The Courage To Change

Sometime in the early 1930s Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a prayer, the first verse of which has come to be

Reinhold Niebuhr

known as the Serenity Prayer.  Niebuhr wrote:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Although Niebuhr’s prayer is couched in theological terms, the sentiment could easily help us clarify our social justice actions.

When I - a white, older-aged, male, residing in one of the world richest nations – consider what things I can change, these come to mind.

Racism is predominantly a system and a structure of providing white people benefits within society and largely excluding those of dark skin.  It has been built on the back of (often) brutal colonisation and a Eurocentric sense of superiority.  My ethnic background and heritage place me squarely in the position of being able to do something about that – to change it.

My age (I was born in the 1950s) means that I have grown up in an age of plenty, an age of exploitation of the earth, an age of increasing individualisation and entitlement.  When I look around at my cohort today I see little has changed.  My peers are still approaching the earth as if it is a big playground.  Meanwhile, the future of younger generations is being stolen from them, and the memory of past generations is being forgotten or placed in museums.  My age enables me to work to change this.

Sexism and misogyny are the outcome of a system that is patriarchal in nature.  Patriarchy is dominated by male thought, by male values, by male attitudes.  Those values and attitudes have: seen domestic abuse and violence at high levels, maintained an economic imbalance between the sexes, plundered the earth, given rise to authoritarianism, and even exploited some men (particularly gay men, black men, boys.)  As a man I have a responsibility to change this.

Inequality of wealth and income is one of the drivers of so many social ills.  Poverty, malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, homelessness, displaced peoples and migrants, various addictions, and poor health, can all be attributed to inequality.  In 2019 there were 2,153 billionaires (less than the number needed to fill the average cruise ship), yet these billionaires had more wealth than 4.6 billion people (60% of the world's population.)  The 22 richest men in the world own more wealth than all the women in Africa.¹  Even I (who have an income that is just a little above the Australian official poverty level) am wealthier than almost 90% of the world’s people.  As a resident of a rich nation I can do something to help change this.

There are many things in the world that I have little, or no, ability to change, even though I may find them disturbing, unjustified, or oppressive.  However, those I have just outlined I do have the ability to change, because I live within each of those enclaves and am supported by and benefit from them.  And that is where Niebuhr calls us to courage.

It is far more courageous to look at the systems I am part of and seek to change from within, than it is to point the finger elsewhere and say “you have to change.”

What if look but don’t see?

I suggest there is one more line to add to Niebuhr’s prayer.

The humility to listen to those in pain and suffering.

Note:

1. Statistics from:  Oxfam International, Time To Care: Unpaid and underpaid care work in the global inequality crisis, January 2020.

Will The Last Human Plant A Tree?

There is an Indian saying: “Blessed is the one who plants trees under whose shade they will never sit.”

If we stop long enough to listen to the earth we will hear the sounds of hundreds upon hundreds of trees being felled every minute.  We will hear the sounds of birds bemoaning their lack of habitat.  We will hear Mother Earth herself cry out in pain as she is cut into with rock-crushing machinery.

And if we take the time to read the research then we will realise that we are in what has been termed the “Sixth Extinction.”  The fifth extinction took place approximately 65 million years ago, famously wiping out the dinosaurs and killed around half of all life on the planet.  The extinction period is considered to have lasted between 1 and 2 ½ million years.  Famously, it is also thought to have been caused by an external event – the impact of a meteor up to 80km in diameter and delivering an energy equivalent to 21 – 960 billion Hiroshima sized bombs.

The Sixth Extinction could take much less than this amount of time, and without such a massive fireball of energy.  It just requires us humans continuing to do what we are doing.

Over the course of the past century or two our impact upon the earth has been to increase the background extinction rate by 100 – 1,000 times the usual rate.  Yet, if we look at the list of those species that have already gone extinct, and if we consider the extinction list of species that will become extinct, we often miss noticing one particular species on that list.  Homo sapiens.  Us, yes, we humans are on that list of species likely to become extinct.

It is a distinct possibility.  Many of earths climatic and biodiversity tipping points have been reached, and some possibly already triggered.  Once these tipping points are triggered then a cascade of tipping points will be triggered.  That means one thing.

