Blue Revolution.3

Today I read most of the book's fourth chapter, which tells the story of Duke Energy in the Carolinas. The following quotes say a lot to me:

• "[E]nergy production now requires more water than any other sector..." in the United States, including agriculture (63). 
• "By 1930, Americans consumed more electricity than anyone else on the planet combined" (68). I didn't realize this had happened so early.
• "At this point, every single alternative fuel source being considered for large scale power generation is projected to further hike fresh water demand" (73; originally cited in the 2009 issue of Ground Water). This does not include individual photovoltaic cells, which are fairly efficient, but it does include multiple PV cells used together to create steam power. It also doesn't include wind power, which is also pretty low on water use but isn't a huge part of the market in the U.S. at all.
• Saul Griffith [check him out on wikipedia and youtube/TED] has a doctorate in engineering from MIT and received a MacArthur "genius grant" a few years ago. He "has come to believe the most urgent environmental need 'is not for some miraculous-seeming scientific breakthrough but for a vast, unprecedented transformation of human behavior'" (74). 

Please opine in the comments or by bugging me directly. <3 div="">

The Almost Church

I recently finished reading a slim volume recommended by my minister. The book is called The Almost Church by Michael Durall. I'll make this easier on myself by transcribing the bullet points I took while reading and then summarize and/or synthesize it all later.

• What we need is a compelling vision of a way of life that is worth living (9, via Misoslav Volf).
• What should be a religion of love and justice has been superseded by personal spirituality.
• A specific tactic: maybe stop posting the sermon topic but actually expect people to show up, not pick and choose.
• "churches should help people of all generations lead lives that cut across the grain of the consumer-oriented society" (14)
• encourage an increase in charity [to church/es], not to pay the bills but to give; redefining the good life "as one that goes beyond acquiring ever more consumer goods"
• "we shall never find the fullness and wonder and the glory of life until we are ready to share it" (15 via A. Powell Davies)
• What brings people to churches now?
• How can I lead a deeper spiritual life?
• engage in something beyond the day-to-day
• purpose/meaningful community
• Durall recommends churches give 10% of their budgets to outreach (21).
• "The primary purpose of the church is to create a community of compassion" (33). All else must flow from this.
• "Does your church have clear glass windows, through which the congregation looks out onto a world in which sorrow and unhappiness are all too evident? Or are those windows more like mirrors, reflecting only the comfort, convenience, and needs of parishioners inside?" (34)
• Errors in the way we do things:
• "foster small-church policies that do not serve large congregations" (38)
• fail to realize that theological diversity and a large number of worshippers are incompatible goals
• There is a 'third way.' Religious liberalism does not mean the opposite of fundamentalism. Religious liberalism should be an anti-secularism (42).
• Do our religion's leaders see themselves as Caretakers of an existing system or as actual Leaders to make the system better? (53)
• Page 66 of this book describes family-size churches and describes my UU church to a T.
• Luke 12:48: "to whom much has been given, much is expected."
• [My thoughts here:] It's about expecting more from yourself, from your church, from your parishioners, in money and in soul. But how do you stake your claim and/or exude authority? Where's the moral or religious gravity?
• The vision is "not to provide the autonomy of the individual and to seek truth." Instead, the vision is deeper spirituality through service (84).

That's it, isn't it? Deeper spirituality, a better life in and out of church, through serving others. Through not seeing the Other as separate from oneSelf. To stop navel-gazing (as I do with this blog) and actually get out and do something. Sounds like one of the next books I should read is Ron Hopkins' The Power of Just Doing Stuff or, better, going to see him in a couple of weeks in Houston. Or better yet, to up and do. Right now I'm doing for me - eating better, exercising, reading more, spending time reaching out to people I love. And I'm living in a friend's house, which reduces my carbon footprint, reduces her financial burden, and improves a sense of community [we walk together several mornings a week]. I should do more gardening. I should do more with people. So it goes. Not out of pity but out of true compassion. It is only by sympathizing or empathizing with people that we care about them and are willing to change the world for the better.

