Oil and Honey (A Review)

What a start to the year 2014: huge seas battering the UK coast, searing heat making parts of Australia almost unbearable, and much of the US frozen in a death grip.  Symptoms of climate change?  Very likely.

Timely then to review the latest book by one of the world’s leading climate change campaigners.  Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org - the world-wide amalgamation of groups and individuals campaigning for action on climate change.  His latest book is Oil and Honey published in 2013.

The book is almost a diary of McKibben’s life over a period of two years beginning in 2011.  It chronicles his learning about bees and honey from a friend, and contrasts and compares this with his part in the effort to stop the Keystone pipeline¹.  Hence, Oil and Honey.  It is an intriguing juxtaposition of the global and the local, the very large and the small.  Using these personal journeys Bill allows the reader to understand that all of us are up against a large global monster, but that the answers are small and local.

Yet, we cannot go straight to implementing answers, there are some huge changes to make first.  As McKibben so ably puts it:

“… it (is) time to stop changing lightbulbs and start changing systems.” (p.14/15)

Bees

McKibben’s association with bees allows for a couple of metaphors to be included in the book.  In one section he alludes to a book titled Honeybee Democracy, in which the author describes the democratic process in which bees decide on a location for their hive.  McKibben states that this process is “the exact opposite of how politics works in Washington” and thus, why “our elected officials have done nothing to make our earth more secure.” (p 79)

The basic reason for this inaction, according to McKibben, is because corporations won’t change.  They have a purpose, and only one purpose, so that all other considerations do not enter the thinking process.

Campaigning for Change

The book gives us an insiders glimpse of life on the campaign trail of one of the world’s leading campaigners for action on climate change.  McKibben and others travel by bus throughout the US speaking at rallies and meetings, sometimes with many thousands in attendance.  From half a world away from the US it is heartening to know that there are people like Bill McKibben pressing for change in that country, for, without the US undergoing massive change the rest of the planet does not have much chance.

For that reason alone, McKibben’s book is worth reading.  For activists around the world it is also worth reading for the campaign ideas that it mentions.

Finally, it is worth reading for one of the very last pieces of advice from McKibben’s beekeeper friend, Kirk Webster, who in a conversation between the two of them, makes the telling observation that:

“For us to survive now we really have to put other living things ahead of ourselves.” (p 244)

He’s right, we are all connected and the sooner we realise this, the better.  Bill McKibben is also right, the sooner “…we fight this fight in the world we live in, not the one we hope to build,” the better. (p 21)

Buy the book, become inspired, make the world better.

1.  The Keystone pipeline is proposed to be a huge pipeline carrying crude oil from oil sands in Alberta, Canada all the way across the US to the Texan coast refineries.  Massive opposition has come from environmentalists, scientists, indigenous peoples and farmers and landowners.

Community Development: Verb or Noun?

The term Community Development has been with us for decades.  Surely, by now we would have an idea of what it is then.  Is it a verb, or is it a noun?  A verb is a word (or words) that describe an action, whereas a noun is a word (or words) that give a name to something.

Many definitions of Community Development emphasise its process nature.  They define Community Development as involving a community actively seeking solutions to concerns that the community itself identifies, using resources and skills that the community already has or is prepared to obtain.  From this perspective, Community Development can easily be understood as a verb.

If, then, Community Development is simply a verb and describes a process, then the term can quite easily be re-worded to become development of a community.  This understanding says nothing about the nature of the community that is developing, nor that of the society within which that community is located.

Such an understanding of Community Development or, developing a community, is of little assistance to a Community Development practitioner.  It gives no indication as to what sort of community the practitioner should work in, nor does it clearly identify the goal towards which the community is being developed.

Understood as a noun, however, helps to overcome these limitations.  Community Development as a noun announces a situation, a state, or a vision.  The noun that is Community Development often mentions equity, social justice, fairness, equal opportunity, sustainability and harmony – all naming a vision of a society different from the one we have.

So, is Community Development a verb or a noun?  It should be obvious that it is both.  The more so when we realise that the means (verb) by which we do something is inextricably woven into the ends (noun) that we seek.

