John O’Donohue, in yesterday’s post, touched on the essence of today’s theme, “The greatest philosophers admit that to a large degree all knowledge comes through the senses. The senses are our bridge to the world.”
Dogs, of course, demonstrate powerfully how their senses provide a ‘bridge to the world’.
This odd collection of writings (ramblings?) that comprise Learning from Dogs is based around the ‘i’ word – Integrity. The banner on the home page proclaims Dogs are integrous animals. We have much to learn from them. Ergo, dogs offer a powerful metaphor for the pressing need for integrity among those that ‘manage’ our societies.
Thus my senses are more tuned, than otherwise, to the conversations in the world out there that support the premise that unless we, as in modern man, radically amend our attitudes and behaviours, then the species homo sapiens is going to hell in a hand-basket!
End of preamble!
Professor Bill Mitchell is one person who recently touched my senses. As his Blog outlines he is an interesting fellow,
(Photo taken in August 2011 in Melbourne, Australia)
He is also a professional musician and plays guitar with the Melbourne Reggae-Dub band – Pressure Drop. The band was popular around the live music scene in Melbourne in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The band reformed in late 2010.
He also plays with a Newcastle swing blues band – The Blues Box. You can find music and other things on his Home Page.
Professor Mitchell’s Blog is not for the faint-hearted, it can be pretty technical at times. Nevertheless, I have been a daily subscriber for a couple of months now.
Economists have a strange way of writing up briefing documents. There is an advanced capacity to dehumanise economic advice and ignore the most important economic and social problems (unemployment and poverty) in favour of promoting non-issues (like public debt ratios). It reminds me sometimes of how the Nazis who were brutal in the extreme in the execution of their ideology sat around getting portraits of themselves taken with their loving families etc. The training of economists creates an advanced state of separation from human issues and an absence of empathy.
In a sense, we all understand this, this use of language to separate us from our collective humanity. A random Google search came up with this. A statement by British Prime Minister, David Cameron, to Parliament on the 24th regarding Europe, as in,
Mr Speaker, let me turn to yesterday’s European Council.
This European Council was about three things.
Sorting out the problems of the Eurozone.
Promoting growth in the EU.
And ensuring that as the Eurozone develops new arrangements for governance, the interests of those outside the Eurozone are protected.
This latter point touches directly on the debate in this House later today, and I will say a word on this later in my statement.
Resolving the problems in the Eurozone is the urgent and over-riding priority facing not only the Eurozone members, but the EU as a whole – and indeed the rest of the world economy.
Britain is playing a positive role proposing the three vital steps needed to deal with this crisis – the establishment of a financial firewall big enough to contain any contagion; the credible recapitalisation of European banks; and a decisive solution to the problems in Greece.
Read the last paragraph. Wonderful words that seem to make sense to the casual listener but picking up on Prof. Bill, an utter ‘separation from human issues and an absence of empathy‘. There is no humanity in those words from the British Prime Minister. We all know there are hundreds of other examples from mouthpieces all across our global society. Back to Bill Mitchell’s article,
Greece has failed. To say this is not another report of investment banks or research centers, but directly Troika officials who have just completed their review on Hellenic public finance. Linkiesta is in possession of the entire report of the troika, composed of officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB) and European Commission.
I have a rule of thumb that I use when considering documents such as these. The rule is to assess how strong the concern for unemployment is. How often is unemployment mentioned? The answer is zero. The document never mentions the word or concept.
So obsessed are the Troika and their bean counters about public debt stabilisation that they have completely lost sight of one of the worst problems an economy can encounter – the failure to generate work for all.
Read those last words again, “completely lost sight of one of the worst problems an economy can encounter – the failure to generate work for all“. One last extract from the article,
There is absolutely no historical evidence which shows that when all nations are contracting or stagnant and private spending is flat (or contracting) that cutting public spending will create growth.
So why did these economists think that a nation would grow when all components of spending were strongly indicated to fall or were being actually cut? The answer lies in acknowledging that they operate in an ideologically blinkered world and are never taken to account for their policy mistakes. They are unaccountable and do not suffer income losses when the nations they dispense advice to and impose policies on behave contrary to the “expectation” which results in millions being unemployed.
In my view, my profession should be liable for the advice it gives and economists should be held personally liable for damages if their advice causes harm to other individuals. If the economists in the IMF and elsewhere were held personally responsible then the advice would quickly change because they would be “playing” with their own fortunes and not the fortunes of an amorphous group of Greeks that they have never met.
Very powerful words that strike at the heart of the matter, that of integrity. (If you want to read it in full, then the article is here.)
Let me move on a little. The 24th also saw a powerful essay on Yves Smith’s Blog Naked Capitalism, from Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland. Here’s a taste of what Mr. Pilkington wrote.
Every now and then a terrible thought enters my mind. It runs like this: what if the theatre of the Eurocrisis is really and truly a political power-game being cynically played by politicians from the core while the periphery burns?
