specific and focus resources precisely and frugally, like handmade democracies, where no one person has all or much power. "Computers, cell phones, broadband and the Internet .. give them greater advantage (over large corporations) because they amplify smallness more effectively than largeness. Large organisations don't need networks; small ones thrive on them.... (Yet) at the heart of all this is not technology but relationships, tens of millions of people working towards restoration and social justice". Later he writes: "The ultimate purpose of a global immune system is to identify what is not life affirming and contain, neutralise, or eliminate it" and goes on to say that most movement activists believe that they are fighting for a specific cause and realise later that they are fighting for a greater purpose.

These last statements resonate particularly with our efforts in Save our World, both in the realisation that we could be in much greater company than we have hitherto considered possible, and in the value placed on life, as in our on-line campaign. And his writing: "The primary role of movement groups is to prevent the fading away into darkness of the issue by continually placing it in the public eye"[13] is an exact description of the purpose of our Boiling Point issues.

Porritt's positive approach, in Capitalism as if the World matters, addresses sustainability in some depth, and looks for solutions in reforming capitalism, challenging the antipathy of many environmentalists by claiming that the two concepts are not necessarily incompatible. For this purpose he examines the meaning of 'capital' in its various manifestations: natural, human, social, manufactured and financial, in an effort to redeem the contribution to sustainability that he believes capitalism has to play, in the conviction that sustainability cannot be realistically achieved without it. He is well aware of its hugely damaging consequences as currently practised, but believes it can be reformed and controlled and redirected, in the light of some positive initiatives that he recounts.

However, I believe Porritt also underrates the depth of the crisis, and, in attempting to derive capitalism from the various meanings of 'capital', I believe he underplays the key element of motivation of capitalism which lies behind the drive to accumulate capital [14]. This intrinsically gives supremacy to self-interest over collective interest, and the positive initiatives he recounts are commercial rather than capitalistic. Indeed, I have long believed that capitalism epitomises the third level of meeting individual interests in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and motivations, whereas communism attempts to aspire the the next level of collective interests, but discovered it had to impose them because societies were not ready to aspire to them naturally [15]. Hopefully, the movement which Hawken describes in Blessed Unrest, expresses the level of collective interests spontaneously, since it clearly cannot be imposed. In doing so, it would, at the same time side-step the age old debate about the rival economic and social systems per se.

On the other hand, I agree with Porritt that "if anything is going to make sustainable development genuinely desirable to very large numbers of people in such a compelling way that they come to embrace the necessity of change, it must surely be the possibility that sustainable development could change their lives by putting personal well-being and happiness at the very heart of its 'offer' to citizens". I also agree with him that intrinsic goals (such as for happiness) are more important than extrinsic materials ones.[16]

POSITIVE OUTCOMES SO FAR

Examples of positive outcomes from the movement Hawken describes tend to be small scale and localised, though not necessarily. He does say that: "The world seems to be looking for the big solution, which itself is part of the problem, since the most effective solutions are both local and systemic."

On localisation he says: "By rejecting the deterioration of the quality and variety of food, localisation creates food webs that produce fresher, higher quality food, and provides food security, because it lessens dependence on distant sources. It reduces shipping, energy and packaging and engenders farmer's markets, festivals and engagement. Localisation strengthens the economy, as money circulates when spent on locally produced items. It also functions as a response to climate change" [17] - as we can see with the emergence of the Transition Towns movement in the UK.
Hawken also mentions a playful element in the movement: Adbusters, subverting the blandishments of corporate advertising (etc.) to expose the realities behind the myth, oftentimes by appropriating their slogans, icons or artwork ..(and) guerilla shoppers who will push empty shopping carts up and down aisles in a daze (in supermarkets), never buying anything, various humorous wheezes which make police control look ridiculous, and games that go on for ever to show up the ones which people take over-seriously. [18]

Examples of more substantial outcomes are: awards for African leaders who deliver security, health, education and development to their citizens and who leave office when their term of office is up; the introduction of social entrepreneurs, epitomised by Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh for providing micro-finance for poor people; the spontaneous introduction of green building standards in the US; and the 'Slow' movement - Slow Food, Slow Cities, Slow Fish, slow just about everything; and the invention of Wikipedia [19]. There is a steady flow of information on new achievements such as those made by the '50 People who could save the planet' [20].

Hawken believes there is emerging a new kind of informed awakening through the new movement he describes and quotes Richard Tarnas as saying "It is perhaps not too much to say that, in the first decade of the new millennium, humanity has entered into a condition that is in some sense more globally united and interconnected.." [21] Porritt considers that "by some calculations, up to 50 per cent of people in a country such as the UK can now be categorised as potentially inner-directed" whom Boyle describes as "people whose prime motivation is no longer conspicuous consumption or keeping up with their neighbours, but autonomy, self-expression, health and independence" Porritt believes that "the vast majority of people are far more hungry for change than you would ever guess if you are stuck with the lamentably biased mainstream media for insights into the world around you." [22] Others have observed the "social vibrancy" of shanty settlements around the world, and Griffiths says "Western culture needs to listen to indigenous peoples because in their idea of cyclical time, time is constantly restored, nature sustained and sustaining" [23].

