Transforming Cultures

The controversy and confusion following December’s UN Climate Conference has somehow cast a dark shadow over the city of Copenhagen, the UNFCCC, and the IPCC. As if those three things were the source of all our climate woes, people are now asking “What went wrong in Copenhagen?” and “How do we fix the UNFCCC?”, and critics are picking at every single IPCC chart, graph, and personage.

An Alternative Climate Conference in Copenhagen

But those measures fail to get at the root -causes of climate change, which run much deeper than   any set of charts and graphs or could possibly communicate. That’s because the cause is us – humans. It’s our individual habits and consumption patterns repeated billions of times throughout the population that is creating ecological change on a global scale.

While these root causes of climate change received little attention inside the Bella Center, the discussion was not absent in Copenhagen. Klimabundmøde – “The Climate Bottom Meeting” – was a conference held during the same two weeks as the UN Conference and hosted by a coalition of groups dedicated to environmentally sustainable communities. These included The Danish Association for Eco-villages, and the Global Eco-village Network.

You may be a bit confused about the name “Climate Bottom Meeting” – as I was. I think the name was a bit lost in translation. Something like “Root-Causes Conference” or “Underground Climate Conference” would have been more accurate, if not more edgy. The conference aimed to “present a number of practical sustainable cities and eco-village initiatives around the world, showing different solutions to overcome the world’s ecological, social, spiritual and economic challenges.” Several European eco-village groups, topical experts, and many indigenous groups (in town for the big UN meeting) were invited to present in the Climate Bottom tent throughout the week. Their presentations were aimed at inspiring people to return to their own communities and implement some of the ideas they acquired. Daily themes ranged from, “Worldview, Culture, and Spirituality” to “The Ecological Footprint of Sustainable Energy.”  [The full program is here]

Though I only attended the Climate Bottom Meeting on two short occasions, I got enough of the feel to know that there was indeed a saving grace in Copenhagen – a discussion that really tried to get to the bottom of things and was both philosophical and practical.

Freetown Christiania is a neighborhood in downtown Copenhagen

The conference was held in Freetown Christiania, the distinctive Copenhagen neighborhood with a commune-like way of existence. Apparently the city of Copenhagen is actually restricted from enforcing certain laws within the area’s walls. As access to the Bella Center became increasingly restricted to government representatives and security personnel in the final days of COP15, some fellow Worldwatchers and I were naturally drawn to Christiania. It was there that we came across the big blue circus tent – the venue of the Climate Bottom Meeting.

Inside, a meal was being served, and a string instrument band played loudly in front of a crammed set of bleachers. When we were waved into the food line, my co-worker Ben asked the first person serving us, “So do you do this to support the community?”

“We are the community,” said the man filling our plates with pasta. “We’re supporting you.”

It felt good to uncover some local roots in Copenhagen.  I don’t know how such an intimate discussion could be brought to the forefront of climate action. Perhaps the narrow focus on climate statistics and UN funding mechanisms doesn’t fit at all into a community-level process like the Climate Bottom Meeting. I also don’t expect Mexico’s resort town of Cancun – the location of this year’s UN Climate Conference – to play host to many community-focused meetings, but perhaps we’ll soon have no choice but to start digging deep, and thinking locally about the global climate.

Standing over a tabletop computer screen depicting a dark and stormy sky, I become the Climate God, tasked with reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and saving humanity from dangerous climate changes. At my will I wield my climate-crushing powers by choosing a “solution card” and throwing it on the screen, thereby enacting policies and making the world a brighter place.

Choosing the Wind Energy card, I place it in the stormy sky, and a ray of blue light shoots from the card into the small bright spot in the corner labeled “Energy Supply.” The ray of light passes through three barriers that diminish its strength: Electric grids still can’t handle lots of wind power; energy policy still favors more carbon-intensive electricity; and the public still isn’t sold on the idea. With the mere click of a button, I resolve these barriers and watch as global greenhouse gas emissions drop from 36,284 to 34,686 Gigatons of CO2 equivalent (Gt CO₂e).

