Creating Change is Like Gardening

It was a sad day for me. I discovered yesterday morning how difficult it is to change a norm, even if it's a simple change (with not much sacrifice attached to it) and even when making the change would be a gift to the children and their future.

For almost a year, I've been a member of a group of teachers who are interested in social justice issues. I sit on the sub-committee that deals with environmental justice issues, so it's normal that we would bring forward environmentally related issues. 

Yesterday I presented a simple motion that we transition to meatless meals at our meetings (which would amount to a couple of lunches, the three times per year when we meet). The supporting statement explained that eating lower on the food chain (note no use of the V word) has many benefits.

My rationale was that this would lower our carbon footprint and set an example to other educationally-focused groups. It truly is the easiest way we can reduce our personal and collective greenhouse gas emissions. 

Industrial livestock processing (veganspeak: the inhumane torture and slaughter of almost 30 billion animals every year in the USA alone -- but I didn't use that language, because it's often considered inflammatory) (imagine how it feels to the animals, then compare that to the "pain" we feel when we "feel their pain" -- we're such wimps at times, eh?) is one of the most carbon-intensive and environmentally damaging human activities on the planet, polluting water, degrading land, and spewing carbon, nitrous oxide and 35-40% of anthropogenic methane emissions. 

It took me three meetings to get up the nerve to put forward this resolution. I guess I already knew what the reaction would be. And I was right. To be fair, I was encouraged by how many people spoke in favour. But we use a consensus model and that means that one person holding up a red card can scuttle a motion. Four or five people held up red cards. One person tearfully admitted she's not ready to give up meat yet. (For six lunches per year?) Another said she didn't want to lose her freedom of choice. (Forget that billions of people are losing their freedom to choose to live on a habitable planet.) 

The motion was defeated. I was defeated. Afterwards, I got some advice and had some helpful discussions. I'll rework and reword my motion and present it again the next time we meet. But the bittersweet ending came during our farewell go-round. One of the no-voters thanked the group for opening her up to new ideas that haven't been within her realm of consciousness. "I might even start eating less meat," she said. "But not quite yet."

What do I take from this experience? Creating change is more like gardening than building. We have to plant our seeds (the earlier the better) and then be patient. A lot of the process is outside of our control ... though definitely within our circle of influence. Time for me to tend those seedlings.

p.s. Speaking of food growing, the news from drought-afflicted California grows ever more terrifying!

From 7 States Running Out Of Water: "At [the current] usage rate, California has less than two years of water remaining."

And this, from Cows, Rice Fields and Big Agriculture Consume Well Over 90% of California's Water: "Agriculture uses 93% of California's water and almost half of that is devoted to growing alfalfa for shipment to the Far East, mainly China, to feed their cows. California is, in effect, shipping almost half its precious water to China."

161 Days Left - Time is Running Out: Kofi Annan's TCK, TCK, TCK Campaign

Just a short one today (we're joining a bike ride send-off for our young friends who are cycling across Canada this summer to raise the climate change emergency alert — follow their Pedal for the Planet journey).

Climate Justice Allies including Desmond Tutu, Rajendra Pachauri, Wangari Matthai and Jeffery Sachs, among others, have joined former UN Secretary General Koffi Annan in the TCK TCK TCK Time for Climate Justice campaign.

This is a brand new, global, new media-centred (Web 2.0, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Youtube, etc.) campaign to tell the world that time is running out to deliver climate justice at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 15) in Copenhagen, December 2009, where negotiators from the world's nations will attempt to finalize a successor to the Kyoto Protocol (and so far, they're failing miserably).

The campaign's goal is to recruit Climate Allies from around the world. The more that general public participants engage with the campaign, the more their status as a Climate Ally increases, making the campaign interactive and engaging (at least for young people and new-media-savvy oldsters), and securing a commitment of attention and assistance for the cause.

*****

Sometimes people think that "just talking about it" is a waste of time. My research shows that "finally talking about it" can be viewed as action. By talking about it, you are

• reinforcing your own understanding of the issue
• raising awareness
• spreading the word
• teaching others
• making it okay for others to talk about it
• getting it into the public discourse.

The "it" in this case is climate justice, something that human beings have never had to think about before now (the climate was the climate, every region of the world had its own —stable for the last 10,000 or so years — and human beings did not affect it).

The notion of climate justice is asking those of us living in greenhouse gas-spewing developed nations to recognize that we have wrecked havoc with the global climate, and that the impacts of this climate chaos are hitting the least developed regions of the world first - and to do something to mitigate these impacts.

But our day has come; to wit, the severe drought affecting agriculture in the southwestern USA. "There but for the grace of God go I" will not apply to us much longer.

What we do to the children of the poor and "climate innocent,"

we do to our own children.

Tck, tck, tck.