Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Fire is an intrinsic part of the Australian landscape. It has become more destructive since European colonisation, and over recent decades, we have experienced even greater destruction due to accelerating climate change and changes in land use. Australia could, and should, be leading the world in transitioning to a renewable energy base to reduce the root cause of the crisis.
A truly transformative Green New Deal cannot simply be about returning to a welfare capitalist order of days of yore. It must move beyond capitalism’s growth imperative. This is not only because there is no empirical evidence supporting the existence of a decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures anywhere near the scale needed to deal with the ecological crisis, but also because such decoupling appears unlikely to happen in the future.
We built our little house using light straw clay and lots of reclaimed wood, which both saved us money and reduced the environmental impact of building. Alternative materials alone don’t make a house green, though, because even the eco-friendliest house is still far more impactful than it has to be if it is bigger than it has to be.
Maybe that’s the most important thing that I’ve learnt in the past fifteen years: material things don’t make us happy. People need one another. Experiences, building something together, meeting each other – that’s happiness. And we’re being robbed of that because other stuff has taken its place. So yes, I envision a much happier world.
This remark, made by a member of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) Citizens’ Assembly Working Group, is met by a spontaneous flurry of jazz hands from everyone in the small Kings College London meeting room. No, we’re not all frustrated musical theatre performers; waving ‘jazz hands’ are used in XR, and other activist groups, to express agreement during a group discussion. I can’t resist pointing out the irony of our reaction – we’re all agreeing we need to be less cult-like by raising our hands in unison and waving them about. Everyone laughs, but it strikes me that this points to a deeper challenge in our work.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve found the news headlines over the past month to be difficult to bear. I don’t know why we’re at each others’ throats politically and culturally in this nation. At one point, not so long ago, it felt like we were making progress on important issues, including food, water, and climate challenges. In the spirit of reflection, I’d like to share two stories of regeneration and hope – one about a milking cow who had to learn how to eat grass and one about a moment of human connection during a march in downtown Manhattan.
The coming decade is arguably the most important in human history, especially as relates to climate and the environment. The status quo – of a planetary emergency and deep inequalities – is unsustainable and insupportable. Strategies for extending democratic public ownership over the commanding heights of the twenty-first century economy can open up a more innovative, sustainable, and inclusive futur
As one Ojibwe cultural leader recently told me, after a berry fast, the young woman is looked up to as a “leader” by her peers. It is “a beautiful and intentional year-long consideration of the power of womanhood,” she said.
I admit it. It was me who brought the crazy house-building scheme into our marriage. But he encouraged me! If he hadn’t, I would have given up somewhere along the way. But I didn’t, and we built a house using light straw clay. How on Earth did that happen?
The primarily low-tech, shovel-ready, affordable solutions that we need already exist in every nation and region. We don’t need to invent new techniques. We simply need to identify, publicize, replicate, and scale up currently existing best practices utilizing farmer-to-farmer education and training, with major support and funding from the public and private sectors.
Some habits make us unhappy. Others reveal unhappiness. Some do both. A healthy society strives to nurture the well-being of its members, because secure, stable people who find satisfaction in life can work together, innovate, adapt to change, and problem-solve effectively. A country full of miserable, angry people who spend their time blotting out their pain or lashing out at others can cope with almost nothing.
It’s time to swim perpendicular to the tide, time to become a real citizen, and time to practice democracy like my life depends on it, because it does. And start off in this new direction through a one year life experiment I’m calling The Year of Living Locally, which I’ll blog here on Shareable.net.
