I spent 5 days in the Meshwork with Peter Merry & the team, and some of the time on the topic table labeled “Values & Lifestyle”. No matter how hard I tried, it seemed that no one really wanted to grapple with values and behaviours, even though I asked questions that pointed directly there. I’m reminded of Daniel Quinn’s book “Ishmael” where he says that “the rules” of any society are like an obelisk in the marketplace — totally obvious, yet invisible because they become part of the background.

The most interesting conversations I had were with groups of students — one group 15/16 the others around 18. I loved the 18 year olds, who were honest in their failure to do much, even though they knew they should because they found it hard going when no one else was doing much and the problem didn’t seem to be on their doorstep. The 15/16 year olds were bursting with energy and projects for their school and they had some good ideas! I so hope their head master will listen and encourage them, Being able to make something happen at that age, can set you up for life!

Perhaps millions of people were disappointed with what happened in Copenhagen, but I felt hopeful, because I saw people around me meeting in interesting ways that never would have happened if they had not all been called there — and the focus made the issue spring to the foreground. As one person said to me “it’s not about the internet, it’s about the innernet!”.

For me, climate change is simply a symptom of a greater question, which is all about how we decide to be related — to the earth, to each other, to our responsibility for our actions. We could decide that we have become so separated that nothing will work, or we could decide that separation is an illusion and proceed in a dramatically different direction. It all depends on how we decide to view it.

Thank you for your work in the world and summer greetings from the Land of the Long White Cloud.

I sent this on to my partner who is currently over there observing. Here’s his comment: “You can say they do one of those things here – the buses are free. Otherwise, all a bit depressing.”

Keep up the good work, Chris.

Gosh … with the Canadian government’s spin on climate action, this just shows how out of touch the policy makers are with community.

I happened to mention the contribution that youth can make to climate adaptation dialogue at a government roundtable and was staggered by the responses of some … ‘Yes, But … they don’t know enough’ … ‘Yes, But … kids can’t see the big picture yet.’

On that last point I as left wondering ‘who’ it is that has lost sight of the big picture.

Cheers
Geoff

Peace for all

Beatriz