Honoring Multiple Perspectives

It seems to me that there are a number of wicked problems facing the world today. There are challenges in the area of environment, economy, and society that are so exceedingly complex that no one person, or no one perspective, could possibly provide a useful solution.

Take, for example, the possibility of land managers collaborating on how to respond to climate change accross a particular landscape. Climate change is definitely a complex and controversial issue. There are myriad perspectives including

• The climate is not changing in any significant way, it has always been variable
• The climate is changing and it is part of a larger natural cycle
• The climate is changing and it is caused or exagerated by human activities
• The climate is getting warmer
• The climate is getting colder

How much agreement is necessary in order for people to collaborate on designing livable solutions to today's challenges?

In any particular region, land is managed by a number of different stakeholders including tribes, federal, state, and local government agencies, corporations, non-profit organizations, families, and individuals. Each of these groups has its own unique set of priorities and objectives for how and why the land should be managed. Even if all the land owners in a region agreed that it was strategically important and mutually beneficial to collaborate on a project, and even if they agreed upon what the challenges were, and even if they agreed upon what the solutions were, it would still be complex to balance the multiple missions, multiple objectives, and multiple organizational policies, in order to collaborate effectively.

But when collaboration is really the only solution to a problem, we can't simply ignore it due to the complexity and the challenges.

Lately I've been attempting to map the complexity of the multiple perspectives on climate change. The effort has been deeply transformative for me, and I wonder if sharing some of my own learning would be of service to anyone else. I'm hoping to have the time to blog a little more frequently than I have of late. My intention is to try and find ways to share something large and complex in small and easily digestible chunks. Even if it doesn't prove to be of value to anyone else, it will certainly be a useful excercise to me.

A True American Hero

Mike Parker, the disabled vet in Indiana who called me with a proposal for a wood pellet manufacturing plant in order to create jobs and develop renewable energy, has impressed the heck out of me with his determination. Check out my earlier post, How Exactly Does One Participate with Government, to catch up on this story.

When Mike called me I sent a few emails around in the Forest Service to find out exactly with who he ought to speak. Within 2 emails I had caught up with Mike North, an Enterpriser with the Forest Service Enterprise known as TEAMS. It happens that Mike North works for the National Woody Biomass Coordinator. I'm not sure whether they've spoken with each other yet, but in the mean time, Mike Parker has been busy!

Mike fanagled himself an invitation to Philadelphia to participate in the Middle Class Task Force meeting hosted by Vice President Biden. He also got himself on C-Span a few days before driving to Philadelphia. Mike and I talked the evening before he left for Philadelphia. As I've mentioned in other posts, I feel so compelled to action by Obama's vision that I find I can't help but support Mike Parker. During our evening phone call I helped him craft an "elevator speech", write a question in case he got to ask one at the meeting, discover how to make business cards with his MS Works program, and gave him some techniques to help him stay calm and avoid being stressed or anxious.

He just never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday before the meeting in Philadelphia he got an email that the EPA had declined his proposal. (Somehow he'd gotten 20 minutes on the phone with the Director of Grants at EPA). At the meeting there was no opportunity to ask questions. In his frustration, as the meeting ended, Mike dove out toward Biden. He was quickly surrounded by secret service men, but he recovered and was able to speak directly with the Vice President! Mr. Biden took a copy of the email from the EPA (the one which declined the grant application) as well as taking down Mike's phone numbers.

Mike was elated today as he relived the tale. He said that even if his idea never goes anywhere, and even if they don't build the manufacturing plant in Andrews, IN -- a town which lost 4 factories over the recent past -- Mike is satisfied that he carried this vision as high as any man could... he carried his vision straight to the Vice President of the United States.

Mike Parker, you are my hero!

"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine"

I have more hope about the world than ever before. One big reason I feel so hopeful is because of all the turbulence and chaos. That might sound wierd, but it's true. I have an M.A. in Chaos Theory and Social Change. The reason I pursued that degree is that when I first discovered Chaos Theory it completely transformed my life. (I just love science... and my favorite theories are Chaos Theory, Gaia Theory, and the idea that the universe is a Holograph).

Chaos Theory is comprised of these simple tennets:

1. Turbulence precedes a jump to a new level of order
2. Feedback generates form
3. All systems are universal and self-similar
4. There is a sensitive dependence on initial conditions

I'm not going to bother with a lengthy explanation or trying to prove these ideas to you. My personal experience with growth and transformation is that when the 'poopie hits the fan' in my life it's feedback that I could make new choices and hopefully avoid the same kinds of problems in the future. This came after noticing that I was dealing with the same crap over and over again. Like attracting the same unhealthy relationships into my life. There had to be some reason I kept dating people who really were not interested in marriage and family. Perhaps it was because I hadn't made up my own mind about what I really wanted.

