This week we continue to explore our theme of making our way forward in these difficult times of extended covid-pandemic complications. So far we’ve looked at endurance and courage and today we move on to resilience as we look at the ups and downs and oftentimes unanticipated twists and turns of modern day life.
Resilience is an advantageous life-quality when you find things going awry and you’re trying to re-adjust on the fly.
The United Nations climate conference COP26 met in Glasgow, Scotland earlier this week so we have included a couple of articles on the topic in the Support Page. I hope you will find it informative.
The service will be available at 10AM on our YouTube Channel followed by Zoom check-in and coffee hour at 11AM. You’ll find the links listed below.
Have a great week-end everyone!
Practice patience and kindness.
In Ministry,
Dave
HERE IS THE SERVICE LINK FOR THIS WEEK’S SERVICE(Please note it won’t be active until 10AM on Sunday morning)
https://youtu.be/BFD_RTbQQjs
HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY:
David Hutchinson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
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Articles from this week’s United Nations Climate Conference CO26
Over 40 Countries Pledge at U.N. Climate Summit to End Use of Coal Power
New York Times
The United States did not agree to stop coal development at home but promised to halt overseas funding of oil, gas and coal.GLASGOW — More than 40 countries pledged to phase out coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, in a deal announced Thursday at the United Nations climate summit that prompted Alok Sharma, the head of the conference, to proclaim “the end of coal is in sight.”
But several of the biggest coal consumers were notably absent from the accord, including China and India, which together burn roughly two-thirds of the world’s coal, as well as Australia, the world’s 11th-biggest user of coal and a major exporter.
The United States, which still generates about one-fifth of its electricity from coal, also did not sign the pledge.
The new pact includes 23 countries that for the first time have promised to stop building and issuing permits for new coal plants at home and to eventually shift away from using the fuel. Among them are five of the world’s top 20 power-generating countries: Poland, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam and Ukraine.
The White House National Security Council said in a statement late Thursday that the coal pledge “includes specifics on permitting that is under legal and technical review” by the federal government and added that the administration’s considerations for joining “are based solely on that reasoning.”
The use of coal power in the United States peaked in 2007 and is fast declining, replaced by cheaper natural gas, wind and solar power.
Coal is the single biggest source of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions worldwide and ending its use is a major issue at the Glasgow summit.
Germany’s environment minister, Svenja Schulze, said ending coal is “essential” to keeping the average global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to preindustrial levels.
That’s the threshold beyond which many scientists say the planet will experience catastrophic effects from heat waves, droughts, wildfires and flooding. The planet has already warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius.
To meet that goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius, wealthy countries would have to replace virtually all coal, oil and gas power plants with wind, solar or nuclear power by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency. And by 2040, all of the world’s remaining coal plants would have to be shuttered or fitted with technology to capture their carbon emissions and bury them underground, the agency said.
“In the near future we will have left behind all fossil fuels and live in a new and sustainable energy world based on renewable energy,” Ms. Schulze said.
Some environmental groups cautioned that the agreement was vague on key details, such as exactly when countries will end their use of the fuel. The statement only says that major economies commit to phasing out coal power “in the 2030s (or as soon as possible thereafter),” while the rest of the world would phase out coal by around the 2040s.
The promise to end coal comes as coal consumption is making a resurgence globally after years of steady decline. This year, coal consumption worldwide is expected to grow by 5.7 percent as the global economy rebounds from the coronavirus pandemic and is now just below its peak set in 2014, according to new datapublished Thursday by the Global Carbon Project.Brad Plumer is a climate reporter specializing in policy and technology efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions. At The Times, he has also covered international climate talks and the changing energy landscape in the United States. @bradplumerLisa Friedman reports on federal climate and environmental policy from Washington. She has broken multiple stories about the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal climate change regulations and limit the use of science in policymaking. @LFFriedman
Greta Thunberg Says Climate Talks Are Becoming a ‘Greenwash Campaign’
New York Times
Ms. Thunberg and other activists also spoke about the critical role that young women have played in pressuring world leaders to take action on climate change.GLASGOW — The United Nations climate conference in Scotlandhas become a venue for world leaders and business executives to pretend they are taking action on climate change without following through, the climate activist Greta Thunberg said on Thursday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the summit meeting, known as COP26, the 18-year-old Ms. Thunberg said the event was “sort of turning into a greenwash campaign, a P.R. campaign,” for business leaders and politicians.
“Since we are so far from what actually we needed, I think what would be considered a success would be if people realize what a failure this COP is,” Ms. Thunberg said.
At panel events Thursday at The New York Times Climate Hub in Glasgow, Ms. Thunberg and other young female activists, including Vanessa Nakate and Malala Yousafzai, also spoke about the critical role that young women have played in rallying protesters and pressuring world leaders to take action.
“It is the young people, especially young women who are the voices of the climate movement, and that gives hope to so many people,” Ms. Yousafzai said.
The comments came on the fifth day of the summit meeting, a gathering that John Kerry, the United States climate envoy, had billed as the planet’s “last, best chance” to curb the fossil fuel emissions that are driving climate change.