Yes, of course, we can engage in polemic and say that such is the case. But in doing so we are trying to stoke emotion and generally allowing our rhetorical flourish to carry the argument. At least, that is what I thought. I had heard this rhetoric; I had engaged in it to some extent myself; but I had never really believed it. Only once or twice, in my nightmares, I had thought that, maybe, just maybe, it might have some truth.
Can you see the parallels between Prof. Mitchell and Philip Pilkington? The latter wrote, “a political power-game being cynically played by politicians from the core while the periphery burns“, the former wrote, “If the economists in the IMF and elsewhere were held personally responsible then the advice would quickly change because they would be “playing” with their own fortunes and not the fortunes of an amorphous group of Greeks that they have never met.”
It’s clearly obvious to all those that have commented to both the Bill Mitchell and Philip Pilkington items. That is, in my words, a complete lack of integrity, truth and a commitment to serve the people, from so many in places of influence and power.
We all sense this, hear it so clearly, a separation from human issues and an absence of empathy.
We have so much to learn, so much sense to learn, from dogs!
————–
Footnote. Had just completed the above when I came across a piece by Patrick Cockburn in last Sunday’s Independent newspaper, that starts thus,
World View: A sense of injustice is growing. Elite politicians and notorious wrongdoers appear immune as ordinary Greeks reel from wage and job cuts
Up close, the most striking feature of the reforms being forced on Greece by its international creditors is their destructiveness and futility. The pay cuts, tax rises, cuts and job losses agreed to by parliament in Athens last week will serve only to send the economy into a steeper tailspin, even if it extracted a much-needed €8bn in bailout money from the EU leaders. “Nothing but a lost war could be worse than this situation,” one left-wing ex-minister tells me. “What is worse, no party or political group in Greece is offering real solutions to our crisis.
A return to the beautiful writings of Irishman, John O’Donohue
Last week, I published a Post about John O’Donuhue‘s book Anam Cara, entitled Soul friend, the meaning of anam cara in Gaelic. There were a number of lovely responses, both as comments to the Post, and as emails sent to me. I thought I would share another essay with you. First, some reflections about transfiguration or, perhaps a better word for today’s challenging times is ‘change’.
I have made no secret of my belief that we are in a period of great change, perhaps greater than mankind has faced before. Possibly that is slightly hyperbolic, but looked at from the perspective of the extinction of homo sapiens then perhaps it is no exaggeration. The vast majority of people, who stop and reflect, sense that on several fronts it is change or die!
A classic behavioural attribute of modern man is to see ‘change’ as something that others should do, rather than change coming from within. From time to time, I have quoted this,
For today, I am in charge of my life.
Today, I choose my thoughts,
Today, I choose my attitudes,
Today, I choose my actions and behaviours,
With these, I create my life and my destiny.
Much, much easier to say, and write, than to undertake. But it does underscore the obvious – change flows from our journey inwards. Let’s turn to John O’Donohue’s inspirational words about this subject.
From the John O’Donohue website
Spirituality of transfiguration
Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined programme or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practise a new art of attention to our inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence. A dramatic example of this kind of transfiguration is the one all parents know. You watch your children carefully, but one day they surprise you; you still recognise them, but your knowledge of them is insufficient. You have to start listening to them all over again.
It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than with the idea of will. Too often people try to change their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their life into proper shape. The intellect identifies the goal of the programme, and the will accordingly forces the life into that shape. This way of approaching the sacredness of one’s own presence is externalistic and violent. It brings you falsely outside your own self and you can spend years lost in the wilderness of your own mechanical, spiritual programmes. You can perish in a famine of your own making.
If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and naturally home to your self. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has a map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of your self. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more importantly it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. There are no general principles for this art of being. Yet the signature of this unique journey is inscribed deeply in each soul. If you attend to your self and seek to come into your own presence, you will find exactly the right rhythm for your life. The senses are generous pathways which can bring you home.
A renewal, indeed a complete transfiguration of your life, can come through attention to your senses. Your senses are the guides to take you deep into the inner world of your heart. The greatest philosophers admit that to a large degree all knowledge comes through the senses. The senses are our bridge to the world. Human skin is porous; the world flows through you. Your senses are large pores which let the world in. Through attunement to the wisdom of your senses, you will never become an exile in your own life, an outsider lost in an external spiritual place which your will and intellect have constructed.
Please just read those words from John again. Re-read the last paragraph. Then go one paragraph up and read that again, “Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has a map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of your self. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more importantly it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.”
Each of us taking us to where we need to go, and one by one, each of us taking our world to where it needs to go.
History repeating itself in terms of the commercial sailing ship.
Tea clipper 'Cutty Sark'
Most Brits have heard of the tea clipper Cutty Sark. As the Cutty Sark website explains,
Cutty Sark has travelled across the world, sailing under both the Red Ensign and the Portuguese flag, visiting every major port in the world through the course of her working life. In admiration of her beauty and in recognition of her fame, she was preserved for the nation by Captain Wilfred Dowman in 1922.
Since then, the old clipper has been berthed in Falmouth and Greenhithe, finally arriving at her current resting place in Greenwich in 1954.
