Time to Think

Last night I had the chance to celebrate a friend's birthday by visiting a nearby farm... it was wonderful to be out amidst the trees and fields. It's really not even much of a farm - it's more just being out in the open space with trees and meadows. The ten of us shared space around a small fire in the evening, then slept on the floor in the house.

I'd like to reflect on one of my buttons that was pushed last night... we were playing word games like "What's behind the green glass door?" While I enjoy mental puzzles as much as anyone... I came to realize how much "those in the know" take delight over those who aren't. The two or three people who know the game at the start say things like "there are swimmers and a pool but no divers" or "there are collars and sleeves but no shirts"... and this can go on for quite some time. Those who aren't in the know are to figure out the method to determining what is behind the green glass doors... and then begin contributing.

My realization of the delight of those in the know took me on a short thought journey. So often we talk about how concentrations of power - political, economic, or other forms of power - tend not to be a good thing because the power is easily abused, corrupted, etc. But when we are the one in the empowered elite, we tend not to see that concentrated power is a bad thing... we're often too busy taking delight in the power that we have.

With a game like "What's behind the green glass door?" -- the game is no longer so much fun for those in the know if/when everyone figures out how to determine what is behind the doors. In this case, knowing - or figuring out - the trick gives you power over others who don't know. Knowledge is power.

While the analogy of this game only goes so far -- it is, afterall, just a game -- I think it serves to illustrate the point that concentrated power can cause problems. Certainly there can be a discussion about whether knowledge is the same as other forms of power -- knowledge is theoretically infinite -- it's something that you can give, and in giving get more of... whereas with most things, at least in conventional wisdom, if you give it away you no longer have it (i.e. money, decision-making authority, etc.)

It's another reminder for me to be careful with the power that I wield -- in all of its forms. From the power of my vote to the power of my (diminishing!) bank account to the power of my thoughts... with power comes responsibility.

Ok - back to the farm. As I biked home shortly after sunrise this morning, the warmth of the rays and the songs of the birds following an evening with friends... well, it's a great way to remember what is important in life... and it helps me to realize how much I miss the time I spent in the timber as a kid.


PS. The trick to the grEEn glaSS dOOr game is that everything that is behind the doors has a double letter in it... so "abuse" and "power" are not behind the doors, but "happiness" is doubly so.

WTO

The following three paragraphs are taken from Paul Hawken's experience of the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle in 1999. The full text of his journal entry can be found on the web at places like this.

When the “The Final Act Embodying the Results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations” was enacted April 15th, 1994 in Marrakech, it was recorded as a 550-page agreement that was then sent to Congress for passage. Ralph Nader offered to donate $10,000 to any charity of a congressman’s choice if any of them signed an affidavit saying they had read it and could answer several questions about it. Only one congressman - Senator Hank Brown, a Colorado Republican - took him up on it. After reading the document, Brown changed his opinion and voted against the Agreement. There were no public hearings, dialogue, or education. What passed is an Agreement that gives the WTO the ability to overrule or undermine international conventions, acts, treaties, and agreements. The WTO directly violates “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” adopted by member nations of the United Nations, not to mention Agenda 21. (The proposed draft agenda presented in Seattle went further in that it would require Multilateral Agreements on the Environment such as the Montreal Protocol, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Kyoto Protocol to be in alignment and subordinate to WTO trade polices.) The final Marrakech Agreement contained provisions of which most of the delegates, even the heads of country delegations, were not aware, statutes that were drafted by sub-groups of bureaucrats and lawyers, some of whom represented transnational corporations.

...

Those who marched and protested opposed the tyrannies of globalization, uniformity, and corporatization, but they did not necessarily oppose internationalization of trade. Economist Herman Daly has long made the distinction between the two. Internationalization means trade between nations. Globalization refers to a system where there are uniform rules for the entire world, a world in which capital and goods move at will without the rule of individual nations. Nations, for all their faults, set trade standards. Those who are willing to meet those standards can do business with them. Do nations abuse this? Always and constantly, the US being the worst offender. But nations do provide, where democracies prevail, a means for people to set their own policy, to influence decisions, and determine their future. Globalization supplants the nation, the state, the region, and the village. While eliminating nationalism is indeed a good idea, the elimination of sovereignty is not.

...

One recent example of the power of the WTO is Chiquita Brands International, a $2 billion dollar corporation which recently made a large donation to the Democratic Party. Coincidentally, the United States filed a complaint with the WTO against the European Union because European import policies favored bananas coming from small Caribbean growers instead of the banana conglomerates. The Europeans freely admitted their bias and policy: they restricted imports from large multinational companies in Central America (plantations whose lands were secured by US military force during the past century), and favored small family farmers from former colonies who used fewer chemicals. It seemed like a decent thing to do, and everyone thought the bananas tasted better. For the banana giants, this was untenable. The United States prevailed in this WTO-arbitrated case. So who won, and who lost? Did the Central American employees at Chiquita Brands win? Ask the hundreds of workers in Honduras who were made infertile by the use of dibromochloropropane on the banana plantations. Ask the mothers whose children have birth defects from pesticide poisoning. Did the shareholders of Chiquita win? At the end of 1999, Chiquita Brands was losing money because they were selling bananas at below cost to muscle their way into the European market. Their stock was at a 13 year low, the shareholders were angry, the company was up for sale, but the prices of bananas in Europe are really cheap. Who lost? Caribbean farmers who could formerly make a living and send their kids to school can no longer do so because of low prices and demand.