Blue Revolution.2

From chapter two of this book, here are the things I pulled out:

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." ~ Aldo Leopold

There's a lot in this book, obviously, about respecting natural systems. The book definitely shares plenty of stories about how when humans try to mitigate and control nature, we often wind up hurting ecosystems and ultimately ourselves. It's hard to see how everything connects, and especially in the cog-in-the-machine post-modern world, we barely try..

Politics and economics depend on the health of the geography and climate of a place, plain and simple (35).

Specific to the resource mentioned in this book, "There isn't enough water for all interest groups to have all they want, all the time" (42). But we don't like to believe it.

Chapter 3 is the story of how the Netherlands dealt with an unexpected and huge storm/flood in 1953 and how their feats of engineering destroyed the local ecosystem. After a few decades, the Dutch met in participatory democratic groups to work on a better solution which, though it hasn't reversed all of the damage done by the first tech fix, is certainly better than the way they'd done it before. I'm thinking about turning it into a sermon, or at least an article for mass publication. At my church, I could tie it to the principles:
- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large; and
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part

MLK Revisited

I went back this Labor Day in search of my notes on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I wanted quotations from his speeches on Vietnam and his speeches to Unitarian Universalists. And then I realized I'd blogged about them all on a separate site, which has now shut down. Let me again post the heresy that convinced the powers that be in the United States to assassinate MLK:

"Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest."

"The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality [...] we will find ourselves organizing “clergy and laymen concerned” committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. [sustained applause] So such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God."

"Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must [...] rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see than an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

"A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just."

"A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

"America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood."

"All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions."

"It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.”"

Of course MLK speaks against communism. He doesn't want to be killed. But let us remember now that democracy and capitalism are NOT the same system. Oligarchy is not the same as democracy.

"A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies."

"This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another (Yes), for love is God. (Yes) And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. . . . If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day."

"We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.”"

"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. [...] Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”"

"We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight."

"Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

Blue Revolution

Today I started reading Cynthia Barnett's Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis. I'm part of what may be a new book group associated with my church about issues of sustainability. As usual, I'm developing a growing sense that I do should do less reading and more doing, but it's/I'm a work in progress.

So far, the book is quite easy to read. The first chapter talks (almost too gently for my taste) about water usage and its growing scarcity in the United States. Barnett talks about specific problems in specific communities, uses good numbers and statistics, and alludes to possible solutions that she will cover in future chapters.

She does an excellent job not just giving the facts but distilling (no pun intended) the problem to a problem of ethics. Our understanding of water in Western civilization has changed from "essence of life to emblem of luxury" (1). It has become a symbol of power and even control, and so many of us flaunt it, showing how we subdue nature (21).

How did this happen? Well, we've lost our water ethic. What does that mean? It means we don't respect it (or much of anything) as a finite resource. Barnett hasn't talked yet about how of course water isn't created or destroyed but it is permuted into something that takes a lot more energy (from other not-quickly-enough-renewable sources) to make potable or transport from places where it is more abundant to places that "need" it for manufacturing, irrigation, sanitation, and ingestion. But I think she will as the book progresses. In the meantime, it's evident that water scarcity - through waste and mismanagement - is a problem.

The average person in the United States uses 150 gallons of water per day. That's 3 times more than in many European nations. We do it, I think (and Barnett thinks), because we're entirely disconnected from the understanding of where safe water comes from and we're divorced from the consequences of our actions. We're not like little Laura Ingalls who had to go fetch her own water from the well. We don't know about water usage because we don't pay attention, whether out of willful ignorance or a cultural numbing and increased urbanization, suburbanization, and specialization.

How do we fix it? Barnett is much bolder in this statement than she seems in some of her platitudes in the first chapter, and I hope the book will push this harsher, more radical [meaning to the root] idea:

"At its most basic, the blue revolution means no one uses more [water] than they really need" (19). 

What this means is wide open to interpretation. What is this pesky "need"? But even that statement represents a paradigm shift from the last 50-100 years of industrial civilization. And it's a beautiful start.

Awesome Post!

Please read this compelling article about climate change, life on earth, and resistance. It's so powerful I'm afraid to post it on my Facebook wall (because I work in essence for Big Oil).

