Reposted from the Energy Resources Yahoo Group.

Mass Psychosis

ECO

Much of humanity has, over the past 2 thousand years at least, suffered from a severe disconnect from the earth and its natural systems due to both the influence of religious beliefs and the Global Monetocracy System. Heretofore, native cultures were closely aligned with earth systems as hunter-gatherers and as early agriculturists — they understood clearly that the earth was their life support system and thus revered it.

The result of our disconnect is a deep pathology called ‘dissociation’ the symptoms of which are: anxiety, stress, depression, and loss of contact with reality among others; and which manifest in a collective society as aggression in the form of addiction, war, terrorism, excessive consumption, loss of ethics, and disregard for human and earth values among other things. Our turn toward an increasingly artificial world denies us the nurture that we formerly obtained from earth culture.

In fact, if we go back and review Jay Earley’s model for social evolution with regard to the planetary crisis, we see much of the same hypothesis as he argues that certain ground qualities were inherent at the beginning of our social evolution, e.g., community, vitality, equality, belonging, and natural living. And that as we evolved over time, emergent qualities developed to give us greater power over the world, e.g., technology, rational thinking, and social structure (social systems in the form of governance, economics, education, religion, etc.) And, in the process, the ground qualities became subordinated to the emergent qualities, however, at the expense of our health and wholeness.

In fact, if we really look at our situation today, The Global Monetocracy System, our form of economics in the modern world, along with technology clearly dominates our thinking and dictates our lifestyle. Since it so clearly deviates from what is ‘healthy’ in terms of earth and human values, the GMS is clearly an aberrant system to which we have become addicted. And, in so doing, we have created aberrant lifestyles. Money has clearly become the drug of choice for many. And, we’ve developed technology far beyond what is within our capacity to manage for our benefit in terms of the reality of today.

This societal ‘meme’ (habit pattern) that we have thus developed over thousands of years affects all of us to different degrees. Some of us have begun to realize its destructivness and are trying to release ourselves from it. Others still operate entirely within its grasp and like all addicts, act in denial of the destructiveness of aberrant ways which are allowing us to destroy our own life support system while acting in denial of our act.

And researchers are no different from the rest of us. So in spite of 30 years or more of direct visual proof of global warming, just as alcoholics act in denial of their destructive behavior, researchers addicted to the Global Monetocracy System act in denial of their destructive behavior. Yet, unable at all levels of their consciousness to be completely unaware of the full ramifications of global climate change and its meaning for society, some researchers will make token efforts in another related field of science in order to relieve their guilt.

But all this is going on at a totally subliminal level; and this is why the emerging field of eco-psychology is so important today because the therapist has to understand both earth systems and human systems and learn how to re-integrate them within the human mind in a healthy manner.

And since this ‘dissociation/addiction’ pattern is going on at a mass level within our world societies today, the question is as to how to treat masses of people and integrate the basic and emergent qualities so that as a society we are able to evolve in a healthier and less destructive manner.

I think whether we are addicts or not is related to our individual karma as Jim brings to our attention. Due to individual cultural/spiritual backgrounds some of us may be better equipped to ward off addictive behavior than others.

ECO is a pseudonym of Marguerite Hampton, an activist and writer with the Turtle Island Institute.

This is an excellent post on the need for change in education. A change in education changes the manner in which we think and lays the groundwork for change in other institutions/systems, e.g., governance, economic, medical, communications, architectural, transportation, community planning, and all of the rest.

The Industrial Age with its demand for conformity on the assembly line is over — now is the time for the ‘possible human’ to emerge and meet the unprecedented challenges of our time, and to do it with gusto. –Eco somewhere in California

Making a Difference

Bill Ellis

There is a “Critical Thinking Movement” in American universities that closely parallels a recent White Paper, “Life-Long Self-Learning Movement,” on K-12 innovations. They seem to be saying the same thing,– abandon the current school systems and create a radically different universal learning system.

