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Thanks David - interesting
I think the author has intelligently picked out the weaknesses (from a public education
point of view) of the word "sustainable" and in the American context "Real Homeland
Security" might be worth a concerted propaganda drive, to try to undermine the
right wing hold on people's fears. (A bit like "tough on causes of crime".)
I also like that she understands that in the end the thing that will wake people up is that
significant climate change could mean an end to the food security we have had for +/- 1-2
centuries.
Wouldn't it be great, though, to find something that would inspire a whole generation to act,
not from fear, but from more inspiring motives, like Kennedy did.
And isn't it hard to do that with climate change when poverty is now so "sexy". Worse still,
if we succeed, there will be no "glamour result". Just a gradual shift to more sustainable
societies. Only Joanna Macy could make an exciting epic out of this kind of political work.
Perhaps we need to get her talking to large gatherings of 2nd year students? Can anyone
suggest where to find such gatherings?
Andy Ray Taylor
----- Original message ----- From: "David Ballard" <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 09:01:26 +0100 Subject: FW: New Orleans disaster and climate change awareness
I asked a question on the Balaton Group list
(a sustainability network) as to why there have been so few links between Katrina
and climate change, given the recent Nature article establishing that hurricane
activity is indeed linked to climate change. This was one of the responses –
people might be interested in the argument and might wish to respond to the original
author.
From: Balaton Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Mathis Wackernagel
Sent: 06 September 2005 03:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re:
Dear Balatoners:
This
posting from Susan Strong (Metaphor Project) councils progressive US groups to
reframe our messaging and take advantage of the new potential openings.
Warmest wishes to you all, Mathis
Metaphor Project (MP) Challenge: Reframe Homeland Security
Now!
Dear MP
Network,
This post
contains three parts:
1.THE
REFRAMING PROJECT: (Please excuse all the caps below—it’s a way to
avoid drowning good stuff in print.)
2. NEWEST
MP CRITERIA FOR SELF-CHECKING YOUR OWN REFRAMES: Not on website yet! Print out
now for use later.
3.WHY
DUMP MAINSTREAMING THE WORD “SUSTAINABILITY” FOR NOW? Answers
to objections, A WORD ON REFRAMING THE “ENDANGERED SPECIES”
APPROACH & MINI-BOOK REVIEW: Andres Edwards, The Sustainability
Revolution.
1.THE
REFRAMING PROJECT:
Sadly,
via hurricane Katrina we have seen once again the power of nature to roundly
punish us if we destroy OUR NATURAL SAFETY NETS--draining and developing the
wetlands that protected the city of
But this
great tragedy with its tight links to all our other problems has created an
unprecedented educational opportunity for progressive advocates to reach the American
mainstream. While we are donating and volunteering, we must not let it
pass. Right now vast numbers of Americans actually get it a little bit
that REAL HOMELAND SECURITY also means living in ways that fit, not violate,
the natural order. (A recent CNN poll has found that 55% percent of the public
believes that the scale of Katrina is a result of global warming.) It is also
newly clear to the mainstream public that real homeland security involves
energy, food, and water security, as well as social justice, and maybe even a
bit more inclination to question THE IRAQI DISASTER.
SO WE
PROGRESSIVES CONCERNED ABOUT PEACE, JUSTICE AND ECOLOGICAL - SOCIAL
SUSTAINABILITY SHOULD RIGHT NOW BE MAKING UP LISTS OF ALL OF THE NEW POLICIES
OUR COUNTRY NEEDS AND REFRAMING THEM AS THE ESSENTIALS OF “REAL HOMELAND
SECURITY.” For example, we could be pointing out that real homeland
security means protecting the green belts around our cities where food could be
grown if need be—that food security is a big part of real homeland
security. REPLACE THE WORD SUSTAINABLE IN YOUR LEXICON WITH “REAL
HOMELAND SECURITY” FOR NOW. (See last section for my answer to objection
to this advice.) In conversation, you can begin by asking the question,
“WHAT’S REAL HOMELAND SECURITY NOW?”
I invite
all of you to work on this. Please forward this post widely. If you create some
really good language, send it along and I’LL SEND IT BACK TO THE MP LIST
AFTER 9/20. But don’t wait to spread it around. The latest MP Criteria
List for checking your results yourself comes next.