Crisis of Civilization.10

I finished it! The last few chapters of the book talked about terrorism and militarization. I don't think at this point that most people need more information and stories of true conspiracy theories to be recounted here. At some point, Nafeez finished his exposition and began to outline the Key Structural Problems plaguing [Western/Northern/industrial/corporate] civilization. He doesn't go into huge detail about the specific strategies to fix them, but he does brush broad strokes about some paradigms we can shift and some hard work we'll have to reenvision and engage in to survive the continuing crises. Here's what I took from it all; some goals from Ahmed's own words:

• increase access to, and ownership of, productive resources for the majority (249)
• redistribute the wealth (yes, really; if you look at how capitalism systematically funnels all the wealth to the top, this will become more and more obvious and not just a Soviet dream)
• increase regulation and oversight in banking, government, et al
• CHOOSE NOT TO GROW BEYOND THE NATURAL LIMITS
• use renewable energy
• stop the "money as debt" MO (253)
• cease/desist/abolish/prohibit computational finance and such transactions as do not produce anything of value and, in fact, hurt the people in the world
• return to participatory democracy; build systems from the bottom up; empower people; recognize others as subjects and respect all life on earth (255); hierarchies may happen; just make sure to keep accountable and do what's best in individual communities
• MATERIALISM (the idea that we're self-serving, consuming beings at heart) IS BULLSHIT; self-fulfillment is instead realized through ethical activity (undefined here; have fun with it); we're INTERCONNECTED, not purely selfish profit-seekers

My takeaways:

- be compassionate

- respect the interconnected web of all existence

- engage in your world; respect yourself and others enough to be involved

What's missing?

- The only thing I feel Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed missed in this book, or at least explicitly in the last chapter, was a push for us to use fewer resources. Yes, we should be using cleaner energy; but we also have to use a lot less of it. Myself most certainly included.

Dick Cheney on geopolitics, 1999

quoted from 1999, Dick Cheney talking to the London Institute of Petroleum:

"From the standpoint of the oil industry obviously - and I'll talk a little later on about gas - for over a hundred years we as an industry have had to deal with the pesky problem that once you find oil and pump it out of the ground you've got to turn around and find more or go out of business. Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. Every year you've got to find and develop reserves equal to your output just to stand still, just to stay even. This is as true for companies as well in the broader economic sense it is for the world. A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production. It's like making one hundred per cent interest; discovering another major field of some five hundred million barrels equivalent every four months or finding two Hibernias a year. For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of 2% annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a 3% natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional 50,000,000 barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about 90% of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow... Oil is unique in that it is so strategic in nature. We are not talking about soapflakes or leisurewear here. Energy is truly fundamental to the world's economy. The Gulf War was a reflection of that reality."

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-06-08/full-text-dick-cheneys-speech-institute-petroleum-autumn-lunch-1999#

I read this from Nafeez Ahmed's amazing A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization, which I've been nursing for months now, eating ten or so pages at a time over my lunch break.

John Michael Greer and the Future of Humanity

I read a lot of blogs about climate change, peak energy, sustainability, and humanistic religion. Here's an excerpt from a good piece I'm reading this morning:

"Cheap, easily accessible deposits of the resources on which industrial civilization depends have been exhausted, and replaced with increasing difficulty by more expensive substitutes, at steadily rising costs in money, labor, energy, and other resources; the national infrastructure and the natural environment have both been drawn into an accelerating spiral of malign neglect; standards of living for most of the population have been sliding steadily, along with most measures of public health and meaningful education; constitutional rights and the rule of law have taken a beating, administered with equal enthusiasm by both major parties, who seem incapable of agreeing on anything else even when the welfare of the nation is obviously at stake."

After spelling it out, Greer talks about how as humans, our response has been split:
1. we believe that technology or Jesus will save us and/or ignore the problems and continue to focus on how awesome civilization and humanity are, or
2. we believe that the apocalypse is upon us and we're all going to die, if not in a fiery blaze than in a world of pestilence and war

Greer doesn't like either of these. He challenges us instead to question the narratives that frame our culture - both messianic and apocalyptic - and be aware of our biases. He asks us to look at empirical evidence, patterns, cause and effect. I personally think that being aware of how things work and being respectful of life and natural limits is the way to go and is the foundation of how we should live. Maybe I'm becoming a bit druidic myself ;-)

Obama on Climate Change

Good start, Obama, but not nearly enough. I know I don't think the way much of America does, but I think you spent too much time apologizing for the need to do anything about climate change and were too weak on the solutions.

