A New Focus

A few weeks ago I realized quite clearly that global climate change generated by human activity was the issue of our time. I began some serious reading about global warming and its consequences back in January and February. I also observed my own reactions to this reading. I learned that I could only read so much before being overwhelmed with feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and deep sorrow. Then, for several days I would avoid. Then I would feel guilty and avoid the issue for a while longer.

In early April, I picked up a new book at the local library on an impulse. The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living, written by Mark Boyle, is a fascinating and hopeful story of a man who clearly accepts that both global warming and peak oil are here, will have increasingly profound effects on every aspect of human life, and that drastic human action is required to mitigate the consequences. What impressed me most about the book is the amount of creativity and discipline Mark Boyle exercised in his year of living without money.  His commitment to maintaining connections with friends, family, and his broader community and to experiencing fun in the process of getting his message out to the world inspired me. I was particularly interested in what he had to say about the transition movement.

Reading the book led me to having a conversation with my friend, Sondra, who has had some contact with people in the transition movement in the Twin Cities. I was reminded that she had given me a name of where to get the book, The Transition Handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience, by Rob Hopkins. I had not followed through, and wanted to get from her once again the name of the fellow who had the books for sale at a reduced price. Coincidentally, she was just about to go to a meeting of the Twin Cities group that next weekend. She was able to pick up a copy of the book, and I am now reading it. I find I'm reading it slowly, too. There is so much to think about, and assimilate.

I'm still struggling with some feelings of overwhelm and desire to avoid thinking and feeling about the pincers of global warming and peak oil, but also sense a growing willingness to be with these thoughts and feelings and not go into denial about what is happening. At the same time, there is within me a growing sense of hope and curiosity about how we - all humanity - will face these incredible challenges and use the creativity, optimism, intelligence, capacity for empathy and resilience that we can mobilize as a species. Two things stand out for me right now: the transition movement and permaculture.

As my reading, talks with people and little home experiments progress, I'll report on them. Right now, it's back to reading the next chapter in The Transition Handbook.