War Is Over

2014.  One century on from the beginning of World War I – which had been touted as the war to end all wars.  It is fitting then to begin this years series of blogs with a review of War Is Over - Yoko Ono’s exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

Ono is no stranger to war.  As a 12 year old living in Japan she lived through the atomic devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It was during another war, the Vietnam War, in the 1960s that Ono produced some of her well-known anti-war art, some of which are installed in this exhibition.  The exhibition covers from that time through to some more recent pieces.

Much of her art is interactive.  One such piece is Play It By Trust in which viewers sit down at a chess board with their white pieces arrayed in front of them.  Another viewer sits on the opposite side of the board also with their chess pieces arrayed in front of them – also white.  Thus, as the game progresses it becomes difficult to tell which chess pieces belong to which player.
Ono describes Play It By Trust as

“lead(ing) to a shared understanding of (our) mutual concerns and a new relationship based on empathy rather than opposition.  Peace is then attained on a small scale.”

Another piece (Ono often puns the words piece and peace) designed to illicit our interconnections is Helmets – Pieces of the Sky.  A number of WW II helmets hang upside down in the gallery space, each containing dozens of jigsaw pieces of sky and clouds.  Viewers are invited to take a piece of jigsaw with them and reflect on the notion that we all hold a piece of the giant jigsaw that when assembled creates a beautiful skyscape.

The title of Ono’s exhibition is a reference to the campaign that she and her husband, John Lennon, organised between 1969 and 1971 to end war.  Today there are around 30 or more nations involved in some sort of war.  War has not ended.

With this in mind it is worth reading the fine print in the exhibition title.  Below the words War Is Over are four words in much smaller type: If you want it.

No matter what you think of Yoko Ono’s art – good, bad or indifference – it is important that a recognised artist like her is reminding us that peace is possible, if we want it.

In a recent interview¹, Ono, at 80 years of age warned that

“the biggest threat to our planet is our pessimism, and giving up the work to bring peace to our society.  If we don’t allow change, that is death.”

One hundred years after the beginning of the war to end all wars, let’s take up Ono’s challenge and decide that war is over, if we want it.

1. Mindfood magazine, Jan/Feb 2014, p051

Thanks 2013

I'm taking a short break from writing of a week or two.  Thanks for visiting this site during 2013.  Back again in 2014.  Best wishes to everyone.  Bruce

War, Terrorism and Fear

A couple of postings ago I questioned whether our fear created climate change? 

When we ask ourselves “who are we?” often we are confronted with our mortality and the realisation that we are alone.  This realisation leads to one of two fears.  One fear is that we are alone, that we are empty.  That is the fear explored in the previous post.



The other fear is the fear of the other, or of the unknown.  The realisation that we are alone causes us to ask “who are those others?” or “what’s out there, beyond us?”  Both reactions can stimulate a desire to overcome the other or to control what is out there.

But, we cannot do this on our own.  Somehow, we put aside enough of our fears to combine with those that we consider friends, allies or, at least, those with similar ideas and values.  These alliances are often grounded in cultural, ethnic, religious or national affiliations.  Now, we have a collective group to which we can belong, to which we can identify.

Complementary to this arises other collective groups to which we assign the titles of; them, enemies, aliens, foreigners, inferior beings or outsiders.  The group with which we identify gains a group mentality which, if followed in a noxious manner leads to “Us vs. Them” or “We are Good, They are Evil” mental states.

The combined xenophobia and chauvinism that this mentality leads to is a build up of military capacity and/or the willingness to die for the cause.  Ultimately, this gives rise to large arms expenditures, arsenals that could destroy the world many times over and heightened tensions.
There are at least two possible outlets for this spiralling madness.  One is war.  The other is terrorism.  Peter Ustinov¹ however, suggests (and who can really contradict him) that:

“Terrorism is the war of the poor.  War is the terrorism of the rich.”

And so, we arrive at a place where violence becomes the accepted means by which disputes and other issues are resolved.

And, what happens when we face violence?  We collapse back into our fear of our mortality.

