This poem was read during one morning’s Community Meeting at Schumacher College the other week:
Bugs In a Bowl
By David Budbill
From Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse
Han Shan, that great and crazy, wonder-filled Chinese poet of a thousand years ago, said:
We’re just like bugs in a bowl. All day going around never leaving their bowl.
I say, That’s right! Every day climbing up
the steep sides, sliding back.
Over and over again. Around and around.
Up and back down.
Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands,
cry, moan, feel sorry for yourself.
Or. Look around. See your fellow bugs.
Walk around.
Say, Hey, how you doin’?
Say, Nice Bowl!
A week at Schumacher
I was lucky enough to be a participant on a week-long course at Schumacher College recently. The course, led by facilitators with links to Atos, Biomimicry and the TYF Group, led us through a course on Transforming Business Through Nature.
The course was a great opportunity for learning and reflection. These are some of the thoughts that I came away with.
99.9% of species which have existed on earth have died out. So what we see around us are those which have proved themselves to be effective responses to the challenges that life has thrown up. This makes them such valuable models.
Nature creates not just life, but the conditions in which life can thrive. So what are the conditions I would like to see around me, which can nurture and sustain me – colleagues, family, networks, lifestyle … They requires as much attention as paying attention to my own development. And, having the right conditions means a shift from having to push things through, to letting opportunities and development flourish naturally.
One organism’s waste is another’s food. Schumacher tries to throw as little as possible away – because there is no ‘away’. Businesses talk of supply chains or value chains. The Dartington Estate, 1400 acres and 75 years’ of innovation in enterprise, the arts and education, is instead exploring the creation of a business ecosystem, in which the waste from one enterprise becomes the input for another. Sawdust, compost, waste food…
How does nature replicate itself? The coconut tree produces a few coconuts each year; dandelion heads, a few hundred seeds; a pine tree, several thousand pine cones each with hundreds of seeds; and mushrooms produce millions of tiny spores. Which is best? That which suits the species and its context. In most cases, many more seeds are produced than germinate and grow to maturity.
Those which die become food for others; and a few may flourish where they have rooted. The analogies to business development are clear – how many seeds, how big, what are my delivery systems, what’s my attitude to those that don’t flourish, do I invest too much in too few chances?
Other nifty techniques from nature: redundancy – several systems existing to do the same job, so the web carries on if one fails; diversity – many ways of meeting the same challenges; resilience – able to cope with disturbance not by fighting but by adapting; efficiency – rich on design, mean on resources.
In learning from nature the starting point is not: can I find an analogy in nature for what I’m already doing? Rather, what can I learn from nature and does any of it translate to my circumstances. Start by being open to anything, to be surprised and delighted.
In aiming for the big picture, what are the characteristics of a 10 out of 10 based on reality. How resilient would it be, does it optimise, is it based in the values, is it adaptive, system focused (able to interact with what’s around it), is it life-supporting.
Schumacher College has a rhythm to the day – meditation at 7.15, breakfast 7.45, community meeting at 8.30 for all staff, students and volunteers, 8.45 daily chores for everyone… The orientation to the week included time in the kitchen to hear from the cook about how food either feeds or depletes us, and the place of food in nurturing us and as part of the flow of energy through the college. We covered so much each day; and yet each day had lots of space in them; the chores anchored oneself in the system and to each other.
What were you doing by the time you were 23?
Here’s one inspiring example which I warmly recommend: http://www.dolectures.com/speakers/speakers-2010/maggie-doyne
It’s not sustainable any more!
The word sustainable is often used by organisations or governments to describe environmentally-friendly practice.
This means something is sustainable if it means “we’re using less energy than we did before” or “we’re trying to do less harm than we did before”, or even “we’re trying to mitigate some of the harm that we nevertheless choose to continue to do”.
A more sophisticated use of the word is to describe the conversion of economies or behaviours towards the targets needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. As we would need at least three planets for everyone to live a UK-equivalent lifestyle, the pygmy steps that we are currently taking are nowhere near big enough to justify calling them sustainable .
A better definition?
To my mind, sustainable has a very pure meaning. To define something as sustainable, it must be able to carry on indefinitely.
The 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission, defined sustainable development as:
“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
This definition describes a pattern of behaviour which in theory could continue forever. However – and thanks to hearing Satish Kumar speak recently – I now feel that there are problems with this definition too.