She is the only surviving extreme clipper, and the only tea clipper still in existence.
Most of her hull fabric survives from her original construction and she is the best example of a merchant composite construction vessel.
She has captured the imagination of millions of people, 15 million of whom have come on board to learn the stories she has to tell.
She was preserved in Greenwich partly as a memorial to the men of the merchant navy, particularly those who lost their lives in both world wars.
She is one of the great sights of London.
I mention the Cutty Sark because it seems a historic connection with something very relevant to today’s world that was the subject of a recent item on Rob Hopkin’s Transition Culture blogsite. In it Rob presents his first podcast, the topic being the sailing ship Tres Hombres, that is being used for commercial sea transport. The link to the Transition Culture story is here, and the podcast follows, (just click on the link to listen to the fascinating 14 minutes audio story about the ship Tres Hombres.)
The first Transition podcast! A visit to the Tres Hombres, tasting a revolution in shipping
Last week I did a course with the Media Trust on how to make podcasts (highly recommended). So, here, with some fanfare, is the first ‘Transition podcast’, I hope you like it. If so, do embed it in other places. It means I spent the time I would spend writing editing pieces of audio. Let me know what you think. So, the podcast is about a fascinating morning I spent visiting the sailing ship Tres Hombres which visited Brixham earlier this week. It explores the potential of sail-powered shipping as the price of oil rises and the economy tightens. It’s an exciting story.
Finally, let me close with a very well-known poem about sailing the big ships.
“Sea-Fever”
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)
Reflections on the Irish poet and author, John O’Donohue.
John O'Donohue
While many will have heard the name of this wonderfully inspirational man, John O’Donohue is not a name known to the masses. Yet his writings are, without fail, beautifully moving. Indeed, this Post was prompted by me coming across a piece from his first book, Anam Cara, meaning ‘soul friend’ in Gaelic, and, as any dog owner will attest, dogs are the animal example of a soul friend to a human.
John tragically died well before his time, in January 2008, just three days after his 56th birthday. As the John O’Donohue website reveals,
John O’Donohue vanished from among us on January 4, 2008 as physical presence, but it is impossible to write about John as someone who “was”; he so thoroughly “is”. In the context of the immense presence of his absence, the following biographical facts and dates can serve only as time-bound points of orientation for those who wish to try and locate history.
John was born in January 1956, the first of four children to Patrick and Josie O’Donohue. At the age of 18, John entered the novitiate at Maynooth where he completed his BA in English and Philosophy in 1977 and his degree in Theology, in 1980. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1982, received his MA in 1982 and, in 1986 began work on a doctorate at the University of Tubingen in Germany. John was awarded his Ph.D in Philosophical Theology in 1990. In his dissertation, Person als Vermittlung, (published in Germany in 1993), John developed a new concept of Person through a re-interpretation of the philosophy of Hegel. The prestigious Review of Metaphysics commended him for “breaking new ground in our thinking about consciousness . . . [with] a richer and deeper notion of Personhood.” In John’s words: “Hegel struck me as someone who put his eye to the earth at a most unusual angle and managed to glimpse the circle toward which all things aspire.”
There is so much more to say and write about this lovely man, but for another time. Let me close by publishing this extract from Anam Cara. But a plea! Before you plunge ahead and read these words, just slow yourself down. The thoughts behind the words below are profound, romantic and applicable to all, yes, every one of us. They offer peace and calmness – embrace them with a peaceful and calm mind.
The eye celebrates Motion
The human eye adores movement and is alert to the slightest flicker. It enjoys great moments of celebration when it beholds the ocean as the tide comes in, and tide upon tide repeats its dance against the shore. The eye also loves the way light moves; summer light behind a cloud crawling over a meadow. The eye follows the way the wind shovels leaves and sways trees. The human person is always attracted to motion. As a little baby you wanted to crawl, then to walk, and as an adult you feel the continuous desire to walk into independence and freedom.
Everything alive is in movement. This movement we call growth. The most exciting form of growth is not mere physical growth, but the inner growth of one’s soul and life. It is here that the holy longing within the heart brings one’s life to motion. The deepest wish of the heart is that this motion does not remain broken or jagged, but develops sufficient fluency to become the rhythm of one’s life.
The secret heart of time is change and growth. Each new experience which awakens in you adds to your soul and deepens your memory. The person is always a nomad, journeying from threshold to threshold, into ever different experiences. In each new experience, another dimension of the soul unfolds. It is no wonder that from ancient times the human person has been understood as a wanderer. Traditionally, these wanderers traversed foreign territories and unknown places. Yet, Stanislavsky, the Russian dramatist and thinker, wrote: “The longest and most exciting journey is the journey inwards.”
There is a beautiful complexity of growth within the human soul. In order to glimpse this, it is helpful to visualise the mind as a tower of windows. Sadly, many people remain trapped at one window, looking out every day at the same scene in the same way. Real growth is experienced when you draw back from one window, turn and walk around the inner tower of the soul and see all the different windows that await your gaze. Through these different windows, you can see new vistas of possibility, presence and creativity. Complacency, habit and blindness often prevent you from feeling your life. So much depends on the frame of vision – the window through which we look.
