http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/
April, 2008:
more on food: stop the multinationals
Article on Alternet, by Raj Patel.
Raj, talk about coffee.
The price of coffee is absolutely a function of the way the food system works today. If you look at the path that coffee takes from the field to our cups, you will see that the farmers get paid a pittance. The processors get paid a little bit more, sort of twenty, thirty cents a kilo. The grain exporters get paid a little bit more, sort of fifty, sixty cents a kilo. But by the time it gets processed and turned into instant coffee, it’s nearer $30 a kilo. And the people who make the most money out of that process are the coffee processors, the big international coffee traders, companies like Nestle, for example. And that’s indicative of the way the food system works in general.
I mean, if you imagine a sort of hourglass, at the top there are the millions of farmers who grow the food that we eat, and at the bottom there are billions of us consumers, and in the middle there are just a handful of corporations that mediate between the people who grow our food and us. And those corporations, in many cases — it’s usually four corporations controlling more than 50 percent of the market. I mean, in tea, for example, one company, Unilever, controls 90 percent of the market.
Now, when you’re in that position of market power, you’re able to do a great deal. First, you’re able to drive prices down for farmers. And of course the irony there is that farmers and farm workers are the poorest people on the planet. So you’re paying the poorest people on the planet the least. And then you’re processing the food so that what we end up with is food that is rich in salts and fats and sugars, food that tends to make us want to buy more, food that makes us obese. And that’s why you’re having a situation where there are six billion people in the world, a billion of whom are now overweight.
Raj Patel is the author of ‘Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System’.
Soy. Can you talk about soy?
Soy is the ingredient — I mean, it’s weird. It’s the perfect crop in so many ways. It’s rich in proteins. It’s great for the soil. It’s really robust. But because the way that we grow soy is through industrial agriculture and monoculture, that process of growing it takes these biological virtues and turns them into social ills. Soy is now in three-quarters of everything — of processed foods on the supermarket shelves and in almost everything that the fast-food industry brings us. Now, soy is — and it’s in these foods because it’s very flexible. It can be used as a vegetable oil. It can be used as an emulsifier. It can be used as an additive in meat, for example.
But the trouble is, of course, that a lot of the soy that’s grown in the world comes from Brazil. Brazil is, by some measures, the world’s largest soy exporter. And those soy plantations have been encroaching on the Brazilian cerrado and also on the rainforest. Soy farmers are going into the rainforest, chopping it down and growing soy. And worse yet, Brazil is home to, according to the International Labour Organization, home to 50,000 slaves, slaves who work on soy plantations, and also the majority work in biofuels plantations and sugarcane plantations. And it’s through the exploitation of these people that we’re able to have cheap meat, that we’re able to have these sort of food additives that shave a couple of cents off the price of our food. So, yeah, I mean, that — soy becomes emblematic of everything that’s wrong about the way we produce food and offers hope about the way we might reconnect to food in a different way.
How have we been hoodwinked into allowing a few corporations to own and control the food supply of billions of people? Anyone who has ever grown any food will tell you that there is a huge difference between something freshly picked from the garden, and the sorry excuse for food sold in supermarkets. Industrial food makes us ill, wastes water and energy, requires pesticides and fertilisers that poison the soil and water, and centralises power in the hands of a few directors and shareholders of huge faceless corporations. Think about what you eat, and the implications – and of course, what will you be eating as oil runs out?
the end of the world as we know it is nigh
In the future envisaged by Kevin Moore, people are going to be divided into two groups, those who perish and those who survive. “Survivors are people who know what is happening and they are preparing for the real future.”The perishers are the people who don’t know what is happening, or don’t care, or who believe that everything will carry on exactly the same. When oil runs out, work is going to dry up and people will lose their jobs.
“Finally, you’ll starve to death.”
People need to prepare for the loss of employment and then the shortage of food, he says.
They should stop spending their money on overseas holidays, jet skis, new cars, the latest DVDs anything that is not going to be of use to them, he says.
“The point is, you need decent-size land. You need to do anything you can to increase your ability to feed yourself.”
He suggests people who live in an apartment buy pots and start growing lettuce, but then he backtracks.