You do spend the first nine minutes on climate change and how it's real and dangerous. At 10:45, you start talking about "carbon pollution," but it's clear to me that you are talking about carbon dioxide and ignoring methane. At minute 14, I think you do mention methane, but you ignore the methane that is leaked into the air through the extraction of natural gas. It may burn cleaner than coal, but it's not cheaper, cleaner, or safer to extract and produce.

At minute 20, you tell us that we don't "have to choose between the health of our children or the health of our economy. The old rules may say we can't protect our environment and promote economic growth at the same time but [technology will save us]." You say that by using more renewable energy and wasting less, we can continue and our economy can grow. I think you're wrong.

At around 23:45 you say that "allowing the Keystone Pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so" will not "significantly exacerbate" the health of the climate. I don't trust that our definitions of "significantly exacerbate" are in the same ballpark. You say again that you want to "make sure we're not seeing methane emissions" around minute 25. Again, I don't believe you'll pay attention to that science. I want to believe it, but I am pretty damn skeptical.

You promise that our "federal government will consume 20% of its electricity from renewable resources" in the near future around 28:45. That does sound pretty great. It's a strong part of your three point plan to:
1. use less dirty energy
2. transition to cleaner energy
3. waste less

But it's not enough. 20% of an unnamed and increasingly growing number (or amount of total energy) is not sustainable. It barely puts a dent. You want the economy to grow, which with current models requires our energy consumption to grow... and which encourages our consumption to grow as we promote a hedonistic, wasteful, sinful, arrogant, immoral Western way of life (which I live and enjoy myself every single day).

Around minute 33, you do talk about the unavoidable climate change we're already facing and that we have to mitigate. You talk about the threat to security we'll face with more floods and weird weather occurrences. I think you know, Mr. President, that these things are happening. I hope that you face an internal struggle between a) telling it like it is and injecting a little hope and b) lying blatantly and paying just enough lip service to keep some of the environmentalist wackos at bay. I think you're leaning toward the latter but I'm hoping that you, a lame duck, have the courage to do the former. I don't trust the government to lead me this way, but a lot of the country still loves you, sir. A lot of the country still believes in this corporate capitalist conspiracy we pretend to call a representative democracy. We largely avoid direct democracy as much as possible. It's what we were born into. It's hard to get out of. And do we even want to.

That's no longer the question, or it won't be soon. I think the economy will continue to get worse. And if for some reason it doesn't I think that climate change will just happen faster and faster. We can't have both. And my guess is that we probably can't have either.

I still love my life and I think it's very good. But, as Derrick Jensen has said, we're pretty fucked.

Crisis of Civilization.9

Here's what I've been reading today:

• "Al-Qaeda-affiliated networks remain useful as mercenary proxies for Anglo-American regional geostrategy in the Middle East" (157). As in - we're paying for so-called terrorism (though we can't completely control it - that's how double- and triple-agency works) to justify the government's having such a huge military, which we use to protect our interests of controlling all of the world's natural resources so we can continue to live the cushiest lives for as long as we can. 
• "These crises [global ecological, energy, and economic] are recognized not as evidence that the global imperial system is fundamentally unsustainable and therefore requiring urgent transformation, but as vindicating the necessity for Western states to radicalize the exertion of their military-political capacities to maintain the existing power structures" (161-162). This is similar to what I wrote above. I agree with much of it but disagree with the implication that the people in power think that global imperial system is fundamentally unsustainable. There is a difference, I suppose, between thinking and knowing something and recognizing it publicly. I firmly believe that the people in power know that the house of cards is about to fall and just want to ride the wave (on the backs of the "have nots" of the world) as long as they can and live as well as they can before dying a fiery fiery death. They know it can't last but they don't want to be the ones to suffer. 
• "While, internally, capitalist markets are designed to work without government interference, the actual creation of such markets in new territories requires a violent transformation of their social relations to take control of productive resources, dispossess large numbers from the land to create wage labourers, and open markets to foreign capital. If such efforts are resisted by local populations, then counter-insurgency measures are required to forcibly establish the 'liberal' conditions of the market - that is, a regulatory private property framework supported by appropriate political, legal and ideological institutions.Hence, military doctrines come hand-in-glove with a potent vision of 'liberal' imperialism, advocating 'the forceful extension of free markets, electoral democracies and human rights,' all of which are essential ingredients in the maintenance of 'legitimate states and capitalist markets to secure the expanded reproduction of a liberal world order'" (165, with author citing Alejandro Colas's 2007 Empire). - If this part isn't abundantly clear, what I interpret is that capitalism as we know it is bullshit. I was going to start writing about how in individual communities, doing work for profit makes sense, but then my brain started thinking about the psychological studies that refute the idea that people are best motivated extrinsically. The bottom line, I believe, is that turning land, plant and animal life, and even HUMAN life into "capital" and "resources" is wrong. It's the fundamental idea I've been wrestling with for about 12 years now - there is no "self" and "other." We MUST respect everything else as being part of what we are. Separating ourselves through the many means we use is wrong and it's going to kill life on this planet. [Future blog ideas about deifying separating institutions like language, religion, government, etc.]
• "The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our culture assault" (166, quoted from Ralph Peters's 'Constant Conflict' from Parameters 1997; Peters is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel).