Universities across the country are recognizing that “Americans can expect to change jobs as many as half a dozen times in their lives.” No amount of university education, as now given, can provide the skills and knowledge required for a long fullfiling and productive life. Universities must transform themselves to produce “critical thinkers.” They must cultivate open minds, able to face any problem, economic, political, scientific, or social, with balanced, critical, reflective judgement. This does not mean abandoning the learning of,technical and scientific knowledge, nor the arts and humanities. It means aproaching all knowledge with a more questioning, wholistic, exploratory and less dogmatic mind. To recognize that most decisions are made in a field of uncertainty requiring judgement and wisdom as much as reason and facts.

The difficulty universities are having in producing critical thinkers is, as one professor puts it, “that even 4 years of college only brings traditional-age college students to a very low level of critical thinking and judgement.”

It is hard to see how anyone could expect much better. Young people in K-12 schools are imbued with exactly the opposite mindset. Authoritarian, undemocratic, hierarchal schools prepare students for an authoritarian, undemocratic hierarchal world. Students are taught to obey orders, work on schedule, and accept authority. Nothing could be more contrary to critical thinking. It is clearly not only unreasonable, but also inefficient, to spend 12 years teaching people to accept order and control, and then 4 years attempting to erase that order and control mode from their minds.

These facts have been recognized in a White Paper on “The Life-long Self-learning Movement” drated by an ad hoc group of citizens concerned with the failure of the K-12 schools. It points out that there are a host of actions aimed an producing a radically different learning system. Homeschooling, Charter Schools, Folk Schools, Vouchers, Democratics Schools, Parent Directed Education, and many other learning innovations are replacing the schools of the past.

Together these two movements show the need for a radically different life-long learning system. We need to abolish the barriers between higher and lower education, as well as the barriers between real life and school life at all levels. This is the challenge facing all elements of our current cultures.

Also see: ”Rethinking Thinking” by Mark Clayton from the Oct. 14 issue of Christian Science Monitor.

Read the White Paper on THE LIFE-LONG SELF-LEARNING MOVEMENT

The dialogue continues at Energy Resources Yahoo Group. See: Moving Beyond the Talk

Getting Started

ECO

Tom Robertson writes: The question regarding change is from what to what, and how fast. And the issue is not how we feel about change but the fact that the greatest force for change to affect humanity in its history is coming down the pike, and there is little known and agreed to about how fast it is coming, what its affect will be, and what we can physically, ecologically, and culturally do about it in time. Further, and in the context of the folks you describe above, dialog can only lead to effective change when there is understanding and agreement as to what the problem is. All the dialog in the world will have no affect if it is not anchored in the physical sciences–and I see nothing of that in these posts.

Tom, Thank you. Can’t help but agree with you and perhaps the biggest problem here is a communication gap on my part. I think the change must be from non-sustainable to sustainable. The answer to how fast, depends on how quickly we can organize community groups.

Where the dialogue must begin, I think, is with the question: “How do you make your community secure, that is, ensure the basic necessities of life, while at the same time enact resource conservation and begin viable restoration programs?” Maybe this cannot be accomplished, so then the question arises as to what the community does. Must it move to a different location? Is this feasible? Somewhere along the line the question of population growth will arise and I think it best to let it arise naturally rather than structure the dialogue. (Guidance on this must be available on a website easily accessed – see below for further info.)

Another more personal version of the question that has been used with some success is: “If the survival of the Planet and my well-being and that of my children and all other life forms for generations to come, is dependent upon me and who I am and what I do, who do I want to be and what will I do?”

Using ‘journaling’ combined with group dialogue has been demonstrated successfully in one program that I am aware of using the above question. The group facilitator of this program actually took her learners on eco-trips to Africa where they reconnected with nature by helping to rehabilitate an African village, including the small hospital there and then they went on a photo safari to the Serengeti. This is not practical, but I think the question used along with journaling to create personal transformation in this instance is worthwhile considering as a method. And I think reconnecting to nature is an important part of the process as well.