“I’m not offering false hope to people, because if you’re in an apartment block, you’re f—–. There’s no way you could possibly grow enough to feed yourself on the balcony of an apartment block. You have to relocate yourself somewhere that does have land.”
Everyone needs to use money effectively now. Don’t leave it in the bank or a finance company or the sharemarket, he says.
“Because if you do, it will be gone.”
Kevin Moore is one of the few people telling it like it really is. Original article.
The window of opportunity to prepare for what he says is the inevitable is closing.
“It takes three or four years to grow fruit trees, so if the shit is going to hit the fan in 2010, which it is, maybe even 2009, and you haven’t got your trees planted now, it’s too late. That window of opportunity is gone.”
Finance institutions are collapsing. Some people have already missed the opportunity to get their money out, he says.
“Anything you want to do will be harder next week than it is this week. It will be harder to do next month than it is the next month, much, much harder to do a year from now than it is now, because the price of oil and petrol is going up.”
The window of opportunity is closing – which group will you be in?
global food crisis: hunger plagues Haiti and the World
Consumers in rich countries feel it in supermarkets but in the world’s poorest ones people are starving. The reason – soaring food prices, and it’s triggered riots around the world in places like Mexico, Indonesia, Yemen, the Philippines, Cambodia, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Egypt, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Peru, Bolivia and Haiti that was once nearly food self-sufficient but now relies on imports for most of its supply and (like other food-importing countries) is at the mercy of agribusiness.Wheat shortages in Peru are acute enough to have the military make bread with potato flour (a native crop). In Pakistan, thousands of troops guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. In Thailand, rice farmers take shifts staying awake nights guarding their fields from thieves. The crop’s price has about doubled in recent months, it’s the staple for half or more of the world’s population, but rising prices and fearing scarcity have prompted some of the world’s largest producers to export less – Thailand (the world’s largest exporter), Vietnam, India, Egypt, Cambodia with others likely to follow as world output lags demand. Producers of other grains are doing the same like Argentina, Kazakhstan and China. The less they export, the higher prices go.Other factors are high oil prices and transportation costs, growing demand, commodity speculation, pests in southeast Asia, a 10 year Australian drought, floods in Bangladesh and elsewhere, a 45 day cold snap in China, and other natural but mostly manipulated factors like crop diversion for biofuels have combined to create a growing world crisis with more on this below. It’s at the same time millions of Chinese and Indians have higher incomes, are changing their eating habits, and are consuming more meat, chicken and other animal products that place huge demands on grains to produce.
Original article by Stephen Lendman.
The Haitain crisis is so extreme it forces people to eat (non-food) mud cookies (called “pica”) to relieve hunger. It’s a desperate Haitian remedy made from dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau for those who can afford it. It’s not free. In Cite Soleil’s crowded slums, people use a combination of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening for a typical meal when it’s all they can afford. A Port-au-Prince AP reporter sampled it. He said it had “a smooth consistency (but it) sucked all the moisture out of (my) mouth as soon as it touched (my) tongue. For hours (afterwards), an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.” Worse is how it harms human health. A mud cookie diet causes severe malnutrition, intestinal distress, and other deleterious effects from potentially deadly toxins and parasites.
Another problem is the cost. This stomach-filler isn’t free. Haitians have to buy it, and “edible clay” prices are rising – by almost $1.50 in the past year. It now costs about $5 to make 100 cookies (about 5 cents each), it’s cheaper than food, but many Haitians can’t afford it:
– 80% of them are impoverished in the hemisphere’s poorest country and one of the world’s poorest;
– unemployment is rampant, and two-thirds or more of workers have only sporadic jobs; and
– those with them earn 11 to 12 cents an hour; the country’s official minimum wage is $1.80 a day, but IMF figures show 55% of employed Haitians receive only 44 cents daily, an impossible amount to live on.
Alexis is now out, elitists debate over who’ll replace him, Haitians in the meantime are starving, the IMF keeps extracting $1 million a week in mandated tribute to the rich, and only countries like Cuba (training Haitians to be doctors) and Venezuela (donating money, cheap oil, and over 600 tons of food aid sent April 13, more than first reported) seem to care. Chavez cares about all Latin America and last year donated about $8.8 billion in aid or four times the amount America provides the region.