100 solutions remain to be wielded, each one with its own barriers, and each reducing emissions from various sectors of the economy. But I fear I will soon grow tired from resolving the barriers – technological, political, infrastructural, and cultural – associated with each solution. I am in need of the most powerful solutions. And yet, among these 101 choices, I know there is only one that touches on every single greenhouse gas emitting sector. There is only one that can make all barriers easier to overcome.

When I place the Stop Over-Consumption card in the center of the screen, a rainbow of light shoots in all directions, to every corner of the sky. With lifestyle and political barriers resolved, every sector grows brighter and emissions drop drastically. In energy supply alone, emissions are reduced by 3,610 Gt CO₂e, more than twice the reductions from Wind Energy. I have found the most powerful of climate solutions and it is the least godly of them all; a shift in the values and behaviors of everyday humans.

This scene occurred in Copenhagen, during the launch of the recent Worldwatch Report Renewable Revolution: Low Carbon Energy by 2030. The Bellona Foundation had on display their 101 Solutions table (pictured) at which anyone could play Climate God, as I did.

I was impressed at the level of detail and data communicated through the display and was encouraged to find Stop Over-Consumption such a powerful card to “wield.”

Experience the power yourself by playing the Online Version.

Last week I watched the 3D blockbuster Avatar, where a giant mining corporation uses any and all available tactics to access the mineral “unobtanium” from under the land of the Na’vi, a tribe of intelligent aliens indigenous to the planet Pandora. The corporation starts with building schools and offering other things valued by humans and when that fails, the corporation uses military force to evict the Na’vi from their land.

At moments I felt like I was watching a remake of the documentary I saw a month before, Crude, which chronicles the extraction of oil by Chevron-Texaco from the lands of 30,000 Ecuadorians in the tropical forests of Ecuador. Of course, there were some superficial differences—the Na’vi were blue, 10-feet tall and could literally link up with the forest ecosystem of which they were part. The Ecuadorians aren’t 10-feet tall or blue, and cannot literally connect with the spirit of the Earth (Pachamama as Ecuadorians call this or Eywa as the Na’vi call the spirit that stems from their planet’s life) but they are as utterly dependent—both culturally and physically—on the forest ecosystem in which they live and are just as exploited by those that see the forest as only being valuable as a container for the resources stored beneath it.

Both movies were fantastic reminders of human short-sightedness, one as an epic myth in which one of the invading warriors awakens to his power, becomes champion of the exploited tribe and saves the planet from the oppressors; the other as a less exciting but highly detailed chronicle of the reality of modern battles—organizers, lawyers, and celebrities today have become the warriors, shamans, and chieftains of earlier times.

Two highlights of these films:

At the end of Avatar, Jake Sully—the warrior hero—asks Eywa to please help fight off the humans, for they will destroy Pandora just as they destroyed Earth, saying something like “there is nothing green on our planet any longer.” Interestingly, Eywa listens and the wildlife of the forest drive back the colonizers. Stay tuned for the planetary response of a feverish Earth. Don’t expect charging rhinoceroses and pouncing tigers as we’ve killed most of them, but the dramatic shifts triggered by climate change will do more to crush human transgressions than any Toruk could.

And watching Crude, I couldn’t help but find it amazing that one of the leading characters of the film (albeit never acknowledged) was the oil used to maintain our consumerist way of life—some of which was certainly extracted from the very forest in contention. From charity concerts and countless flights from the U.S. to Ecuador by lawyers involved in the case, to the plastic (i.e. oil-based) rain barrels to provide drinkable water to those living in the now polluted forests and even the film equipment itself, oil is ubiquitous in every scene (and every facet of consumer societies). So fighting exploitation of delicate ecosystems and the exploiters themselves is certainly important—whether in our myths or in real life settings—but without finding sustainable sources of energy, and especially shifting cultural norms so that we expect less consumptive lifestyles, we will never stop seeking out new sources of oil, unobtanium, or whatever mineral is central to our economies at that moment. And if indigenous people live on top of these deposits, well, they’ll either need to move or be moved.

