The secret truth behind environmentalists’ favourite argument

The secret truth behind environmentalists’ favourite argument

by | Jan 20, 2013 | All Posts, Climate Change, Cultural stories, Favourite posts, Featured, Philosophy

When environmentalists argue amongst themselves, whether at some formal debate or late at night over a few drinks, I confidently predict that the argument will go like this. One will say (in one form or another): "There's no time to wait for radical change or revolution; the crisis is overwhelmingly urgent, we simply have to act within the frameworks we have now". The other will argue (in one form or another): "But there's no point in acting without radical change or revolution; without that we are only addressing symptoms and not the real problems".
Of grief

Of grief

by | Dec 21, 2012 | 21st December, All Posts, Climate Change, Cultural stories, Favourite posts, Philosophy, Transition Movement

Let me tell you a story. It’s a story about our land – our home – and our ability to live peaceful, harmonious, respectful lives upon it and in partnership with it. And it’s a story about the big bad political structures and corporate institutions that conspire to stop us doing so, using the unspeakable, impenetrable black magic of bureaucracy and backhanders to bind our best efforts with frustration and fatigue. Oh, you already know that one?
~~~~~~~~~
Ok, then maybe you’re ready for the next chapter, about what comes after? Fine. Sit down, make yourselves comfortable. But you should know that this isn’t a Hollywood story, about a heroic individual battling the faceless hordes of bureaucratic ennui and struggling towards an inevitable triumph. No, this is a collective adventure, and a story I have to try to tell from the inside, as it occurs. Although perhaps it could be all the more powerful, for that? This story really matters to me. To us. It is the story of our lives. It seems you know the early chapters. The ones where the twisted power of the demons seems unstoppable, where calling the future uncertain sounds recklessly optimistic, where our humble efforts seem insignificant, and where our all-powerful superhero is nowhere to be seen. And you know too that, as in the most gripping stories of our childhood, the stakes are higher even than death. Though death is at stake; for us, for our loved ones. Higher than the destruction of our entire communities. Though their destruction is ongoing. Maybe higher, even, than extinction: that death of birth itself. Though that too hangs in the balance, for us and for others.
~~~~~~~~~
Here I sense some of your eyes widen. What could be worse than that? But some of you nod sadly, knowing that I speak of ‘undeath’. That living death that hollows all joy, pleasure and meaning from our souls even as our bodies continue to feast on all around us. The realm of zombies, of vampires. This is our story, so we all know it is no fiction. Rather, it is the true story that some of us don’t dare to tell our children, because we know they will be scared, and that we may have no honest way to reassure them.
~~~~~~~~~
You should know that I do not speak of death lightly. Two years ago I lost both my closest partner and mentor, and my fiancée, both suddenly, and within a few weeks of each other. Shortly afterwards, my father suffered a double heart attack and barely survived. I am coming to know a little of death, of its causes, and of what it leaves behind. And I am learning a great deal. Eventually, painfully, I am beginning to learn what Nature tells us so clearly, and what our culture fights so hard to ignore. That death is not evil. That death has its rightful place, as the partner of life, and it always will. But that undeath does not. Undeath is the enemy of nature and of life. The enemy of art and of love. It is the hollow-eyed, insatiable hunger that works to consume all that we hold dear, and takes no pleasure in that work. But I am getting ahead of myself...
~~~~~~~~~
Instead, let me speak a little to those who feel their unity with their lover, Earth. Those who step into the wild from which we came and can feel the terrible grief that she herself carries. Unending, as all grief is. As all relationships are. But who also feel something more from our wise, wise, deep lover. That grief too has its place. That feeling the loss of life, aching over it, is, truly, a triumph for life. Grief cannot – stubbornly will not – overcome death, but it vanquishes life’s true enemy. This is the gift we can eventually bring back from our time in the underworld, clutched tight against those from whose realm we return. The gift of the tingling intensity of full life – the simple joys of a path untainted by despair, corruption or surrender. The exquisite tastes of food, the truth and beauty ringing in the music and, for me, always the dancing; my wild, beloved dancing. The aliveness that grief works to return us to - in its agonising, unhurried way - in the aftermath of beloved death.
