Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

We bask in a new political moment here in the U.S.  We bask in a new moment — for a moment.

The New First Family

Because we know how difficult the days ahead will be.

President-Elect Barack Obama, to our relief, did not take a triumphant tone in his victory speech.  The tone was sober, even somber at times, using language we don’t always like to hear in this culture — “sacrifice,” “responsibility,” the sense that we are all in this together, which means we must all take part in finding our way through the multiple crises falling upon this society and our world.

The country voted for change.  And while I know that for many this means getting back to old levels of comfort and affluence, threatened now by the combined financial and economic crises, I get the sense from many folks rejoicing in the election results this week that they know it is about something far more profound than that.

My great nephew Elliot

Indeed, the way we have done affluence for the minority in recent decades is over.  The sooner we accept that, instead of trying to resist it, the more space there will be in the political culture to make more than fix-it, patch-it-up, reformist measures; because what we really need is to alter how we live on the planet so that its life may live — so that its life may live — for Malia and Sasha — and my godson Aidan Romero, and Elliot and Francesca, and the next one to come…

There’s another phrase Mr. Obama used in his speech which certainly got my attention.  In his short list of the crises we face, he mentioned, “a planet in peril.”

A planet in peril?  Really?  You are aware of this?  Even that is a light years advance from the administration soon to depart Washington DC.

Most important for those of us who are aware of the gravity of the peril, the immediacy of the threats of ecosystem breakdown and ecological overshoot, we must make sure early on that Mr. Obama does not, as so many do, restrict the nature of the threat he describes to global warming.  I hope I am not overestimating the significance of his choice of words — not global warming, but planet in peril.  Because if he means it, if he gets the difference, he will do more than concentrate on reducing fossil fuel emissions through cap and trade schemes.  He will get deeper to the heart of the matter: that we must scale down the entire human project if our world is to survive.

Harder yet will be convincing the country with the greatest amount of down-scaling to do to move quickly in this direction.  Change we can believe in means beginning to make this shift or else the changes to come will not be the kind one wants to believe in at all.

My back yard - South Shore Park - Milwaukee

My polling place is a half block behind my little flat in South Shore Park on Lake Michigan.  It was a magnificent day in Milwaukee — a bit like mid-September.  After voting mid-morning, distracted by the stir in the air, I took my work back to the park in the afternoon to be around the energy of the day, the neighborhood, this civic exercise so full of hope.  As people went in to vote, families with children played on the playground.  Kids were on their bikes and skateboards, older folks strolled by the lake, and runners were out in their shorts and tank tops.  I sat on a bench in a t-shirt and sandals, the lake before me, the good spirits all around me.  It was 73 degrees.

On November 4 in Wisconsin!

It was in many ways utterly surreal.  And while we could say that the sun was shining down on the elections that day, we were in the midst of another phenomenon — the first time in the history of record keeping that Milwaukee had a 3-day spell of temperatures above 70 in the month of November.

Just a quirk in the weather, or another in the long list of evidence that something has gone wacky with the climate?

Ecological Overshoot Gauge - Global Footprint Network

I am aware that we are in severe overshoot.  We are near the point of requiring 1.4 planets to sustain current levels of human consumption and waste.  In his speech, Mr. Obama shared the story of the 106-yr.-old woman who pressed her finger on the screen to vote, using that span of her life to reflect on all the changes over a century.  Then he said, if my kids are lucky to live so long — the changes they will see!

And I shuddered.  How many humans will be living on the planet on 2107, 99 years from now, when Sasha would be 106?  How severe the collapses, how many coastal cities and island nations innundated?  What wars and other violence over lack of water and food will they witness?

Or, he could take the phrase with utter seriousness, look out at the choice of futures for his beautiful little daughters on this planet, and help lead a crusade to get the planet out of peril.

In the beginning is the time our voices are most likely to be heard.  We have a reconfigured Congress, new members in the House and Senate, incumbents, some of whom have been there way too long and have become way too complacent.

Wake them up! Show them there is a movement out here prepared to take seriously the word ’sacrifice,’ a movement of peoples especially willing to sacrifice a great deal for our planet in peril.

Change we can believe in is our job, our mission.  It must come from us.  We must make Obama brave, innovative, creative, a leader. He won’t come by those qualities all by himself; we must hold his feet to the fire, convince him that many of us will stand by him if he is willing to take the political risks necessary to save life on the planet.  That spirit, the spirit of movements, comes from the roots.  It comes from the hearts and commitment of people like you and me.

We voted.  Now we need to get to work!

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Photo credits:
South Shore Park, Lake Michigan, Milwaukee: Carrie Trousil, About.com
Ecological Overshoot Gauge, Global Footprint Network