More than 39,000 diplomats, business leaders and activists have registered for the event in hopes of hammering out agreements to reduce emissions and keep the average global temperature from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to preindustrial levels, by the end of this century. That’s the threshold beyond which many scientists say the planet will experience catastrophic effects from heat waves, droughts, wildfires and flooding. The average global temperature has already risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius.
So far, leaders and business executives have made some significant commitments. On Tuesday, more than 100 countries agreed to cut emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by 30 percent by 2030. And, on Wednesday, a coalition of the world’s biggest investors, banks and insurers that collectively control $130 trillion said they were committed to financing projects that would help get companies and countries to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Environmentalists, however, criticized the financing pledge as lacking in detail. Several key leaders, including President Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, were also criticized for not attending the event in person. Environmentalists say that China and Russia’s targets are not ambitious enough, and activists are skeptical that Mr. Bolsonaro will follow through on his country’s pledge to end deforestation by 2028.
Ms. Nakate, a 24-year-old climate activist from Uganda and founder of the Africa-based Rise Up Movement, said at the panel discussion on Thursday that the pledge by leaders of the 20 largest economies to “pursue efforts” to keep the average global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius did not go far enough.
She said that 1.5 degrees would “not be safe” for communities like hers. “Even right now, it’s already evident that the climate crisis is ravaging different parts of the African continent,” Ms. Nakate said.
Ms. Yousafzai, 24, said that women were disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis.
“Treating climate change and gender inequality and girls’ education as separate issues is not doing justice to the cause of creating a fairer and better and cleaner world for all of us,” Ms. Yousafzai said. “It is important that we take these issues seriously and see the link between all of these.”
She and the other activists on Thursday said there was reason for hope. When the moderator at Ms. Thunberg’s event asked what one fact the panelists would want everyone in the world to know, she said that people should understand that their individual actions can make a difference. The changes that are necessary will not come from inside of conferences like COP26, she said.
“This is the misconception,” Ms. Thunberg said. “That what we as individuals do doesn’t have an impact.”
“And I’m not talking about not using plastic and so on,” she said. “I’m talking about going out onto the streets and making our voices heard, organizing marches, demanding change.”
Jenny Gross is a general assignment reporter. Before joining The Times, she covered British politics for the The Wall Street Journal. @jggross
From the Amazon, Indigenous Peoples offer new compass to navigate climate change
By Dallas Hunt, Cash Ahenakew, Sharon Stein, Vanessa Andreotti, and Will Valley
Universities in western Canada began another school year under the cloud of two imminent threats: wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic. These are not just local issues, but global issues, not only because they are happening all over the world, but also because some of their root causes — including ecological destruction and dispossession of marginalized, especially Indigenous, peoples — are not concerned with borders.
We know many wildfires aren’t just a result of drier conditions and rising temperatures from climate change, but also the forced removal of Indigenous Peoples from their ancestral lands and disregard for traditions that support ecological integrity, such as prescribed burns. And deforestation, which displaces human and other-than-human communities alike, makes pandemics like COVID-19 more likely.
Many universities have committed to addressing global challenges. But society-wide, our universities are ill-prepared to help deepen our collective capacity to face today’s interconnected “wicked problems” — those that are hyper-complex and cannot be solved with simple individualistic solutions. These problems include biodiversity loss and our global mental health crisis.
Deeper changes needed
As scholars of Indigenous studies, global education and food systems, we often get asked what kind of education and research are needed to address such wicked problems. This question usually comes from a well-meaning place; it’s also often motivated by a desire for ready-made alternatives.
But complex problems cannot be addressed with simplistic solutions. This is not due to educators’ or researchers’ lack of effort or ingenuity. Rather, our inability to address these problems with the depth of engagement required is a product of the educational models we have inherited and (mostly) reproduce.
We cannot solve wicked problems from within the same paradigms that created them. For example, many universities have embraced the UN Sustainable Development Goals for addressing climate change and sustainability. However, the goals have also been critiqued for presuming that we can continue to operate within an economic system premised on infinite growth.
Undoubtedly, proposals to shift away from dominant educational models and viewpoints prompts a follow-up question: If not this, then what?
Learning from mistakes
Our own research has led us to approach this question with caution. We have learned that if we jump too quickly to solutions, we rarely take adequate time to assess the mistakes that caused the problems. When this happens, we end up reproducing those mistakes and reproducing harm.
We first need to identify and learn from mistakes before we can move toward truly different educational futures.
This is a key insight from our community research collaborations with the Teia das 5 Curas network of Indigenous communities in Brazil. These communities offer a different diagnosis of the root causes of our current environmental and social crises, and propose different responses than those generally offered in mainstream academic debates. Yet Indigenous Peoples’ analyses remain under-addressed in research and practical approaches to wicked problems.
Indifference as denial of interdependence
The communities that make up the Teia das 5 Curas network suggest that the primary cause of both ecological destruction and colonial violence is an individualistic and extractive mode of existence rooted in a false assumption of separation — of humans from each other, and of humans from nature.