Cuba and Venezuela – next time you read something bad in the mainstream press about these two countries, remember the above.
Biofuels – A Scourge of Our Times
The idea of combustible fuels from organic material has been around since the early auto age, but only recently took off. Because they’re from plant-based or animal byproduct (renewable) sources, bio or agrofuels are (falsely) touted as a solution to a growing world energy shortage with a huge claimed added benefit – the nonsensical notion that they’re clean and green without all the troublesome issues connected to fossil fuels.Biofuel is a general term to describe all fuels from organic matter. The two most common kinds are bioethanol as a substitute for gasoline, and biodiesel that serves the same purpose for that type fuel.
Bioethanol is produced from sugar-rich crops like corn, wheat and sugar cane. Most cars can burn a petroleum fuel blend with up to 10% bioethanol without any engine modifications. Some newer cars can run on pure bioethanol.
Biodiesel is produced from a variety of vegetable oils, including soybean, palm and rapeseed (canola), plus animal fats. This fuel can replace regular diesel with no engine modifications required.
…..Hold the applause, and look at the facts. In a nutshell, organic fuels trash rainforests, deplete water reserves, kill off species, and increase greenhouse emissions when the full effects of producing them are included. At least that’s what Science Magazine says on the latter point. It reviewed studies that examined how destruction of natural ecosystems (such as tropical rain forests and South American grasslands) not only releases greenhouse gases when they’re burned and plowed but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs less carbon than rain forests or even the scrubland it replaces.
The article goes on to list some of the problems with biofuels, which are definitely making the global food crisis worse. Do you want to eat, or be able to carry on driving your car (to a planet-trashing job you probably hate)?Welcome to civilisations endgame. We have a choice: carry on allowing this heirarchical society to rape and pillage (yes, ok, there is the illusion allowed us, of comfort, luxury, justice, freedom), or coud we just possibly grab a chance of real equality, say no to the bosses, landlords, leaders? Real freedom can not be found in wage slavery. Knowing that the food you eat has been grown with your own toil (in mutual aid with those around you) is real freedom.
The media seems more concerned with the civil unrest that food shortages are creating, than with the starvation. The scary communist countries of Cuba and Venezuela are actually trying to help their fellow south americans, while the US govt is busy bailing out their financial institutions and ignoring the food rationing starting in their own country:
Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks
These are scary times. And it is going to get a lot harder and scarier. We need local small scale intensive food production. We need reforestation and rewilding – a process which will take 100 years plus. We dont need to be told that more large scale centralised industrial food production will solve the problems. That was a stupid idea that enriched a handfull of people, turned arable land and forests into desert and created a culture of dependency. There is a lot of work ahead to build a sustainable culture & future for the human race – we all need to start getting our hands dirty. If we are very lucky, and are able to convert the hungry masses into a willing workforce, we could just about pull this off retaining some of the more beneficial products of civilisation. We need to stop being consumers, and learn how to live properly, with each other and with this wonderful planet.
price increases, food shortages and riots
In between the reports of economic downturn, recession, depression and the usual banality of the mainstream media, more and more reports are appearing related to food problems. Worlwide grain harvests are down, grain stocks are at an all time low, poor people are struggling to buy food – some are blaming their governments and protesting/rioting, governments are restricting food exports, the west is using food as biofuels (outpricing those who simply seek to eat), and petrol prices are skyrocketing, pushing the price of practically everything up, up, up.
Because the media is almost entirely owned and controlled by those who gain the most from the status quo, you still have to be paying pretty close attention to notice that there is even a problem, but the news is filtering through. Globalisation and the centralisation of the world’s food and seed supply may be a stupid idea, making a few people very rich and powerful, while engineering a world where most of us are reduced to consumers with little or no control over our food supply, but unfortunately those same few people also own and control most of the news media.
A recent counterpunch article tells us of rioting in Haiti, Egypt and potentially 33 other countries, as well as touching on the plight of poor US citizens.
