On Taking a Positive Approach to Climate Change

Abbreviated Version

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Introduction

What to do about the impending climate crisis depends on how we define the problem:

1. As inevitable, from the pragmatic, scientific and rational viewpoint, requiring pragmatic and political action, if only we knew how to make it effective;

2. As a crisis in western civilisation, now encompassing the globe, which accords supremacy of self-interest over all-inclusive interest, requiring us to change our priorities and values completely, if only we knew how - and quickly enough; or:

3. As a necessary process of breakdown of outworn processes and systems ahead of their replacement by those that express all-inclusive interest instead, requiring us to understand and accept this process instead of resisting it, and help others to view it positively instead of engaging in conflict and violence.

These points of view do not necessarily exclude one another, but the last appears to be increasingly necessary, in order to respond to the crises that are unavoidable.

There are signs of breakdown already: in the financial markets, in the ineffectualness of governments in order to control the climate and other crises, and domestically in following the dictates of self-interested corporations fuelling consumerism. Comparisons are drawn between the late Roman Empire and America today. Some say we are facing a once in a five hundred year solid wall of apparently insuperable crises which necessarily precedes an unavoidable leap into a radically different view of the world, and claim that we cannot save our planet unless humankind undergoes a widespread spiritual awakening - as also predicted in the Mayan calendar.

Some take inspiration for holistic consciousness from Nature. I have suggested previously that the values by which national and global institutions presently operate are an aberration from those which apply within all species including so-called Homo Sapiens. As a sign of hope, there are many people who are already engaged in parts of the transformation of consciousness and in breakthrough, and the time is now ripe for considering how they contribute to a positive approach to climate change. This is especially necessary because of claims that environmentalism has been too narrowly concerned with technical solutions, and giving out the message 'I have a nightmare' instead of inspiring people, as Martin Luther King did, with 'I have a dream!'.

Paul Hawken's book 'Blessed Unrest' comes into all this as a breath of fresh air. He believes he has identified up to one to two million organisations spontaneously working towards ecological sustainability and social justice, organically arising from the bottom up, without a specific leader and intellectual pivot point - with many similarities with the body's immune system, but on a global scale. So those of us working in this field might take heart that we are in much greater company than we have hitherto thought possible.

The movement he describes hopefully expresses the motivation level of meeting collective interests spontaneously, which communism tried to impose centrally, and which capitalism has failed to reach, despite Jonathon Porritt's attempts to redeem it in his book 'Capitalism as if the World Matters'.

Consistent with his saying "The world seems to be looking for the big solution, which itself is part of the problem", Hawken finds many of the most effective solutions are both local and systemic, and expands upon their advantages. The Transition Towns movement is one expression in the UK. Other examples he gives are humorous, like Adbusters, the rise of social entrepreneurs, the 'Slow' movement, and the invention of Wikipedia. There is a steady flow of other information on new achievements such as those made by the '50 People who could save the planet' in a recent Guardian supplement.

Hawken believes there is emerging a new kind of informed awakening through the new movement he describes. 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." 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".

Specific to climate change, the National Association of Evangelicals' 'call to civic responsibility' in 2004, rebutting the Christian fundamentalists who believe that destruction is to be positively welcomed as a sign of the coming apocalypse, came about through the fortuitous influence of Sir John Houghton, as both evangelical and past co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And my 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 in the UK has been impressive.

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, particularly for promoting shared interests, 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, nevertheless, 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". He espouses low consumption, sufficiency, simplicity, and real quality of life. Paul Ekins says sufficiency and simplicity in personal lifestyle 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."

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". 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.

Just how to promote creative co-operation through "self-transcendence" which Havel states to be essential - 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

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