These quotations and the barely explained thoughts of mine derived from them are the reason I abbreviated the lunch break I took to make time to read them; there was too much here to add on to and too much I wanted to put into words to draw on in future arguments. Input is most welcome.

Guy McPherson

70-minute combined lecture and Q&A. Fascinating and inspiring.

In the News

Texas A&M and cheap, safe water

Rising sea level in Texas

These are some of the headlines of the maybe-weekly email that comes to all TAMU faculty, staff, and students.

I finished reading Carolyn Baker's "Sacred Demise," which was pretty good. Lots of food for thought. Now that it's summer I'm ready for a Barbara Kingsolver binge. And I'm still reading Nafeez Ahmed's "A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization." I just started the chapter on terrorism and foreign policy. I haven't encountered too many new concepts in this chapter yet, but Nafeez documents his sources well and I'm sure I'll have points to share as the chapter continues.

Western Way of Life

This really isn't news to most people I talk to who choose to think about such things or can stomach the truth, but it bears repeating. Preach it, brother Nafeez!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/earth-insight/2013/jun/04/rising-energy-prices-western-life-mod

This summer's foray into sustainability involves me pet-sitting, walking to work more, and making more soup and eating out less. Also composting a bit :-)

The Hour of Power

If you have time while you're washing dishes or doing tasks at work that don't require heavy reading or writing, consider this: http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-05-21/warrior-writers
It's a 75-minute discussion among climate journalists and activists about some of the possible ways to mitigate climate change, mostly from a policy perspective. I don't buy into it all, not by a long shot, but these are the kinds of conversations that are good to have.

Revolution

Here's the newest video/lecture I've found that has inspired me today.

I'm still reading Sacred Demise, even as I read other compelling posts about how failing to resist is immoral. As I wrote on my other blog this morning, I think I can hold the two tense opposing philosophies in my mind at the same time, try to make intellectual and spiritual sense of them, and live in a way that meets my moral and physical needs. I want to resist as much as I can and still be "sane" (a loaded word, but I mean more personally healthy than 'abiding by the societal rules other people set for me') but also accept the very likely demise of life on earth and not let that knowledge paralyze my action. Make sense?

Sacred Demise

Last week's film screening and its attendees inspired me to consider spending less time and energy reading the doomsday scenarios. After all, I'm already convinced of the imminent eventuality of the demise of Western Civilization. What am I gonna do about it?

Right now I'm reading Dr. Carolyn Baker's Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse. People who see me reading it think I'm crazy. So be it. Here's what has struck me so far:

I'm a sucker for etymology. Turns out the word "apocalypse" means unveiling or revealing.