But just as agribusiness wiped out small U.S. farmers in the 1980s, it has repeated this pattern around the world ever since. As global justice activist Vandana Shiva wrote in 2006, in India “without market regulation agribusiness corporations will make profits selling costly seeds, buying cheap farm produce, and locking farmers in debt. This has been the process by which the small family farmer has disappeared in U.S.A, Argentina, Europe.”
Another article, ‘not so quiet food riots’ from the daily reckoning, talks about food price increases and riots.
The big problem with inflation is that people get low blood sugar when they are hungry, and soon their moods turn sour. I know this for a fact because if breakfast or brunch or lunch or coffee break or dinner or any snack is five minutes late, I involuntarily turn into a screaming monster from hell demanding to know who stole my food and vowing bloody revenge. I can only imagine the anger when hunger is caused because someone can’t afford to buy food!
This “inability to buy food” is one of the problems with inflation, and that ugliness is now here, as we read from Bloomberg.com that “The World Bank in Washington says 33 nations from Mexico to Yemen may face ‘social unrest’ after food and energy costs increased for six straight years.” Hahaha! No kidding?
Even the NY Times is talking about the world food crisis (under ‘opinion’), suggesting that biofuels are a bad idea.
Washington provides a subsidy of 51 cents a gallon to ethanol blenders and slaps a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on imports. In the European Union, most countries exempt biofuels from some gas taxes and slap an average tariff equal to more than 70 cents a gallon of imported ethanol. There are several reasons to put an end to these interventions. At best, corn ethanol delivers only a small reduction in greenhouse gases compared with gasoline. And it could make things far worse if it leads to more farming in forests and grasslands. Rising food prices provide an urgent argument to nix ethanol’s supports.
Commondreams.org talks about global hunger hotspots, and has some analysis of the causes:
“What is not being mentioned is that in the last few decades liberalisation of agriculture, dismantling of state-run institutions like marketing boards, and specialisation of developing countries in exportable cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, cotton, and even flowers has been encouraged by international financial institutions backed by rich countries like the United States, and also by the European Union,” she pointed out.
Mittal said these reforms have driven the poorest countries into a downward spiral. “Removal of tariff barriers has allowed a handful of Northern countries to capture Third World markets by dumping heavily subsidised commodities while undermining local food production,” she said.
The Wall St Journal, again under ‘opinion’ attempts to look at the situation, but does not recognise the huge impact that climate change is having on harvests.
And the New York Times tells us that ‘Finance Ministers Emphasize Food Crisis Over Credit Crisis‘ – at least someone is paying attention!
The world’s economic ministers declared on Sunday that shortages and skyrocketing prices for food posed a potentially greater threat to economic and political stability than the turmoil in capital markets.
The ministers, conferring in the shadow of a slumping American economy that threatens to pull down the economies of other countries, turned their attention to the food crisis and called on the wealthiest countries to fulfill pledges to help prevent starvation and disorder in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Things are pretty damn bad in many parts of the world, and getting worse – it is imperative that we start accepting that the days of cheap abundant fuel are over (we cant afford to keep dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, and polluting/poisoning our world anyway) and each and every one of us start changing our lives. Forget supermarkets – start learning how to grow veg, co-operate with your neighbours, and preserve your produce for the winter months. Lets face it – we have been conned into dependency, and encouraged to overshoot the earths carrying capacity by many times. A lot of people are going to die. Its a fact, hard to swallow, but fact. But our actions now will define what kind of future the survivors and our decendants will live in.
Biofuels, bigger monoculture farms, and all the rest of the rubbish sold to us as solutions so we can carry on living wasteful, toxic lifestyles as wage slaves, are not the answer. Local solutions, to local problems, local people providing their local needs in a responsible way with local resources.
What are you doing? We’d love to here from you, and share your ideas and your local projects with our readers. Many people are no doubt, after reading this website, very scared for the future – if you are taking practical action in your community, drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you any news or information to help inspire others to start making a better world.
weaning themselves from supermarkets
The villagers of Martin, Hants, UK are working together to provide themselves with local organic food. A fantastic co-operative project, that we could all learn from. From their website:
Futurefarms is a co-operative, set up in early 2004, whose purpose is to grow food within the parish of Martin in Hampshire, for sale to the people who live there. We are a non-profitmaking enterprise – all proceeds from the sale of our food are used to cover costs and to build up the business.
