Keep at it

I have written a few times about motivation (here) and individual action from various perspectives. In the end, it is up to us to change our lives, and be guided by a new morality. Personal efforts guided by a motivation to to open, honest, accepting, and in the end radically paradigm shifting is essential, but personal action without the goal of broader social implications can be selfish. And  The goal is social change, and it will not come easy. 

Trying to consider the impacts of your individual choices, and of the collective choices of society does not make for leisure time. When living, we can't let our brains go into standby mode. We can't be awake and process only some things. In that case, we aren't fully aware, conscious, and present. And while it takes at least some effort to pay attention to trends, to fashion, to what a materialistic world, this is not the consciousness I am talking about. Rather, this is the state of being that the moneymakers would want you to have - not fully asleep so as it miss their cues, but not fully conscious so as to question their motives.

Being observant and conscious can be consuming, and I mean that in the least materialistic way possible. What I mean is that as soon as you start questioning something, you start questioning another thing, and another thing, and soon enough, you realise that this culture, this society is one that is founded upon "out of sight, out of mind." We shun people, we cut them off, and this allows us to degrade their localities, which means we degrade all of our localities. It doesn't take long to realise that these systems are so ingrained, that as an individual, we think that our efforts are not worth it, that "human nature" is human nature, that greed is fundamentally human. It's a reason why many people just give up.

Over dinner the other night, Crystal asked Professor Larimore, "How do you deal with things not changing? How do you stay motivated?" Professor Larimore replied, "You just never know when something will happen. It's like an earthquake. Over time, the pressure builds, slowly but surely, and then one day, there is the release."

You just never know when something big will happen. Sometimes, it takes a split second. The world can change, or at least, parts of it can. Who knew lasting dictatorships in the Middle East, eras that lasted half a century, would crumble in a matter of weeks? Movements can go from being dormant, to all of a sudden being catalytic and inspiring. But it is important to realise that such massive changes are few and far between. What about our daily lives then? How do we spend time in between these moments? Constantly working toward a change is essential. So her, a woman of seventy years, message is, keep at it. While this may sound cliche, I don't think it is said often enough.

Bubbles (again) and giving up...

I read this very telling article from the BBC a couple of days ago which talked about the impact of loss of nature, ecosystems and biodiversity on our economies, based on how they are currently structured. Here is a little summary:

• Bill Jackson is quoted as saying "Twenty-one percent of all known mammals, 30% of all known amphibians, 12% of all known birds (and)... 27% of reef-building corals assessed... are threatened with extinction."
  
• There is a project underway called "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)," which is attempting to quantify the monetary value of various services that nature provides for us (however they quantify that...). TEEB has already calculated the annual loss of forests at $2-5 trillion, dwarfing costs of the banking crisis.
• "Many economies remain blind to the huge value of the diversity of animals, plants and other lifeforms and their role in healthy and functioning ecosystems," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). "Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity, or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world."
• From Richard Black's Earth Watch blog from May 10 on the BBC website, "If you'd added up the numbers of mammals, fish, birds etc in the world in 1970, and done so again in 2006, one-third of them would have disappeared in between times."

What has compelled us to continue with such behaviour? Unfortunately, our ethics are to blame. Our human-centric ethics encourage us to do all we can to have knowledge and control over the forces of nature, and modify them in ways that are "convenient" to us. In the process, the rights of other sentient and non-sentient beings get trampled upon. Steiner's point is exactly in line with my last post - we view our society and humanity as the served, and nature as the servant, and in the process of separating ourselves from our servant, we have lost respect for it.
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I want to congratulate the Student Sustainability Initiative for a hugely successful Provost's Teaching Seminar on Sustainability. The seminar had around 300 professors attend, the goal of which was how each discipline can and must incorporate environmentally-, socially-, and sustainability-related philosophies into the classroom. This success would not have been possible without SSI's enthusiasm and determination.
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Think about what you do on a day-to-day basis. What do you eat? What do you drink? Where do you buy things from? Do you double-cup at Starbucks? Now, think of what you might be willing to give up to lessen your impact on nature. Is there anything you're willing to give up? Have you given anything up before? Tell me your thoughts...