Baker, via What a Way to Go, recommends we do some of these things to change our lives:

1. Fully acknowledge and internalize that the culture of Empire is destroying the support systems on which the community of life depends, and robbing us of our essential humanity.
2. Talk about your concerns with everyone you know. Make Peak Oil, climate change, mass extinction and population overshoot household words.
3. Find your work in the world to preserve life, change this culture and/or create restorative ways for individuals and communities to live in harmony with each other and the non-human world.
4. Assess what you actually need during this transition in order to live and do your work. Only buy what you need and buy from local sources in order to support the creation of local economies.
5. Find or deepen your spiritual connection to that which is greater than you. Ask and then listen for guidance about how to live joyfully and creatively in the face of these unprecedented times (xliii).

I feel like I'm doing pretty well in many of those areas. Most of the time I let myself understand and be aware of the problem of Empire. I talk more and more about what I know, to the point of starting to alienate some of them. Finding my work in the world is a constant struggle. I feel like I'm making meaningful choices all the time, though. I've been working on number 4 for a while. It's how I was raised, to a point. It's what true conservatism means, or so I thought. And the fifth one is something I love to pursue. It's where my heart lies.

Baker then borrows from Daniel Quinn and claims that there are four myths we civilized humans tell ourselves. The ones that get to me are #3, that the "economic growth and technological 'advancement' of the 'civilized' world creates a 'better' life." The truth is that this better life "requires the degradation and annihilation of natural systems for the benefit of a few, self-selected humans" (lii). And the answer to it all is endless growth without limits. But even if there are limits, technology will save us, right? (Not right.)

Despite the certainty that these things are going to happen, Baker is a happy person. She's not optimistic that things will change and civilization will be redeemed. She is optimistic and thankful, it seems, that she can choose to live life more appropriately in the meantime. 

I'm not done reading Ahmed's Crisis of Civilization. Baker's book came from a different library and is due back much sooner than CoC. I'll continue posting my musings on this and other subjects in this venue.

Week in Transition

It's been a long week. I had an early conference call at work Monday morning, and I was so involved in that and some sponsorship opportunities and conversations with colleagues that I forgot to attend this lecture about Global Food Policy and Trade until it was too late to start walking across campus and even hope to make it in time. It may be just as well, though, because I imagine I would have wanted to argue (out loud) with the underlying assumption that people should not worry about becoming food independent but try to make money off of the commodities their nations can export in the global economy.

It's really weird, because in theory I love the idea of globalization. We are the world, we have so much in common, we want to raise everybody to a high standard of living. But in doing this, we ignore that niggling little fact that we live on a finite planet. We don't have the resources to burn to bring everybody to where we are; AND the toxic outputs of our industrialized civilization are going to kill the entire biosphere before we get anywhere close. Our idea of economics came into being and is dependent upon the idea of cheap, abundant oil (fossil fuels in general). The fact is that this fuel source will not last forever. Even if there's more in the ground than all the many scientists theorize, it's still finite and it's getting harder (more expensive and more destructive to human and non-human life) to harvest it. Prices will go up. People who depend most on cheap oil to make ends meet (and think about how much oil is involved in our food system, how cheap and subsidized food is in the United States, and how the U.S. poor have enough trouble already buying groceries, just as one tiny and local example of this pervasive global problem) are going to find it harder and harder to get by.

I screened the film GrowthBusters at my church Tuesday evening. Afterwards, the eight of us present had a really lively discussion about the problems we face. Unlike at the previous two film screenings, though, this time we reined it in a little bit, did less bemoaning of the state of the world, and talked instead about solutions. What can we do in our individual lives to get by on less, to avoid working in a broken system? Top-down changes are nice (and may eventually be necessary), but what do the people who are struggling to make ends meet do now? And what do folks like me that still live cushy lives but see the decline of The System in sight do to prepare and mitigate?

Well, we start Transition groups. We do more local gardening. What about the 80-year-old woman whose back hurts too much to weed and pick veggies and has trouble chopping and chewing all that real food? She makes friends with people - covenants in community - who have skills and resources she needs. Sybil has social work skills and she has her own home. I have a young back and don't mind stooping and sweating for a few hours. Other friends have seeds. Other friends have tools. Other friends have skills in carpentry, electricianship, etc. It's crazy and utopian, right? The thought that we can get together at small, local levels and take care of ourselves? Doesn't this go against the idea that we should all strive to be the best of our brand of specialized cog in a huge and highly oiled (in all senses) machine? That we can count on going to the grocery store as being the cheapest and most efficient way to get our food? That big box stores can give us everything we need by the most convenient methods?