2. NEWEST
MP CRITERIA FOR SELF-CHECKING YOUR OWN REFRAMES: Not on website yet! Print out
now.
Criteria for Successful Framing
l.. Which of your creations have "legs" or
"sex appeal" as they say in the advertising trade?
2. Which ones are mainstream accessible now? How do you know?
3. Are they fresh new combinations, surprising tweaks of the
familiar, or just the right conventional phrase or metaphor for the moment?
4. Are they concrete, not abstract? Do they create a
new category, the way frankenfood does?
5. Do they suggest a story or draw a picture? Are they
self-explanatory?
6. Do they connect with or make a comparison to something
familiar to most people?
7. Do the negative ones imply a potentially empowering
positive story? (Example: Treaty Trap implies that one could also get out of
it, go around it, warn people of it, spring it, stay out of it?)
8. Do they have rhythm, do they "jingle?" Say them
aloud to check
NOW THINK TWICE:
· Do your results
really pass the audience accessibility test?
· Do they have
audience appeal right now?
· Who might they
offend?
· Is it worth it?
3.WHY
DUMP MAINSTREAMING THE WORD “SUSTAINABILITY” FOR NOW?
I already
know that some will say the word sustainable or sustainability is gaining
acceptance in many circles. This is true, and fine for the circles where
it works. Nevertheless, it remains an abstract, multisyllabic, latinate
word suitable for well disposed abstract thinkers like us. But we require a
massive attitude change in this country and for that we need a popularly
accessible, big container frame that conveys all the ideas of sustainability in
a way that the majority of mainstream Americans can get. Nature as nemesis has
just given us that big container frame—real homeland security.
This week
I also came up with a good metaphor to explain the relationship between
linguistic niches where the word sustainability works and the vast arena of
public language-- it is THE METAPHOR OF THE LINGUISTIC WATERSHED. In the small
streams/niches upstream from the great river of mainstream public discourse,
one can and should use whatever language works for that particular audience.
But one should also sprinkle in the same big container frame used for the
broadest public audience. So what I am proposing is that we all use the phrase
"real homeland security" along with everything else our particular
audiences can hear.
Another
objection I have already heard to this suggestion is the idea that homeland
security is too tied to the anti-terrorist agenda of the Bush administration,
or that it is too close to their tactic of promoting fear. I believe Katrina
has blown a big hole in the first objection.
As for
the second, the same people who worry about relying on fear often favor the
precautionary principle. That is just another way of relying on a healthy and
sensible fear of the possible bad effects of our actions. There's a big
difference between fear mongering and calling attention to the fact that our
actions can lead to really bad effects. In the same breath, we should be
suggesting what we ought to do instead to create “real homeland
security.”
AS FOR
REFRAMING “THE ENDANGERED SPECIES APPROACH,” THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A
BETTER TIME FOR SHIFTING TO A “CANARY IN THE MINES” SPECIES
APPROACH. I know very well why we have done it the way we have so far, but the
general public may right now be more open to grasping an endangered local
ecosystems approach. With that, a “canary in the mines” frame for
species dying or disappearing signals danger coming for us too in the end, not
our only reason of course, but widely accessible.
I look
forward to receiving your reframes, comments, and suggestions, and replying
after 9/20.
MINI BOOK
REVIEW: I’d also like to acknowledge input I received in developing this
post from Andres Edwards, author of the new book, The Sustainability
Revolution. It is a “must have” encyclopedic, analytical
overview for those of us who have been promoting across the board
sustainability for years, plus an excellent introduction to it all for those
new to the subject and open to the language.
May we
move “real homeland security” forward in high gear now—before
it is too late. .
Susan
C. Strong, Ph.D.
Founder
The Metaphor Project
www.metaphorproject.org
************************************************************************
Mathis Wackernagel, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Global Footprint Network
tel.: +1-510-839-8879 x 105 (-0800 GMT)
fax: +1-510-251-2410
Global Footprint Network promotes a sustainable economy by
advancing the Ecological Footprint, a tool that makes sustainability
measurable. Together with our partners, we coordinate research, develop
methodological standards, and provide decision makers with robust resource
accounts to help the human economy operate within the Earth’s ecological
limits.