In the sphere of responses specifically to climate change, both Hawken and Porritt mention the Evangelical Climate Initiative which took off in the USA, in response to Sir John Houghton's talk at a private meeting of evangelical leaders, as an evangelical Christian himself, and past co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That fortuitous event led to a powerful rebuff to the Christian fundamentalists who believe that environmental destruction is something to be positively welcomed as a sign of the coming apocalypse. The Initiative led to the National Association of Evangelicals' 'call to civic responsibility' in 2004, affirming that 'God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the Earth, and not a licence to abuse the creation of which we are part'. [24].

Our own direct experience of Climate Camps in the UK in the last two summers, showed them to be inspiring examples of co-operative decision-making and living, and the growth of speaker-training programmes on climate change, and the spontaneous coming together of local people to form the Lambeth Climate Change Action Group and Transition Town Brixton has been heart-warming.

WHERE TO FOCUS FUTURE ACTION?

It is all very well to talk of positive outcomes so far, when the impacts of the crises have hardly started and we are in for a very rough ride indeed, without knowing in what ways or when. However, the signs are that grassroots led solutions are going to be more effective than centralised 'big' ones, and that we are going to have to be very alert, adaptable and intuitive in our responses.

This view could influence our choices of the campaigning work that is worth pursuing. However, the upside of adopting this viewpoint is that we can expect to be more responsible for our future than we have been for a long time and feel more 'real' about doing so. There will be enormous opposition to spontaneous initiatives, as has already emerged, as well as anguish and resistance to current systems breaking down, and we will have to be masters of detection in order to distinguish reliable information from doublespeak and spin.

As to making action positive, Porritt says that "change will not come about by threatening people with more doom and gloom. The necessary changes have also to be seen as desirable changes: good for people, their health and quality of life - and not just good for the prospects of future generations ... A 'here and now' agenda". Later he espouses low consumption, sufficiency, simplicity, and real quality of life [25] (as I write, coincidentally, by candlelight in the first electricity blackout in my area for years!). He quotes Paul Ekins as saying: "Certainly sufficiency implies relatively modest consumption and simplicity in personal lifestyle. But these are not motivated by abstract aestheticism or self-denial, but arise from a perception that sufficiency in consumption permits a greater emphasis to be placed on other aspects of human experience, which are actually more personally rewarding and fulfilling than consumption. Far from entailing self-denial, sufficiency in this reading is a means to liberation. An all-absorbing concern with consumption is replaced by the pursuit of other values that yield more happiness."

Whilst welcoming 'downshifting' among those disaffected with high-earning high-spending lifestyles, Porritt acknowledges that it is unlikely to have wide appeal in poorer areas and countries. This raises the important question of how to present climate change positively in different ways for different groups of people. However, somehow, we need to find the equivalent to the Martin Luther King 'I have a dream speech' in place of the 'I have a nightmare one' which the environmental movement has been giving much of the time in recent years, as pointed out in an article in 2006 entitled 'The death of environmentalism'. On the other hand, the authors point out, "A positive, transformative vision doesn't just inspire, it also creates the cognitive space for assumptions to be challenged and new ideas to surface." [26]

Unfortunately, it has been much easier to put across the American Dream of material independence, insurance for the future, saving in case of disaster, and steady financial improvement - than what is needed for a long-term sustainable way of life [27], and attempts at utopian visions come across as inherently static. An uplifting future will be anything but that! Hopefully, the necessity of presenting desirable responses to climate change and the other threats to our current civilisation will generate a new literature on the subject. Meanwhile, it is up to all of us in the movement to contribute what we think we can do best.

MAKING OUR OWN CONTRIBUTION

We are already making pragmatic positive contributions, through recommending lifestyle changes that people can make, through our Climate Change Action Programme in primary schools, in coalition work, conferences and networking, where we use any opportunities to present the positive vision contained in our declaration to Value Life Itself Above All Else !!!, and we can be ready to respond to the positive inspirations of others. In our workshops on 'Taking Climate Action at a Deeper Level', I have created stepping stones towards adopting the declaration through spelling out the advantages of changing attitudes over just changing behaviour, and changing priorities and ultimate values over changing attitudes, because each of these steps then takes care of the preceding ones.

With respect to localised activities, we can increase our participation in Transition Town Brixton and in Transition Towns elsewhere, regarding it as a great way of igniting genuine community engagement, working at grassroots level, acting playfully, and connecting with the young. Similar opportunities apply in working with the Network For Climate Action which has developed out of the last two annual climate camps in England.