It looks at the earth and its resources from a human point of view: resources must be conserved because we need them for our consumption. We are part of the ecosystem, and one of many species. The definition makes no reference to the web of life of which we are part; it implies that resources are available primarily to keep our way of life going, at the expense of other species if necessary.
Other species benefit from the environment; they do all they can to maximise their advantage. So how are humans different?
I think the difference is to be found both in our ability to change the whole ecosphere, and in our understanding of the impact we are having. The majority of western behaviour is negligent towards the rest of the planet. It is negligent because we know or ought to know the impact we are having but we still carry on. We ought to know our place. Other species don’t know their place; but they don’t know how to. We can see the wider connections, the bigger picture; but we act in defiance of that knowledge. Which is why our development needs to take account of more than just our species.
Alternatives to sustainability
Whether or not the Brundtland definition is adequate, it is weakened if we use sustainable for anything less than its fullest meaning. It is certainly weakened if it is used as greenwash or to imply that something is being done when in reality not enough is being done.
So what do I say instead of sustainability when describing human economic or environmental activity?
The closest I’ve got so far is a clumsy phrase, ‘globally responsible practice’.
By this I mean practice which takes into account the effect of our behaviours on people and the planet. Essentially, this means how we use, process and dispose of the earth’s resources; but it also includes the impacts on biodiversity and on other human beings in relation to dignity, human rights and aspiration.
We cannot halt immediately the damage that is being done, and the amount of irreparable damage is currently increasing every day. But we can learn as much as we can about our impact – in human as well as ecological terms; and we can take as big steps as we can possibly take, as quickly as we can possibly take, to reduce and ultimately avoid those impacts.
That for me is responsible behaviour from a global standpoint – though it’s still a long way from the pure definition of sustainable. And less clumsy alternatives to globally responsible practice are warmly invited.
A final thought
To sustain something has another meaning too: to nourish or enliven it. I hope one day we may use sustainable to describe human practice which nourishes the earth rather than consuming it. After all we’ve used from the planet, the time for some sustaining in return has clearly arrived.
It’s not sustainable any more!
The word sustainable is often used by businesses or governments to describe environmentally-friendly practice.
This means something is sustainable if it means “we’re using less energy than we did before” or “we’re trying to do less harm than we did before”, or even “we’re trying to mitigate some of the harm that we nevertheless choose to continue to do”.
A more sophisticated use of the word is to describe the conversion of economies or behaviours towards the targets needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. As we would need at least three planets for everyone to live a UK-equivalent lifestyle, the pygmy steps that we are currently taking are nowhere near big enough to justify calling them sustainable [1].
A better definition?
To my mind, sustainable has a very pure meaning. To define something as sustainable, it must be able to carry on indefinitely.
The 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission, defined sustainable development as:
“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. [2]
This definition describes a pattern of behaviour which in theory could continue forever. However – and thanks to hearing Satish Kumar speak recently – I now feel that there are problems with this definition too.
It looks at the earth and its resources from a human point of view: resources must be conserved because we need them for our consumption. We are part of the ecosystem, and one of many species. The definition makes no reference to the web of life of which we are part; it implies that resources are available primarily to keep our way of life going, at the expense of other species if necessary.
Other species benefit from the environment; they do all they can to maximise their advantage. So how are humans different?
I think the difference is to be found both in our ability to change the whole ecosphere, and in our understanding of the impact we are having. The majority of western behaviour is negligent towards the rest of the planet. It is negligent because we know or ought to know the impact we are having but we still carry on. We ought to know our place. Other species don’t know their place; but they don’t know how to. We can see the wider connections, the bigger picture; but we act in defiance of that knowledge. Which is why our development needs to take account of more than just our species.
Alternatives to sustainability
Whether or not the Brundtland definition is adequate, it is weakened if we use sustainable for anything less than its fullest meaning. It is certainly weakened if it is used as greenwash or to imply that something is being done when in reality not enough is being done.
So what do I say instead of sustainability when describing human economic or environmental activity?
The closest I’ve got so far is a clumsy phrase, ‘globally responsible practice’.