The venture was started in response to concern about the distance that our food has to travel from farm to plate. This not only increases the amount of road traffic and contributes to climate change; it also creates a disconnect between producer and consumer that results in poor quality food and high prices, with not enough attention being paid to legitimate customer concerns about food safety, animal welfare, and damage to the environment.
In contrast, we sell direct to our customers. We aim to produce food that is tasty, wholesome, and grown in a way that is in harmony with nature and respectful of animal welfare. Since we are a non-profitmaking organisation, our food is also reasonably priced.
The co-operative is run by a committee of eight people, all of whom live in Martin. At the moment, the work of caring for the animals and tending the crops is done by members of the committee, with some hired labour, but ultimately our aim is to employ a full-time farmer to work on the farm. In time, we hope to be able to produce and sell a full range of meat, vegetables, and other food products.
Community Supported Agriculture is taking off in the UK, and the Soil Association website has information on grants available for groups seeking to set up these kinds of projects, here.
What is community supported agriculture?
Community supported agriculture (CSA) is about reconnecting people with the farm on which their food is grown. There are lots of different ways that CSA can work. Normally, local people will invest in their local farm in some way in return for a share of the harvest.
CSA is a partnership between farmers and consumers where the responsibilities and rewards of farming are shared.
Fundamental to CSA is an understanding of mutual support between farmers and those who consume their produce. As CSA farms are directly accountable to their consumer members they strive to provide fresh, high-quality food, typically using organic or biodynamic farming methods.
CSA members often commit in advance, in cash or kind (working on the farm), to buying their food directly from the CSA farm.
More information also on the Cultivating Communities website.
the end of suburbia
Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness.
Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.
But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary.
The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream? Are today’s suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of Suburbia ?
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/index.htm
the waking up syndrome
Original article by Sarah Anne Edwards and Linda Buzzell.
We are reprinting this article in full, as it is a very useful article in terms of helping us to accept our own reactions to the dire situation before us. Civilisation and the culture of empire is making the earth uninhabitable. Fossil fuels that have enabled this culture to strip mine the planet at an incredible rate, while allowing the population to overshoot the earth’s carrying capacity, have peaked. The economic system that the vast majority of the earth’s human inhabitants rely on for their daily survival is beginning to crash. As oil gets more expensive, so everything gets more expensive. Climate change is upsetting food harvests, while the rich countries are turning food into fuel for vehicles. What is happening with the climate, with food stocks, prices, population, pollution etc is indeed very scary. It is helpful to recognise that denial is a normal response, and even more helpful to read a few ideas of what to do when you stop denying. What are you doing?
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” — T. S. Eliot
Just dealing with our daily lives keeps most of us too busy to worry about whether or not the sky is falling. We focus on getting to and from work, paying our bills, doing our errands, and, if our time-stressed schedules allow, enjoying a little time to relax with friends and family.
But we’re deluged of late with dire pronouncements from high-profile newscasts, documentaries, and scientific reports about global warming, melting ice caps, dwindling oil supplies, and a looming imminent economic collapse. Closer to home, we’ve experienced climate-related disasters: floods, wildfires, hurricanes, wildfires, and severe droughts.
While the sky may not be falling, this day-after-day onslaught of alarming news is making it more difficult simply to overlook the triple threat of environmental, climatic and economic concerns. It’s leaving many of us feeling like Alice in Wonderland, being sucked down a Rabbit Hole into some frighteningly grotesque and unfamiliar world that’s anything but wonderful.
Few of us are eager to contemplate, let alone truly face, these looming changes. Just the threat of losing chunks of the comfortable way of life we’re accustomed to (or aspiring to) is a frightening-enough prospect. But there’s no avoiding the current facts and trends of the human and planetary situation. And as the edges of our familiar reality begin to ravel, more and more people are reacting psychologically. A noticeable pattern of behavior is emerging.
