January to June 2006 was the warmest first half of the year in the
continental U.S. since record-keeping began in 1895, and the
sixth-warmest in the world as a whole, according to the National
Climatic Data Center. Alaska, far eastern Europe, and parts of Russia
posted cooler-than-average temperatures, but the rest of the Northern
Hemisphere was right toasty. The U.S. average temperature in the first
half of 2006 was 51.8 degrees, 3.4 degrees above the 20th-century
average. And heeere's summer: Excessive heat warnings have been issued
in many cities across the country as temperatures are hitting three
digits; nearly half of the contiguous U.S. was in moderate-to-extreme
drought as of June. "It's not supposed to be hot like this," says Connie
Clayton, a longtime resident of Frazier, Colo., the nation's
self-proclaimed icebox at an elevation of 8,550 feet. "Lately there have
been evenings when you could sit outside at 10 p.m. without a coat. All
my life I couldn't do that."
Drop that apocalyptic vision and start imagining a positive future
By Karen Hurley
11 Jul 2006
Back at the turn of the millennium, the local government I was working
for asked community members to contribute their vision of the
municipality in the year 2025. As an environmental planner, I attended
the community's presentations with some interest.
One group that responded was a gifted-students' club from an elementary
school. In their envisioned future, they imagined a community with only
indoor parks. Beyond these parks, there would be no trees, no plants, no
birds, and no animals. Freshwater would be gone, because lakes and
streams would either be dried up or too polluted to support life;
drinking water would have to be created from desalinization plants on
the coast. In the future these children predicted, universities and
colleges would be closed because everyone would learn -- alone --
through their personal computers.
As the children spoke, I sat with tears rolling down my cheeks. Had I
really just heard what they'd said? Had the appreciative and encouraging
municipal council heard the same thing? Why would children who lived in
an idyllic natural environment -- surrounded by trees, a rich diversity
of plants and lush gardens, abundant wildlife including deer and
cougars, large forested parks, and fish-bearing streams -- imagine a
future that was ecologically dead?
The answer may be because this is the future collectively envisioned by
most everyone, including scientists, technology pundits, fiction and
documentary filmmakers, writers, advertisers, video-game producers, and
those of us whose careers are devoted to trying to protect the planet.
Perhaps these children envisioned a future in which their community was
dead because that's the future they're taught is inevitable.
I fully understand this despair. I hit a wall of it straight-on during
my tenure as an environmental planner. In fact, I remember saying things
like, "Yes, we will hit total ecological collapse, but our job is to
ensure that as many species as possible live beyond it." Now I see how
harmful such words are.
Somehow, we need to begin to envision ecologically sound and socially
just futures that reflect the great diversity of all beings, including
humans. We must insist on having a say in what our futures look like. We
do not have to accept the singular vision being created by those in
power. This singular vision of the future is hyper-urban, with decaying
cities, polluted air, and corporate and technological dominance. There
is not a speck of nature. White men are still in charge. And then there
are those damn flying cars.
This isn't the future I want, nor is it one I am working hard to create
in my community. My vision of the future includes birds, trees, and
clean flowing streams; organic, small-scale farms and lots of bicycles;
conversations with neighbors at local stores and engaging educational
institutions; clean air, strong women, diverse communities, truly
democratic decision making, and happy children. No flying cars.
Some people will dismiss my vision as idealistic or unrealistic. But as
scholar Ivana Milojevic of Metafuture
<http://www.metafuture.org/index.html> reminds us, the dominant,
dystopic vision of the future is seen as more "realistic" simply because
it is talked about more, visualized more, and analyzed more. It is given
infinite time and space in the media. It serves those in control; it is
a continuation of their world. It's endorsed by our corporate culture,
because people who have been made to feel powerless to contribute to a
better world simply give up, becoming self-absorbed in golf games, video
games, war games. Becoming relentless consumers to fill the void --
without challenging a thing.
Some people will say that my image of the future is counterproductive;
that the doom and gloom is necessary to keep us all on our toes, to get
us to respond to the warnings. I understand this. I have witnessed how
politicians are unwilling or unable to take action until there is a
crisis in front of them. But it doesn't have to be an either/or. Yes, a
good cautionary tale is a powerful thing. What makes me crazy is that a
cautionary tale is all we get. We also need the alternative. We need
hopeful visions to give us something to work for, as opposed to always
working against something. We need a diverse crop of sustainable ways
forward.
Back to the children who imagined their future as dead: I went to visit
them a few months later, and told them about the work I was doing at the
local level, some of the amazing work being done by teams of people at
the regional and federal levels, by volunteers, and by nonprofit groups.
And they completely shifted. They reworked their vision to include
flowing streams, trees, birds, animals, and happy people. They just
needed to know that there were adults making positive change toward a
flourishing earth. And then they asked me how they could help. So we set
to work on a plan to create a native garden in their schoolyard.
As peace activist Elise Boulding puts it, "The sheer difficulty of
imagining a future sustainability different from the present is one of
our greatest problems as a society." Let's create, in the space that
Grist provides <http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/7/11/12610/5667>,
a dialogue about our worries and our hopes. Let's share stories about
what is important for us to put in place for the future, and what's
happening in our communities now that provides hopeful ways forward. It
will be hard work to imagine sustainable and just futures, but it is
time to begin.
- - - - - - - - - -
Karen Hurley is an interdisciplinary Ph.D. student, eco-feminist
futurist, "retired" environmental planner, ex-restaurateur, and board
member of a community organic farm. She works daily at baby steps toward
enabling sustainable and just futures.
"Liberty can not be preserved without general knowledge among people."
(August 1765) John Adams
[permaculture] 2006 is already setting heat records,
Saor Stetler, 07/18/2006