No matter what we do there will be nothing we can do to control the runaway.

We have no solutions.

We have no hope.

Pessimistic?  Hopeless?  Despairing?  Apocalyptic?  Doomsday?  Maybe, maybe not.

What do we do?  First, continuing our destructive, affluent, mindless, exploitative lifestyles cannot continue.  We must stop.

Then, when we stop, we will perhaps discover that there is a grief in our knowledge.  This is to be expected, for “grief is a way of loving what has slipped from view.  Love is a way of grieving that which has not yet done so.”¹   Stephen Jenkinson eloquently reminds us that grief and love are intimately entwined.   

Stephen Jenkinson is a Canadian and one of his compatriots, Leonard Cohen, made a prescient observation in his song Boogie Street, when he sang:

“It was in love that we are made,

In love we disappear.”²

We could turn our disappearing - our extinction – into a time to rediscover and re-connect with the noble aspects of our humanity: love, compassion, kindness, empathy. 

Am I suggesting giving up hope?  Yes, for hope is a hopeless cause (if you’ll excuse the quip.) 

I am however, suggesting we act as if our grief and our love (for ourselves, for others, for the planet) are real and palpable. 

So, when the last human is about to die, will they plant a tree?

Notes:

1.  1. Stephen Jenkinson, Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 2015.

2.  2. Leonard Cohen, Boogie Street, on the album Ten New Songs, Columbia, 2001.

Lessons From Orienteering

We’ve lost our way.  All over the world we seem to be lost, or at least, confused about where to go and

how to get there.  We may even be uncertain how we got to where we are.

If we are looking for a world of greater biodiversity, peacefulness, and racial and sexual egalitarianism, then we have lost our way.  If we are searching for a world where all have their nutritional needs met, where access to clean water is available to all, and where we can ensure that future generations will be able to appreciate beauty, then we have lost our way.

We’ve lost sight of our social and environmental goals and are fumbling around trying to find our way back on track.  We’re going round and round in circles, following our own tracks, and repeating the same errors time and time again.

Orienteers know this scenario well.  Heading towards a defined point on a map an orienteer may suddenly find themselves unsure where they are.  What to do?  First – don’t panic.  Orienteers learn to re-locate.  Orienteers learn how to re-locate themselves on the map.

Two re-location techniques are: 1. Go back to where you last knew where you were, and 2. Find a high point and gain a wider point of view.  Both techniques may be of use to us in re-locating ourselves and finding our way back on track towards our social and environmental goals.

Go Back

Oftentimes one is confronted with the refrain that “we can’t go back.”  In terms of our technological inventions that may be true (or, may not.)  However, to “go back” in terms of our technology limits our thinking to one simply of utility.  We can go back to a former way of thinking; a form of thinking that those of us in western-styled culture have lost.  We can go back to a thinking that recognises that we are part of nature, not separate from nature.  We can go back to a thinking that understands community, cooperation, and mutuality.  We can go back to a thinking that realises that what we do has consequences.  We can go back to a thinking that admits to limits and concedes when enough is enough.

Gain A Higher Ground

When we get to higher ground we gain an overview, a wider picture.  We begin to see how things are inter-related.  We may even see, if we’re lucky, where we just were and where we need to get to, or at least, a prominent feature along the way.

When we take an overview in terms of our social and environmental goals we come to understand that all aspects of life are connected and inter-related.  We come to understand that the healing of the planet, the healing of our social relationships, and the healing of ourselves are all part of the same work.  Woking to save the planet is doomed if not connected to healing our damaged communities, and neither are obtainable if we do not heal our fractured selves.

Someone once said, “If you want to change anything, start everywhere.  If you want to change everything, start anywhere.”  When we gain higher ground and see the bigger picture, the veracity of that statement becomes unambiguous.

It’s Not Easy Going

Going back to a previous way of thinking, or taking a wider perspective does not, however, guarantee that the way ahead is any easier, or clearer.  The terrain is complex and simple solutions do not present themselves easily.

But, re-locating ourselves may be just what we need to do instead of blithely and furiously charging ahead with no idea of where we are headed, or where we have come from.