Think about the times we live in, challenging times for so many. Then realise that what we see (and feel) is so dependent on how we look. Let me repeat those last few lines, “Through these different windows, you can see new vistas of possibility, presence and creativity. Complacency, habit and blindness often prevent you from feeling your life. So much depends on the frame of vision – the window through which we look.”
It’s coming up to noon on the 18th, i.e. yesterday. The morning has been busy and this afternoon a number of items on the ‘to do’ list are making it difficult for me to put together a Post for today. I was minded to simply write a small piece saying this and apologising for leaving you, dear reader, in the lurch for a day.
Thought I might call the Post, ‘Events, dear boy, events’, the famous quotation from the Rt. Hon. Harold Macmillian, Prime Minister of the UK between January 1957 and October 1963. Did a quick Google search to check the quote and came across a delightful piece from The Telegraph British newspaper published in June 2002. So I’m cheating by selectively republishing the article in that paper written by Robert Harris.
As Macmillan never said: that’s enough quotations
Reading through the Guardian over breakfast the other day, I came across a column headlined “Events, ol’ buddy, events”. It was all I could do not to hurl it across the kitchen.
This was not because the column was bad, or because the Guardian’s leader pages were any more irritating than usual, but simply because I knew what was coming.
And, yes, of course, there it was, down towards the bottom of the page: “All politicians know – and often quote – the response from Harold Macmillan when asked what a prime minister most feared: ‘Events, dear boy, events’.”
Later Robert Harris writes,
It’s not as if it’s even been reliably authenticated. Some say Macmillan made it to President Kennedy, others to a journalist after dinner. Denis Healey claims it referred to foreign policy.
Alistair Horne, Macmillan’s official biographer (who tells me he can’t put his finger on it, either) thinks it may have been a response to the Profumo affair.
It didn’t appear in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations until 1999 (where it is carefully described as “attributed”) which may explain why hardly anybody used it until three years ago. Now it’s as unavoidable as “a week is a long time in politics” or “it’s the economy, stupid”.
I’m not trying to be snooty about this. I can’t remember whether I’ve ever actually used it myself, but I’ve certainly used plenty of quotations like it – aphorisms that fall into a particular category: just above the out-and-out cliché and just below the level of something genuinely apt and unfamiliar.
Then Robert writes in a way that slightly touches a nerve of this poor writer, having lent on the use of a quotation from time to time!
Every writer and reader will no doubt have their own particular favourites that they’d be grateful never to hear again, but these are mine:
“All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs” – Enoch Powell on Joseph Chamberlain.
“There are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges: the Roman Catholic Church, the Brigade of Guards and the National Union of Mineworkers” – Harold Macmillan (also attributed to Stanley Baldwin).
“In the long run we are all dead” – John Maynard Keynes.
“I’d rather take advice from my valet than from the Conservative Party Conference” – Arthur Balfour.
“Socialism is what a Labour Government does” – Herbert Morrison.
“Not while I’m alive ‘e ain’t” – Ernest Bevin, on being told that Morrison was “his own worst enemy”.
“How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” – de Gaulle.
“Is it better to be loved than feared, or the reverse? The answer is that it is desirable to be both, but because it is difficult to join them together, it is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved” – Niccolo Machiavelli.
“Treason is a question of dates” – Talleyrand.
“It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder” – Anotine Boulay de la Meurthe, on hearing of the execution of the Duc d’Enghien by Napoleon.
These are all, in their different ways, excellent quotations – epigrammatic or wise or cynical. They are certainly not as clichéd as “I don’t know what effect these men have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me”, as Wellington is usually misquoted, or Lady Thatcher’s “there is no such thing as Society”.
And yet, for all that, they are clichés, made slightly worse by the fact that using them is designed to convey a thin patina of learning. They are at once familiar, yet just unfamiliar enough to have a certain snob value.
Interesting list, don’t you think!
Is Mr. Harris immune? Of course not! Here’s how the article closes,
And while we’re about it, can we also lose those other phrases and images that have no specific author, but that regularly surface in columns (including mine)?
Let no more deckchairs be rearranged on the Titanic, or Fuhrers in their bunkers order around phantom divisions, or turkeys vote for Christmas, or horses be promoted by Caligula. Let there be no more strange deaths of Liberal/Tory/ Labour England.
“You have used every cliché except ‘God is love’ and ‘Please adjust your dress before leaving’,” Churchill (famously) said. In that spirit, I curse “events, dear boy, events”. As Cromwell (equally famously) declared: “Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”
With no more ado, (there’s another cliché!), I will sign off.
A chance dip into the BBC News website a few days ago allowed me to come across an article about the vanishing glaciers in the Himalayas. It just about broke my heart. Here’s what it said,
Rivers of ice: Vanishing glaciers
Stunning images from high in the Himalayas – showing the extent by which many glaciers have shrunk in the past 80 years or so – have gone on display at the Royal Geographical Society in central London.