It was just about 10 years ago that I discovered Chaos Theory and since then everything is very different. I now see all turbulence as an opportunity. Everything which used to fall into the category of problem or catastrophe is now viewed as a gift. For example, take this ice storm we had which qualifies as a natural disaster. We went 19 days without power or running water. There were so many gifts, like neighbors coming together, we learned how prepared we are and how to be even more prepared, we stepped up our quest for renewable energy sources, my dad's building a wind generator, the storm was amazingly beautiful, and I got to spend lots of time with my family while I wasn't working.

Oh sure, there were challenges. And yes, there were 2 days of the 19 when I felt pretty depressed. But that was a gift as well.

If there was one thing I could give to any and every person on the planet it would be optimism. Choosing to percieve the bullshit as a gift is so much better for my health and well-being. Maybe that's what R.E.M. meant when they sang "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." There are a number of dysfunctional systems, patterns, and beliefs which I am ready to see come to an end. And as I watch them crumble, I feel fine.

No power, yet energized

Fifteen days ago we lost our electricity during an ice storm which hit Arkansas and Kentucky. We still don't have power, but I'm presently on a business trip to the Coronado National Forset and am blogging from the hotel. Many of the towns in our area have power again, but in this part of the country our populations are widely dispersed. We have 40 acres and live 6 miles from town. All 6 of those miles are dirt roads. Our driveway alone is one mile. Our electricity is provided by a rural electric cooperative which serves Searcy and Van Buren Counties. Even with the assistance of outside electrical workers, there are hundreds of poles down and thousands of places where the lines are lying on the ground -- just in our county alone.

Our intention has always been to employ renewable resources such as wind and solar power. It has also been our dream to build with alternative green technologies such as cob or straw bale. In 2005 when we first moved to the Ozarks, we built a standard wooden frame house and wired it to the electrical grid. Despite the obvious clash with our intentions, this was our best option for a number of reasons:

1. I telecommute and I needed to have a very stable office environment which would support all the office gizmos.
2. Cell phones don't work in our valley, and the only way to get a land line put in was along side the electric lines on the power poles.
3. The kind of construction techniques we want to employ are in general information and time intensive up front, so we needed time to research and plan our approach so that our creation is in harmony with the landscape and natural energy sources, such as passive solar.
4. I'm an only child and while my parents are quite young (in their 50s), our intention was that this first small house would become theirs as a part time home during retirement and a full-time home during the sunset years. (I think nursing homes are scary and sad).

Along with the regular aspects of living, working, and raising two kids we've been planning our next home since even before the paint dried on the current cottage. One thing we've done in order to prepare for the transition to renewable energy is to cut our power consumption by as much as possible. We use our central heat and air an average of 150 hours per year. We spend about $50 a month on electricity. We heat with a wood stove and open the windows in summer.

A number of positive things are coming out of this experience, and I'll likely mention those in other posts. One which I do want to mention now is that I've seen a complete shift in my father around these green concepts.

Dad is an electrician and a heating/air specialist. He's brilliant and skilled in a number of other trades. He and Steven built our house (too bad I wasn't blogging then, that was an amazing adventure). Like many other people in his age group and profession, he didn't see any reason to change our lifestyles. They were up for a visit a week before the ice storm hit. During that time we had a long family conversation about our plans for building a cob house. Even though we'd talked about it many times before, Dad was listening in a different way because he's facing his second lay-off in 2 years. (He was a construction inspector in Ft. Myers, FL - the town which Obama will visit tommorrow). When he is laid off the second time (not if because there is no building industry in FL) he's going to come up and help us build the next house.

I think that 15 days of my mom worrying about her grand babies, as well as his own concerns for our well-being, AND his desire to support us even if he would choose standard building methods, have led to a most amazing development. Tonight he announced that he's found the average air speeds and is going to build us a wind generator. He's been searching the web for plans, formulas, and the like and has a sound strategy for engineering his own design.

I can't tell you how overjoyed I am about this. Not only because the transition to renewable energy has been a daunting learning curve, but especially because it's evidence of the kind of deep, global shift in awareness which I have been praying for since the early 90s. He shared this with me over the phone after we'd both watched Obama's first press conference, and after an entire day of supporting the Coronado National Forest in preparing to recieve a flood of economic stimulus money which the agency plans to use to create jobs by letting contracts to reduce hazardous fules (wild fire prevention) AND developing renewable energies around the use of woody biomass as a power source.

It is finally all coming together. We're realizing the inextricable connectedness between environment, economy, and society. This is why I'm so hopeful. These disasters, though painful, are providing us with the necessary feedback to transform our entire planetary experience. Hallelujah!