We call this pattern the Waking Up Syndrome, and it unfolds in six stages, though not necessarily in any particular order.
Stage 1 – Denial.
When we first get an inkling of the shifting environmental reality and its potential impact on both the national economy and our daily lives, most people begin by denying it. We slip into one of four common ways to discount things we’d rather not deal with:“I don’t believe it.”
We simply deny the existence of any such concerns and refuse to consider them. This might include latching eagerly onto any few remaining naysayers for confirmation and comfort. But as the number of reputable naysayers dwindles, more people are forced to face the fact that “something” is happening.“It’s not a problem.”
We may admit there’s a change taking place, but deny that it’s significant, seeing such things as climate change and economic fluctuations as part of a normal pattern that is nothing to concern ourselves with. Or we may incorporate the changes we see happening into our spiritual and religious beliefs, regarding them not as a problem, but a test of faith, a sign of a global spiritual awakening, or evidence of a long-awaited Apocalypse. Some may believe focusing on such problems makes them worse and that we should instead visualize, meditate, or pray for the world to be as we want it to be.“Someone will fix it.”
We may admit major problematic changes are underway but conclude that there’s nothing we personally can do about them and we needn’t worry because technology, scientists, the government, or some expert authority will come up with a solution in time to save us.“It’s useless.”
We may believe there’s nothing anyone can do about macro-problems, so why do anything, except perhaps eat, drink and be merry. What will be, will be.Stage 2 – Semi-consciousness.
In spite of the various ways we may try to discount what’s happening to our environment (and consequently to our economy and whole way of life), as evidence mounts around us and the news coverage escalates, we may begin to feel a vague sense of eco-anxiety. Some express this as virulent anger at all this discussion about global warming. Others dissociate from their growing concern and misdirect their feelings toward other things in their lives, perhaps blaming family members or jobs for their undefined discomfort.Stage 3 – The moment of realization.
At some point we may encounter something that breaks through our defenses and brings the inevitability and severity of the implications of our collective problems into full consciousness. We might read a particularly compelling article, learn more about the aftermath of Katrina, hear a news broadcast about polar bear deaths or rampant fires and flooding, see a documentary like “An Inconvenient Truth” or “The End of Suburbia.” Or — most dramatically – we might experience a natural disaster ourselves with all its personal and economic costs.At such moments, suddenly we realize no matter how we try to explain away the changes that are happening, they are and will be accompanied by huge challenges to life as we know it and cause considerable pain and suffering for many, including ourselves and those we love.
Even if we believe all these disruptions are leading to a global spiritual awakening or a long awaited Apocalypse— even if we think some helpful new technology is going to emerge (hopefully soon)— we nonetheless begin to understand on a visceral level that the changes taking place will have dramatically unpleasant implications beyond anything we’ve faced in our lifetimes. In fact, we realize many of these uncomfortable changes are already underway and will be growing in coming months and years, affecting most of the things we love and cherish.
But like the character Neo in the 1999 movie The Matrix, even at this point we still have a choice. We can choose to swallow the metaphorical red pill and find out just how deep this rabbit hole goes and where it leads. Or we can take the soothing metaphorical blue pill and choose to “escape” from the nightmarish Wonderland of the rabbit hole we’ve fallen into by slipping back into the comfort of our favorite form of assuring ourselves that all is well.
But if, like Neo, we take “the red pill,” we wake up to the reality of our individual and collective situation. We get that the triple threat challenge facing us is a real Medusa monster. Once we’re awake, the problem is full-blown in our consciousness. It’s right in our face. It won’t let us turn away, and the force of it makes “waking up” incredibly painful.
The moment we realize — even briefly — that we’re slipping into a dangerously threatening new world that no longer makes sense according what we’ve always believed, our genetic wiring kicks in with predictable physiological and emotional threat responses that can take many forms.
Some of us become obsessive newswatchers, documentary filmgoers, internet compulsives or book readers, wanting to know more and more about what’s really happening. Loved ones may think we’ve gone nuts. Spouses may consider divorce; kids may decide mom and dad are hopeless cranks.