Between 2007 and 2010, David Breashears retraced the steps of early photographic pioneers such as Major E O Wheeler, George Mallory and Vittorio Sella – to try to re-take their views of breathtaking glacial vistas.
The mountaineer and photographer is the founder of GlacierWorks – a non-profit organisation that uses art, science and adventure to raise public awareness about the consequences of climate change in the Himalayas.
Rivers of Ice: Vanishing Glaciers of the Greater Himalaya can be seen at the RGS in London until 11 November 2011. Admission free.
All photos courtesy GlacierWorks and Royal Geographical Society. Map copyright Jay Hart. All images subject to copyright.
Music courtesy KPM Music. Audio slideshow production by Paul Kerley. Publication date 11 October 2011.
Then follows a 3:59 film made by David Breashears that is so beautiful as well as so upsetting. I don’t have a way of linking to the film directly but it’s easy to watch, just click here and be very moved.
David Breashears has his own website, from where one can learn that,
David Breashears is an accomplished filmmaker, adventurer, author, mountaineer, and professional speaker. Since 1978, he has combined his skills in climbing and filmmaking to complete more than forty film projects.
In 1983, Breashears transmitted the first live television pictures from the summit of Mount Everest, and in 1985 became the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest twice.
In the spring of 1996, Breashears co-directed and co-produced the first IMAX film shot on Mount Everest. When the now infamous blizzard of May 10, 1996 hit Mount Everest, killing eight climbers, Expedition Leader Breashears and his team were in the midst of making this historic film. In the tragedy that soon followed, Breashears and his team stopped filming to provide assistance to the stricken climbers. After returning to Base Camp, Breashears and his team then regrouped and reached the summit of the mountain on May 23, 1996, achieving their goal of becoming the first to record IMAX film images at Earth’s highest point. Breashears has said that if there is a lesson to be learned from the May 1996 tragedy, it is that for him, success that year was not to be found in reaching the summit, it was that everyone on his team returned safely. The film, titled EVEREST, premiered in March 1998.
As was written in that BBC item, David is the founder of GlacierWorks which is full of beautiful, albeit tinged with sadness, images of the glaciers featured in that BBC item. As the GlacierWorks website explains on the home page,
The Mighty Himalayan Glaciers are Vanishing.
The rate of recession is unprecedented, accelerating and, without some remedy to the problem of climate change, unstoppable. GlacierWorks is a non-profit organization that uses art, science, and adventure to raise awareness about the consequences of climate change in the Greater Himalaya.
Read that first sentence again, “The rate of recession is unprecedented, accelerating and, without some remedy to the problem of climate change, unstoppable.” [my emphasis]
There are a number of videos on YouTube if you search for David Breashears, none up to the beauty of the slide show in the BBC item so don’t miss that at all. However, the following is also worth watching,
OK, a change of topic but one that connects with the underlying message about the disappearing glaciers. This was an article in the American The Nation newspaper written by Naomi Klein, following her speech to the demonstrators at Occupy Wall Street. The article really should be read in full but I wanted to highlight just the following words from Naomi,
The point is, today everyone can see that the system is deeply unjust and careening out of control. Unfettered greed has trashed the global economy. And it is trashing the natural world as well. We are overfishing our oceans, polluting our water with fracking and deepwater drilling, turning to the dirtiest forms of energy on the planet, like the Alberta tar sands. And the atmosphere cannot absorb the amount of carbon we are putting into it, creating dangerous warming. The new normal is serial disasters: economic and ecological.
We all know, or at least sense, that the world is upside down: we act as if there is no end to what is actually finite—fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions. And we act as if there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually bountiful—the financial resources to build the kind of society we need.
The task of our time is to turn this around: to challenge this false scarcity. To insist that we can afford to build a decent, inclusive society—while at the same time, respect the real limits to what the earth can take.
Thanks to Bill Mitchell of Billy Blog for linking me to the Naomi Klein speech.
We can afford to build a decent, inclusive society and we must – not tomorrow but now. Start with your local community, think about transition. Some of our grandchildren will be mountaineers – let them see the beautiful rivers of ice.
The ways of our carbon-consuming past & present cannot be continued into the future.
In many ways that sub-heading above is not controversial for millions of citizens of Planet Earth. The challenge is in changing behaviours, ending old habits of energy use, and working towards a truly sustainable relationship with the only planetary home we have!
Like many others, Jean and I are of the view that the Keystone XL Pipeline is not required. Last week there was an update from EPI about this subject illustrating how the pipeline is not required. That update is published in full, as follows,
Plan B Updates
OCTOBER 06, 2011
U.S. Gasoline Use Declining: Keystone XL Pipeline Not Needed
Lester R. Brown
As the debate unfolds about whether to build a 1,711-mile pipeline to carry crude oil from the tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas, the focus is on the oil spills and carbon emissions that inevitably come with it. But we need to ask a more fundamental question. Do we really need that oil?
The United States currently consumes more gasoline than the next 16 countries combined. Yes, you read that right. Among them are China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and Brazil. (See data.)