This system is shutting down. It's based on growth, our favorite new religion/dogma/creed, and growth is based on the idea of cheap, abundant fossil fuels. And that idea was once a myth and is now a bold-faced lie. So what's the solution?

I'm not going to be an ecoterrorist and tell you to topple your system. I am going to encourage you to detach, whenever and wherever you can, from the system. Stop being dependent (as much as you can - this is an individual thing based on what you can do and what you feel comfortable doing) on the system that is so big it cannot possibly care about you. Go instead to your neighbors - the people who make up your community and live on your land base - and make connections. This is where some of the more fringe groups of the Tea Party and other seemingly right-wing movements get it right, I think. Big government is going to fail, one way or another. I still personally prefer the branch of big government that gives rights to my gay and black and Latino and poor and differently abled members of my society to the branch of big government that would prefer to demonize and cleanse the things it thinks are different and icky, but my Truth is that both branches of the U.S. political system are in it for their own power and they are owned by the energy-sucking companies that make civilization work. And I don't trust them anymore.

So part of me is becoming politically radical. But another part of me is seeing with every new day how this is a moral issue. This is the issue that I believe can be tackled head-on with my faith, Unitarian Universalism, a faith that doesn't have a dogma or creed but has many sources and seven principles, my favorite and most radical of which are the first and last:
- the inherent worth and dignity of every person; and
- respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part

These are profoundly challenging principles when you think about them. Are starving people in Africa and the oppressed people in Afghanistan deserving of the same respect and dignity that I am? Then why do I allow the government that represents me to forcibly take their natural resources and turn their people into desperate, angry scared slaves to neoliberal capitalism? If I believe in the web of existence, then why do I allow frackers in Montana to repeatedly decrease and pollute the water supply of the peoples and other species that live there? Why do I allow my brothers and sisters to kill off 200 species a day through overfishing and chemical pollution and countless other acts of xenocide?

I allow these things because I am afraid. I allow them because the problems are huge and I don't know how to start. And the answer is to form beloved communities and to respect limits and life and love. To overcome fear. To be willing to be different. To be willing to work hard. 

All My Favorite People

This documentary starts a little bit slowly, but it's worth dipping into, especially if you're new to the idea and want a primer on the crisis of civilization and how we can and should (and will, eventually) be living differently. I've put it on my list as something to show at my church, either as a full documentary screening or possibly in smaller segments in sermons between ministers.

Oh yeah, the favorite people bit. The documentary includes interviews with Richard Heinberg and Derrick Jensen (my favorite "ecoterrorist" and Daniel Quinn and Ren Prieur (a new favorite) and the incredibly adorable Wendell Berry. Lots of other interviews with other people I'll have to look into.

http://www.whatawaytogomovie.com/watch-the-movie/

I hope you'll give it a shot.

Crisis of Civilization.8

Today I finished reading Nafeez's section on Energy Scarcity and started the chapter on Food Insecurity. So far, I haven't learned much of anything new, though it's nice to see that my man Nafeez references my man Lester Brown. Notes:

• In the US, "the share accrued by the farmer of every consumer dollar spent on food has declined from over 40 cents before 1950 to about 7 cents today" (95).
• Agricultural economists in the US like to say that food self-sufficiency does not equal food security. With rising energy prices, though, I think they're wrong. (Not to mention violent and exploitative methods of securing those trade agreements.) Colombia produces 62% of all the cute flowers imported by the US, but 13% of its population is malnourished (95).
• Modern industrial farming is bad for a lot of reasons (97):
• it takes 500 years to renew a lost inch of topsoil
• over the last 100 years, the US has lost half its topsoil
• topsoil in the US is eroding 30 times faster than natural rates
• 2 million acres of cropland are lost per year in the US through erosion, desalinization, and waterogging
• 1 million acres of cropland are lost per year in the US through urbanization, roads, and industry
• Agriculture consumes 86% of US freshwater resources.

I don't have a particular thesis or message today. Not much hope except for the advice that keeps popping up among thinkers, poets, researchers, activists, scholars, etc: live in community and work from the ground up, learn new skills, and respect your land base.