-----Original Message-----
From: Balaton Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Vicki Robin
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2005 9:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re:
I didn't say this! It was Robert Kennedy Jr. - the attribution
must have
disappeared when i cut and pasted it.
vicki
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Ballard" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "'Vicki Robin'" <[log in to unmask]>;
<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2005 8:33 AM
Subject: RE:
> Hi Vicky
>
> Well said! Do you have the 'Nature' reference? I read my
copy just before
> the holidays and have mislaid it.
>
> Where - if anywhere - do you see a platform from which such
statements can
> be made more generally in the
> with
> the work of the UK Climate Impacts Programme (www.ukcip.org.uk)
might
> provide some relatively non-controversial food for thought,
especially as
> far as UK East Coast flood defences against storm surges
are concerned
> (considered likely to be prohibitively expensive, but at
least serious
> discussion of what might be done about that is beginning).
But the
> hurricane
> dimension, despite Boscastle last year, is barely addressed
in the
> course.
>
> David
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vicki Robin [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 04 September 2005 16:08
> To: David Ballard; [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re:
>
> Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
>
>
>
>
> 08.29.2005
>
>
> "For They That Sow the Wind Shall Reap the
Whirlwind"
>
> As Hurricane Katrina dismantles
> recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley
Barbour played
> in
>
> derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush's
iron-clad
> campaign promise to regulate CO2.
>
> In March of 2001, just two days after EPA Administrator
Christie Todd
> Whitman's strong statement affirming Bush's CO2 promise
former RNC Chief
> Barbour responded with an urgent memo to the White House.
>
> Barbour, who had served as RNC Chair and Bush campaign
strategist, was now
> representing the president's major donors from the fossil
fuel industry
> who
> had enlisted him to map a Bush energy policy that would
>
>
>
> be friendly to their interests. His credentials ensured the
new
> administration's attention.
>
>
> The document, titled "Bush-Cheney Energy Policy &
CO2," was addressed to
> Vice President Cheney, whose energy task force was then
gearing up, and to
> several high-ranking officials with strong connections to
energy and
> automotive concerns keenly interested in the carbon dioxide
issue,
> including
>
> Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Interior Secretary Gale
Norton, Commerce
> Secretary Don Evans, White House chief of staff Andy Card
and legislative
> liaison Nick Calio. Barbour pointedly omitted the names of
Whitman and
> Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, both of whom were on
record supporting
> CO2
> caps. Barbour's memo chided these administration insiders
for trying to
> address global warming which Barbour dismissed as a radical
fringe issue.
>
>
> "A moment of truth is arriving," Barbour wrote,
"in the form of a decision
> whether this Administration's policy will be to regulate
and/or tax CO2 as
> a
>
> pollutant. The question is whether environmental policy
still prevails
> over
> energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with
Clinton-Gore." He derided
> the
>
> idea of regulating CO2 as "eco-extremism," and
chided them for allowing
> environmental concerns to "trump good energy policy,
which the country has
> lacked for eight years."
>
>
> The memo had impact. "It was terse and highly
effective, written for
> people
> without much time by a person who controls the purse
strings for the
> Republican Party," said John Walke, a high-ranking air
quality official in
> the
>
> On March 13, Bush reversed his previous position,
announcing he would not
> back a CO2 restriction using the language and rationale
provided by
> Barbour.
>
> Echoing Barbour's memo, Bush said he opposed mandatory CO2
caps, due to
> "the
>
> incomplete state of scientific knowledge" about global
climate change.
>
> Well, the science is clear. This month, a study published
in the journal
> Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the
increasing prevalence of
> destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming.
>
> Now we are all learning what it's like to reap the
whirlwind of fossil
> fuel
> dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged.
Our destructive
> addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the
> and--now--Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the
climate chaos we
> are
>
> bequeathing our children.