~~~~~~~~~
And, possibly, the gift for which environmentalism hungers. So often, when I hear the learnéd speak of environmental collapse, ongoing or long done, all I can hear is their pain - sometimes articulated, often not - lurking among the figures and statistics. Unresolved.. I hear a zombie speaking. It is no great wonder that when a man seeks a podium to speak of his pain, the audience is limited. Most flinch before this uninvited onslaught, are put out, offended, impinged upon.
~~~~~~~~~
Yet we can - I can - learn to speak from the place beyond agony. Joy. The place that faces down death, even the death of birth, and finds life beyond that. In this world. In that place I find the other voices, the non-human and the no longer human. The others who share in the life of this planet, and those who no longer do. All speak in this place. And those dread, tender voices speak of death. Shatter undeath. Bring life.
~~~~~~~~~
epilogue
There is a time for everything – a time for grieving, a time for reflection, a time for action, a time for silence. I feel that the time for storytelling, and for sitting comfortably, is drawing to a close. On Dark Optimism I sometimes speak of the paths I am choosing to walk, and if they seem a little inadequate in the face of the big bad, well it is because they are. But they bring me life – true life – and a little voice whispers to me that that is enough. That that is everything. I know that voice, and I love her.
Maria
in memory of Maria Elvorith, 13/06/82 ~ 21/12/10
Land, and the army marching to claim it, in the UK and around the world

Land, and the army marching to claim it, in the UK and around the world

by | Nov 20, 2012 | All Posts, Cultural stories, Economics, Favourite posts, Politics, The right to land

The right to access land matters, in a fundamental way. It is a place to live, a source for food, for water, for fuel, and for sustenance of almost every kind. And land management also has profound impacts on our ecosystems and environment, and thus on our well-being and our collective future. So it matters deeply that while UK supermarkets and housing estates find permission to build easy to come by, those who wish to use land to explore truly sustainable living are blocked and frustrated at every turn. It is this sorry state of affairs that has given birth to the "Reclaim the Fields" movement and activist groups like Grow Heathrow and the Diggers 2012. Inspired by the example of Gerrard Winstanley's 17th Century Diggers, these peaceful, practical radicals have moved onto disused UK land in order to cultivate it, build dwellings and live in common "by the sweat of our brow". In other words, they have asserted their right to simply exist on nature's bounty, seeking neither permission from anyone nor dominion over anyone; a right that they believe people should still share with the other animals. A right, indeed, that was enshrined in UK law in the 1217 Charter of the Forest. More recently, however, the strange young notion of owning exclusive rights to land has pushed back hard (as this excellent article documents). Thus, as they fully expected - and as happened to their forebears - the Diggers 2012's crops have been torn up and they themselves have been hassled, moved on and in some cases arrested. It might seem, then, that the efforts of these determined folk are being successfully repelled by 'the system', were it not for two crucial considerations - that they have history on their side, and that there is an enormous army surging at their backs. As we look around the world, we see them, from the likes of the 1.5m strong Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil and the vast international peasant's movement La Via Campesina, to the tens of thousands of Greek families deserting the cities to return to any land they can access and the immense - and successful - land rights march across India earlier this year. Tens of thousands of India's poorest march on Delhi to demand land rights Meanwhile, closer to home, I see increasing numbers of my friends disillusioned and marginalised from the mainstream economy - ripped off by the banks, burdened with huge debts and struggling to find decent employment. As the inherently unsustainable financial economy continues to unravel, the people of England are not yet reaping the desperate consequences to the extent that those of Greece or India are, but it is growing even here, and it will come heavily home to this dark heart of the financial empire soon enough. For many, 'austerity' is already biting hard. Naturally, in such circumstances, we seek alternatives. Yet while some might wish to follow the example of those Greek families and earn a simple, honest life "by the sweat of our brow", rather than working frantically to earn 'a living' while paying off the debts incurred by a corrupt financial system, they are simply not being permitted to do so. New laws are being passed absurdly criminalising the likes of squatting and trespass (even against the wishes of the police forces), meaning that the police are being forced to step in on behalf of landowners. Meanwhile, planning policy reform makes it ever easier for corporations - and harder for families - to