The more fragile or vulnerable among us may get depressed or experience panic attacks. If something about this current eco-trauma retriggers earlier traumas in our lives, we may have a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) reaction. Even the more resilient may throw themselves obsessively into save-the-planet and other activities, soon to become exhausted and weary from trying to do what no one person can.
Others, once they realize what’s happening, see it as a new business or political opportunity. These green business ventures can sometimes be helpful and productive, but at other times can actively circumvent or sabotage the efforts of those who are trying to solve the problems.
Stage 4 – A Point of No Return.
Once awakened, especially as economic and environmental changes intensify, most of us find there is no turning back. We find ourselves traveling deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. Whatever methods we’ve used to avoid facing the coming changes is no longer successful to quell our personal concerns. We can no longer help but notice the continuing rapid progress of the bad trends – more expensive energy, higher costs of living, a weaker economy, more species in trouble, rising temperatures, more devastating severe weather events, increasing political, economic and military competition (wars) over remaining resources, etc. It all starts to make a dreadful sort of sense as we let in the enormity of the situation.One of the most difficult aspects of this stage is the profound but unavoidable sense of isolation and disconnection we may feel when living in a different world from most of those around us, a world we can no longer escape from, but one few others seem to notice. The result is a bizarre sense of surrealism. Interaction and communication can become a challenge. How do we relate to a world that’s no longer real to us, but is business as usual to most? Do we try to reach out to others about the ugly new reality and endure their defenses? Is it better to indulge those who don’t yet see the reality we’ve stumbled into and act “as if” nothing has changed just to get along? Or might it be easier to withdraw from life as we’ve known it and turn into a hermit?
5. Despair, guilt, hopelessness, powerlessness.
The realization sets in that one person or even one group or community can’t stop the effects of such things as climate change and peak oil and their economic consequences from impacting millions of people around the planet and at home. We see this thing spiraling out of control and realize that our species, and even we individually, are responsible for much of what’s happening! As the mayor of Memphis said to the Los Angeles Times when a major heat-wave hit his city and most of the Midwest and South last summer, “This is pretty akin to a seismic event in the sense that there is no solution that we here in this room can come up with that will take care of everybody.”Some have suggested that this stage is similar to the traditional grief process, and indeed, this is a time of grieving. But there is a significant difference between this awakening and the normal experience of grief. Grief that occurs after a loss usually ends with acceptance of what’s been lost and then one adjusts and goes on. But this is more like the process of accepting a degenerative illness. It’s not a one-time loss one can accommodate and simply move on. It is a chronic, on-going, permanent situation that will not only not improve, but actually continue to worsen and become more uncomfortable in the foreseeable future, probably for the entire lifetime of most people living today. This is what author James Howard Kunstler calls “The Long Emergency.”
Our grief and sorrow are also amplified by having to bear the pain of upbeat acquaintances who go merrily along in their denial, discounting their own uneasiness about what’s happening and wondering why we’re so “negative.”
Stage 6 – Acceptance, empowerment, action.
As we come to accept the limits of our general powerlessness, we also find the parameters of the power we do have in this strange new situation. We discover we no longer need to resist our current and emerging reality. We don’t need to feel compelled to save the entire world or to hold onto a world that no longer makes sense. We are freed, instead, to pursue what James Kunstler calls “the intelligent response, ” seeking and taking whatever creative, constructive action will best sustain those aspects of life that are truly most important to us in the context of the changes unfolding around us. At this point our curiosity and creativity kick in and we can begin following our natural instincts to find what is both feasible and rewarding to safeguard ourselves, our families, our communities and the planet.And indeed, growing numbers of people are beginning to respond with a plethora of creative, socially and personally responsible actions along four paths that are similar to those identified by Joanna Macy in her book World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal and Richard Heinberg in Peak Everything: Waking up to the Century of Declines. We are finding individual and collective ways to:
Resist making matters worse.
What’s going on may or may not be inevitable, but we don’t have to speed it along. We can do at least one thing to ease or lessen the negative impact of these changes. We can join an environmental action group, plant a tree, bike to work, help with a protest march or write letters to our congressperson. Just doing our little bit to limit the damage eases the psychological distress we’re feeling, even if we’re not “saving the whole world.” Taking even a small stand for what Macy calls “the life-sustaining society” (as opposed to the life-destroying one) gives us back our dignity and sense of agency.