>
> In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that
hurricanes were likely
> to
>
> hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour's
memo that
> caused
>
> Katrina, at the last moment, to spare
> flailings for the
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Ballard" <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2005 12:13 PM
> Subject:
>
>
>> First of all, I would like to express my dismay at the
terrible scenes
>> unfolding in
>> to
>> be terrible suffering, on a par with (though not on
quite the same scale
>> as)
>> the terrible events that occurred around the Pacific at
Christmas. I can
>> hardly imagine what it is like to try to live without
water in 90 degree
>> heat. I hope that members of this list serve, and those
dear to them, are
>> all safe and that the situation will swiftly be made
tolerable for
>> survivors.
>>
>> I have been struck - despite the vocal criticism of the
Bush
>> administration
>> - by how few mentions there have been of the possible -
no, likely -
>> links
>> with climate change. (I am referring to the research
establishing links
>> between water temperature and hurricane frequency
published in Nature
>> magazine a couple of months ago - I do not have the
issue to hand to
>> quote
>> the precise reference). Any criticism that there has
been of the links
>> between policy and the causes of the disaster (as
opposed to the seeming
>> inadequacy of the response) has been linked to land use
and has hardly
>> mentioned climate change.
>>
>> The Worldwatch Institute has commented in the last few
minutes, to some
>> extent countering this trend:
>> http://www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2005/09/02.
However. as far as I can
>> tell from my electronic edition, the New York Times has
been silent on
>> the
>> links, and I have not heard or seen a word on the
>>
>> Given the still virulent political distrust of climate
change science in
>> much of the
>> spoken
>> more. But after last year's terrible flooding at
Boscastle in the
>> (which
>> I visited three weeks ago and is well on the way to
recovery) the press
>> were
>> discussing links to climate change almost immediately,
despite the links
>> being less clear cut.
>>
>> I would be interested to learn whether this issue is
being discussed at
>> all
>> in North American mainstream politics and - if not -
why people think
>> that
>> this might be and when, if at all, they think that the
links between
>> increased hurricane frequency and severity might be
appropriately
>> discussed.
>>
>> In the
>> and
>> over 85% think that it is happening. However fewer than
15% think that it
>> is
>> a present and serious danger (UK Government figures,
2002). In my view,
>> this
>> is the key transition in awareness (though it should
not be forced and
>> needs
>> to be handled with considerable care, and needs to be
developed further
>> to
>> address the systemic issues discussed by John Sterman
on this list in
>> 2002).
>>
>> I am interested because (a) (in my opinion)
>> establishing a tipping point phenomenon in
>>
>> having a somewhat similar effect in the
>> slave
>> ship Zong in 1782 (I think) seems to have been crucial
to the
>> parliamentary
>> process that eventually led to the ending of the slave
trade in the
>> 1807.
>>
>> (The Zong master threw more than 150 sick slaves into
the
>> drown
>> - they had reduced economic value though their lives
were not
>> threatened -
>> and then successfully sued the insurers for damages for
the loss of the
>> 'cargo'. Among other responses, the horrified Vice
Chancellor of
>>
>> University set an essay competition on the morality of
slavery which was
>> won
>> by the young William Clarkson who, with the support of
Pitt the Younger
>> and
>> then Wilberforce, was central to the eventual success
of the anti-slavery
>> movement in the
>>
>> David Ballard
>> (2000 meeting)
>>
>> Visiting Fellow, Centre for Action Research in
Professional Practice,
>>
>> and ...
>> Alexander, Ballard & Associates
>> Strategy and human change for environmental
sustainability
>> 05600 433801 - work
>> 01672 520561 - home
>> 07840 544226 - mobile
>> Skype: ballardd
>>
>>
>> --
>> No virus found in this incoming message.
>> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
>> Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.10.18/89 -
Release Date: 9/2/2005
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
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> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.10.18/89 - Release
Date: 9/2/2005
>
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Andy Ray Taylor is currently in Findhorn, Scotland and checking emails most weekdays. To reach him by phone: URGENT AND SHORT MESSAGES (a) pager 07666 778016 (b) text 07765 477305 (c) office phone 0845 058 0537 (tue-thur 9-11am) (d) home phone 0845 058 0532 (or Findhorn 01309 692292) LONG MESSAGES & CALLS Home phone - 0845 058 0532 (best times to catch me are 7-8am and around 10pm) from outside UK subsitute +44 in place of the first 0