I'm sharing this because it was quite amazing to me as I read it a couple of days ago, and now re-reading I continue to be quite amazed. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much about the WTO... the thing is, I'm willing to bet that you - and your elected representatives - don't know much, either. And that may just cause me to change the name of this blog, because it's one thing that I can't make sense of.

Human Scale Development

Today I've been going back over Manfred Max-Neef's work in "Human Scale Development." A favorite quotation: “There is no possibility for the active participation of people in gigantic systems which are historically organized and where decisions flow from the top down to the bottom.” Combined with another favorite, “There’s no longer any beautiful specific problem” it seems that there might be a wonderfully powerful lesson here. What that lesson is, I'm not exactly sure... but I think it has something to do with how we look at the world. So often in our mechanical world, we solve problems by breaking them down and isolating them in order to identify the one thing that is not working or the one thing that is causing our problem. We do this as multiple levels... and yet it doesn't really work at any of those levels.

We set policies at community, state, and federal levels. Those policies are intended to make our lives better -- to protect us, to promote development in order to better meet our needs, etc. Unfortunately, what so often happens is that as we set one policy in order increase protection or promote economic development, that policy undermines the ways in which we meet our other needs.

Going back to the second quote above -- one can see that Max-Neef is talking about how these specific problems -- the ones that we have isolated in order to try to solve -- are not really individual problems that are separate from many other problems. And when we treat them in that way -- forming policies to address a single problem... it tends to just really mess things up.

Somehow that idea leads - in my mind anyway - back to another page in this book:
"The discourses of power are full of euphemisms. Words no longer fit with facts. Annihilators are called nuclear arms, as if they were simply a more powerful version of conventional arms. We call 'the free world' a world full of examples of the most obscene inequities and violations of human rights. In the name of the people, systems are created where people must simply comply obediently with the dictums of an 'almighty state.' Peaceful protest marchers are severely punished and imprisoned for public disorder and subversion, while state terrorism is accepted as law and order. Examples could fill many pages. The end result is that people cease to understand and, as a consequence, either turn into cynics or melt into impotent, perplexed, and alienated masses."

Collectively, we have spent so much of our lives breaking problems down into the tiniest of details in order to be able to make sense of them. "It's the little things that count [matter most]" we say... and that is half right. It is the little things that count -- but the other half of the answer is about how we put those little things together. Think of an orchestra: it is indeed the little things that make an orchestra great: the talent of each individual musician, and his/her ability to do exactly as they are intended to do. AND it is the synthesis of those talented individuals -- the coming together of these individual talents -- that produce the sounds in which we delight. Without talented individuals, the noise would be drudgery. Without synthesis, the noise would be no better.

F o o d d i s c o n n e c t

This is taken from http://www.orionmagazine.org/pages/om/07-2om/Kingsolver.html

"The business of importing foods across great distances is not, by its nature, a boon to Third World farmers, but it’s very good business for oil companies. Transporting a single calorie of a perishable fresh fruit from California to New York takes about eighty-seven calories worth of fuel. That’s as efficient as driving from Philadelphia to Annapolis and back in order to walk three miles on a treadmill in a Maryland gym. There may be people who’d do it. Pardon me while I ask someone else to draft my energy budget."

It's a well-written article about food... and how disconnected most of us are from it. Worth the read!

End of the Whirlwind Tour

I'm back in Sweden after a whirlwind tour in the US... 11 presentations over the course of 6 days, including 5 in a 25-hour period. It feels good -- both to be back here in Sweden for a couple of more months, and to have had the opportunity to interact with many exciting people who really are working to address the issue of climate change. The week started with a visit to Grinnell College -- a pretty advanced group who had largely heard what I had to say, though I think there were at least a couple of people that heard some new information. Then onto DMACC at noon on Monday -- a great experience with a surprisingly engaged & interested group. Monday night found me in front of the Concerned Democrats of Polk County without a projector... so we had a nice discussion about some of the options for reducing carbon emissions, particularly as it relates to household operations.

Just now overheard: the quote of the day: "What does the army do? They shoot everyone with their love bullets." Followed quickly by "You guys are such a f***in downer."

Apologies for the sidetrack. Tuesday found me at Iowa State -- first with a class of undergrads in a sustainable planning class, and then in a lecture open to the general public. Had a great turnout at ISU. Wednesday morning I was at North Polk and spoke to the junior and senior class each for an hour. Wednesday night I went to Iowa City - had a little bit smaller group than at ISU, which allowed for a little more interactive discussion at the end. Thursday I was at Cornell College... great turnout there for the presentation. Thursday night I was with the "Drinking Liberally" group at The Lift in Des Moines -- a great group and an interesting atmosphere for a presentation like this... wonder if Gore has ever presented his slideshow in a bar...

Friday I wrapped up in a coffee shop in Ankeny with a good crowd and several great questions. Overall a great week -- talked with over 500 people.

Many thanks to all of those who helped make it possible -- setting up the events, making financial contributions, hosting, and chauffeuring.

Here's a link to an article in the Iowa State Daily after the event.

I've also missed a post about a Berlin trip... while it was a short trip (3 days away from Karlskrona, with the better part of 2 of those days spent on a busy) it provide enough opportunity to get a good sense of the city. It's fascinating. So much history, so recently... between the remnants of the wall and a tour of a museum that was home to East German intelligence -- which employed 1 person for every 180 citizens to watch over them. There's so much more that could be said about this: mostly how much I struggle to fathom just how that situation came to be in today's world. But that will have to wait for another time... I'm off to do a little research for now.