So the spiral goes, in tandem with the spiral leading to climate change.  Neither spiral can be stopped at the top-end of the spiral (i.e. in the climate change or violent solutions boxes).  We must look to our fears and try to understand who we are and what is the self.  Are we truly alone?  Another blog post, I fear!

1. Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) was an English actor, writer and dramatist.  he won two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor.  In his later life he dedicated himself to his role as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.

Madiba; Farewell, Farewell, Farewell.

Nelson Mandela with Francois Pienaar (Springbok captain)
at Rugby World Cup 1995.

One of the greatest men of the 20th Century, Nelson Mandela has died peacefully.  Mandela’s legacy will live on far beyond the shores of his native South Africa where he was also known as Madiba – his Xhosa clan name.


South Africa in the second half of the 20th Century was one of the last nations on Earth to retain the institutionalisation and legalisation of racial oppression under the name apartheid.  The names Steve Biko, Walter Sisulu, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others came to be known throughout the world as indigenous leaders of the resistance to apartheid.  But by far, the most well known name was that of Nelson Mandela.

Originally espousing violence as a means, albeit one he felt forced into by the brutality of apartheid, Mandela went on to proclaim a nonviolent resistance.  Later, when he became the nations Prime Minister he solidified this commitment with nonviolence by seeking to forgive rather than to condemn and punish.

In 1995 when Mandela walked onto the rugby field at Ellis Park, Johannesburg, at the start of the Rugby World Cup final wearing the green Springbok jersey Mandela was signifying not just to his nations people, black and white, but to the entire world, that reconciliation is possible.  The green Springbok jersey until that moment had become a hated symbol of apartheid by those opposing sporting contact with South Africa throughout the world, particularly in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Yet, there stood a man who had suffered incredibly under the system of apartheid that the Springbok jersey had come to represent.  Mandela had moved from being a victim to being a merciful forgiver.  Mandela had moved from being a perpetrator of violent means to being a man of peace and justice.  When he stood on that field in that jersey, Mandela was announcing that we could all do the same.  We could all become peaceful, we could all be forgivers.

At his 90th birthday celebratory concert in London’s Hyde Park, attended by thousands, Nelson Mandela ended his speech by saying that after ninety years of life the work was now in the hands of others.

Let us accept and cherish his gift.  Let us continue to work for peace, justice and freedom using the two tools that he left us: compassion and forgiveness.

Does Fear Create Climate Change?

Climate Change.  Those two words create all sorts of thoughts, feelings and emotions in people.  Do our own emotions create climate change itself?  Specifically, does fear give rise to climate change?

Have a look at this model.


© Bruce Meder, 2013    We are all mortal.  Some psychological theories and spiritual understandings suggest that when we think of our mortality we are faced with fears.  One of those fears is the fear that we are ultimately alone, that we are “empty.”

In order to satisfy that emptiness we turn to various activities in an attempt to fill up that empty space.  One of the ways we do that is via consumerism.  Go out and buy something; the latest technological gadget, fast food or alcohol.  At a national level it may be the purchase of a multi-million dollar jet fighter or the building of a new palace or parliamentary building.

Consumerism feeds Economic Growth.  Economic Growth has come to be seen as the panacea for a all sorts of issues in the world.  “We need growth” the industrialists and political leaders will cry.  But do we?  Really?
As we know, economic growth leads to resource depletion and to more and more carbon emissions and other forms of waste.

And carbon emissions lead to …. Climate Change.

Then what?  If we seriously consider climate change and the possibilities that continuing climate change has upon the earth and us humans living on the earth then we end up facing (again) our mortality.  This time as a whole species, not just as individuals.

And so, the ever increasing spiral collapses back into the point at which we started.

Notice too that, although the spiral model above began with the individual, as we move around the spiral the “I” becomes “we.”  Climate change is not caused by any one of us, it is caused by our collective actions.

Does this model help us understand the connection between ourselves and our fears and how that helps to create climate change?  I would like to hear your thoughts?

P.S.  One of the other fears that we can have as a response to our mortality is the fear of the “other”, fear of the “unknown.”  Via a similar spiral of connections that can lead to the another of the major issues facing humanity – war and terrorism.  That’s for another posting.