control land, leaving the courts obliged to prosecute those who wish to work to heal disused, neglected land instead of relying on state handouts to survive the vagaries of the employment market. The glaring injustice that has mobilised mass movements in the likes of Brazil and India is becoming ever more apparent here. Thus I see the tide of history at the backs of the Diggers 2012, with their direct action the vanguard of an inevitable UK movement to reclaim the land under our feet from the 1% - or 0.06% - who would call it theirs. Native American graffiti reclaiming their right to their ancestral land Yet, as with all influential movements for change in society, the activists cannot achieve much alone. Their direct action and willingness to put their bodies on the line powerfully expresses and demonstrates the ever-swelling public pressure, but if that pressure is to lead to a better society, rather than simply widespread frustration and anger, we also need positive lifestyle examples for law-abiding citizens to follow, complemented by the slow work of developing alternative legal and organisational forms that allow land to meet the pressing needs of the people. This is why this year I agreed to become a director of an organisation called the Ecological Land Co-operative, which exists to overcome the two great barriers to land for those wishing to establish ecological businesses and smallholdings - soaring land prices and simple legal permission. We are now on the brink of making our first area of land available, and my article in the latest edition of Permaculture Magazine (out now and highly recommended) explains how that has been done, as well as outlining the seven year journey to reach this point - with assistance from some of the leading experts on land reform - and our plans for the future. The photo at the top of this blog post shows that very piece of land; twenty-two acres in South-West England. Crowdfunding and community financing have also allowed us to work on a pair of research reports. The first - Small Is Successful - examined existing land-based businesses of 10 acres or less and evidenced the economically viable and highly sustainable nature of the livelihoods they provide, without any need for the subsidies on which large farms so often rely. The Research Council UK showcased this as one of a hundred pieces of UK research ‘that will have a profound effect on our future’, and we have also presented our message at the House of Commons, to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Agroecology. Aboriginal Land Rights Protest Our second research project has just begun; we are collaborating with others to produce a resource establishing both the current state of ecological farming in the UK - providing a single point of information on who is doing what and where, what acreages, to what markets, etc - and the current state of research into such agriculture. I see this work as supporting and strengthening the wider movement to reclaim land from the ecologically destructive, market-driven mainstream of conventional land use. Or, if that sounds a little grand, perhaps I can borrow from one who speaks more plainly? In the words of a U.S. farmer quoted in Colin Tudge's So Shall We Reap: "I just want to farm well. I don't want to compete with anybody." In this world of frantic capitalism, there is a radical thought if ever I heard one. It is a thought that inspires me. I feel more and more that the people the world needs most right now are not campaigners or activists, but such people who simply wish to live in relationship with a piece of land in a healing, productive and ecologically nurturing way. There is no shortage of them, and we should be making it as easy as possible for them to access land, without forcing them to launch political campaigns or planning permission battles in order to do so. Perhaps that vast and diverse movement - from La Via Campesina and the Diggers 2012 to the Eco Land Co-op - in truth has but one simple aim. To safeguard the quiet dignity of that farmer, and the billions like him. Going to work
From the manifesto of The Land magazine: "...Rarely will you hear someone with access to a microphone mouth the word "land". That is because economists define wealth and justice in terms of access to the market. Politicians echo the economists because the more dependent that people become upon the market, the more securely they can be roped into the fiscal and political hierarchy. Access to land is not simply a threat to landowning élites — it is a threat to the religion of unlimited economic growth and the power structure that depends upon it. The market (however attractive it may appear) is built on promises: the only source of wealth is the earth. Anyone who has land has access to energy, water, nourishment, shelter, healing, wisdom, ancestors and a grave. ...Yet the earth is more than a tool cupboard, for although the earth gives, it dictates its terms; and its terms alter from place to place. So it is that agriculture begets human culture; and cultural diversity, like biological diversity, flowers in obedience to the conditions that the earth imposes. The first and inevitable effect of the global market is