One problem is centered around how to form the initial groups. This is not easy because there are so many acting in denial of the crisis, perhaps because it is so overwhelming and many simply cannot deal with the issues involved, as has been voiced by several on this list as they try to communicate with family and friends. Sticking one’s head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away is easier for most than confronting the issues. This is very scary stuff to most people.

It may be that starting a group from say a ‘community organic gardening project’ initially may be the way to go, and then you ease into the really tough issues gradually. We began a group this way but it fell apart because of political issues related to an NGO we got involved with before we could get into dialogue or grow the group to an appreciable size. We could possibly have reformed this group and gone on, but this was at the time we moved to this wilderness area and could not continue. A solar energy project could also be the ‘starter’.

Another thought is to round up all the people in the community already involved in environmental or related issues. For example, vegetarians, members of the National Audubon Society or other ‘bird-watching’ groups, members of the Surfrider Association, Bay Watch or other such environmental groups who may already be aware of the crisis and who can influence others to attend meetings, and then let peer pressure go to work to draw in others.

I think the trick is how to bring together and form the ‘core’ group in each community — and how to begin the dialogue. And, I think each community will be different because of cultural background, so the process is sort of feel your way along and try to ‘let it happen’ rather than ‘make it happen’ for those trying to set up groups. It seems to me that there should be some sort of ‘group facilitator’ training available on the Internet to help new facilitators get started.

Bullfrog Films also is an excellent source for video presentations that can stimulate dialogue.

These films can be rented for a nominal price and shown at a ‘pot luck’ dinner gathering at someone’s home.

As to your comment: “All the dialog in the world will have no affect if it is not anchored in the physical sciences–and I see nothing of that in these posts.”

This is the part that is made visible through a website into which all of the community learning and information centers can tap into for information that will ‘guide’ the dialogue when necessary. In other words, the website becomes the ‘distribution’ center.

I think these groups have to be structured as ‘co-learning’ groups much as the list is structured here where there is no teacher up in the front of the room type education going on. It has to be ‘experiential learning’ where the learner can go out into the community and immediately apply knowledge as it is acquired through dialogue in conjunction with information provided by the website.

There are going to be both failures and successes here and this is an important part of the network due to immediate feedback and data sharing capabilities made possible via Internet linking. As communities learn how to accomplish tasks they can convey the results to other communities where the tasks can be duplicated with modifications for location specifics ASAP.

As new information from whatever source is made available it can be disseminated ASAP through the network so that immediate appropriate action can be taken wherever need be. This creates the shift from “politicing” to effective management.

The positive note on this is that there are 50 million Cultural Creatives here in the United States who want change, are eager to learn, have some vague idea of where it is they want to go, but don’t know how to get there. Once this gets started in the U.S. it can make the leap to other countries around the world.

And the obvious thing is the government is not going to help with this; we-the-people have to organize civic society into a legal viable representative Body to ensure that we have a voice that is heard in tandem around the world.

This movement started with the protests in Seattle; it is now time to take it to another level.

ECO is a pseudonym of Marguerite Hampton, an activist and writer with the Turtle Island Institute.

Read more about the Fossil Fuel Depletion Crisis and Global Warming.

On Friday, I featured an article by activist and writer Marguerite Hampton, writing under the psuedonym ECO, who has recently joined the Energy Resources Yahoo Group. The focus there is on the fossil fuel depletion crisis, global warming and the human overpopulation crisis. Today she responds to another questioner from that group.

Moving Beyond the Talk

ECO

John Warner asks: Eco – I am curious how you are following your own prescriptions for the future by living outside the Global Monetocracy System.

John, you bring up some very good points here. I can only respond to you by saying that it will take a long, long time before any of us are able to thoroughly extract ourselves from the system, at least as long as the system holds sway. To use a very crude expression, ‘the system literally has us by the balls’ and as painful as being in the system is, extraction is equally painful since those in charge of the system aim to keep is in it.

