The Social Fabric

It has been a crazy month, with time flying by as it will. That things are busy is a good sign, as it reflects the growing awareness around sustainability and desire to act -from segments of all of the sectors of our society. But I have not been leaving enough time for myself to think and reflect, particularly on the situation that my sister is experiencing at her home in Nairobi. Here is a recent quote from her blog:

In case you couldn't hear Kofi Annan's words over the roar of machete-wielding youths burned villages news reports... this "post-election violence" has morphed into its own slightly ruthless creature. What is happening in Kenya is no longer a fist fight over who actually won the election, it's an explosion of pent-up frustrations, animosities, ambitions and neglect. It is gangs of "unemployed youths" with not much to lose. It's poor people attacking poor people. It's what happens when populations grow to the point where land and resources become so stressed you're willing to kill your neighbor for a water source.

Upon reading it, my brother reflected that it exemplifies the risk to the ‘globalization strategy’ we live in. I am reading Looming Tower and as my mom pointed out this is a book that “every American should read”, I believe this theme will continue to play out in many countries where the middle class is disappearing…


These types situations, have always been around, but are becoming all too common, and increasingly all too frequent. They have crashed civilizations before (or more aptly, they have been the symptoms of crashing civilizations ) - but never on this global scale. As I talked to my sister on skype today, her voice clear and connected, about the reality of the brutal slaying happening just a few miles down the road, it is impossible not to feel the pressure of the funnel walls -- the systematic deterioration of the social fabric, caused by conditions that have systematically undermined people's capacity to meet their basic needs. In this case, the tipping point was the Luo facing barriers to satisfy their need for participation in their political system. But in the context of the larger global system, people's capacity to meet their needs has been systematically undermined in a variety of ways.

The 4th sustainability principle can be tough to get one's head around - but it is central to the sustainable development challenge, it is after all what our whole endeavor is all about. it is why it is so important to feel empathy for others, to build community, to engage and interact, to deliberately build the social fabric, and be conscious of how our personal and professional activities contribute to widening the wealth gap, and what we can do to eliminate those contributions. Stay going.

Easy Earth Day Action...

They say everyday is Earth Day, and the Earth Day Network is working around the year to make that the case.

Here's an easy petition they run, to keep the importance of clean energy and global warming in front of our representatives:

You know how we always talk about how politicians aren’t doing anything to stop climate change? NOW is the time for us to make them change their ways. Earth Day Network has drafted a petition demanding that Congress act to solve this crisis, and to solve it fairly.

Join me in signing up Earth Day Network's online petition, at:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1807/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=858

Just takes a second, and gives you that patriotic feeling, knowing your participating in our democratic system...and trying to keep it alive. Stay going...

Earth Charter...read it!

About a year ago, we were presenting at a conference in Amsterdam and one of the main panel speakers kept pounding the table that everyone should read the Earth Charter - a document that was called for by the Bruntland Commission in 1987, took root during the 1992 Earth Summit, but was not followed through on and completed until the late 1990s. It is a foundation of the sustainable development movement, and I had a good sense of what it said, but I had never read it. I've been meaning to ever since, and finally got around to it - I suggest you take 15 mins and have a look, it's available here on the Earth Charter Initiative website.

It's sort of a next level of detail for what sustainability means - if we start with meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs, and move to how we ensure we do that, namely by not systematically undermining social and ecological systems and then move to another level of detail with not violating the 4 sustainability principles, i.e. identifying and eliminating our contributions to the 4 basic ways in which we systematically undermining social and ecological systems ... we can look in more detail at the more specific ways we violate the 4 SPs - the Earth Charter delves into those elegantly, as the result of an in-depth, cross-cultural iterative process over years to reach consensus on the language. Here's a core point to keep in mind, especially as we roll into Christmas ;)

"We must realize that when basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more."

Anyway, it's worth the read and worth endorsing. Have a great holiday week... Merry Christmans and Happy New Year... stay going.

Forecasting vs. Backcasting...Feasibility vs. Necessity

We've been working on the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment for the past year. This has been incredibly exciting to see the awakening, learning, and tremendous vision and leadership by these chancellors and presidents to commit their institutions to pursuing climate neutrality. This is an Apollo Mission-esque commitment that will marshal the brainpower, energy, resources, and focus needed to accelerate our shift to a low-carbon economy. The structure is classic backcasting - envisioning a future state of climate neutrality and then looking back to the present to determine what we needed to do to get to this future state.

Our colleague Julian Dautremont-Smith just wrote a great post on the AASHE blog on this topic addressing one of the major objections that schools that have not yet signed express: "climate neutrality isn't feasible." Check out the response, as it walks nicely through the reasons why backcasting is necessary for success, again the link is here.