C.O.V.I.D.

The past few months have brought us not only pandemic but also a large degree of pandemonium.

In that time I have read, and listened to, politicians, experts, and friends telling me their thoughts, ideas, and mostly, their “knowledge.”  Some tell me Covid-19 is a deadly virus and we need to lock-down, keep our physical distance, wear a mask, and listen to experts and authorities.  Others tell me it is all a hoax, or at least not as harmful as we are told.  Still others tell me that the reaction from authorities is an over-reaction and that personal and individual liberties are under threat.

I do not wish to enter into a never-ending, continuous cycle of claim, counter-claim and ultimately futile conversation.  I acknowledge I have no knowledge, no background study or education, in any of this.  Hence, I can offer no opinion on the rights/wrongs of the measures taking place.  I do, however, know how I can act in the world at this time. 

Thinking of how to act I arrived at this C.O.V.I.D. attitude and understanding:

C is for Compassion.  There has been a lot of anger, blame-gaming, and name-calling by many on all sides during this time.  Compassion allows me to step back from these cul-de-sacs and allow me to have compassion for those who have had loved ones die.  I can find compassion for those embroiled in accusations and counter-accusations.  Furthermore, I have compassion for myself, for my own fears, uncertainties, and weariness.

O is for Observing, especially observing emotional responses.  I notice in others, and in myself, that many of our emotional responses arise from a place of fear.  For some it is a fear of illness or even death – of themselves or a loved one.  For some it is a fear of loss of work and hence, loss of income.  Yet others fear the loss of personal, or individual, liberty.  I can observe all of these fears arising in my own reactions and thoughts.

V is for Valuing each moment.  When I meditate, or remind myself of the practice of Mindfulness, my emotional state shifts towards ease and I can enter a zone of contentment, accepting what is without judgment.  Valuing each moment allows me to be present with my own feelings and also present to the particular engagements I may have with others from moment to moment.

I is for Inter-being.  Inter-being is a term coined by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh who (with a nod to Descartes) expresses it as: “I am, therefore you are.  You are, therefore I am.  We inter-are.”  When I try to fully understand this, it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to point fingers, name-call, or describe others as fools or idiots, meanwhile suggesting a woke¹ attribution to myself and those who think like me.  Furthermore, the notion of inter-being does not stop with humanity; it extends to the whole planetary system.  Thus, the ways in which we have treated (mis-treated is more apt) nature has profound repercussions for us.  We cannot isolate ourselves from nature, and in our attempt to do so (an enterprise we have been on for centuries) we disrupt the intricate networks so much that something, somewhere, is going to give.  Now that it has – we don’t like it.  (I’ll just leave that last sentence hanging.)

D is for Death.  Stephen Jenkinson² describes our western-styled culture as “…death-phobic and grief-illiterate.”   Death-phobia leads to death-denial and death-fearing.  We do all in our power to put off death and keep living, even if by keeping living we are no longer living.  Yet, as we know, and Buddhism reminds us, everything is impermanent.  Everything passes.  Yet, our aversion to death ironically means we approach life with impunity.  Perversely, our refusal to face death means we fail to live life fully.  Covid-19 brings us, if we are willing to allow it, face-to-face with our mortality.  And, being grief-illiterate we fail to recognise the love that is part and parcel of grief, slipping more easily into anger or despair.

Each of these five actions/attitudes are inter-connected, and the reader should treat them that way.  In doing so, you will discover your own meanings and connections.

For me, these five interconnected attitudes allow me to act in the world during a time of chaos, misunderstandings, confusion, and doubts.  Ultimately, how I act is of far more importance than my opinion on the rights and wrongs of the debates on Covid-19.

Note:

1.     Woke is a term borrowed – or stolen – from the Black Lives Matter movement, and essentially means to have an awareness of racial and social justice issues

2.     Stephen Jenkinson, Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 2015

Have We Begun To Retrace Our Steps?

This time last year we had already overshot our yearly carrying capacity by three weeks.  This

year (2020) Earth Overshoot Day is on 22 August – last year it was 29 July.