As to getting into touch with who we are, as a way of directing action for changing priorities and values, Andrew Harvey makes the paradoxical statement: "There is nothing to do, but everything to be, for all action will flow from that new being" [28]. Porritt says that "one of the principle differences between sustainable development and conventional environmentalism is that sustainable development is as much about the well-being of the human species as about the well-being of the natural world. The idea of an environmental organisation devoting as much time and effort to prevent the erosion of the human spirit as it does to prevent the erosion of our physical life-support systems is all but unthinkable". Yet, this is exactly the niche that we aim to fill, through Save our World. [29]

Just how to promote creative co-operation through "self-transcendence" which Havel states to be essential [30] - at an organisational level, is problematic, for all known paths have so far been devised for individuals, important though they are. Indeed, I have advocated the latter through the spiritual practices comprising 'sadhana', in the last Boiling Point on "Why value life itself above all else?" The obvious organisational support comes in the form of offering teaching by those who specialise in doing so, and we propose to incorporate this as part of developing the New Movement for Survival. And there are training programmes by others with which we can engage. We can also promote solutions which meet people's and other species' shared interests.

It remains for us to find a way of infusing the work of "self-transcendence" into our pragmatic programme of activities. There is no neat organisational equivalent to that of individuals naturally transforming their most abstract visions, aspirations and goals into practical and physical outcomes, on a regular basis.

However, there are three overall things we can do as Save our World:

1. make sure that our practical work is constantly infused and refreshed with the most enlightened understanding, spontaneity and intuition - globally, nationally and locally, giving special attention to grassroots initiatives.

2. help ourselves and others to understand, positively accept, and work with the breakdown and breakthrough process instead of resisting it, as described earlier, and:

3. promote an alternative, sustainable way of living, based on sufficiency, as something to be widely regarded as desirable and enjoyable.

Jim Scott (c) 01/02/08

FOOTNOTES

[1] Guardian 3 January 2008 return to text
[2] Porritt, Jonathon (2007) Capitalism as if the World Matters, Earthscan, London p 304. return to text
[3] idem p 26, quoting from Homer-Dixon, T. (2206) The Upside of Down, Island Press, Washington , DC return to text
[4] idem p 28, quoting from Laszlo, E. (2006) The Chaos Point, Piatkus Books, London return to text
[5] Neale Donald Walsch at workshop entitled 'Tomorrow's God' on 2 October 2005, and Deepak Chopra at one entitled 'The Seven Spiritual Laws of Love' on 6 May 2006, both held at Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London, and both organised by Alternatives (www.alternatives.org.uk) return to text
[6] Carl Johan Calleman Solving the Greatest Mystery of our Time, available through www.calleman.com and amazon.com. return to text
[7] Hawken, Paul, (2007) Blessed Unrest, Penguin Books, London p 184 return to text
[8] Porritt, op. cit. p xx, quoting from Havel, V. (1994) 'The path to co-existence' Speech on receiving the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, Philadelphia, PA, 4 July return to text
[9] Hawken, op cit pp 36, 74 & 171 return to text
[10] Porritt, op cit p 322, quoting Capra, F. (2002) Hidden Connections, Harper Collins, London return to text
[11] Porritt, op cit p 325 quoting Wilson, E. O. (1984) Biophilia, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA & Porritt p 49 return to text
[12] See [7] above pp 1, 2 & 6 return to text
[13] Hawken, op cit pp 144-146 & 62 return to text
[14] Porritt, op cit p 138 return to text
[15] Scott, J.F.K. (1983) PhD Thesis The Relationship between Housing Designed in Small Groups and Community, Oxford Brookes University pp 21 & 23, citing Maslow, A. (1970) Motivation and Personality, Harper and Row, New York return to text
[16] Porritt, op cit p 339 return to text
[17] Hawken, op cit pp 20 & 157 return to text
[18] Idem pp 148,149 & 187 return to text
[19] Idem pp 150, 152, 153, 155 & 157 return to text
[20] Guardian supplement 5 Jan 2008 return to text
[21] Hawken, op cit pp 185, & 191 quoting Tarnas, Richard, (2006) Cosmos and Psyche, Intimations of a New World View, Viking, New York p 483 return to text
[22] Porritt, op cit p 321 quoting Boyle, D.`(2004) Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and Lust for Real Life, Harper Collins, London, and Porritt p 325 return to text
[23] Porritt, op cit p317 quoting Pearce, F (2006) 'Ecopolis now', New Scientist 17 June; and Porritt p 313/4 citing Griffiths, J. (2005) 'Living time', Green Futures No 51 return to text
[24] Hawken, op cit p 147/8 & Porritt, op cit p 47 return to text
[25] Porritt, op cit pp 31 & 299 return to text
[26] Idem pp 300 & 51return to text
[27] Idem p 311return to text
[28] Harvey, Andrew, (1994) The Way of Passion, Frog, California p 203 return to text
[29] Porritt, op cit p 342 return to text
[30] Idem p 323, quoting Havel, V. See note [8] return to text

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