to uproot and destroy land-based human cultures. The final and inevitable achievement of a rootless global market will be to destroy itself. In a shrunken world, taxed to keep the wheels of industry accelerating, land and its resources are increasingly contested. Seven billion people compete to acquire land for a variety of conflicting uses: land for food, for water, for energy, for timber, for carbon sinks, for housing, for wildlife, for recreation, for investment. The politics of land — who owns it, who controls it and who has access to it — is more important than ever, though you might not think so from a superficial reading of government policy and the media. ...Rome fell; the Soviet Empire collapsed; the stars and stripes are fading in the west. Nothing is forever in history, except geography. Capitalism is a confidence trick, a dazzling edifice built on paper promises. It may stand longer than some of us anticipate, but when it crumbles, the land will remain." The Ecological Land Co-operative team, hard at work
Transition Money

Transition Money

by | May 17, 2012 | All Posts, Cultural stories, David Fleming, Economics, Favourite posts, Politics, The Transition Timeline, Transition Movement

Last month I was one of forty or so attendees of the Transition 'Peak Money' day. It was a fascinating collection of people, from theorists to activists, and a potent opportunity to reflect on the challenges facing us all as the glaring errors at the heart of mainstream economics take their toll. This post is far more personal reflection than report, as Rob Hopkins has already done a great job on that front. The key theme that seemed to run throughout the day, then, was 'collapse'. Sadly, I was an hour late to the event, but the first sessions I witnessed were reports from Transitioners in Portugal, Ireland and Greece on the 'front line' impacts of the economic crunch. The talk was of collapse having already happened for many families and communities there, with statistics quoted including an 89% increase in Greek unemployment in three years, and Irish suicides having doubled since 2007. They pulled no punches. Most of us were left grey and shaken as the harsh realities of the crisis were relayed. For me, a defining memory of the day was watching the alternative economists listening to this - people who have spent decades warning of these outcomes and trying to head them off - their heads shaking sadly with lips pursed, hands involuntarily coming to their faces in dismay as their Cassandra curse unfolds. Of course, the statistics were not new to them, but hearing these stories in person somehow always brings a heavier human impact. Watching that impact reflected in their expressions felt almost inappropriate, yet doubly powerful.
Transition Money
After a break, the next session was about some of the Transition projects working to address these issues, from local currencies to the new REconomy project. The disconnect was palpable. Could we really feel that the Transition movement's responses were adequate in the face of the suffering being inflicted by the crisis? Would speaking of local currencies feel sufficient in comforting the family of the pensioner who shot himself in front of the Greek Parliament last month after his pension was cut to nothing (described by Greeks not as suicide, but as 'financial murder')? Over lunch I discussed this with Peter Lipman, Chair of the Transition Network. He pointed out that much the same could be asked of Transition responses to peak oil and climate change - would a local energy project, say, match up to the devastation felt by a Bangladeshi flooded out of their homeland? Yet, on reflection, there does seem to be something different about the crisis of the financial economy - it isn't as directly rooted in physical reality. There is something immutable about the amount of fossil fuel available to the world, and overwhelming physical inertia in the inexorably increasing levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. The economic crisis, on the other hand, seems to be perhaps more wholly a crisis of narrative. It is primarily cultural inertia and entrenched sociopolitical influence that prevents us from rapidly changing the course of events, not hard physics. Richard Avedon - Transition Money This makes it a particularly exciting area for Transition to engage with, alongside the likes of Occupy, UK Uncut etc. For all the vested interests and political power around our current economic system, it seems at least theoretically possible that popular movements could actually change the fundaments of this crisis with speed. Yet personally, when writing The Transition Timeline, economics was probably the section I found most difficult. How to even get to grips with a topic where no-one seems able to agree on even the basics - where, for example, some argue that difficult times call for belt-tightening, while others advise greater spending..? It was the late David Fleming who helped me find bedrock, explaining that underneath all the jargon and mystery, economics is fundamentally the discussion of who should work at what and for how long, and of how society's resources should be distributed. He also noted that these are topics that we could reasonably expect most people to be interested in, and that we might thus start to wonder who framed the terms of the discussion in such a way that the majority lost interest, leaving profoundly misconceived systems in place to drain the true wealth that supports all our lives...? The fact that, for many, discussions of economics have appeared uninteresting and confusing is probably itself an important insight - one that points to a great deception. Those who shape the flows of money, labour and resources in our society have managed to convince us that the whole topic that shapes most people's waking hours is, of all things, boring. House on fire - Transition Money Which is why the accusations of parasitism and hypocrisy levelled at the Occupy movement in particular are so laughable. It is true that the Occupations only exist because of the popular support that supplies them with food, shelter etc (and even with Occupiers!). But to claim that those resources are provided from the largesse of free-market capitalism is ridiculous. It is the dominant economic system that is the parasite, depending as it does entirely on the one economic system with a proven long-term track record of success. Not capitalism. Not communism. Nature. People could originally build themselves a home, drink water that fell and flowed freely and source food directly for themselves, just like the other animals. Now, all the land is owned, the water is polluted and almost all sources of these essentials of life require money. Capitalism has not created the resources we require - it has co-opted them in order to sell back to us what was once truly free. If people choose to support each other in order to create a space to protest this and explore alternatives, then for the 1% to accuse them of parasitism is the height of hypocrisy. Climate economy - Transition Money The Transition approach to money, of course, has a far less oppositional energy than Occupy, seeking to bring together all elements of society in order to address our collective crises. This can be frustrating - meaning that initiatives sometimes move only at the speed of their least radical members - but it is essential to any collective transitional approach that wishes to avoid top-down enforcement. It is a truism to note that a society can only voluntarily change as fast as it is ready to. For me, a big part of the beauty of Transition is that it brings together two groups of people with very different motivations - those who are working to make this society more sustainable, and those who are working to build an alternative to catch people when this society collapses. There are many things that these folk disagree on, but in Transition they seem to find the ability to enthusiastically collaborate on a great diversity of projects while they chew over those thorny disagreements. My personal perception is that the first group may be shrinking - Derrick Jensen loves to ask who believes that our society will "undergo a voluntary transition to a sustainable way of living", and claims that no-one ever raises their hand - but a gradual improvement towards sustainability is certainly still a widespread ambition. What the Transition Money day got me pondering was whether Transition might be able to repeat the trick and team up another pair of very different viewpoints: those who are justifiably scared of collapse and its implications for themselves, their families and communities, and those who say they would welcome collapse, or even seek to hasten it, due to the damage that the current system is doing (e.g. around 50,000 species going extinct a year as we cause this planet's sixth great mass extinction). Sergey Ryzhov Robin - Transition Money
"We’ll be down to half the species of plants and animals by the end of the century if we keep at this rate" ~ E.O. Wilson
I suspect that these two perspectives can indeed work together, and the reports from Transition communities around Europe seemed to bear this out. Those who want to hasten collapse by attacking existing infrastructures seem to me to be clearly outside the Transition ethos, but there are other ways to hasten collapse. One is to work together to build alternatives. The more people flock to new alternative economies, the faster the old way loses the credibility which increasingly seems to be the only thing holding it up. As Buckminster Fuller put it, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete". In combination with means of propagating the new models, this can be a powerful principle. So for me, the most inspiring part of the day was meeting Filipa Pimentel of Portalegre em Transição (Portugal), who reported on just that process taking place there, with the gift economy expanding rapidly in response to many people's inability to access money. She outlined three principles developed in her local Transition initiative:
  • They never turn anyone away due to lack of money (and facilitate schemes like ingredient swaps to help people support themselves in other ways).
  • They never ask for (or accept) funding - they simply ask authorities and supporters to share access to their resources. They would never pay for a venue, on principle.