However, there are growing numbers of people around the world trying to extract themselves and I consider myself to be among these. This growing movement is labeled “The Cultural Creatives” movement by values researchers Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson. It is estimated that there are 50 million of us here in the United States and possibly another 150 million worldwide, as revealed by David C. Korten in his book, “The Post-Corporate World,” who want change.

Let me quote from authors Roy Madron and John Jopling in their book: “GAIAN Democracies – Redefining Globalization and People Power“. And I want to note before beginning that whatever, if we continue to have a world, it will be a globalized world unless we want to go back to a world without communications. The question is: “What kind of a globalized world do we want? The kind we have today or one based on social, environmental, and economic justice, which could lead to world peace?

The new paradigm as being proposed by Madron and Jopling rests on the thesis that:

1) Gaia is a system of interacting biological and material subsystems that have co-evolved together over billions of years and depend on each other.

2) Human beings are a species that has evolved like any other species, with all that implies in terms of interdependence, self organization and the other characteristics of evolved systems.

3) The Gaian system as a whole appears to be approaching one of its periodic system shifts, a process which our industrial and agricultural activity is accelerating.

It is widely recognized outside of the elites (who run the GMS) that our industrial and economic systems must be reconfigured to work with natural systems, instead of treating them as inexhaustible resources. Our human societies must somehow reconnect with nature.

The characteristics of Gaia as a system, and of human beings and human societies as sub-systems of Gaia are deeply significant in relation to democracy. The capacity of Gaian systems to self-organize is the key to their survival and adaptation.  Our democratic systems need to be configured so as to aim toward achieving ordered relationships between the self-organized actions of the members of a particular democratic system, the democracy of which they are a part, and the Gaian system to which we all belong. Many will optimistically agree that “Potentially at least, we have the intelligence to learn how to work with Gaia, rather than undermining her.” The intelligence? Yes. But systems for co-learning how to use it? No. Under the Global Monetocracy there is no possibility whatsoever of that potential being realized. The only chance, we believe, of averting the disaster a Gaian systems-shift will spell for the human family, is a system-shift in our democracies. In that sense, we are in a race to reconfigure our democratic systems before Gaia launches on her own systems shift. All we can hope is that Gaia that does not get there first. (End of quote.)

Madron and Jopling go on to write that we have no way of knowing whether the Gaian systems shift will result in a Little Ice Age or what form it will take. They also note that the shift is an example of Gaia’s balancing feedback mechanisms in operation, and that because of the phenomena of systems lag, what we are experiencing may be irreversible, but we have not yet caught on to that in definitive terms. However, there are those on this list who feel that this is the case.

Their plan for system change runs along some of the same lines as those of Jay Earley. And, they emphasize that a new paradigm cannot come about without the input of all citizens. They note that under the Global Monetocracy System the value consensus of the elite ensures that the GM’s purpose is presented as an inevitable fact of life. Both Gaian Democracies and Conscious Action seek to involve we-the-people, and my hope is to see a global civic society that is legally enabled as a true representative of the people.

Madron and Jopling go on to note that “If today’s Global Monetocracy still holds sway, the consequences of the Gaian shift are likely to be horrific. I suspect more and more that the latter is true.

Whatever the outcome, people are going to need support from one another in getting through this phase in society. Michael Ellis, M.D. and I see community learning and information centers as being the vehicle through which we could disseminate information on the need for social change at an international level. Both Madron and Jopling, and Jay Earley along with members of his group have expressed interest in community learning and information centers as the means for bringing people together in small groups and disseminating information through the network thusly created.

There are people in every country around the world who are tired of oppression and want to be free. What we need to do is to encourage these people in establishing community learning and information centers where people can come together for discussion in face-to-face meetings at the micro level. Then we need to connect these dots via the Internet so we have a fully integrated world society that acts like a ‘global brain’ administer to its neural networks and creating a feedback loop that takes into account ’cause’ and ‘effect’.