By this I mean practice which takes into account the effect of our behaviours on people and the planet. Essentially, this means how we use, process and dispose of the earth’s resources; but it also includes the impacts on biodiversity and on other human beings in relation to dignity, human rights and aspiration.
We cannot halt immediately the damage that is being done, and the amount of irreparable damage is currently increasing every day. But we can learn as much as we can about our impact – in human as well as ecological terms; and we can take as big steps as we can possibly take, as quickly as we can possibly take, to reduce and ultimately avoid those impacts.
That for me is responsible behaviour from a global standpoint – though it’s still a long way from the pure definition of sustainable. And less clumsy alternatives to globally responsible practice are warmly invited.
A final thought
To sustain something has another meaning too: to nourish or enliven it. I hope one day we may use sustainable to describe human practice which nourishes the earth rather than consuming it. After all we’ve used from the planet, the time for some sustaining in return has clearly arrived.
[1] I include myself in these pygmy steps: my family’s carbon footprint is 14 tonnes of CO2e, and we are striving for a 10% reduction this year. Yet on one estimation, to give us a chance of avoiding greater than 2ºC rise in global temperatures requires average emissions from every person in the world of just under 5 tones of CO2e each. http://community.climatedeal.org/questions/604/what-is-a-sustainable-co2-footprint-per-person. http://www.neweconomics.org/press-releases/britain-starts-eating-planet-sunday-16-april
[2] Similarly, the Chambers Dictionary definition of sustainability includes “That which is capable of being sustained; in ecology, the amount or degree to which the earth’s resources may be exploited without deleterious effects”.
Framework client launches Human Rights Awards’ call for nominations
International Service, with whom Framework has had a number of consultancy relationships over the years, is holding its annual Human Rights Awards in York in December this year.
There are four categories open to international Human Rights activists and organisations: defence of the rights of children, of women, of people with disabilities, and defence and promotion of the right to sexual and reproductive healthcare. An innovation for the 2010 Awards is that International Service is now also calling for nominations to these categories from within Yorkshire and the Humberside. These local winners will stand alongside the international winners of each category, with the opportunities for making local – international links, increased visibility for their work, and sharing of experience and practice.
For more information, and to download the nomination forms for the Yorkshire and Humberside awards, see: http://www.internationalservice.org.uk/what_we_do/development_awareness/human_rights_awards/2010_awards_call_for_nominations.aspx
Nominations close at 5pm on 15 October 2010.
See http://www.internationalservice.org.uk/resources/news_room/2010_news_archive/human_rights_awards_come_to_york.aspx for information on previous years’ Awards winners.
When Albie met Albie
If you’re called Albie, and you’ve never met anyone else with the same name, then where better to start than with Albie Sachs.
Albie (the elder) was receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of York, and Paul Gready of the Centre for Applied Human Rights very kindly arranged for us to have a brief meeting with him. I felt very privileged to be meeting him, and I hope it was meaningful too for Albie (the younger).
As a white lawyer, Albie Sachs was active in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. He was detained, lost an arm and an eye when a bomb went off in his car (he later had a reconciliation meeting with the person who had planted it), and after Mandela’s victory ended up as a judge on South Africa’s Constitutional Court.
The inscription which he wrote for Albie in our copy of the Jail Diary of Albie Sachs reads as follows:
To Albie from Albie. Welcome to the world that was mine, and which happily we have changed.
New Organisational forms
A discussion that Framework core members have engaged in over the years is about new organisational forms.
A recent interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has some interesting thoughts about the future of political and social analysis. His context is journalism – investigative journalism, to be precise. His view is that journalism’s future will not be within traditional media organisations but rather will take place and be published from within movements and networks.
“Movements and networks” accurately describes the forms which are enabling much of the social change that is happening today, whether they are on-line or in person.
Assange also comments that the barriers between what is inside an organisation and outside are being “smoothed out”. That is Framework’s experience too. Examples I’ve encountered include:
- volunteers and supporters who want to be kept informed and active but without being required to join;
- increasing emphasis on service-user consultation
- globally responsible practice which takes account of the organisation’s contribution, consumption and values measured on a global scale not just economics or more traditional impact assessment.
If you have other examples of new organisational forms, or other examples of the “smoothing out” of what is inside and outside an organisation, I’d be very interested to hear about them – feel free to contribute them below.