  • Any financial resources they do come by will never be used to maintain existing models - if these can't survive without money, let them fall. Instead those resources are used to build capacity for the gift economy.
Having been tested and found useful, these principles are rapidly being taken up by other initiatives. This strikes me as an appropriate style of local response, having grown directly out of local needs and now being communicated to other communities in the nation and around the world (Filipa also now co-ordinates networking between the national Transition hubs).
Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson - Transition Money
Meanwhile, another topic discussed on the day was an important and complementary shift in the political narrative, outlined in a recent interview with the President of Iceland, one of the few countries to refuse to bail out their banks. His full discussion of the reasons and dilemmas behind this decision is fascinating, but most striking was his comment that:
"The lesson from this is: if you want your economy to excel in the 21st century, for the IT, information-based high-tech sectors, a big banking sector, even a very successful banking system, is bad news for your economy"
It is intriguing to reflect on a culture which, faced with the classic argument of the financial sector: "We are the wealth creators, and if you tax us heavily, we will simply go elsewhere", would respond, "Ok, bye then". When banks currently receive vastly far more in subsidies (without even considering bailouts) than they pay in tax, it surely shouldn't be such an outlandish suggestion. Hopefully the below 50 second video clip (and the comments on YouTube!) might be seen as an indicator that the tide of public opinion is turning that way..
However, while Iceland managed to hold fast to the decision of its President that:
"Europe is and should be more about democracy than about financial markets ... it was, in the end, clear that I had to choose democracy"
we here in England surely face a greater battle if we want to follow in their footsteps, with London sitting as perhaps the heart of the great global financial parasite, which has grown fat and powerful. As Molly Scott Cato reminded us at last month's event, Britain was the origin of both the industrial revolution and the financial revolution, and the cultural stories these birthed thus probably run deeper here than anywhere else. This is likely to shape our culture's response as the worst begins to, quite literally, hit home (remember that in the UK, 94% of public service cuts and 88% of benefits cuts are reportedly yet to come). We can see the significance of this already. Filipa reported that in Portugal people are tending to see the collapse of the financial economy as a 'return to normal' - learning to depend on each other again. Yet Phoebe Bright relayed that in Ireland the majority are refusing to countenance that this is anything more than a blip before things get back to a much younger view of 'normality' - being able to rely on money to meet our needs. The responses adopted differ accordingly. To me, it was this clash of perspectives that was the take away message of the event. Transitioning Money must mean building both narratives and economic structures that empower people to step away from the crumbling mainstream and learn to trust in each other again, instead of in money. Portugal appears to be one place that is leading the way.
Titanic iceberg economy - Transition Money
My foreword for “The Future We Deserve” – out now

My foreword for “The Future We Deserve” – out now

by | Mar 3, 2012 | All Posts, Cultural stories, Favourite posts, Reviews and recommendations

Untitled piece by Maria Elvorith (from the cover of TheFWD)
The Future We Deserve, a collaborative book project edited by Vinay Gupta, Cat Lupton and Noah Raford, is available today. It can be read in full, downloaded or bought in hard copy here. I contributed one of the one hundred short essays that make up the book as well as the below foreword (the same length as each essay!), which explores the unique nature of the project : -- “Five hundred words on the theme of the title”. A simple brief, but having just read the first proof of The Future We Deserve, that simple brief has conjured forth a wonderful mélange of foresight, insight, powerful fiction and playful speculation. From cyber-monasteries to socialism, from taking ‘phlight’ to the importance of introspection, the contributors have taken those four titular words and run with them in myriad directions. Indeed, some even appear to have run at them. I expected an abundance of different takes on “future”, but “deserve” is challenged, “we” is questioned, and even “the” doesn’t get off scot-free! In the face of the dauntingly poor track record of futurism, this book adopts a radically different approach, and not just in terms of the diversity of authors. Remembering the Chinese proverb that “when men speak of the future, the Gods laugh”, it perhaps seeks to humbly laugh