Hello this late March day from a very snowy island in a warming sea. It would seem we are having our January and February weather all in March! Oh how the weather has always been such a conversation piece the world over. But now the stakes are higher! In this post I talk about the course I am taking in which I am learning more about how to make a Just Transition in an age of overlapping crises. Hope you find something here that is relatable or enlightening or both!
The most recent IPCC report hammers down what has become increasingly evident—climate change is affecting weather patterns in the here and now--not in some distant future--and it is causing disproportionate harm to those in positions of greatest precarity whose lifestyles have contributed the least to increased carbon in the atmosphere. And I am not just talking humans here.
A.2 Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. Human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. This has led to widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people (high confidence). Vulnerable communities who have historically contributed the least to current climate change are disproportionately affected (high confidence). {2.1,Table 2.1, Figure 2.2 and 2.3} (Figure SPM.1)
How do we get our exhausted and overwrought selves out of this self-made mess of interwoven crises of climate change, social disruption/divisiveness and cost of living nightmare?
In February I saw a notice for an online course advertised on Citizens’ Alliance News called Towards Cooperative Commonwealth: Transition in a Perilous Century. The course name caught my eye. Seeing that we are collectively living in neoliberalism’s ever tightening death grip, I am increasingly curious about (well, I’ve always tried to figure this out) how to find our way through our overlapping social, economic and environmental crises.
”Neoliberalism is a way of defining human beings by the market...”. George Monbiot
As the course leads explained when discussing the course name choice, they chose the word commonwealth based on its root etymology or source meaning, loosely being, common well-being. https://www.etymonline.com/word/commonwealth
Living in an age where well-being is increasingly difficult to come by (on the personal to societal levels), I welcome the idea of the MOOC's (Massive Open Online Course) deep dive into how to create long lasting, positive society scale change.
I abhor the largely accepted (by way of passive complicity or the simple weight of the juggernaut system) fact that the majority of economic wealth is held by few in a world which holds such potential for shared abundance.
I also abhor the horrible toll the aggregation of economic wealth and power into so few corporate hands has taken on Earth’s soil, air, waters and all its creatures, great and small.
So much destruction, loss and suffering. So many humans and creatures left on the margins.
Hand on heart. Pause and breathe. We can do better!
But how to change? A Just Transition which honours small scale economies which themselves honour and build care within those communities they are designed to serve, is a good start.
Increasing land held as commons is a critical way to achieve this through addressing housing and food security issues through agrarian commons, land trusts and even housing commons such as Community Land Trusts or CLT’s.
When living is reduced to a hardscrabble grab for food and housing for those in the most precarious positions or becomes consumed by the ever- increasing desire for convenience and intermittent luxury- indulgent stress releases for those with more economic power, we find ourselves caught in positions where even those who know better cannot do better in terms of lifestyle changes to a more just, equitable and sustainable, earth friendly way of living.
If you are able to work and your work week exhausts you to the point of not being able to sustain your household in a way of reduced environmental impact then you feel stuck in harming ways. If your economic precarity (whether you are in the recognized work force or not) forces you to make food and lifestyle choices that do not match your values or even meet your basic needs, you also feel stuck. Stuck and despairing.
Whose fault is this but those systems that reward us with the illusion of comfort and security but never pay out beyond false promises? Promises that are impossible to keep and cheap to make and so incredibly destructive of life.
So many people are hungry in a world that can meet our hunger needs if we lived differently--namely out from under corporate ownership of land and rule of food production and less consumption of meat and dairy!
We need to take a good hard look at how we are living while offering ourselves so much compassion. We need to look at what we value and preserve and uphold and see who might be marginalized or harmed by the lifestyle choices we make and offer kindness again.
A.2.2Approximately 3.3–3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change. Human and ecosystem vulnerability are interdependent. Regions and people with considerable development constraints have high vulnerability to climatic hazards. Increasing weather and climate extreme events have exposed millions of people to acute food insecurity and reduced water security, with the largest adverse impacts observed in many locations and/or communities in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, LDCs, Small Islands and the Arctic, and globally for Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food producers and low-income households. Between 2010 and 2020, human mortality from floods, droughts and storms was 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions, compared to regions with very low vulnerability. (high confidence) {2.1.2, 4.4}(Figure SPM.1)
A.2.3Climate change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater, cryospheric, and coastal and open ocean ecosystems (high confidence). Hundreds of local losses of species have been driven by increases in the magnitude of heat extremes (high confidence) with mass mortality events recorded on land and in the ocean (very high confidence). Impacts on some ecosystems are approaching irreversibility such as the impacts of hydrological changes resulting from the retreat of glaciers, or the changes in some mountain (medium confidence) and Arctic ecosystems driven by permafrost thaw (high confidence). {2.1.2, Figure 2.3} (Figure SPM.1)
Stemming the tide is the best we can do at this point of the game. Upending neoliberal ways ensures the game’s rules are changed for the better. Then we all become engaged players towards a brighter tomorrow rather than the misery that just going along with more of the same proves to offer us.