Here are the two paragraphs I picked out from the interview with Julian Assange:
“WikiLeaks has just five full-time staff and about 40 others who, [Julian] says, “very frequently do things”, backed by 800 occasional helpers and 10,000 supporters and donors – an amorphous, decentralised structure, which might become the model for many media organisations in the future, as what might be called “journalism factories” become both outmoded and unfinanceable.
…
Is WikiLeaks the journalistic model for the future? He gives a characteristically lateral answer. “All over the world the barriers between what is inside an organisation and outside an organisation are being smoothed out. In the military, the use of contractors means that what is the military and what is not the military is smoothed out. Newswise, you see the same trend – what is the newspaper and what is not the newspaper? Comments on websites from the general public and supporters . . . ” His point trails away, so I press him to make a prediction about the shape of the media in a decade or so from now. “For the financial and specialist press, it’ll still look mostly the same – your daily briefing about what you need to know to run your business. But for political and social analysis, that’s going to be movements and networks. You can already see this happening.”
Peace is sometimes possible
An event inconceivable a few years ago took place in Bosnia this week.
The president of Serbia, Boris Tadic, came to Srebrenica to attend the burial of 755 victims of the massacre. The bodies being buried had been excavated from mass graves and identified through DNA tests.
Boris Tadic is reported as saying that he came as an “act of reconciliation … [I want to] build bridges of trust and understanding among the nations in the region.”
He was greeted at the ceremony by a representative of Srebrenican widows, who said to him “I wish to welcome you, we are receiving you in peace”.
Peace may be slow, and sometimes a too-fragile flower in the face of conflict and division of people and nations; but steps forward are sometimes possible even from the most terrible of circumstances.
The car-less consultant
Car-less, not careless.
Partly as a result of my family’s engagement in our local Green Streets project, we had committed to getting rid of our car as soon as we could. About six weeks ago, the car’s failure to pass its annual roadworthiness test, together with Bron getting a job in York, conspired to bring our hope about.
So far so great (and we recognise it’s not an option that everyone wants to choose or is able to choose). Not having a car poses problems about ferrying the family to activities and holidays. So we have to practice our spontaneity. There were refunds on various licenses and insurances; and a lightening of mental care by not having responsibility for a thousand kilograms of steel and machinery sitting on the road outside. The car club fortunately has a car in the car park just round the corner, which we use about once a week. And we have the excitement – and sometimes the challenge – of making the local bus schedules work for us.
The real challenges are two-fold, internal and external. Externally, we are still of course in a world orientated around car mobility: fast, flexible and tailored to individual needs. Internally, that has been my accepted way of working too, and that internal orientation is taking time to change.
For myself, not having a car is no longer about doing my bit for the environment, but rather trying to find a right integration of hope and actions. “Do what is needful – and no more” is the advice in The Wizard of Earthsea quartet. Discerning the needfulness – and no more – is a continuous journey. Time will tell whether we’ve done what is needful, or merely introduced an unnecessary complication into our lives.
UK election results
With apologies for the UK-focused nature of this posting:
I am reflecting on the unusual result of the UK election; and, though local efforts to boost the Green Party’s vote in York were not rewarded, at least the UK now has its very first Green Party Member of Parliament.
Caroline Lucas’ win in Brighton is detailed here and national results here.
Given all the pre-election focus on the big three parties, and though the Green share in York went down this time, I still think it is a triumph that the Green Party got as many votes as it did. In the pre-election focus on the three main parties, that Green issues made themselves felt at all is positive outcome.
I’m irritated that parts of the media are behaving as though the UK electorate have created a problem for the politicians. The mixed results, the contradictory swings, the higher turnout, and that Labour were not routed, could suggest that localism played a stronger part and that sweeping national trends were less of a factor. Look at how some expense-embroiled MP’s survived and others did not. So again my feeling (through green-tinted spectacles, you may think – and perhaps so) is that this is all a step forward in the longer term.
I hope any forthcoming experiences of balanced parliaments and coalitions do not damage the case for PR if a referendum is held.
The far-right British National Party continued its slow but apparently inexorable increase in popularity. I am wondering for myself how long I can treat this trend as though it were a hole in my roof: when it’s not raining it doesn’t matter, but when it does rain – when I face the prospect of being represented by the BNP – it will be too late.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Martin Neimöller, 1946
