Change Archives - Mark Goldthorpe

December 17, 2018

msb ~099 A war on simplicity?

A war on simplicity?

Kate Yoder was surprised to find her language getting violent when she started reporting climate change. “Some ancient spirit took hold of me, and I found myself deploying the narrative of war … of the climate movement’s leaders who’d gone all out with the wartime cliches. The only way to overcome climate change inaction, environmentalist Bill McKibben once wrote, ‘is to adopt a wartime mentality, rewriting the old mindset that stands in the way of victory’.”

Oppositional vocabulary is attractive, powerful, often necessary. But focusing on conflict “limits our collective imagination about what we can do to fix complex problems.” Wars on poverty, drugs, terror? None has been won. Can you wage war on a predicament? Continue reading “msb ~099 A war on simplicity?”

December 14, 2018December 14, 2018

msb ~098 On leverage points & counterintuitions

On leverage points & counterintuitions

"Oh Wow! Paradigm shift!" Counterintuitions required — Paradigm shift: counterintuitions required

Observing that “the world’s leaders are correctly fixated on economic growth as the answer to virtually all problems, but they’re pushing with all their might in the wrong direction,” Donella Meadows identifies the perils of failing to understand complex systems as counterintuitive. The ‘leverage points’, where we can change systems, are also not intuitive. “Or if they are, we intuitively use them backwards, systematically worsening whatever problems we are trying to solve.” We need to develop our counterintuitions. And humility, as counterintuitons need room for contest and evolution: “complex systems are, well, complex.” Continue reading “msb ~098 On leverage points & counterintuitions”

December 13, 2018

msb ~097 Reading the bones

Reading the bones

Some stories bear repeating. This one’s a nightmarish scenario worthy of the direst Sci-Fi blockbuster: a planet’s species controlled from birth in machine technologies, enduring rapid growth beyond natural limits, shunted to mass-engineered death for meat harvesting. Flash forward to a distant future: the hidden enslavers have gone; only countless bones, in vast graves scattered across the planet, tell that the enslaved creatures were ever there. Fantasy? Maybe not so much — if you’re one of the 23 billion chickens alive at this moment. ‘Dominant species’ might be a stretch, but maybe in the eyes of the mythical alien archaeologists – landing on Earth after humans have gone, shaking tentacled heads at the wonders in the rocks – chicken bones will dominate their reconstructions of what ‘on Earth’ went on here. Continue reading “msb ~097 Reading the bones”

December 12, 2018

msb ~096 Climate hope

Climate hope

Climate scientist Peter Kalmus writes about how “to think daily about climate change and any of its dire implications can be a crushing psychological burden. Each of us is just one mammal, with all our mammalian limitations — we get tired, sad, irritated, sick, overwhelmed — and the climate crisis wields the force of 8 billion humans with infrastructure, corporations, capital, politics, and imaginations heavily invested in burning fossil fuel.” Continue reading “msb ~096 Climate hope”

December 11, 2018

msb ~095 Three faces of power

Three faces of power

As previous posts have suggested, I like concise insights into how we work. Though they risk oversimplifying complexity, they get us on the road to exploring it. A fourfold matrix of knowns and unknowns; three types of expertise; ‘four As’ for nurturing change … handy rules of thumb. Another is the three ‘faces’ of power. Continue reading “msb ~095 Three faces of power”

December 10, 2018

msb ~094 On the wild edge of what we know

On the wild edge of what we know

Kathleen Jamie – renowned poet and also a great essayist, as her book Sightlines shows – joined forester Peter Wohlleben and others on today’s BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week. Together, they covered trees, air pollution, rewilding, language and other arenas of nature-culture.

It’s de-centring to confront Wohlleben’s evidence for the sensations and social liveliness of trees within their ‘wood wide web’; in host Andrew Marr’s words, this is “on the wild edge of what most of us know.” How are ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ so separated that these are such odd thoughts, immediately triggering fears of mysticism and anthropomorphism (both real enough risks)? Continue reading “msb ~094 On the wild edge of what we know”

December 4, 2018December 4, 2018

msb ~090 Realigning managed retreat

Realigning managed retreat

The process of managed retreat in Oakwood Beach, Staten Island. Nathan Kensinger — The process of managed retreat in Oakwood Beach, Staten Island

Burning Worlds’ Amy Brady interviewed filmmaker Nathan Kensinger about Managed Retreat, his documentary looking at “at the uneasy relationship between humans and nature in New York City” through neighbourhoods that are pulling back from the waterfront. Following Hurricane Sandy, residents “asked the government to buy their houses, so they could move to somewhere safer. Their homes are now being demolished and turned back into wetlands.”

Kensinger says that few New Yorkers know “their neighbors are tearing down their own homes, to escape from sea level rise. I’m hoping the film will give audiences a better picture of what may be in store…” Continue reading “msb ~090 Realigning managed retreat”

December 3, 2018

msb ~089 Wasteland to wild land

Wasteland to wild land

wild land, self-willed land, waste land — rewilding at work

As the pre-plastics past becomes more remote, is it harder to imagine post-plastics futures? That’s the thought that struck me while catching up on some rewilding reading. The appropriately named Isabella Tree calls out our modern distaste for ‘wasteland’ in her concise critique of ‘managed reforestation’ plans for England’s new Northern Forest. In particular, our “demonisation of thorny scrub” means that we can only imagine forest regeneration as a task for humans armed with spades and plastic tree defenders. Continue reading “msb ~089 Wasteland to wild land”

November 29, 2018

msb ~087 Our entangled future

Our entangled future

“To access and activate our most radical potentials as a storytelling species,” the AdaptationCONNECTS project has issued an innovative call for short stories of ‘our entangled future’: stories to engage our imaginations with ‘quantum social change’ in the face of our accelerating climate crisis. “We need stories that confront the limitations of a dualistic, deterministic, and inanimate worldview and instead offer insights into a reality that is connected, entangled, uncertain, and ripe with possibility – a world of complementarity, non-locality, and potentiality.” Their call places an important emphasis on “the power of language, meaning, and metaphors to create a new reality.” Continue reading “msb ~087 Our entangled future”

November 28, 2018

msb ~086 Rooted, again

Rooted, again

Another rich vein of discovery in Dark Mountain’s new collection, TERRA: Rooted is Juhi Saklani’s short essay on the heritage and fate of India’s trees. In response to displacement and distress at relocating deep into Delhi’s congestion after years living in its leafier areas, “I started photographing trees. It was the most meditative and ‘at home’ I felt in my unsettled life.” Her images accompany the text, revealing the deeply textured interplay of living tree and decaying stonework, of (as this small blog keeps returning to) nature-and-culture. Continue reading “msb ~086 Rooted, again”