along with them, embracing a healthy diversity of disparate and even opposed visions, ideas and plans – the useful attitude that the postmodern theorist Ewa Ziarek termed ‘dissensus’. In grappling with an uncertain future, this exploration of many paths may be only appropriate, reflecting nature’s own evolution, which never seeks to reach consensus on the ideal life-form, but simply creates, creates, creates. Such dissensus also underlies the Transition movement, with communities exploring diverse paths towards preparedness for likely future scenarios, even where the detail of any threats may remain unclear. Trying to agree on one grand unified story of the future is a waste of energy because whatever we may decide upon, reality surely has other plans. It may be possible (and useful) to discern trends, but the specifics will always elude us. Accordingly, resilient approaches are those which make sense across a wide range of possible futures. They are humility in action, and they keep our eyes open. So let us explore dissensus – explore our various curious projects, inspirations and stories – secure in the understanding that while some of them will thrive and others die, our task is not to foresee the future, but rather to enable it. I wrote in The Transition Timeline that we will certainly get the future we deserve. As one contributor puts it herein, let’s work for a future worth deserving. And who can know which obscure passion, vocation or tale might turn out in retrospect to have provided a defining contribution to our collective future? The Future We Deserve is a ground-breaking collection of candidates, and while reading it I find myself always wondering whether some of them may be fated to shape our world, and whether the future collaborators may find each other through these pages. I hope to see many more books like it, for it feels like fertile ground.
-- The Future We Deserve - front cover The book is dedicated to Maria Elvorith (1982-2010), cover artist, contributor and pure soul. May our future be as beautiful as you.
OccupyTransition, or ‘this Halloween I dressed as the economy’

OccupyTransition, or ‘this Halloween I dressed as the economy’

by | Nov 5, 2011 | All Posts, Climate Change, Cultural stories, Economics, Favourite posts, Peak Oil, Politics, Transition Movement

This post was written for the Transition Network's Social Reporting project, and published there on Sunday 13th November.

---

Having been invited to be this week's Social Reporting guest editor and introduce the theme of economics, the burgeoning 'Occupy' movement seemed the obvious place to start. Over the last couple of months I have been fascinated as the occupations started with OccupyWallStreet on Sept 17th, followed by others joining in solidarity around the world, including OccupyLondon, which has been the London Stock Exchange's new neighbour since Oct 15th. I've not been well lately, so haven't been able to be there as much as I'd like, but I have been following events closely online and visiting when I can. It has been interesting to note that most of those I have met at OccupyLondon hadn't previously heard of Transition, and that got me thinking about the parallels and differences between the two movements... So what is 'Occupy' all about? A lot has been made in the mainstream media about the elusive "one demand" that Adbusters referred to in the original image that sparked the movement, and the ensuing lack of a single clear demand to fulfil that call. What are they protesting? And yet the basic point comes through loud and clear. Our economic system is profoundly unfair, and we want profound change. We live under a system in which banks receive more in subsidies than they pay in taxes, where they use their power to actually create money out of thin air, where they receive hundreds of billions in bailouts, and where the graph of global income distribution looks, well, like this: World Income Distribution graph It is easy to see why 'the 99%' might have something to say to 'the 1%' (the spike on the right should actually continue upwards over ten thousand times as far as shown here, or more than a kilometre above your computer!), and it also easy for us to let our brains boggle at numbers in the hundreds of billions of pounds. What can such numbers really mean? Yet Occupy has learned the hard way that they can become terribly real when we see some of the things that this virtually unlimited money is used for. For example, the New York Police Department, which has been increasingly violent in its treatment of OccupyWallSt, was given a $4.6m donation by bailed-out Wall Street megabank JP Morgan Chase, and the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street corporations apparently now actually hire individual serving policemen for $37/hr. Such riches also permit the big financial institutions to appear generous by becoming the chief sponsors of organisations like St. Paul's Cathedral. Not to mention of course that more than 99% of us work for money, which is apparently being magicked out of thin air by others, who then use this free resource to pay the rest of us to do whatever they see fit. It suddenly becomes crystal clear why the Oakland public were chanting "who are you protecting?" as the Oakland police force closed in to attack them for being in the streets of Oakland, threatening the use of "chemical agents" via a megaphone and throwing a flash grenade at those trying to help a wounded man:
Witnesses (AKA social reporters!) claim that one protester actually threw dollar bills at the police line while shouting "will you protect us now?" Incidentally, on the same day, on this side of the pond, Sky News were busy telling Occupy London campers that "what you're doing is imposing your will on everybody else in a similar way (to the Nazis)". Hm. Reasons abound for us to do our own reporting! Now, at first glance, all this confrontation might seem a world away from working diligently to improve the resilience of our local communities, but I believe that the links are strong, and I hope to see them grow even stronger. Let me explain why. Both Transition and Occupy are founded on a belief that the current economic system is leading us to a future that none of us desire and, although peak oil seems to be a new term to many of those at OccupyLondon, we also share a strong strand of concern over climate change. The big question for OccupyLondon though is what next? Substantial public support has helped resist the attempts of the Church of England and Corporation of London to have them moved on, and with St. Paul's having conceded that the camp presents no reason for the Cathedral to close its doors, Occupy London has established a site, at least for now. But what to do with it? ForgiveUsOurTrespasses St. Paul's letter to paper The mainstream media have been clamouring for a list of demands, yet I and many others find it refreshing that none has yet been forthcoming. I fear that setting demands is tantamount to saying "give us this much and then we will go home and allow the destruction that is business as usual to continue". For example, there is growing momentum behind calls for Occupy to demand a 'Robin Hood tax'. Yet as banks can and do create money it seems that demanding a fraction back might amount to selling ourselves for nothing.
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong" ~ H. L. Mencken
Given the mess things are in, it seems absurd to expect a simple set of demands that could put it all right. Instead, OccupyLondon has as yet adopted what seems to me a far more mature approach - setting up teach-ins and a 'university' in which we can educate ourselves, and then giving the resultant discussions as long as they need. It says to the guardians of the status quo "Ok, no, we don't have all the answers, but it's abundantly clear that you don't either, so let's talk it over." And it's here where I fancy Transitioners might have a few things to say (as well as much to learn!) with our growing experience of building local economic networks that make a lot more sense than this globalised mess:
The first thing that I think Transitioners can usefully contribute to the discussions is an awareness of the energy limits that we are facing, and what they mean for the possibility of continued economic growth (even leaving aside the question of its desirability). If Occupy became just a mass demand for the politicians to roll back the cuts and rescue those who have been abandoned, it might be set to fail, because the era of increasing energy abundance is over, whatever politicians might say or do. On the other hand, if Occupy recognises the inherent problem of protesting against the system your lifestyle depends upon, then the conversation goes to a much more interesting place - can we build alternative, independent systems to support us, even in a period of energy descent? This is where Transition's five years of experience might be most helpful. As Sharon Astyk put it:
"The reality is that the growth we've lived with is going away whether we like it or not - I'm hoping that this new emergent consensus that we've been screwed comes with a collective response to the end of growth - or the solidarity won't last as the system pits people against one another"
So on that note, I hand over to the social reporters to explore this week's topic of Transition economics. From local e-currencies to the gift economy - what can we bring to the discussion that is sweeping the world? The Beginning Is Nigh
Blogs posted in response by other Transitioners: The local Heathrow economy - Nov 14, 2011 Ye are many - they are few - Nov 15, 2011 just another brick in the wall (street) - Nov 15, 2011 Our Money Our Future - Money for the 99% by the 99% - Nov 17, 2011 Time to Get to Work - Nov 18, 2011 We Can't Eat Money - Nov 19, 2011 -- Edit - On Nov 9, Rob Hopkins and I did a joint presentation on Transition at OccupyLondon. Rob's report, including an interview with me, can be found here.
9 Sept 2011 - Shaun Chamberlin and Rob Hopkins at Occupy London