But now this is changing. Not only is the affluence that sustained this extravagant gasoline consumption eroding, but the automobile-centered lifestyle that was considered part of the American birthright is fading as well. U.S. gasoline use has dropped 5 percent in four years.
Four key developments are set to further reduce U.S. gasoline use: a shrinking car fleet, a decline in the miles driven per car, dramatic mandated future gains in new car fuel efficiency, and the shift from gasoline to electricity to power our cars.
The U.S. fleet appears to have peaked at 250 million vehicles in 2008. From 1994 through 2007, new-car sales were in the range of 15–17 million per year. Since then they have totaled 10–13 million per year, and they are unlikely to top 14 million again. Retirees likely will exceed sales of new cars throughout this decade.
The contraction that began when the fleet dropped from 250 million in 2008 to 248 million in 2010 is likely to continue. Sales of new cars are not matching those of earlier years in part because the economic prospect has dimmed and in part because we are still urbanizing. Today 82 percent of us live in urban areas where cars are becoming less essential.
On top of urbanization, we also have a change in the manner in which young people socialize. For teenagers in rural communities a half century ago, getting a driver’s license and something to drive—a car, a pickup, or even a farm truck—was a rite of passage. That’s what everyone did.
This too is changing. Today’s teenagers, most of whom grew up in an urban setting, socialize through smartphones and the Internet. For many of them, a car is of little interest. The number of licensed teenage drivers in this country—the car owners of the future—has dropped from a peak of 12 million in 1978 to 10 million today.
Cities are also being redesigned for people. Among other things, this means cities are becoming pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly, with ready access to public transit.
Many cities are building a cycling infrastructure of bicycle trails, dedicated bike lanes, and bike racks for parking. Bike-sharing programs are showing up, too. In Washington, D.C., the Capital Bikeshare program that began in 2010 has expanded to 116 stations with 1,100 bicycles. Within the first year, some 16,000 riders signed up for annual membership in the program. Denver and Chicago have similar bike share programs. And New York City is about to launch a huge program of its own.
The second reason that gasoline use is falling is the decline in miles driven per car. This is partly in response to economic uncertainty and the high price of gasoline. When gas costs nearly $4 a gallon, people think twice before jumping in a car and using a gallon of gasoline to pick up a half-gallon of milk.
A third trend that is reducing gasoline use is the rising fuel efficiency of the U.S. automobile fleet. New cars sold in 2008 averaged 27 miles per gallon. But in early 2009, President Obama raised the average fuel efficiency standard so that those sold in 2016 will get 36 miles per gallon. Additional standards announced in 2011 mean that new cars sold in 2025 will use less than half as much gasoline as the 2008 models.
The game changer in reducing gasoline use is going to come as drivers shift from gasoline to electrically powered vehicles, including plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars. General Motors recently introduced the Chevrolet Volt, designed to run largely on electricity, and Nissan unveiled the Leaf, an all-electric vehicle. Beyond these, Toyota is accepting orders for the plug-in version of its Prius hybrid, the pacesetter in fuel efficiency. It will be followed by a steady flow of new plug-in hybrid and all-electric car models coming to market.
Although these electrically powered vehicles are typically more costly to buy, the day-to-day cost of operating them is extraordinarily low. An analysis by Professor Michael McElroy at Harvard indicates that running a car on wind-generated electricity could cost less than the equivalent of 80-cent-a-gallon gasoline.
With the auto fleet shrinking, with the average car being driven less, with the fuel use of new cars to be cut in half by 2025, and with electricity starting to replace gasoline as a fuel, why do we need to build a pipeline to bring crude oil from Canada’s tar sands to oil refineries in Texas? The answer is we don’t.
Lester R. Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of World on the Edge.
There’s a footnote that I would like to add from the Center for Biological Diversity (great website!) that came out in a recent newsletter.
Here it is,
Lawsuit Seeks to Halt Work on Controversial Keystone XL Pipeline
Keystone Pipeline
The hotly contested Keystone XL pipeline hasn’t been approved for construction, but federal officials don’t seem to care; they’ve allowed the pipeline company to mow down 100 miles of native prairie grasslands in Nebraska to clear the way — before any public hearings were held on whether Keystone XL should move forward at all.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth filed a lawsuit in federal court in Omaha Wednesday to halt that work. Specifically, we’re challenging decisions by the State Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow work to begin before a decision’s been made on the pipeline or the public hearings, which look like little more than a sham at this point.
If approved, TransCanada’s 1,700-mile pipeline would carry up to 35 million gallons of oil a day from tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas. Not only will this project add fuel to the global climate crisis, but the pipeline will cut across Nebraska’s legendary Sandhills, hundreds of rivers and streams, and the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides drinking water for millions of people. TransCanada’s existing pipeline, called Keystone 1, has reportedly leaked 14 times since it started operating in June 2010.
A canine charitable opportunity that deserves wide support.