Raise our level of consciousness so we can maintain some serenity and not burn out in the midst of all this change. We might adopt a spiritual practice of some kind, take up meditation, expand our understanding of ecology or history, or spend time reconnecting with nature, learning to live our lives in harmony with the rest of the earth.Build a lifeboat for ourselves and our loved ones.
Many people are already taking steps to create a richer yet more sustainable way of life better suited to weathering the new economic and environmental realities. Some are moving to less vulnerable or expensive locales. Others are simplifying their lives, starting to lower their energy use, or creating personal and community permaculture gardens. Still others are changing into more sustainable careers, joining relocalization efforts to safeguard their local economy, or adopting alternative ways to exchange needed goods and services. Learning more about these positive possibilities is vital. Until we can see that there are options, there’s no way out of despair except to return to dissociating or denying, which only makes us more vulnerable to the difficulties around us.Join with others in small communities
for support and understanding. Don’t try to cope with this enormous challenge alone! Find others who share your concerns and views. Some people have formed reading or study groups around books like David Korten’s The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, Richard Heinberg’s Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World, Cecile Andrews’ Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life, or Middle Class Life Boat by Paul and Sarah Edwards. Others are becoming active in relocalization efforts like those described on www.relocalize.net . Still others are joining together to turn their neighborhood into a sustainable “eco-hood” or exploring options for co-housing or eco-villages.Taking some action in each of these four areas prevents us from getting stuck in panic and paralysis. It energizes us and re-establishes a sense of confidence and security in life. Does it mean we will no longer be plagued with concerns, doubts or even fear at times? No. The threat of what we face is huge and relentless. There’s never been anything like it in human history. All who awaken to the enormity of the challenges before us still slip and slide somewhere along this continuum at times. One day we may feel encouraged with our forward action, the next we may be back to despairing. Or we many need to take a mental holiday altogether for a few days or weeks so we can come back refreshed and reinvigorated, ready to work again on the survivable future we’re creating for ourselves and our loved ones.
When asked in an interview with The Turning Wheel if there are times when she ever thinks “Oh, no! This is impossible,” even Joanna Macy, who has been a leader in championing ways to address these changes, replied, “Every day.” But she goes on to explain that while she does think this at times, such times pass because she can’t think of anything more engaging and enjoyable than addressing the most pressing issues of our time.
Such wisdom seems to be the secret to living positively while navigating the painfully difficult stages of awakening until we get to the point where we can enjoy the daily challenges our dismaying situation presents to our imagination, our creativity and our deep and abiding love for the most valuable aspects of life.
To Learn More
Books:
Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life by Cecile Andrews.
World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal by Joanna Macy.
The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community by David Korten.
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change and other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century by James Howard Kunstler.
Middle-Class Life Boat, Careers and Life Choices for Staying Afloat in an Uncertain Economy by Paul and Sarah Edwards.
Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren
Peak Everything: Waking up to the Century of Decline by Richard Heinberg.
Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World by Richard Heinberg.
Reconnecting with Nature by Michael J. Cohen.
Documentary DVDs:
The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream. www.endofsuburbia.com/previews.htm
Escape From Suburbia: Beyond the American Dream
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
What a Way to Go: Life at the End of the Empire. www.whatawaytogomovie.com/
Crude Impact
Organizations:
The Post-Carbon Institute www.postcarbon.org
Sarah Anne Edwards, Ph.D., LCSW, is an ecopsychologist, author, and advocate for sustainable lifestyles. She is founder of the Pine Mountain Institute (www.PineMountainInstitute.com ), a continuing education provider for professionals seeking to empower their clients to respond to today’s challenging economic and environmental realities.Linda Buzzell, M.A., M.F.T. is a psychotherapist and career counselor in private practice in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, California. She is the founder of the International Association for Ecotherapy (http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy ) and the co-editor of Ecotherapy: Psyche and Nature in a Circle of Healing (in press, Sierra Club Books).