Ultimately, one of the most important cultural changes needed is an understanding that we are part of and completely dependent on a living planetary system. This holiday season, I’m busy reading James Lovelock’s most recent volume The Vanishing Face of Gaia (Not the merriest holiday reading, I admit, but I did not encounter Earthscan’s new Christmas line up in time).

No, these aren't real books--but funny nonetheless!

As Lovelock notes, our current understanding of climate regulation is shaped by our view that Earth is but a ball of rock rather than “a live planet that regulates itself.” Once we understand Earth in systems terms, we see just how dire the climate situation really is.

The idea that temperature will slowly and uniformly inch up—as is described in IPCC consensus models—is inaccurate according to Lovelock. Rather, we’ll hit a discontinuity where the system shifts rapidly from its current state to a “hot state.” As Lovelock explains:

“The atmosphere, whose physics [climate scientists] model, is not some simple gift of the Earth’s geological past; it is, apart from the 1 percent of the so-called rare or noble gases, entirely the product of living organisms at the surface. Much worse, these organisms, and that includes humans, are able to change their inputs and outputs of gases without letting [scientists] know. Today’s allies, the microorganisms of the soil and ocean who help to cool the climate, can become tomorrow’s enemies and add carbon dioxide instead of removing it.”

Lovelock’s ideas—perhaps because they’re complex and not reductionist like today’s science and because they’re outside the dominant cultural mythos (e.g. that man is separate from and above nature and not a mere organ of a larger entity)—barely penetrate the discussions even within the environmental community and have not been pulled into climate modeling on which IPCC projections are made.

So this is bad news to end 2009 with–even worse than the collapse of climate talks in Copenhagen. According to Lovelock, we’re dramatically underestimating what is necessary to “save” the planet (and by “save” Lovelock reminds us that we actually mean simply maintain the state which humanity has adapted to. Earth will do fine in a hot state; it is we and the countless other species that evolved for this climatic state that will decline or perish.) And worse, according to Lovelock, we may already have hit the point where this climate shift will occur and once it does it will be nearly impossible to shift it back to our current state—another complex idea made impressively approachable in this excellent animation by Leo Murray.

But Vanishing Face also reminds us that embedded in a culture of sustainability will necessarily be an understanding of our utter dependence on Earth and an understanding of it as a living complex system. What this specifically looks like will certainly vary across cultures—some may deify Earth as in millennia past, others may revere but not worship the planet, and others still may describe this dependence in purely intellectual and scientific terms—in “geophysiological terms” as Lovelock is fond of saying. But this is one cultural evolution that will surely be central to our survival as a flourishing part of Earth—whether in its current state or in a hotter one.

Students create a rainstorm over a model suburban town. Photo courtesy of SCARCE

In this day and age, nearly every level of society is in need of greater awareness about the common resources that sustain us, however sustainability education in schools has gotten special attention because it is a concrete place to start. Want to spread awareness about something? Put it in the curriculum. In Illinois, there are some basic environmental science education requirements that relate to sustainability. For example, students in middle school must know the difference between a renewable and non-renewable resource and be able to name examples of each.

I know this from my days of working for SCARCE – an organization based in DuPage County, IL – that gives environmental presentations to schools all over the county.  While kids always got a kick out of our recycling displays and energy bike, teachers especially appreciated the fact that we aligned our presentations with the state education standards.

One of our coolest interactive activities was the Watershed Model (pictured) – a plastic model of a typical Illinois suburban town. We used this to teach on the state-required topics of pollution and water resources. Piece by piece the students fill the town with buildings and activities: schools, homes, farm animals, pets, cars, a factory, and a water treatment plant. Near each item some “pollution” is placed: chocolate sprinkles are cow patties and dog droppings, kool-aid powder is sewage, soy sauce is oil on the roads, and oatmeal is litter in the park. Once the town is filled properly with life and pollution, students create a mini rainstorm by spraying water on the plastic model. As the water flows down plastic slopes into the town’s streams, the central lake’s color turns from crystal clear to a cloudy brown. Gross!