What is envisioned here is a change from a mechanistic way of life to a more holistic and organic way.

You mentioned the word ‘leader’ here John, and there can be no leaders in this because none of us has the ability to lead — this challenge is too humongous. What is better is that we are all part of ‘co-learning’ groups where information is shared and discussed as it is here. Lists like ER serve a very vital purpose and Tom is to be congratulated on his willingness to take over and moderate the list. He does an excellent job here that serves us all well. I am here like everyone else, to learn and share. We’ve never faced a challenge like this before; we don’t know how to handle it — we can only learn as we go along. In learning, like the baby taking its first steps, we’re going to fall down and have to pick ourselves up and begin all over, hopefully using experience as a tool to make the next step better.

What is necessary is for us to take action on ‘knowledge gained’ through co-learning groups, and I believe that can only come about through linking groups like this, which are on the leading edge of discovery, to face-to-face groups in communities around the world.

ECO is a pseudonym of Marguerite Hampton, an activist and writer with the Turtle Island Institute.

Read more about the Fossil Fuel Depletion Crisis and Global Warming.

Reposted from The New Colonist. Thanks to Marguerite Hampton for the link.

Ghawar Is Dying

Chip Haynes

“Ghawar is dying.”Could those three simple words signal the beginning of the end for the industrialized human civilization on Planet Earth? No one in a position of knowledge or authority has uttered them publicly yet, nor are they likely to for a few years to come. So we do have some time–but not much. Then again, they may have been said quietly two years ago and we would never know. Life’s funny that way. Too bad this isn’t a laughing matter.

Some two hundred kilometers east of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is a stretch of uninhabited and unremarkable desert in the Empty Quarter. This hot, desolate landscape sits above the largest oil field in the world: the Ghawar. It’s a big chunk of nothing one hundred and fifty miles long and twenty-five miles wide, but thousands of meters below its surface lie seventy billion barrels of oil patiently waiting to be pumped out. They’ve waited for millions of years. A few more won’t matter. And after that? After that, Ghawar will no longer be dying. It will be dead. Nothing left but sand and sinkholes.

Before you sit back, all smug and comfy with that seventy billion barrel figure, let me do a bit of quick math for you: that’s only an 875 day supply of oil for the world at the current rate of use. (And that rate rises every year, just as the Ghawar’s not unlimited oil reserves get lower.) Admittedly, the Ghawar is not our only source of oil. (And unless you happen to be Saudi, its not even your oil at all, now is it?) Still, the Ghawar is The Big One, and when it goes, things will change–forever. The only questions are: When will it happen, and how will we know?

The when is easy, if vague: it could happen at any time from two years ago to twenty years from now. But howwill we know? That’s a far more difficult question to answer.

I can picture a Mercedes Unimog lumbering alongside pipelines in the desert, stopping at each well head. At each stop, a man climbs down from the machine and walks over to the well. He looks and records a number from the gauge, then returns to the truck. This scene plays out over and over. It would take days to record all the numbers from the wells in the Ghawar. Still, it must be done. Those hand-written numbers are given to a field technician who dutifully records them, one well at a time, in a computer database. All that data gets sent to the Saudi government, where the numbers are studied, analyzed, and agonized over. If the figures are the same as or higher than the last figures, life is good. If not, then what?

What if the Ghawar IS dying? It would be easy enough to play with the numbers for a year or two–until the decline rate starts to speed up and the loss can’t be hidden. After that? Plan B might call for a declared “voluntary reduction” in oil production to “stabilize the market at the optimum level.” Yeah, right. How in the world would you ever know exactly how much oil is being pumped or shipped from a country half way around the world to other countries you’ve never seen? The answer is obvious: You wouldn’t. You never will. C’est la vie.