That means that on 22 August this year we will have globally consumed and wasted more of the earth’s biological carrying capacity than is available for a whole year.

But, it comes three weeks later this year.  This is a welcome shift.

Overshoot Day is calculated using two factors.  Our Ecological Footprint, and the Earth’s Biocapacity.  Ecological Footprint is how much biological productive area it takes to provide for the demands of all people.  Biocapacity is the capacity of Earth to provide for these demands plus absorb the waste we create.  Since the late 1960s our Ecological Footprint has consistently been greater than the earth’s biocapacity.  That is unsustainable.  That is untenable.

An analogy may help.  Suppose you begin with $1,000.  Each year you spend $1,100 and you get back $1,000.  So, you begin the next year with $1,000, but owing $100 from the previous year.  So, you effectively begin with $900.  Suppose you continue spending at the rate of $1,100 each year, and get back $1,000.  Then, simple arithmetic tells you that you are steadily reducing your capital.  You could, if you wished, calculate the date on each year when you have spent more than you began the year with.  That is Earth Overshoot Day.

But, this year, we put back the date of Overshoot by three weeks.  This is the greatest “recovery” we have made since Earth Overshoot Day was first calculated, in the 1960s.  The last time Overshoot Day was at this time of the year was in 2005 – fifteen years ago!

How?  The simple answer is covid-19.  During this pandemic we consumed less, we travelled less, we used less energy, and we chopped down fewer trees.  The biocapacity of Earth did not increase, our global footprint decreased - by 9.3% according to one estimate.¹

So, have we turned the corner and begun a journey of recovery and healing?

Before we get to complacent, it pays to delve further into the idea of overshoot.  August 22^nd is the day on which Earth as a whole overshoots its biocapacity limit.  Many countries consume at such a level that overshoot day arrives much earlier in the year.  For the USA, Canada, Australia, and UAE overshoot is in March.  The Scandinavian nations overshoot between late March and the middle of April.  Europeans overshoot in April and May.  New Zealand and Japan do so in May also.  China overshoots in June.

At the other end of the scale, nations such as Indonesia, Ecuador, Iraq, Nicaragua, and Cuba all overshoot in early to mid-December.  A few almost manage to live within the biocapacity of the earth; for example, Kyrgyzstan (26^th December), Myanmar (25^th December), and Niger (25^th December.)

The conclusion is obvious.  If we wish to reduce our ecological footprint so that we do not overstep our biocapacity then it is the rich nations of the world that are going to have to make the crucial, and larger, steps.

We’ve made a start - three weeks worth.

Are these the first steps on a road to living within our means?  Will we keep making such important steps next year? 

Note

1ht1. https://www.footprintnetwork.org/2020/06/05/press-release-june-2020-earth-overshoot-day/  accessed 20 August 2020

Sand Talk (A Review)

I acknowledge the ancestors of this mighty land, called Australia by the colonisers.  I pay my respects to the elders past and present and the emerging leaders of the future.  The ancestors of this land have cared for and formed deep relationships with this land for many many thousands of years.

Tyson Yunkaporta belongs to the Apalech Clan from Western Cape York, and is a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University.  His recently published book, Sand Talk,¹ draws on the knowledge and traditions of those ancestors, elders, and emerging leaders, to expose global (primarily western) ways of thinking to a lens of Indigenous Knowledge.  Without saying so directly, Yunkaporta finds western knowledge systems lacking.

It doesn’t take much looking around to agree with him.  The world is in a mess and that is largely because of western thinking.  But, don’t read this book to discover the jewels or nuggets that exist in Indigenous Knowledge that can be used to save the world (as the sub-title suggests.)  Yunkaporta warns that using Indigenous Knowledge in this way has for centuries been how western colonisers have treated such knowledge.  Colonisers have plundered and stolen knowledge and used it (often in ways it is not meant to be) to further the exploitative and destructive process of colonisation.

Yunkaporta would prefer that non-Indigenous peoples acknowledged and learnt from the processes of Indigenous Thinking.  And here is where this book is of profound importance – it sheds a light on the different thinking processes used by Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples to arrive at Knowledge.

