Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
If we focus only on keeping distance but not at the same time on closeness – on taking care of the many relationships that support us – then we lose sight of important courses of action as well as the people needed to undertake them.
This final part of the series presents a vision of new type of university, exemplified in the world-spanning Ecoversities Alliance, and dreamed of in Transition U and Eco Vista U, two prototypes that I am involved in co-creating with students, staff, faculty, and community members in Santa Barbara, California, and in the Transition US movement.
I believe that working on intersecting crises, on so-called wicked problems, is the order of the day, and as in most things, the very interlocking of our crises gives me hope for confronting them with courage and vision.
The COVID-19 pandemic is exposing deep inequalities in race and economic status, and the inadequacy of the nation’s social safety nets. Still, the massive social disruption caused by the pandemic offers important lessons to consider as we craft strategies for aggressive climate action.
When we are able to quiet all the worries, the media, and public frenzy, we can see a bigger picture: This moment is an opportunity to come together in community, in care, and in preparation. Grave threats like climate change and pandemics are real—we know this as crisis scenarios become more frequent and more extreme.
We are aiming high: to assist in laying the foundations for the establishment of an ongoing, multigenerational, student-community initiative for an equitable and just transition in Isla Vista, California, and to put the result, Eco Vista, forward as an experiential model that other small towns with college students might want to freely adapt for their communities.
Perhaps 2020 vision could unveil to us that life matters and is sacred. That honored boundaries allow fires to chart a healing course and give breathing room to the full diversity and dignity of life. What if the lives of those most often suppressed, eradicated, ignored, coopted, most readily resistant actually mattered?
We need to come together and pool our wisdom, strength and resources to build a whole new system, a world where all are privileged, to live in bounty, beauty on this wonderful Earth we’ve been given.
Today, our series host Vicki Robin answers the question herself of “What Could Possibly Go Right?” In interview with Amy Buringrud of Post Carbon Institute, Vicki shares what she’s learned from the series’ guests so far.
Is it too weird to say that, as bad as the first half of 2020 has been, it’s been a relief? A tiny virus has achieved what decades of activism could not: stop us in our self-destructive tracks. She essentially sent us to our rooms to think about our behavior.
As of right now, climate justice does not have a unified definition. Its meaning changes depending on who is using it so let me make my vision very clear. Climate justice is collective liberation by another name.
To address the complex threats and opportunities of the 21st century needs a change of mindset and daily political practice – away from the mindset of the machine and the engineer and towards the mindset of the garden and the gardener.