Somewhere in Los Angeles, on quite literally the other side of the world, an SUV pulls into a gas station and the driver gets out. The pump is turned on and a gas tank is filled. Sure, it cost more here at this big, fancy franchise than it did over at that little independent station, but the indy was closed today. Matter of fact, hasn’t it been closed for about a week now? What’s up with that? Ah, well. At least it’s not that much more. What’s an extra buck or two to fill the tank? No big deal. Unless Ghawar is dying, in which case it is a very big deal indeed–and will get considerably bigger before it’s all over. Maybe this was a sign of a weakening pulse?

You’re Invited to the Funeral

Measured up against the big scheme of things, the death of Ghawar and our oil-powered industrial civilization will fall somewhere between the Black Plague of 14th Century Europe and the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Unlike the plague, this will effect humans world-wide, but unlike the meteor, it will effect only humans. Chickens may some day cross the road with impunity. Animals both large and small will prosper (Hey, you try whaling in a row boat!) And the earth will undoubtedly cool off a bit. Too bad we all won’t be here to enjoy it.

With the death of Ghawar will undoubtedly come the deaths of humans. Many humans, it would seem, the result of probably unavoidable wars for the last remaining oil to the much-predicted pandemics and mass starvation. Estimates on the sustainable limit to humans on this planet have ranged from an utterly dismal 1/70th of the current population (about 100 million) to an almost cheerful (by comparison) two billion. Keep in mind there’s six billion of us here right now, so some of you will have to leave. You’ll stay for the funeral, though, won’t you? I mean, after all, Ghawar is dying.

I don’t expect to be told. Politics and the global economy being what they are these days, I really can’t picture anyone standing up in front of a row of television cameras and announcing to the world that the largest field of crude oil known to man is, in fact, drying up. What’s Arabic for, “Ghawar is dying”? It doesn’t matter. It’s a phrase we’ll never need to know–or hear. If it is the biggest, it will also be the last. By the time Ghawar begins to die–and by the time we hear about it–hundreds of other oil fields all over the world will also be dead and gone. Ghawar will still be pumping crude oil at an impressive rate as the industrial world of man comes to a creaking, painful halt. That’s the irony of it, you see: by the time the Ghawar starts to run dry, we will have either found another way to get things done or simply stopped doing them. There’s a very good chance that the last of the oil in the Ghawar will remain in the ground, untouched and unneeded, forever.

So is the Ghawar dying? Does it matter? There may come a time when all the SUVs in Los Angeles will roll to a tank-dry halt. After the riots and the wars, after the yelling and screaming and dying, what’s left of humanity (if we have any humanity left) will stand up, dust itself off and get on with Life. The Ghawar, virtually unknown today, will be all but forgotten by then. The troubles of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East will cease to be a common feature of the nightly news, as they would no longer have anything to offer the West–nothing left to fight over. Just footnotes in a history book.

Cries and Whispers

Maybe what’s called for here, as Blutto Blutowski so eloquently put it, is a stupid and futile gesture that could serve as a mind-bite for the masses–some bit of mysterious innuedno that could spread like backfence gossip or a clever teaser ad. Tell people the world is running out of oil and they glaze like a donut. We know the direct approach doesn’t work. We have to be subtle. Devious. Underhanded. But without any actual outright lying. (The truth is, after all, so much more annoying!) So how about bumper stickers? Everybody reads them when they’re stuck in traffic or stopped at a light. You do. I do. And if you read it on a bumper sticker, it must be true, right? All we need now is a whole pile of “Ghawar is Dying” bumper stickers. It need not say any more than that. The truth is always mysterious and seldom obvious. Let ‘em figure it out for themselves. Of course, the ultimate irony would be to see that bumper sticker on a big SUV–the very thing that’s draining the Ghawar to death. That’s right up there with “Honk if you hate noise pollution”! HA!

Ghawar is dying. If you whisper it quietly, maybe people will listen. If not, the approaching silence will get their attention soon enough.

Visit The New Colonist. Write the author Chip Haynes.

Read more about the Fossil Fuel Depletion Crisis.