The details that follow strike a chord with me, strike a chord in a big way. When I first came to live with Jean back in 2008 it was clear that this wasn’t going to be a normal relationship. Why? Because, at that time Jean had 12 dogs living with her in San Carlos, Mexico and my arrival, together with my Shepherd dog, Pharaoh (see home page for a picture of him), took that number to 13. Jean’s dogs were all Mexican rescues; she also ran her own local humane society in San Carlos and over the years had found homes for literally dozens of dogs.
One of those Mexican rescues was a dog called Loopy, who had been terribly treated by local Mexicans. The consequence when I arrived, a stranger in the middle of Loopy’s life with Jean, was that Loopy was very aggressive towards me; my hands have small scars to bear witness to the number of nips Loopy launched in my direction.
It took over a year before I was able to just let my hand ‘accidentally’ brush her side. Slowly Loopy’s trust in me built up until now I can press my face to her face and cuddle her for ages. (To underline the love that Loopy bestows on me, I will get Jean to take a picture and publish that before the end of the week.) So with that in mind, let me turn to the details recently sent to me by friend and colleague, Dapinder Singh, from England.
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George and loving owner, Ian.
This is George. He was in an English dog pound and condemned to death.
He had been very badly abused, one eye blinded by what was thought to be a kick, he trusted no-one and had rejected all human contact. He was desperate and in despair.
After an exhaustive search for anyone who take on the rescue of George, we (as in Doris Banham) took him into our care just a day before he was due to be euthanased. His veterinary problems were easier to deal with than the mental ones. His eye was damaged beyond repair causing him constant pain so it had to be removed, teaching George to trust again was much harder.
That journey back to trusting humans was long, George had suffered severe and terrible abuse, but there was no question of giving up on him and slowly but surely he began to live again as we fought to undo the wrongs that had been done to him. After some months with us, a wonderful family came to the rescue and offered George his ‘forever’ home where he found the love that he so deserved. His family are completely devoted to him.
His story, however, could have been a very different one were it not for the work of the team at Doris Banham’s. Below is an extract written by the lovely family who adopted him and from our fantastic volunteer, Sheila, who helped bring George back to life again.
“Hi, Sheila. Here is a shot of George in his new garden. He is settling down very well and seems to be very happy. I will keep you posted as to his progress. All the best Liz and Ian.”
There were a number of photographs sent to Sheila, however I have taken editor’s liberty and moved them to the foot of the article – I want you to stay with this to the point where you can see how to help. Here’s Sheila’s reply,
“WELL THESE BOUGHT ME TO TEARS , OUR GEORGE , THIS IS TRUE RESCUE , THIS IS ALL DOWN TO YOU DORIS BANHAM NOTHING ELSE TO SAY …” SHEILA X.
Are there other Georges out there? You bet! Far too many of them, right across the world. So let’s all do something to help these special creatures, who show us humans just what unconditionally love feels like.
Friday 4th November, 7.30pm – Come to the Hellaby Hall Hotel, Old Hellaby, Maltby, Yorkshire, S66 8SN
Call for tickets now to the Pound Dog Ball telephone number (UK) 07772 538513 or email pogpublications@yahoo.com Full details here.
Please help all the Georges out there by supporting this Charity Fundraising Event: Black Tie, Dinner/Dance at Hellaby Hall, Rotherham, 7.30pm, on Friday 4th November. It’s a don’t miss night…..3 course meal, live entertainment all night and dancing ’til late!!!! It’s going to be a great night.
If you can’t make the Ball but would like to send in a donation then please post a cheque, made out to Pound Dog Ball, to the following address:
c/o Jennifer Smith
Clumber Lodge,
50 Hemingfield Road
Wombwell, S73 0LY.
Or if you prefer an electronic donation, further details are:
Pound Dog Ball
A/C 31542265
Sort 40-45-29 (HSBC)
The account is a charity account, set up only for this event. Once the money has been paid to the charities the account will be closed.
I know that Dapinder, and everyone else involved in helping these precious animals, sends you their heartfelt thanks.
Finally, more photos of George enjoying life as all dogs should. What a wonderful story, an honour to be able to publish it, and promote the Ball, on Learning from Dogs. Please help.
Three guest posts from Martin Lack of Lack of Environment, today the concluding Part Three
Hope you have been following the previous two parts of this essay from Martin. Part One can be read here; Part Two here.
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Can modernisation be “ecological”? – Part 3
This is the third and final part of my mini-critique of the school of environmental thought known as Ecological Modernisation.
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Newsflash: Today [Sept. 27th.] isEarth Overshoot Day for 2011. This was a genuine coincidence (i.e. I did not know this when I decided to do this 3-part story). See paragraph 2 below…
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Where are we now?
In his seminal 1968 article on ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, Garrett Hardin had observed that it was not possible to achieve Jeremy Bentham’s hedonistic goal of “the greatest good for the greatest number” because, at the level of the individual, to do so would require food and/or energy to be used for subsistence purposes only (Hardin 1968: 1243). In 1977, William Ophuls agreed that the optimum population is not the maximum possible, which appears to imply that, if necessary, artificial limits to growth should be imposed. Furthermore, he explicitly stated that, “…this optimum level… may be as little as fifty percent of the theoretical maximum…” (Ophuls 1977: 28).
