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Of ships. And fools...
Monday, 26 May 2008
There's a new 'green' movement in town. 350.
You know, I'm starting to get real cynical about all these sorts of movements. 350 is just another tale, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Go to the website and have a look. Oh - sure - it looks deep and meaningful. It even has the green posterboy Bill McKibben (whose books I have enjoyed to a small extent) lining up to smile for the cameras on this one.
But what is 350 actually about?
On the website we get a 'dear friends' letter, imploring us to take note of the magical 350 (parts per million of carbon dioxide) number. The site then asks people from all around the world to send in images of the 350 number. 
Well, I'm blown away on that one. We're really going to change the world by sticking photos of people shaping their bodies to the number 350 and sticking it on Flickr. That will do a lot for the ozone layer, and stopping the tar sands project, and it might just get your average burger lover to think twice before chowing down on yet another rainforest-devastating Big Mac. Yep, I'm convinced.
Okay - I'll quit with the snide comments, and get real.
The reality is, websites like 350 are pretty near useless. They inform no-one of nothing, and change no-one's action. Be honest - does the site inspire you to actually change your behaviour in any way? At all?
Truth is - a number never inspired anyone. Never did. Never will.
- "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
Antoine de St. Exupery
People are inspired by love, by joy, and by the promise of better things. We get inspired by beauty, by passion, and by the hope of a life where we can live in peace and plenty.
Sometimes we get inspired by greed, by wealth, by ease and comfort.
Sometimes it is food - chocolates that melt in the mouth, or the smell of a hot dinner wafting out of the kitchen when you're hungry and your tummy is empty. Above all we're inspired by love - of people, place, security, familiarity, and friendship.
- "All I want is a room somewhere,
Far away from the cold night air,
With one enormous chair.
Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?"
My Fair Lady
Advertising executives know this, as do poets, writers and successful conmen. You'll never find a con artist trying to sell you a number (not unless they're really dumb), but heaps have flogged the Eiffel Tower to unsuspecting (and idiotic) tourists.
That's why Bill McKibben's 350 will fail. And why, in 50 years time, suckers will still be trying to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
They Went To Sea In A Sieve, They Did
Remember the Jumblies? We laugh at them, and call it a nonsense poem. And it is. But the Jumblies had an idea, and they wanted to go to sea, and they did. And everyone laughed, but they did it anyway. They were inspired - they yearned for the sea.
Now, I'm not suggesting that going to sea in a sieve is a wise idea, but I do suggest that you won't get anywhere unless you inspire people. People have to want to change, and take action, and move to do something, before they will get up off their couches and step into the metaphorical sieve, or boat, or whatever.
If you can't inspire people, you're fighting a lost cause.
"Imagine all the people living life in peace..."
We live in times of change. Peak Oil is upon us, and climate change is unavoidable.
But we do not have to tread the path that thus far we have taken. In times of change, many paths lie before us, and the opportunity exists - now more than ever - to choose a better way.
There have been some wonderful things come about as a result of the age of oil. We almost all live in bigger houses. We travel further. We have mass education and literacy. Women have some control over our fertility in many parts of the world. The infant mortality rates are lower. Most people have enough to eat, and have clothing and shoes. Slavery is outlawed in the developed world.
There have also been some negatives. New mass epidemics and world wars. The nuclear age and its fallout, including accidents, waste and intentional tests. Unsafe drugs being allowed onto the market and the uninformed public being used as guinea pigs. GM foods, the loss of fertility in the soil, and the loss of family-owned businesses. The loss of resilience in communities. The loneliness of our elderly and our youth. Pollution and the loss of ecosystems. Genocide and ethinic 'cleansing'.
Take oil out of the equation and a new world will undoubtedly arise. Of course we are afraid, because the unknown always causes fear. But think for a moment, and imagine...
- Imagine a world with little pollution. With no noise from cars and trucks. With river water that is safe to drink once more. With fresh, local food that is tasty and grown by the guy down the road. With safe food, safe medicines,safe homes - all community-sourced and local.
Imagine a world where world war is out of the question, and where the risk of nuclear annihilation is a dim and distant nighmare-memory. Imagine a world where the ecosystems of the planet are once again given a chance to heal themselves, and where the air once again tastes clean and fresh.
Imagine a world where all work is meaningful, and purposeful, because it serves the community in which you live and the people with whom you connect. Imagine a world in which there are no sweatshops, no factory farms, and no feedlots. Imagine a world where all food is organic and healthy...
Imagine a world where it is safe for children to play outside once more, and no child is ever run over in the street. Imagine a world with no road toll. Imagine a road with no asbestos, no heavy-metal poisoning, no risk of contaminated groundwater...
Imagine knowing your neighbours as friends and real people. Imagine people living around you that you can trust, depend upon, rely upon. Imagine a community bound by common goals, and common hopes. Imagine no youth suicide.
Imagine a world with no federal taxes. Imagine a world where there is no 'us' and 'them' - there is only 'us'. Imagine being truly happy and satisfied with your life. Imagine having free time, and no commute to work.
The future is not set in concrete. If we stand back and think of nothing but numbers to be avoided and silly postcards to be sent, we may as well hang our hats and slit our wrists.
But for me - I'll dream of fresh strawberries grown in my own backyard, and the supermarket closed down in favour of small family-owned shops. And I'll long for the day when the road outside my door becomes a track for my children to play on, and the wild birds come back to nest in our valley.
21 comments:
That 350 site is a bit ludicrous. Raising awareness isn't the only step in making a difference. Most of this country is at least semi-aware of the problems facing our environment, and like you said, would giving them a far-off number stimulate any one of them into action? Not a chance.
Speaking of 350, though, I did find this site which offsets 350 pounds of carbon for every person who signs up. Sure, it's not a big difference, but at least this is making some kind of change. Granted, they were inspired (influenced?) by the original 350.org so I do wonder a little bit at their methods.
I just recently discovered your blog but I've been enjoying myself so far. Looking forward to reading more!
Oops, I also wanted to mention that I really enjoyed the part you wrote about imagining. I'm saving this post to favorites just to keep myself inspired. :)
Hi, and welcome :-) I'd check out your blog too, if I could, but you don't seem to have come up with a live link :-(
Thanks for the compliment though.
I really do feel that people can only be inspired by the things they love. Take patriotism, for exammple. When stirring people up to fight for their country, they don't show images of abstract stuff such as figures of GDP. They show beautiful photos of fields of grain (amber waves of grain), huge snowy mountains, and pictures of families with young, happy children. Oh - and apple pie ;-)
I can't help but think that World Vision and similar charities would be a lot more successful if they emphasized the similarities in their commercials between third world people and ourselves, rather than the poverty-induced differences.
When I think of what inspires me to action, it is my children and how much I love them, and the places I grew up and want preserved, and the good things I have experienced and want to share and pass on. No number will ever inspire me. And I think I'm a pretty typical person in that respect.
While it's a good thing to convince governments that we want 350ppm to be the target agreed on in Copenhagen rather than the outdated 450ppm, there are two major problems with 350.org that I can see:
(From the 'Take Action' page) 'We want every human, if they know nothing else about global warming, to know that 350 represents safety.'
No it doesn't. We don't know. We think it might be ok at 350, but no-one has a map for where we're headed because the earth has never been through this before. Hanging our hopes on a certain number begs the obvious question - what if we get to 350ppm and disasters still happen? Would people completely lose what faith they have in climatologists, and indeed any predictions from the environmental movement?
The second problem you have addressed - raising awareness of 350 doesn't encourage people to change their own habits at all. It's falling into that old trap of 'this is the govmint's problem'. Even if they set 350ppm as a target in Copenhagen, there's no guarantee we'll get there. I would like to see on the site not only why this number is important, but what we need to do to get back to 350ppm - or at least a link to somewhere else which has this information. There is no use in asking governments to set some lofty ideal but baulking at the actions required to achieve it.
The 350 'campaign' reminds me a lot of the whole 'A28' campaign to impeach President Bush. Basically, a bunch of people gathered in places and formed the word 'IMPEACH' out of their bodies.
What does this do? Absolutely nothing, but sometimes I think thats the point. It allows us to feel good about ourselves by taking a stand for something without actually having to do anything.
Great post and I love your blog by the way.
Daharja -
Argh, I don't know why Blogger never seems to see my blog site when I enter it! Anywho, I'm on wordpress if you did want to see mine. I've only been live for about a week, but I'm having so much fun lol
Nicely stated Daharja. We've got to stop talking about doing things and just do them.
Good stuff! See now these are useful visions. But "350"? Pointless. It's just a number.
If I go to the doctor she doesn't tell me that I should keep in mind "200" as my cholesterol number to reach for, she tells me to stop eating fried food, eat less meat, and go for a walk every day and lose my beer gut.
People need Things To Do, not numbers to keep in mind. 350 also fails in that it puts the responsibility for change onto political and corporate leaders - as though racism was ended in the US just by their passing laws ending segregation and corporate policies of affirmative action. Individuals still need to do things differently.
GWAG - I like your point about racism. It's very true. Change doesn't come from legislation, although legislation is a part of the change process.
Change comes from people seeing that the new way can be better than the old way, and that it can be done, then learning the path from old to new.
I do believe that the future can possibly be better than the present, in more ways than we imagine right now.
Environmentalists focus on the wrong things. They tell people what they must do without and live without and stop doing and stop using and stop enjoying, and of course they fail.
But if someone had told a fried of our family whose 7 year old son was run over and killed that the future could have no road toll, or a friend of mine whose best friend killed himself when he was still in high school that the youth suicide rate will likely drop as communities reconnect and jobs become based in real purpose once again, I think you'd have two solid votes for change right now.
Brilliant post! Thank you for talking about this.
Daharja, I came over here after reading Chile's post about both of our posts. I definitely agree with you. I don't think we can scare people into action. Holding up deprivation is not going to get folks to jump on the bandwagon. That just doesn't work.
I'm finishing Break Through right now. Some chapters I like, some not so much. There are some really interesting points in there though about, for instance, how the Evangelical movement is so powerful. Because people get together, celebrate, become part of a community. After that, they turn to the more tediious chores of knocking on doors and such but they do it after having had their emotional needs met, bonded with a community, felt uplifted.
As far the green movement goes, I firmly believe that we need to create positive feelings, embrace fun and joy. Build community. Find fulfilling activities, hobbies, work to fill the voids in our lives that food, TV, video games and shopping are currently and unsuccessfully trying to fill.
Yes. We do something need to decide to quit doing something or cut back on something but I far prefer the approach of: what do I gain? fantastic fruit from the farmers market? interesting chats with farmers? a sense of connection with the seasons and fellow shoppers?
Great post! With you all the way on this one.
This is my first visit to your site and I'm very impressed! Great post and I like your very real approach. I'll be back.
i did a little research after you told me about your "thing", and if you want a way to make more money using your your blog you can enter this site: link. bye.
Just wanted to say - well said :)
Yes, it's a silly site - but why get so worked up about people having some fun with it? Climate change is depressing enough.
I would point out that some numbers have inspired, like these:
9/11
7 dead in Ohio
Mississippi 3
6 million dead
1776
Doesn't seem such a reach to me.
make that 4 dead in Ohio!
(guess it's time of inspiration is long past...in my mind anyway...)
Green Bean - Change is needed, and not all change is bad. Some is positive.
When you take cars, for example, we're so sold on the good aspects (convenience and ummm...I'm sure there are others but I can't think of them right now!) that we forget about the bad (death toll, pollution, cost in real dollars to struggling families and to communities etc.).
I've lost a cousin to the road toll, another is paraplegic and mentally disabled from a car crash, and I've also lost several friends to car deaths. I'm not unusual. Maybe change in at least this aspect of modern life wouldn't be such a bad thing after all?
Change is scary, but it can inspire us. The positive possibilities of a world drawn closer in community and neighbourliness sounds like something to embrace, not shun, to me :-)
The Green Movement need to say to people: "Look - change is happening, and it might be really good. If we get together and *choose* which paths are right for us, it will stand a whole lot better chance of being not jst good, but great.
Ken Levenson - I don't think the numbers you mention inspired people at all, to be brutal.
When I think of the twin towers, for example, I can't help but remember the coice of that horrified woman talking about the people jumping out of the windows. And when I think of the holocaust, I think of my family members who died and suffered in it, and the gaps in our family tree where people should be. They are not numbers to me, and never will be.
When we reduce human suffering, or world destruction to nothing but numbers, we miss the point.
That's just my perspective.
Just to be funny, I can think of two numbers that have inspired people:
google and infinity
But the reason I think those numbers are inspirational to the extent they are inspirational, is that they speak to a myriad of possibilities, of avenues we've never even dreamed of. In short, these numbers seek to expand our universe rather than diminish.
I wish the number 'one' would inspire people, not in the "we're number one" way, but in the oneness/interconnection of all things kind of way.
It is said that you can count to one, but really when you say "one", you have only begun counting.
Begin with one: yourself. Then you may change others.
Imagine if at the Bali conference one of the leaders had arrived on a sailboat and walked to and from their hotel every day. People would listen to that person.
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