Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Our very nature is far more caring, loving, and empathic than we have been educated to believe. While being empathic may have initially extended primarily to our family and tribe, our ability to empathize has continued to expand to include the whole of humanity, other species and life as a whole.
We humans will always seek reductive explanations for “why” things happen in the world around us and try to use those explanations to gain advantage for ourselves and our fellow humans in the fight for survival within our biosphere. But if we see the limits of such explanations and therefore their dangers, we might move more humbly among the vast array of creatures and Earth systems with whom we live and upon whom we depend for our very survival.
Like all large movements, youth climate activism has had its successes and setbacks, its enormously inspiring moments and others when it failed to live up to its ideals. What follows are some reflections on lessons from the movement, necessarily limited by my own experience and position as a white male organizer from a middle-class background.
Since the fall, indigenous women of the Secwepemc Nation—calling themselves the Tiny House Warriors—have been constructing tiny houses that they plan to strategically place in the pathway of the proposed Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Maybe the most important “technology” for helping us think, then, is friendship. Thinking alongside people whom we disagree with and yet still care about trains our feelings and dispositions.
I would estimate that two thirds to three quarters of our base was not involved politically before the 2016 election. My goal is to help build political power alongside these folks in my community, and in other communities across the country.
Leggett’s insider observations vindicate the conclusion that humankind finds itself in the midst of an unprecedented civilisational ‘phase-shift’, in which we are witnessing the slow (and sometimes not so slow) implosion of the old industrial paradigm.
The global predicament cannot be solved other than through a Transition Towns movement, and the emergence of such a movement has been of immense importance. But I fear that the present movement is not going to do what’s needed.
Let’s be honest, making choices to live a more ethical or sustainable life take effort. It would be easier to just go with the flow.
If we ourselves move away from tacitly reinforcing the assumption of self-interest, and build our work outwards from the potent insight that most people prioritise ‘compassionate’ values, we can open vast possibilities for ambitious – and durable – responses to environmental challenges.
Health. Energy. Climate. Crime. Education. Happiness. Water. Housing. What if it were possible
to make headway on all these issues with simple changes to our neighborhoods?
In retrospect, I learned a lot about mobility in these past two years. Everyone who thinks seriously about cities — let alone urban transportation — should spend a year or two car-free. But short of that, I’d like to share a few of the insights I have gained, both for folks who are considering this lifestyle and for transportation wonks.
