How you can save the world, by embodying the future you want, right now.
From my artwork at ArtStation https://sparrowhawk2.artstation.com/
Hope is not a strategy, but, as Oberlin environmental studies professor David W. Orr says, Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.
As mentioned in last week's post, my recent Climate Crisis expressive writing workshop responses were informed by the coaching training I’m attending with Climate Change Coaches (UK), and by two books I have been tag-teaming between: The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis, by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Figueres was one of the lead architects of the Paris Climate Accord. Rivett-Carnac is an Environmental Economist and former Buddhist monk, who became Figueres’ senior advisor during that period, and was also one of the architects of the Accord. The Future we Choose is a pithy guidebook aimed at us regular folks -- who are not part of the environmental or climate justice movement, but who now recognize the problem and want to understand how we can engage. Rivett-Carnac’s brief Ted Talk is also excellent, as an introduction to their main thesis around what they term Stubborn Optimism, Endless Abundance, and Radical Regeneration. They assert:
We can no longer afford the indulgence of feeling powerless. We can no longer afford to assume that addressing climate change is the sole responsibility of national or local governments, or corporations or individuals. This is an everyone-everywhere mission in which we all must individually and collectively assume responsibility. You play many roles in your life—parent, spouse, friend, professional, person of faith, agnostic. You may have great means or none at all. You may sit on the board of a corporation or lead a city, province, or country. Whoever you are, you are needed now in every one of your roles.
A practical manual, The Future we Choose addresses fixed-mindset issues like “what can I do, I’m only one person” and provides clear pathways to move to effective collaborative action. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac pose specific criteria for personal and institutional decision-making, such as: “Does it actively contribute to humans and nature thriving together as one integrated system on this planet? If yes, green light. If not, red light. Period."
By contrast, Braiding Sweetgrass abounds with gorgeous prose, evoking the natural world with such vividness I felt drunk with the wonder of Kimmerer’s descriptions. I recommend it on audiobook so you can hear it in her own voice, with her own emphasis and pacing. She comes from an oral tradition, something that is clear in the cadence and evocative nature of her delivery. For all that her writing style contrasts with the “operators manual” approach of Future we Choose, both books agree on the need for radical restoration and regeneration of the earth, and of our relationship with the planet.
Let us pledge reciprocity with the world. – Robin Wall Kimmerer
A trained botanist, college professor as well as a Native American, Kimmerer’s writing alternates focus between the Western, scientific view of Nature-as-Commodity to that of her Native heritage, wherein we are integral to and irrevocably and interdependently connected with every part of the natural world. Like visiting the optician for an eye exam, when the lenses are flipped back and forth, she seems to ask as she alternates perspectives: “which is better, this way (click), or this way (click)?” If you ever wanted to understand in vivid detail what the future could look like, outside of a false scarcity model -- what sustainability really means in practical, every-day for people who lived in harmony with their environment for centuries, this is your book. She leaves the reader to consider which of the two perspectives, Cartesian or Integral, makes more sense, though the answer is abundantly clear.
Excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass: Joanna Macy writes that until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it—grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.
We are deluged by information regarding our destruction of the world and hear almost nothing about how to nurture it. It is no surprise then that environmentalism becomes synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings. Our natural inclination to do right by the world is stifled, breeding despair when it should be inspiring action. The participatory role of people in the well-being of the land has been lost, our reciprocal relations reduced to a Keep Out sign. When my students learn about the latest environmental threat, they are quick to spread the word. They say, “If people only knew that snow leopards are going extinct,” “If people only knew that rivers are dying.” If people only knew . . . then they would, what? Stop? I honor their faith in people, but so far the if-then formula isn’t working. People do know the consequences of our collective damage, they do know the wages of an extractive economy, but they don’t stop. They get very sad, they get very quiet. So quiet that protection of the environment that enables them to eat and breathe and imagine a future for their children doesn’t even make it onto a list of their top ten concerns. The Haunted Hayride of toxic waste dumps, the melting glaciers, the litany of doomsday projections—they move anyone who is still listening only to despair.
Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth. Environmental despair is a poison every bit as destructive as the methylated mercury in the bottom of Onondaga Lake. But how can we submit to despair while the land is saying “Help”? Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive, creative relationship with the more-than-human world, meeting responsibilities that are simultaneously material and spiritual. It’s not enough to grieve. It’s not enough to just stop doing bad things.
We have enjoyed the feast generously laid out for us by Mother Earth, but now the plates are empty and the dining room is a mess. It’s time we started doing the dishes in Mother Earth’s kitchen. Doing dishes has gotten a bad rap, but everyone who migrates to the kitchen after a meal knows that that’s where the laughter happens, the good conversations, the friendships. Doing dishes, like doing restoration, forms relationships. How we approach restoration of land depends, of course, on what we believe that “land” means. If land is just real estate, then restoration looks very different than if land is the source of a subsistence economy and a spiritual home. Restoring land for production of natural resources is not the same as renewal of land as cultural identity. We have to think about what land means.
Tying these books together for me was a conversation I had this week with Topher Wilkins, who mentioned research on what makes effective social movements. Derived from his own conversations with John Hegel, Center for the Edge, the factors that appear to make social movements effective can be reduced to two main points:
1. A narrative of hope. An attractive and inspiring future vision or goal.
2. Small groups who meet on a regular basis to achieve a small, measurable part of what is needed to reach that goal.
From my earlier posts here, you will see the similarities with the research on Helping People Change by Richard Boyatzis, et. al, from Carnegie Mellon University. Begin with the vivid, bright and attractive future that people want, and work backwards to what is needed to get there. Break those goals down, and then pursue them step-by-step, in a resonant community that supports and is mutually accountable. Moving from vague conceptual notions of Sustainability, to a concrete approach to the climate crisis, to climate justice, and a Just Transition means we need to work individually and colletively to reshape our perceptions of what is possible. What it means to be living in reciprocity with each other and our planet.
Which brings us back to Hope. From a Zen perspective, there is no such thing as, nor need for hope – or for that matter, for despair. From the standpoint of the absolute, this is true, we cannot know what the outcome may be, and attachment to outcome can be an obstacle to effective action. From the standpoint of the relative, however, hope is useful if it becomes, as David Orr was quoted above, “a verb with sleeves rolled up.” In that sense, hope is an intention, an action that is connected to a vision of the future, that we begin embodying right now, and in every moment. Taking small effective steps to reach that future, in resonant and accountable community. If you want to learn more about how we can get there together, read both books I’ve reviewed here, and then take a look at Donella Meadow’s work and the Top Five articles at The Academy of Systems Change.
Orr also wrote something Figueres, Rivett-Carnac, and Kimmerer might agree on, regarding reshaping: “It makes far better sense to reshape ourselves to fit a finite planet than to attempt to reshape the planet to fit our infinite wants.” What they might not agree on is that sense of scarcity, as there is enough for all, if we can temper our wants.
Figueres and Rivett-Carnac write: We argue that devastation is admittedly a growing possibility but not yet our inevitable fate. While the beginning of this period of human history has been indelibly and painfully marked, the full story has not been written. We still hold the pen. In fact, we hold it more firmly now than ever before. And we can choose to write a story of regeneration of both nature and the human spirit. But we have to choose.
How are you choosing to reshape yourself to embody our shared, sustainable future?
This article is part of a series of posts on life and coaching, with particular focus on the intersection of coaching with our sense of meaning and fulfillment, aligned with what the world needs, and how we can embody leadership (as defined by Master Somatic Coach Amanda Blake: leadership “… as a process of connecting to what matters, envisioning what could be, and taking action to bring that vision to life. When you care about something enough to ask others to care about it with you and you effectively collaborate with others to co-create a new future, then you are leading.”)