During this time of a provincial election on the small island in the sea that I live on, I hear calls for investments in solutions and fixes to health care and environment without addressing the root of the problems in our culture of endless consumption, production and development.
Buying into climate action delaying notions that say we just need to wait for the right technologies to be invented to save us is harmful. So too is the notion that we just need to extract more of the earth’s wealth towards a ramping up production of so called "green solutions". These are simply efforts towards appearing to be acting on climate change but really just prove to support maintaining status quo through the neoliberal mindset (rooted in capitalism) that all of the solutions are in the market.
Let’s innovate, produce and consume our way to a better tomorrow! Uggh. Sigh.
Not saying that new tech cannot bring any good; just that it all requires scrutiny. (I am thinking of biofuels here, amongst others.)
An excellent article on market based techno-solutions by Les Levidow.
Back to solutions:
Our little island in the sea is full of beautiful examples of people living and exploring more just options. The world over good people are working to make positive change. How to upend neoliberalism for all these wonderful ideas to take root? How to be the change we seek?
One tool systems theory proposes for integrative and sustainable change is the Multi Level Perspective or MLP for mapping how change in complex systems takes place.
These notes are taken directly from this wonderful, brief (2 minute) introduction to Multi Level Perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q1is1JGJxU
(for potential transformation of mainstream society)
How to trigger change in the structure of the regime is key.
Regime (mainstream society supported by social norms and integrated systems)
Landscape (where global trends may occur which influence and pressure the regime)
Niche (developments where new ideas are allowed to grow until they have an opportunity to challenge the existing regime)
The course I am taking contains seven modules which dive into the ways that the challenges we face overlap and intertwine with each other and explore everything from issues of land tenure to food security to energy and new economies. Nearing the halfway point I can say that is delightful and highly engaging, both!
The point of intersection between unpaid work of carers and food insecurity might not seem overtly connected but they are. This is why Basic Income improves food security.
Same too with improved access to land (tenure) and increased food sovereignty. These also positively affect environmental outcomes with increased biodiversity thanks to increased habitat and decreased pressure from harmful industrial farming technologies. (By way of the practice of agroecology versus industrial farming.)
Who owns the land, how it is cared for, by whom, how they are cared for and who gets to eat matters deeply to environmental outcomes both locally and globally. This also impacts well-being in terms of mental and physical wellness by reducing stress and increasing access to nourishing food and a sense of community.
A flourishing society has its basis in nourished soil which nourishes the farmers who nourish the community who nourish the culture. And our culture is shaped by our sharing of knowledge, food, song and dance, art and homemaking.
This produces a vibrant, local culture which serves and cares for the community which builds it.
And the greater our sense of belonging the greater our well-being.
Wow--we are working our way to a Just Transition and an improved sense of our common wealth as residents of this beautiful planet, Earth.
Such wonderfulness is within our reach. We just have to action ourselves towards it. Being engaged in democratic process (even without the much requested electoral reform) is a privilege not everyone in the world shares. Vote!
What person or party best reflects this mindset? How can we create more cooperation and and less divisiveness?
May we begin again friends,in breath and with kindness:
Oh this world of beauty and of difficulty; we offer you our caring, our breath, our love. Thank you for all you offer us. May our caring be reflected in the world around us and may it spread on wings the whole world over. May we have the resilience to cope with difficulties as they arise. May we work to prevent increased, future difficulties. May we find our way to joy and wellness through our sharing of ourselves with each other. May we always remember to be kind to self and other for we truly all are one.
Thanks for reading!
In mindful solidarity,
Jill
Bless you Jill, for continually trying to make our world more livable and safe for everyone- a few more kicks may bring the butter! At least there seem to be more people who are willing to accept that the climate changes are very real and very urgent. An idea whose time has come will eventually prevail in spite of everything. It always has. Love you and your goodness.... ma