The Watershed Model workshop is one of SCARCE’s most engaging classroom activities and it’s not just reserved for the kids.  Plenty of adult groups go through the exercise as well and many have never considered the impact of their dog’s poop washing into rivers or their local water treatment plant overflowing.  But when SCARCE presents to adult groups, the Q & A sessions inevitably turn to a different kind of pollution issue: global warming.

Teaching climate change with the watershed model would actually be a lot of fun. You could put a big plastic bag over the town and have students breath into holes in the bag creating “carbon dioxide emissions.”  Some kids could represent normal carbon cycle emissions and others would be coal plants or livestock. You could make the whole exercise into a skit: fossil fuels vs. trees! But I never acted on these ideas as it was SCARCE’s policy not to bring up climate change during our presentations as it held too much political baggage. If it did come up in Q&A we would often give a generic response about carbon emissions being a pollution problem just like any other.

Since working at SCARCE I’ve been keenly aware of how various environmental groups – especially those traditionally focused on non-climate topics – speak about climate change. In a year when climate issues have grabbed nearly all of the public’s attention on the environment, all groups have had to give the topic some thought.

For Eco-Coach, an environmental awareness group that targets homes and businesses, climate change is a part of every presentation. Cindy Olson, one of the eco-coaches, says climate change education is a must, especially for businesses. “Climate change is a risk to our clients depending on their sector and specific regulatory climate. And if we did not consider the possible impacts we would not be doing our job,” she says. While SCARCE steers away from climate change because of politics, Eco-Coach simply rejects the politics. Cindy states firmly, “climate change is not political; it is a large risk to doing business now and in the future.”

Both groups have tailored their response to the worldwide buzz about climate to their specific audiences and mission, but ultimately climate change isn’t something that can simply be inserted or left out of a presentation or curriculum.  It is a single environmental problem that will be most effectively addressed by a change in mindset – namely a more inherent awareness of how every action affects the air, water, and soil. And that’ll take an intentional redirecting of cultural norms across institutions. Teachers changing curricula, eco-coaches changing business practices, ministers spreading green messages to their communities, marketers selling low-consumption lifestyles, and so on. The key will be empowering these individuals in their professional capacities to do this.

I just learned about this cool little flash website Climate Thoughts, that shows a globe of interlinked–you’ll never guess–thoughts about climate change.

Take a look at thoughts on climate change from around the world

It’s a pretty engaging design and has some interesting ideas, like a suggestion from Paul McCartney to go meatless on Mondays as an easy way to help reduce your personal emissions (and many other proclamations to go completely vegan), to an urging by Al Gore to act quickly, to most recently, my own reminder that climate change won’t be solved unless it’s treated as a symptom of a maladapted cultural system centered on consumerism and growth. Here’s mine:

Averting a Climate Catastrophe Will Take a Cultural Transformation
Even if the strongest resolutions are kept at Copenhagen, the average temperature will increase by 3.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, according to recent modeling by C-ROADS. Alone, even the most aggressive policy and technology changes won’t be enough to avert a climate catastrophe. We will also need to proactively and intentionally retool cultural systems so that it becomes as natural for people to find meaning in how much they’re doing to help heal the Earth and improve society as it is today to find meaning in how much stuff they own. Consumerism and the ecologically-destructive lifestyles it spawns will have to give way to sustainability and ecologically restorative lifestyles. Yet the only way this will happen is by actively harnessing leading societal institutions—namely business, the media, education, governments, traditions and social movements—and using them to redirect cultures toward sustainability. Creating cultures centered on sustainability will not only address climate change, but degradation of other ecological systems, inequality, obesity, and many other social problems. Cultural pioneers wanted!

If you like it, feel free to support it so others might see it (the application seems somewhat limited in that only the newest and most popular thoughts seem to persist, the rest get buried and unfortunately as there is no search function–maybe in Climate Thoughts 2.0?). And while you’re searching the site, don’t forget to write your own!

A final note, the last line I wrote in the thought made me realize that I should add a specific page on the blog to help mobilize “cultural pioneers,” a term I discuss in chapter 1.  Not exactly sure what that page should include yet, but let me know if you have ideas.