Mathis Wackernagel et al have recently provided “…evidence that human activities have exceeded the biosphere’s capacity since the 1980s. This overshoot can be expressed as the extent to which human area demand exceeds nature’s supply. Whereas humanity’s load corresponded to 70% of the biosphere’s capacity in 1961; this percentage grew to 120% by 1999.” However, the authors also pointed out that, if… “12% of the bioproductive area was set aside to protect other species; the demand line crosses the supply line in the early 1970s rather than the 1980s” (Wackernagel et al 2002: 9268-9)(emphasis mine).
In laboratory-controlled studies, the size of a population of, say, fruit flies can be shown to depend on the scarcity or abundance of food; and the presence or absence of predators. However, in 2005, Meadows et al pointed out that a growing population “…will slow and stop in a smooth accommodation with its limits… only if it receives accurate, prompt signals telling it where it is with respect to its limits, and only if it responds to those signals quickly and accurately” (Meadows et al 2005: 157).
This pursuit of the resulting “S-curve” is sometimes referred to as the demographic transition of an increasingly affluent society through three stages: (1) high birth and death rates; (2) high birth rate but low death rate; and (3) low birth and death rates. However, in a section entitled ‘Why Technology and Markets Alone Can’t Avoid Overshoot’, Meadowset al also pointed out that if we put off dealing with limits to growth we are more likely to come up against several of them simultaneously (ibid: 223).
Even though no-one seems to want to talk about population control today, neither Hardin nor Malthus was the first to raise this contentious subject because, as Philip Kreager has pointed out, this dubious honour goes to Aristotle’s treatise on Politics within which, “…population is a recurring topic, extensively discussed and integral to the overall argument…” (Kreager 2008: 599). Furthermore, according to Theodore Lianos, although Aristotle was thinking at the scale of a city rather than a country, the great philosopher recognised that there was an optimum population size, which depended on the land area controlled by the city (for food production purposes), which could be determined by, “the land-population ratio that produces enough material goods so that the citizens can live a wise and generous life, comfortable but not wasteful nor luxurious” (Lianos 2010: 3).
Conclusions
It has been demonstrated that dematerialisation alone cannot deal with the problem of resource depletion unless the increase in unit efficiency is greater than the increase in scale of production (i.e. something that cannot be sustainable indefinitely).
Furthermore, whereas it may be possible to partially decouple environmental degradation from economic growth, pursuit of this as a sole objective is a dangerous strategy. This is because to do so is to remain ambivalent about the existence and significance of limits to growth; indeed it is to deny that growth itself may be the problem.
In the final analysis, the only thing that will be sustainable is progression towards the steady-state economy proposed by Daly and others; combined with qualitative development instead of quantitative growth. Therefore, the only form of modernisation that could be ecological is one that places the intrinsic value of vital resources such as clean air and clean water – and the inherent value of a beautiful landscape – well above the instrumental value of money or precious metals.
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References:
Hardin, G. (1968), ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, Science, 168, pp.1243-8.
Kreager, P. (2008), ‘Aristotle and open population thinking’, Population and Development Review 14(34), pp.599-629.
Lianos, T. (2010), ‘Aristotle’s Macroeconomic Model of the City-State’.
Meadows D, et al (2005), Limits to Growth: the 30-Year Update, London: Earthscan.
Ophuls, W. (1977), Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity, San Francisco: Freeman and Co..
Wackernagel, M. et al (2002), ‘Tracking the ecological overshoot of the human economy’,Proc. of the National Academy of Sciences [USA], 99(14), pp.9266-9271.
Regular readers of Learning from Dogs know that my pattern is to write a single article each day with a focus on something light and airy over the week-end. But I’m making an exception this Sunday, for two reasons. The first was that I spent a couple of hours yesterday catching up on this week’s The Economist and especially liked the tribute to Steve Jobs; a small extract is below with a link to the full article. The second reason was that friend, Neil K. in South Devon, sent me a lovely graphical tribute that I wanted so much to share with you.
So, first to The Economist article,
Steve Jobs
The magician
The revolution that Steve Jobs led is only just beginning
Oct 8th 2011 | from the print edition
Steve Jobs
WHEN it came to putting on a show, nobody else in the computer industry, or any other industry for that matter, could match Steve Jobs. His product launches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage and conjure up an “incredible” new electronic gadget in front of an awed crowd, were the performances of a master showman. All computers do is fetch and shuffle numbers, he once explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be magic”. Mr Jobs, who died this week aged 56, spent his life packaging that magic into elegantly designed, easy-to-use products.
Read the full article on The Economist website. The article finishes, thus,
Mr Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a “reality distortion field”, such were his powers of persuasion. But in the end he conjured up a reality of his own, channelling the magic of computing into products that reshaped entire industries. The man who said in his youth that he wanted to “put a ding in the universe” did just that.
Learning from Dogs 