They argue that this denial of ourselves as interdependent beings, part of a living planetary metabolism, feeds indifference to the suffering of others that we also create. They also believe that what contributes to this problem is our intellectual and emotional incapacity to confront our complicity in a harmful, unsustainable system.
Indifference to violence against both Indigenous Peoples and the Earth is evident in events currently unfolding in Brazil, where the government has launched a co-ordinated attack against Indigenous rights and ecological protections.
Perceiving root causes
Despite centuries of genocidal efforts by governments around the world, many Indigenous communities have preserved their alternative social and educational systems. They have also preserved 80 per cent of the world’s biodiversity, despite being only four per cent of the world’s population.
Increasingly, non-Indigenous researchers recognize the wealth of knowledge and practices held by Indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, non-Indigenous scholars and policy-makers often selectively engage Indigenous knowledges and practices in order to bolster existing systems, or they romanticize Indigenous communities in unrealistic and unsustainable ways.
The challenge that stands before us is to unlearn colonial modes of engagement, so that we might learn how to ethically weave together the gifts of different traditions of human wisdom. Our collective survival depends on it.
The invitation
Indigenous communities, especially those in the Amazon, are putting their lives on the line to protect everyone’s future. The Huni Kui people of Acre are part of the Teia das 5 Curas network. As part of their Last Warning campaign against deforestation and the attack on their rights, the Huni Kui caution, “if we lose the forest, we lose our future.” This is true for all of us: further deforestation of the Amazon will accelerate global climate change.
Although the Last Warning campaign has many suggestions about how people can support this fight for our collective survival, its primary offering is an educational invitation and accompanying call to responsibility. This is an invitation for us to wake up from the fantasy of separation and to un-numb to the pain we inflict on one another and the planet in order to sustain modern consumerist lifestyles.
We are asked to expand our capacities to hold space for difficult, painful and uncomfortable things. These include the truth about our complicity in systemic violence and unsustainability, and how our socially sanctioned behaviours and desires contribute to the unfolding ecocide and genocide in Brazil and elsewhere.
Last Warning does not tell us how to shift away from our current paradigm and make space for a wiser one to emerge; it does not claim to have the answers. Instead, it offers a new educational compass — a way of orienting ourselves away from reproducing harm and toward fostering more generative possibilities for co-existence, without glossing over the difficult elements of this work.
Reorienting ourselves
This is a compass oriented by maturity (the imperative to grow up in order to become good elders and ancestors); discernment (how we can most generatively intervene in any context to foster collective well-being) and responsibility.
Responsibility here is understood as an affirmation of our interdependence, including the debts we have to specific communities and to the Earth. It also involves facing humanity in all of its complexities and paradoxes: the good, the bad, the broken and the messed up within and around us.
For those seeking simple, universal solutions to wicked problems, this educational compass is unlikely to offer much guidance.
But for those seeing the raging wildfires and shape-shifting COVID-19 pandemic as indications of a deeper systemic illness in our institutions and ourselves, this work may offer some guidance for the divesting from harmful systems so we might learn to co-exist differently.
Poetry Corner
BLESSING FOR SOUND
from The Bell and the Blackbird by David Whyte
I thank you,
for the smallest sound,
for the way my ears open
even before my eyes,
as if to remember
the way everything began
with an original, vibrant, note,
and I thank you for this
everyday original music,
always being rehearsed,
always being played,
always being remembered
as something new
and arriving, a tram line
below in the city street,
gull cries, or a ship’s horn
in the distant harbour,
so that in waking I hear voices
even where there is no voice
and invitations where
there is no invitation
so that I can wake with you
by the ocean, in summer
or in the deepest seemingly
quietest winter,
and be with you
so that I can hear you
even with my eyes closed,
even with my heart closed,
even before I fully wake.
BLESSING FOR THE LIGHT
from The Bell and the Blackbird by David WhyteI thank you, light, again,
for helping me to find
the outline of my daughter’s face,
I thank you light,
for the subtle way
your merest touch gives shape
to such things I could
only learn to love
through your delicate instruction,
and I thank you, this morning
waking again,
most intimately and secretly
for your visible invisibility,
the way you make me look
at the face of the world
so that everything becomes
an eye to everything else
and so that strangely,
I also see myself being seen,
so that I can be born again
in that sight, so that
I can have this one other way
along with every other way,
to know that I am here.
This is the last flower of the season from Linda’s window box at the cabin…
Please send in joys and concerns during the week to dave@backwoodsblog.com and I will post them on the Support Page.
Prayer List in the state of MaineLocal emergency personnel and hospital staff For our state and national leaders as they respond to the current coronavirus crisis For those working for social justice and societal change Pray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nation Prayers for the heat wave in the American West and wide spread drought conditions for the people of Haiti Prayers for the people of Afghanistan The Four Limitless Ones Prayer May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness. May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering. May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering. May we dwell in the great equanimity free from anger, aggression and exclusion.
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