Indeed, Yunkaporta goes further.  He insists that non-Indigenous people do not need to acquire Indigenous Knowledge, but rather, need assistance in remembering our own thinking processes.  He is right.  We do have thinking and knowledge systems based in patterns, holism, and complexity.  We have forgotten them, or have had them stolen from us.  Yunkaporta reminds us to go look for them again.

Yunkaporta uses the customary technique of drawing images in sand to illustrate and assist in passing on knowledge.  Each chapter uses a sand drawing for this purpose, as well as a yarn² with many Aboriginal people to add to Yunkaporta’s own ideas and thoughts.  These techniques give this book a holistic and grounded feeling.  A sense of ancient wisdom comes through in the images, the yarns, and almost every sentence of the book.

For readers of this blog who, like me, come from a western-styled, non-Indigenous, culture, this book can be challenging.  Not in a linguistic sense – Yunkaporta has a very engaging writing style – but in the ideas presented, especially as the ideas challenge many of the fundamental thinking patterns we have been taught.  So, if you find you have to stop, go back, and re-read sections (as I did) then don’t get disparaged.  Stop, go back, re-read.

Perhaps the most challenging thinking process presented within the book comes just four pages before the end.  In one of his yarns he quotes an Aboriginal woman who describes a way of thinking that begins with Respect, followed on by Connect, then Reflect, and ends with Direct.  She insists on this being the appropriate order and then notes that “non-Aboriginal people seemed to work through the same steps but in reverse.”

Think about that.  It is appropriate that this comes almost as the final comment, as in many ways it sums up the whole book. 

For non-Aboriginal people this is an engaging and challenging book, one that should be read by all.

Notes:

1.     1. Tyson Yunkaporta, sand talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, Text Publishing, Melbourne, Australia, 2019.

2.     2. English speakers will recognise the noun yarn as meaning a story or tale.  In Australia, and particularly so within Aboriginal settings, the word has become a verb also, as in to tell a story, to talk.

Atomic Diamond

Today is a Diamond Anniversary.  75 years ago today (6 August 2020) the first atomic bomb was used as a weapon, with the Japanese city of Hiroshima the target.  Only once since then has the atomic bomb again been used as a weapon – just three days later on another Japanese city, Nagasaki.  Estimates of the numbers killed vary, but 200,000 plus seems likely.

Over the following fifty years more than 2,000 atomic bomb tests were conducted in various sites around the world.  In those fifty years the US alone spent at least $5 trillion on nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons related programs.¹

Although the numbers of nuclear warheads have been reduced from the height of almost 65,000 in 1986, there are still 13,400 nuclear weapons stockpiled around the world – 90% of them in the hands of the US and Russia.

Spending on nuclear weapons has been exorbitant, yet it’s set to increase.  The US budget this year announced a strategy to replace nearly the entire US nuclear arsenal, at a cost of $44.5 billion for 2021, and increase of 19% from 2020.  From now until 2050 this program is expected to cost over $1.5 trillion, and may be as high as $2 trillion.

Globally, the amount spent on nuclear weapons in 2019 was $72.9 billion, up $7.1 billion from the previous year.  Nuclear weapons spending is enormous, getting bigger, and blatantly immoral.

The costs are significant.  The two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 200,000 people; the moneys spent on nuclear weapons today just as effectually kill millions today.  Consider these estimates:

·       In the world today 2.1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water.

·       It is estimated that $150 billion per year would be needed to provide clean safe water for everyone on the planet.

·       2 billion people throughout the world (mostly in Africa) do not have sufficient, healthy food.

·       It is estimated to cost between $7 billion and $265 billion per year to end world hunger.

75 years – a Diamond Anniversary?  Hardly.  Unless the diamond is used to cut through the immorality of it all and shine a light on a peaceful world.

Notes:

1. In case that number is difficult to get your head around, try this.  Suppose that $1 is represented by 1 second of time.  Then $1 million (1 million seconds) is approximately 11 ½ days.  $1 billion is equivalent to 31.7 years, and $1 trillion to 31,700 years, so $5 trillion can be represented as 158,500 years!!  (And $1 million seems a lot)