As we know a major drawback of forecasting is that it tends to bring the problems of the past and present into the future, as they are inherently part of the planning. It also limits creativity with regard to what's possible. Finally, the beauty of setting goals that might seem audacious is that if you fall short, you're still way ahead of where you would be if you didn't set those goals. In this case a school that commits to 15% reductions below 2005 emissions rates by 2020, might make it, they might even make 16%, they might fall short with 14% - but the school that contextualizes its planning and prioritization around the ultimate goal of climate neutrality will blow through those incremental targets - and yes they might even fall short with cuts of only 85-95%, but would you rather be a "failure" with 95% reductions in emissions or a success with 15% reductions?

Check out this clip of Joe Laur speaking eloquently on the power of being audacious.



Stay going...

Bali… the final hour

While it’s received some press – certainly more than Nairobi last year – the negotiations in Bali still have not held the spot light here in the US the way they should be. I haven’t heard much from any of the candidates, although one of them (whoever wins) was central to these negotiations, which resulted in a 2-year timeline for establishing the follow-up to Kyoto, which expires in 2012. That 2-year timeline of course opens the door for post-Bush representation by the US, after a potentially costly 8-year delay. The details of the plan are available here: http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_13/items/4049.php

Throughout the 2-weeks US delegates were disruptive to the process, and it was only in the last hour – and only following a full minute of booing and hissing from the world community that we agreed to come to the table with the rest of the world. Here’s a more in-depth description from the Solve Climate blog: http://solveclimate.com/blog/20071215/eyewitness-bali-jeering-assembled-nations-humbles-bush-delegation-join-fold.

Some excerpts:

And then the moment of truth: India presented the alternative text from the G-77+China. The essential point about this alternative text is that it takes into account "differences in national circumstances" amongst developing countries.

Portugal, speaking on behalf of the European Union, let the other shoe drop. "We support the proposal made by....India." …Even the Saudis rose to say they could live with the G-77 text.

And then it was the turn of the United States. Assistant Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, with only the absolute bare minimum of diplomatic language, stated flatly that the United States rejected the changes. It was not prepared to accept the G-77 text.

Then occurred one of the most remarkable sounds that has perhaps ever been heard in the annals of international diplomacy--like a collective global groan--descending then to a murmur, then increasing in volume to a full-throated expression of rage and anger and booing and jeering, lasting for a full minute, so that finally the Minister had to call the meeting back to order.

(The Americans, with almost unspeakable rudeness, issued invitations to the next 'major economies meeting' on the first day of the Bali COP. Sort of like making a big show of announcing your engagement while at someone else's wedding.)

Casting all diplomatic niceties to the winds, the representative from Papua New Guinea stood up and said: "if you're not willing to lead, please get out of the way."

Meanwhile, we hear little about this, we are fed an insane logic that addressing what the science tells us would be “unfair” if China, struggling out of poverty, does not act first (ignoring for one thing the 100+ years of emissions already in the atmosphere that we’re responsible for), and led to believe that addressing this problem will necessarily have negative impacts on the economy and our standard of living. I think the opposite is true, and that we can improve our standard of living through better, more sustainable lifestyles, by driving the growth of value in our economy through a strategic shift to sustainable systems. We are seeing leadership in this regard from many sectors – business, municipal and state government, higher education, not-for-profit – and increasingly from the federal legislators (in large part in response to demands from business). As the world moves forward in this shift, the delays we’re suffering on the federal level and in the international sphere are going to be costly. So stay involved, vote with the ballot, your wallet, your actions and intentions, and stay going…

Speak up Americans

With the annual climate negotiations winding down in Bali, Al Gore is about to present to the delegation of ~10,000 and has a petition to show that the people of the US are ready to take some leadership, and harness our innovative, creative, spirit for the betterment of the world. Our representatives there have again been unwilling to move the dialog forward about the need for us to accept caps on our GHG emissions like the rest of the industrialized nations have, and we point at China and India saying they must take the lead before we will take any responsibility. For me, this is embarrassing.

If you agree, please take a second to add your name to the list of those of us who feel we are not being well represented in Bali at this critical time in human history. Even if you think Gore is terrible, please put aside partisan feelings, as this is probably the most effective way for the American people to show our support for international cooperation on this issue that affects us all.

http://climateprotect.org/standwithal

Thx, and stay going...

Blind spots

"When we mistake what we can know for all there is to know, a healthy appreciation of one's ignorance... gives way to the hubris that we can treat nature as a machine."

- Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma