#209 Well-being and the commons

 Dear all,

I’ve been surprised by how unsettled I’ve felt since the election. Maybe it’s like the lull between storms; you’ve made it through a big one, but are feeling a little battered and not quite ready to face what’s surely coming next. We’re all so tired. It’s been very good for me to start my day with an early morning walk, being present to the world as it turns from darkness to light. And here we are almost at the solstice, another opportunity to celebrate!

As many of us head into winter holidays, I wish us all good nourishment and refreshment, and times that help ground our spirits for the year ahead.

Love,

Pamela 

Well-being and the commons

A young woman I know is deeply engaged in the climate struggle. She has found a home, and increasing responsibility, in a youth movement that is playing a significant role in pushing climate issues toward the center of our political conversation. It’s hard. She works long hours. The stakes are high, there are many setbacks and it’s easy to get discouraged. She misses her family who live far away. She wonders if she’s doing the right thing, worries that she’s not doing enough.

Her therapist tries to steer her toward greater attention to her well-being: Think about yourself for a change. Don’t work so hard. Close your computer at 5:00. Do things that bring you joy. This all has the sound of good advice, yet she feels unheard somehow, dissatisfied.

As I listen to her explore this sense that something has not been acknowledged, the theme of individualism begins to rise to the surface. Everything the therapist has suggested assumes that the solutions will be personal: You are having a unique and separate problem of overwork and accompanying depression. We need to find ways that you, as an individual, can craft decisions and actions that will address this problem and make you feel better.

But what if the problem is not individual? The underlying reason that she is working so hard and feeling so badly about not doing enough is the threat of the climate emergency—the threat to the future of human life on earth. In the face of this threat, many people have responded by resolutely looking the other way, willing themselves to believe that they have no role to play, and pulling their attention away from the reality of what is unfolding around them through pleasurable distractions.

I imagine the therapist wasn’t suggesting that this young woman give up the work altogether. I imagine she was just trying for balance. But in her emphasis on finding a set of individual solutions, she was missing an obvious alternative perspective. If the problem is one that is widely shared, maybe the solution lies in community as well.

It may make sense for this young woman to do all the things the therapist suggests at times. It certainly wouldn’t be good for her to just put her head down, ignore the signs and continue down a path toward deeper depression, burnout and abandonment of the goal altogether. But there’s a third path, a way between endless lonely work for the public good and endless pursuit of private pleasures. It’s not well trodden, but her group is working in that direction, and it may be the one with the most promise for enduring happiness. This is the path of working together for a compelling cause, agreeing to long hours together during stretches when the stakes are particularly high, making shared agreements to rest deeply at other times, helping each other recognize what brings individual joy, and backing each other to do those things, all with a shared eye both on the goal and on each other’s welfare.

This is a path where everyone in a group effort is encouraged to stop and breathe, to share the tiniest successes widely, to leave no possible appreciation of someone else on the team unspoken; where small halts are called for everyone to pursue a private pleasure before getting back to work; where there is enough perspective to discern when longer breaks will add to the overall effort rather than hold it back; where everyone celebrates with abandon at times.

People used to work together to bring in the harvest. We now have a different form of common work to ensure our future. Not all of us will be full-time climate activists. But we could all benefit from bringing more of our work and our pleasures back into the commons. As we find our part in that work, we can sweat together through the crunch times, then dance and sing together in the lulls, gathering strength for what lies ahead.

  



 Crescent

The waning crescent floating low at dawn
fills me as I start my day.

To hope to see her one more time
before she turns away seems bold.

Braced for a moonless morning walk
I almost miss her

Such a tiny sliver, hung so low
my breath is caught.

New moon, then turn my sights to sunset
chafe at all that keeps me in.

Next night I plan an evening walk
timed for after dark, before moonset.

Heading west, I scan for gaps in buildings
knowing she’ll be low.

Press on and on, then find her
hanging beautiful

Serene and constant, steadying
a treasure to behold.

 

Dare to imagine: a new economy is possible!

Cooperative Energy

Cooperative Energy Futures is a Minnesota-based community-owned for-profit clean energy cooperative that focuses on developing renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other clean energy solutions while building community wealth. CEF has financed and developed 6.9 megawatts (about $16 million) of low-income-accessible community solar arrays that are cooperatively-owned-and-operated across urban, suburban, and rural Minnesota, offsetting the utility bills of over 700 Minnesota households for the next 25 years.

As the co-op generates profit, whatever is not reinvested is distributed as dividends to members through a combination of cash and equity. For equity, we invest in new activities that preserve and grow the wealth, for example by financing home insulation and other home upgrades to our members. The co-op creates a democratic process of deciding how much net profit we want to reinvest together versus distribute individually. We also pay community-based organizations for the service of helping us find subscribers, require all of our installation contractors to use at least 50 percent minority labor, and support partner organizations who provide solar workforce training by helping place trainees.

CEF is creating a model where teams of people in every community are working to produce, manage, and wisely use the energy that they need to thrive. We strive to give people and communities agency, power, and decision-making authority over the energy systems that sustain their homes, their communities, and their economy.

https://ips-dc.org/a-minnesota-cooperative-shares-the-wealth-while-advancing-a-clean-energy-future/?utm_campaign=ipsnews-120420&emci=d1f78969-5536-eb11-9fb4-00155d43b2cd&emdi=12d4c45d-5f36-eb11-9fb4-00155d43b2cd&ceid=4288612

Some things that made me hopeful about the election:

How Native American voters helped swing crucial states in the 2020 election.

https://www.colorlines.com/articles/native-american-voters-helped-swing-crucial-states-2020-presidential-election 

Orange County, Florida, the largest municipality in the United States, where voters overwhelmingly approved a "rights of nature” initiative,, recognizing rights of the county's rivers and streams, along with a right to clean water for its residents. 

https://bioneers.org/orange-county-fl-voters-overwhelmingly-approve-rights-of-nature-initiative/?mc_cid=fba9ad1555&mc_eid=862e32f332

Louisiana voters, who rejected a new corporate tax break in a landslide, after their lawmakers earlier this year voted overwhelmingly to ask voters to add a new tax break to the state constitution that would allow manufacturers to negotiate lower tax bills with local governments. Almost as many Louisiana voters rejected the proposed amendment as voted for President Trump.

https://www.theadvocate.com/content/tncms/live/ 

The vote in Portland Oregon’s county, Multnomah, to tax wealth to pay for childcare, including a pay raise for childcare workers.
https://inequality.org/research/tax-rich-school-children-pay-teachers/?

Resources 

Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com   

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ 

Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") 

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8

Toward a Right Relationship with Finance  
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.


More resources

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust 

    http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years:  New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)

#205 Midwifery

 Dear all,

In my peer counseling class the other night, we listened to each other about what’s hard and scary in the world these days, took turns to notice things that are hopeful nonetheless, then each considered a range of ways we could respond to the election—from stupidest to smartest—and laughed together as we shared them out. 

Somehow that evening captures much of how I’ve been these days. I’m grateful for a week in the woods with family, good work, and the community that surrounds me in so many different ways.

(And if you’re scared about a power grab in November, check out www.choosedemocracy.us, the initiative of a friend that I’ve been helping out with.)

Love,
Pamela





Midwifery
 
A regular high point in my weeks is being in touch with a handful of young climate activists from the Sunrise Movement. Through a young man who stayed in our spare room while doing student fossil fuel divestment work then went on to be one of the founders of Sunrise, I met another young woman on their Pennsylvania staff, who introduced me to still others. Just getting to know these lovely and deeply committed people is a joy in itself. Being able to be of use to them is an honor.

I think of one of the young women with whom I now do weekly hour-long calls. We have developed a little routine. We start with self-appreciation, since it’s so easy to put all our attention on either our mistakes or the things we have not yet been able to accomplish. Then we exchange listening time, reviewing our emotional state and focusing on whatever we can vent or let go of to free up more attention and flexible thinking in the present. Finally we check whether there’s a puzzle she’s facing at work that needs solving, or a knotty problem that needs untangling.

Often there’s some small thing. She describes the situation. I listen closely, and ask questions to clarify. What does she want? Where does she feel on solid ground? Even if there are things she isn’t sure of, is there a piece of the puzzle she is able to hold out with complete confidence? What is a doable next step? What is the right time, and who are the right people to go to with it?

It’s clear to me that I don’t know the answers. There’s so much I don’t know! Their organizational structure, which is complex, has never been described to me. I’m not exactly sure of her job description or her relationship to decision-makers. I’m not an expert in the types of campaigns they are running and certainly can’t name the strategies that will allow them to succeed.

But I can provide an open space for the problem to be considered. I can ensure that this space is appreciative and free from prescription or judgment. I can listen and probe for what rings true. I can play the role of midwife. And more often than not the labor is quick and painless and the solution slips right out. What had been a worrisome muddle in her mind has become clear enough that she is ready—often eager—to take a confident next step.

Sometimes, of course, the problem is not one with a solution that is easy to think through. People lose track of themselves and each other in the midst of oppression and stress; they bring old and dysfunctional patterns of taking over or going quiet to their group interactions; old feelings of discouragement or desperation or self-blame gum up the works. There is time to tend to these issues in the middle section of our meeting, with attention to feelings of anger, fear, or grief that need to be released so that more space to think can be opened up.

This young woman, and the others that I listen to, are among the full-time staff of a movement that is mobilizing tens of thousands of young people in an effort that may play a critical role in securing a future for our species on this planet. As I do what I can to keep them working well together toward their goals—to increase clarity, restore confidence, amplify thoughtful voices, avoid missteps, seize opportunities, maximize the impact of scarce resources, strengthen relationships—I choose to believe that my small acts of midwifery are part of the labor process to bring a new world to birth. 





Gifts

On my morning walk I open myself up
take in what the world is offering
quiet my mind.

I never know what gift I might receive—
the moon, pink sky of sunrise
a new thought rising to the surface, calm and clear
sunlight on sycamores, a mist of rain
lines to a poem, a fresh breeze
an opening bud, an autumn leaf
the name of someone fallen from my view
a goldfinch, once a morning rainbow
the knowledge that I’m a part of all that is.

Sometime my mind is busy and it’s just a walk
but gifts are there, awaiting me.
My part is to be present, ready to receive.

 

Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible
Community wealth building

The Lancashire city of Preston, in England, has recently come to wider political attention. Starting after the financial crisis Preston’s civic leaders decided to experiment with a radical “community wealth building’ model that aspires to generate more resilient economic growth. The city’s community wealth building approach has five different components:

• Rooted anchor institutions – identifying significant economic actors with a stable presence in the area and focusing economic activity around them.
• Local procurement – which aims to encourage anchor institutions to use their purchasing power to influence their pattern of spending so that more wealth stays within Preston.
• Local capital investment – to seek out new sources of patient capital so investment flows can be democratically directed and focus on keeping more wealth in Preston.
• Worker cooperatives – to nurture new worker cooperatives to meet gaps in anchor institutions’ supply chains that cannot currently be met locally.
• Municipal ownership - to explore and promote new models of local public ownership.

https://demos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/June-Final-Web.pdf 

 

 

Some things that have made me hopeful recently (all among the grassroots this time):

A family on a quarter acre lot on a Florida barrier island who exchanged their lawn for native plants, and are now hosting a population of endangered butterflies. 

All the people who are pouring time, resources and heart into the children in their neighborhoods. (I’m thinking of three people in a nearby neighborhood in South Philadelphia, but I know there are others everywhere.)

The young climate activists in the Sunrise Movement who have built a base of thousands of energized young people, had remarkable success in getting out the vote for Green New Deal candidates in the primaries, and are now turning their attention to November.

All the people that I don’t know, in the Gulf and on the West Coast, who are extending themselves to others in the face of the devastation of floods and fire.

Resources

Finding Steady Ground
If you need reminding of some simple ways to stay grounded in challenging times, I recommend this website, which I helped a friend develop following the last presidential election. 
www.findingsteadyground.com   

Other resources from my friend Daniel Hunter
Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide  
Climate Resistance Handbook, or I was part of a climate action. Now what? https://commonslibrary.org/climate-resistance-handbook-or-i-was-part-of-a-climate-action-now-what/
Leading Groups On-Line. https://www.trainingforchange.org/training_tools/leading-groups-online-book/ 

Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.") 

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8

Toward a Right Relationship with Finance  
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
• offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
• frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
• suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
• invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.


More resources

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust 

    http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years:  New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)

#198 Right to repair

Dear all,

My big news is that I’ve cut down my hours at work—a just-right-sized step toward retirement—and am feeling the spaciousness of time. So far it’s been easily filled by  long-delayed visits with friends, time with a grandson I've seen too rarely this year, and relaxed, connected social change work. I’m heartened by developments in the public banking campaign, glad to offer emotional support to organizers in the youth climate movement, Sunrise, and helping my congregation be more active in the movement to end cash bail.

Once again we celebrated Valentines Day by sending a love/news-letter to our widespread community, and receiving a shower of love-notes in return. If you didn’t get a copy and would like one, just let me know.

Love,
Pamela





Right to repair

Last fall the European Union passed groundbreaking new “right to repair” legislation. Major appliances must now be produced to be repairable and recyclable. What a concept!  But there’s more. As of last spring around twenty states in the US had considered right-to-repair bills to protect consumers’ ability to fix their electronic property—whether through parts, software, independent repair shops or skilled friends. The goal is to break the grip that companies have on unnecessarily expensive repairs, that are tipping us toward dumping the old one—whether washer or cell phone—in the landfill and buying a new one instead. What a sea change it would be to claim our right to repair!

I know what it’s like to make a good repair and extending the life of something that has value through my time and skill. Sometimes it’s as simple as sewing back a button on a shirt or a favorite pair of jeans. Stitching up a seam to make a beloved stuffed animal that is losing its stuffing as good as new can take just a few minutes, but bring joy to a child. We found an old chest on the street—wobbly and falling apart in many ways—but glue and clamps were really all that were needed to make it a lovely and desirable piece of furniture again. Our grandchildren are entranced by the possibility and the process of fixing broken toys. They are clear about the joy and power of repair.

I know what it is like to find a good repair person who can pick up where my skills let off. I place great value on these relationships, and am never quite comfortable with a new appliance till I find someone who can keep it going. It was a pleasure to visit with and get to know the man who was so good with our washer, dryer and stove, resting in the knowledge that I was in the very best of hands. I’ll never forget the sewing machine repair man who once sent home not only my repaired machine, but another one that he had on hand and thought I could use! I have a deep respect for their skills, and my life is better for knowing them.

I also know the frustration of being unable to make a repair. Those crappy plastic toys that came into our house when the children were small, and broke soon thereafter used to drive me crazy. (I’m sure the manufacturers count on adults preferring to buy new ones than having to handle the big upsets of small children!) But it’s not just children’s toys. Last fall my computer’s battery failed. Even our tech-savvy friend was unable to install a new one. The computer was more than a couple of years old, and intended for obsolescence; making people buy new ones is so much better for the company’s bottom line.

What would it mean to have a right to repair?  We could call on manufacturers to have the integrity to produce with the sustainability of products and the planet in mind. This would not only cut down waste, extend product life, and support a cadre of skilled repair people, but reorient our whole culture to one of valuing what we have rather than focusing always on the next new thing.

Maybe it would invite us to think even more broadly about repair. Just as those who are already skilled in repair take pride in their craft, maybe we could become a whole culture of repairers.  What if we believed that we could build the skills to repair other things that are broken—broken relationships, broken communities, broken economic systems?

Of course, some things should never be produced in the first place, and some are simply beyond repair. But maybe if we set our sights higher than just getting better at recycling plastic bottles, we can expand the categories of things we don’t throw away—to include phones, washers, computers, small towns, marginalized people. To repair assumes agency and power. What if we claimed it as a human right?





Misinformation

The automated voice on the el
Is seriously off track.
As we travel east
below the city center
stopping at 15th, 11th, 8th
she announces neighborhood stations
heading west:
Huntingdon, Dauphin, Berks, Girard.

We have to shut that voice out
focus on what we see and what we know
trust ourselves to find our way.

It’s disorienting to exist
within a narrative so false
spoken with such authority.
At least here, on the subway
we’re a savvy bunch.
We don’t get fooled.






Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Municipalization of private ownership

(Re)municipalization is redefining public ownership in the 21st century, offering a new route towards community-led, climate conscious and gender-sensitive public services. With more than 1,400 successful (re)municipalization cases, involving over 2,400 cities in 58 countries, resistance to privatization has turned into a powerful force for change:

Philippine cities Binalonan, Caloocan and Lanuza are recentering their public services to prioritize the needs of the most marginalized people in society. Other cities, such as Paris, Terrassa and Wolfhagen, are sharing decision-making powers and opening up ownership models to representatives of users, workers, civil society and research institutions.

(Re)emunicipalization efforts go beyond the most common sectors of water and energy, to include waste management in some countries in Africa, the many new public pharmacies in Chile, and the call of the UK Labour Party to provide public internet access as a human right.

https://www.tni.org/en/publication/the-future-is-public




Some things (among many!) that have made me hopeful recently:

The Saugeen Ojibway Nation’s decision to forego $150 million to prevent a nuclear waste facility from being built on the shores of Lake Huron.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/04/saugeen-ojibway-nation-has-saved-lake-huron-from-a-nuclear-waste-dump/

Twenty-four cities in Turkey, representing 25% of the population, announcing a “Cities for Climate Action” declaration; and also in Turkey, a Living Soil, Local Seed initiative that provides livelihoods for Turkish women and Syrian refugees, while also working toward climate-proof local agriculture.
https://350.org/press-release/24-turkish-local-authorities-say-we-are-in-on-the-paris-climate-agreement/?akid=109855.1048214.j88VgK&rd=1&t=5
https://truthout.org/articles/this-turkish-chef-is-fighting-climate-change-with-the-help-of-syrian-refugees/

A second decision by a federal judge ruling in favor of faith-based volunteers who were prosecuted for providing aid to migrants traveling through the dangerous Arizona desert.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/04/rejecting-profoundly-disturbing-logic-criminalizes-empathy-judge-reverses?cd-origin=rss&utm

Put People First-PA, a group of Pennsylvanians from rural, small town and urban areas who bring people together to find solutions to the problems we all face—in the school system, in the workplace, or in the effort to make ends meet.
https://www.putpeoplefirstpa.org/who-we-are/






Resources

Money and Soul
My new book (based on a pamphlet of the same name) available via QuakerBooks or other on-line distributors.
("If money troubles your soul, try this down-to-earth Quaker perspective on economies large and small.")

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8

Toward a Right Relationship with Finance 
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.
The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
    • offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
    • frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
    • suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
    • invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?
To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.


More resources

www.findingsteadyground.com  

Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide 

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust

        http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years:  New link: https://www.peaceworkersus.org/docs/muscle_building_for_peace_and_justice.pdf (or just google the title)

#189 Climate - what if?

Climate – what if?

The International Panel on Climate Change came out with a report last year saying that we have twelve years to turn this climate thing around. It’s eleven now. But, in a point that was lost on many, they also said we could do it. There are big obstacles in the way, for sure, but none are insurmountable.

A significant one is our own despair—which our culture feeds. Books, movies and media of all kinds play out scary, and seemingly inevitable dystopian futures, and we are numbed into a strange kind of passive acceptance. A perceptive friend has said that it’s easier to imagine total destruction of the world as we know it than a transformation of our economic system.

It’s easy to feel scared and hopeless. It’s also easy to feel divided. But at its core, climate is not a divisive issue. Everyone wants a future for their children and grandchildren. And, if we think about it, none of us want our children and grandchildren to learn that we were bystanders during these critical years.  We want to be able to tell stories of courage and creativity, of tenacity and unexpected discoveries—of a time when we learned that we were bigger than we knew.

What if we can turn this thing around and have a livable future? What if we can find a way to step outside of all the feelings and pressures that keep us in the role of helpless bystanders, and be who we really are—with all the boldness, vision and courage that we can muster?

This will, of course, take more than scared and lonely individuals changing lightbulbs and signing on-line petitions. But we can do more, and we can do it together. Here are some ideas about steps that everyone can take.

Learn about what’s working. Pay attention to reasons to be hopeful, like this one:
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/10-reasons-feel-hopeful-about-climate-change-2019
Develop a conscious strategy that works for you to not get immobilized by bad news—don’t let climate change have the last word.

Get support. Find people to talk with about what scares you, what you want, what you love, the part of this challenge that calls out to you. Better yet, make a plan to get together over time with two or three others to share ideas, set goals and report back on them.

Start conversations. Ask people what they love about the world around them. Focus more on solutions than problems. Share why you decided to act and what gives you energy to keep going. Give space for people’s worries and feelings of despair, but don’t get sucked in. Talk about how to dissipate fear’s hold on us by acting together.

Build on your strengths. Good at writing? Look for ways to get the word out about climate solutions. Active on social media? Post things that offer opportunities, energize people and give hope. Good at website design or art? Offer your services to an activist group. Love cooking? Cook for the local youth climate change house or do a fundraising dinner. Have friends? Invite them over for an inspiring movie or a conversation about what’s possible.

Take what you’re already doing up a notch. Passionate about living a sustainable life style, for example? Encourage others in your extended family, social or faith circles, or neighborhood to do the same. Already doing that? Get involved with your township or municipality’s sustainability plan, or your local or state emission reduction goals.

Explore new territory. Try things that seem just a little too scary (not alone!). There are so many possibilities: visiting city officials, calling a group to action, asking your friends to back you, giving testimony, looking for common ground with someone you disagree with, facing arrest for civil disobedience, believing you have the power to shift the tone of a group.

Help others. If your circumstances don’t allow you to do much, find someone who is able to be more active, and put energy into supporting them. If you don’t have time even for that, help others by just holding out the belief that this thing can be done.

As we steep ourselves in the possible, remembering that we are part of a vast majority rather than a beleaguered minority, what if, together, we can do this?





Bubbles

A child is blowing bubbles
from the back of the trolley.
Tiny, they float and drift.
People turn, smile.
“I thought it was snowing” says one
and laughter ripples
through the car.

Singlehandedly
a small child
has lifted our spirits.




Dare to imagine: A new economy is possible!
Costa Rica’s Banco Popular

Costa Rica’s BPDC is perhaps the most democratic bank in the world, with its highest governing body the Assembly of Workers, which represents nearly 1.2 million savers, or 20% of the population. Effective control over daily operations is exercised by the National Board of Directors, which is composed of four representatives of the Assembly and three of the Government. Presently, there are four women and three men on the Board, fulfilling the requirement that it be at least half women.

The third largest bank in Costa Rica, BPDC operates with a triple bottom-line: economic, environmental, and social. A quarter of its returns are channeled into a series of ‘special funds’ to meet the social needs of those typically excluded from the banking system, yet its earnings are greater than the average private bank.

All public and private employers contribute 0.5% of paid monthly wages to the bank’s capital base and workers contribute 1% of their monthly wages. After a year, 1.25% of these savings are transferred to each worker’s own pension fund; the bank holds the other 0.25% as a means of permanent capitalization and economic stability. The BPDC also accepts over 40% of the public-sector payroll deposits and receives deposits and loans from other publicly-owned development banks to support its own lending operations. 

The BPDC has developed specialty green and sustainable lending facilities, with loans for solar energy panels in residential settings, and the provisioning of safe local water supply systems. The bank has begun tracing its own consumption of energy; the pensions division, for example, has been certified as ‘carbon neutral’ for the last four years.

https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/how_public_banks_can_help_finance_a_green_and_just_energy_transformation.pdf






Some things that have made me hopeful recently:

The Sunrise Movement, that is mobilizing youth all over the US to fight climate change and push a Green New Deal into the mainstream of public conversation.
https://actionnetwork.org/forms/join-us-112?source=direct_link&

The deal that ended the largest private-sector strike in the US in years, in which 31,000 New England Stop & Shop workers won raises and preserved retirement and healthcare benefits, standing up to one of the biggest and most profitable supermarket chains in the country.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/22/when-workers-fight-workers-win-union-declares-victory-stop-shop-strike-ends-deal
https://ips-dc.org/stop-shop-workers-end-11-day-strike-with-a-tentative-agreement/

Sudanese women, whose lives have traditionally been tightly controlled by men, playing a decisive role in the protests that overthrew the autocratic Bashir this spring.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-politics-women-idUSKCN1S60X3

The antidote to despair in laying out reasons to feel hopeful about our future on earth.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/10-reasons-feel-hopeful-about-climate-change-2019





Resources

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8


Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged


Toward a Right Relationship with Finance 
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.

The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
    • offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
    • frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
    • suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
    • invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?

To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.



More resources

www.findingsteadyground.org

Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide 

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust

        http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years:  https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)