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The Liminality

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February 16, 2021
Rest is a radical act! It’s so important to take a minute (or hour, or day, or week) from time to time. I don’t know about you but I feel like the last year of working from home has blurred the boundaries of what’s appropriate work wise, and it can be even more difficult to draw boundaries when your living is earned from something you love. In the sustainability industry there are big issues around pay because it’s seen as a passion that people have and also a ‘cause’ that people are willing to work on for free. The work will never be ‘done’ because fixing systems isn’t the work of one singular lifetime. Therefore it’s vital to recognise when it’s ‘enough’. Shifting away from extractive systems also means shifting away from extractive mindsets, labour must be adequately rewarded but we should also be working more sustainably not harder or longer. Automation and AI has long been predicted to ‘take over’ and reduce human labour, Keynes posited this in the 30s, that we would all be working 15 hour weeks. Studies show we’re actually working longer than ever and in what Graeber called ‘Bullshit Jobs’ (37% of UK workers think their job is meaningless). A 4 day week would be a game changer in terms of carbon reduction and giving people more time to volunteer and pursue hobbies, but what about service industries and other low paid jobs? I never use the term ‘low skilled’ only ‘low paid’, because if we’ve learnt anything the last year it’s that those jobs were the most valued and the least valued at the same time. We need a revolution of work and pay on the scale of the labour movements that have given us weekends and better pay and sick pay and rights. Knowing when to step back is a big middle finger to the extractive system, stepping off the conveyor sometimes and agreeing with Dolly that it’s ‘all taking and no giving’. So have that break, block out some time, and you’ll be changing the system one nap at a time. Those hippies at the *checks notes* IEA, produced a map towards net zero by 2050 and it looks like this. Note that it includes NO new oil, gas or coal from NOW (2021) meaning that any expansion or continued exploration by fossil fuel companies is not in line with net zero targets that make the Paris Agreement of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees achievable. By 2025 NO new gas boilers should be allowed. By 2035 NO new ICE cars will be sold, any new cars will be electric. It also includes a massive expansion of carbon capture and storage technology at a scale not currently available. We are now closer to 2050 than we are to 1990. For those of us that remember 1990, how radical have the changes been that we’ve seen in that time? Can we radically transform again? Because the only options left on the table right now are the radical ones. In 2050, will we be able to say we did it? What will your excuse be if we can’t? Will we tell the young people of 2050 how we built back better for people and planet? Or apologise? Don’t be overwhelmed by the challenge, fall in love with the solutions! Clean air, climate justice, healthy seas, biodiversity, thriving communities - let’s do this ✅ we really can’t wait anymore. Can you spot the ‘desire path’? Humans are very very cool. We’re constantly looking for new and easier ways of doing things, often subconsciously. So how do we make the sustainable and regenerative way the default way? Right now it’s often more expensive, complicated and requires conscious choices that place barriers in the way of action. We definitely require regulatory and legislative change that simply puts a stop to people and planet harming activities of the past. But don’t underestimate the power of forging new paths for others to follow, even though it doesn’t seem like the easiest way forward. Individual choices that reject the well trodden paths of consumption and stuff and instead break new ground with new paradigms of happiness and ‘success’. How do we ‘pave’ (metaphorically of course!) these new paths? By treading them. Often. Then one day someone looks at the old way and can’t believe anyone ever went there. What path are you on today? Today, at Biden’s international climate summit ahead of COP 26, Boris Johnson referred to ‘bunny-hugging’ climate action. He was using it to signal his ‘them and us’ mentality, those weirdos who want a safe planet to live on and ‘normal people’. Such characterisations don’t help anyone and certainly don’t help do anything to progress meaningful action on climate breakdown. This coming from a man who wrote in his right-wing Telegraph column in 2015 that fear around the climate was ‘without foundation’. The man is less useful than my bunny friend here, who I would happily exchange for any member of the current cabinet. A stuffed toy would probably manage to cause less international harm. So hug your bunnies (or whatever slightly less pervy version of this you prefer) proudly and as the famous meme goes, roll your eyes and say, ‘yeah Susan I’m really into the survival of all living things’ - because the real question is, why aren’t we all environmentalists?! Do you have another home to go to?! Happy Earth Day All (#EverydayIsEarthDay) Image by Tim Lahan. When babies and toddlers have a developmental leap they are often super grumpy, stuck right on the cusp of being able to do something they couldn’t do before. Tired and frustrated that they are almost able to do something but not quite. I have been wondering the last few weeks if as a society we are also experiencing a developmental leap. It might be overly optimistic (I do tend towards optimism) but what if all this pain and frustration is a sign of outgrowing old ways? We’re realising that we need to let go of broken things, toxic environments, hierarchical structures of patriarchy, white supremacy and disaster capitalism. There’s anger at those who want to keep us stuck here, those fighting tooth and nail for ‘business as usual’ preventing evolution and growth. These ‘tantrums’ are necessary, to feel the pain, to deal with the uncomfortable feelings and recognise the opportunities to face the ugly realities and transform regardless. To work despite those people not with them. And if they call you a snowflake, remind them that enough snowflakes make an avalanche. Let’s have the courage to rage and the courage to move towards a better future. If you can imagine a world of justice, peace and health, aren’t you angry that it’s not coming soon enough for those that so desperately need it? Imagine better. Demand better. Leap towards it. ‘What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb’ - Valerie Kaur. Can you feel it? All that potential just waiting to burst into action! There’s a reason it’s called SPRING! Plus the double delight of release from lockdown means that there’s more energy than ever waiting to break out. I’ve been a bit quiet, hibernating, head down, focused on surviving but now I’m ready to start thriving again. A big community climate project is coming together which will work to build back better post-covid. If you’re Cheltenham based and interested to find out more then DM me your email address for an invite to a google meet intro session towards the end of March. Think real action to tackle root causes of environmental and social issues, food security, waste and inequality. Community fridge, Library of Things, solidarity not charity, a hub space for people and planet. Finally got my hands on one of the chunky reclaimed wood plaques going out to salons who pass the @greensaloncollective Accreditation process. I’m really proud of the audit Fry and I have developed, it’s not a tick box exercise or a ‘pay and walk away’ scheme, we really try to get to know salons and give them a human to talk to and help towards holistic sustainability. It’s not just recycling or energy providers, it’s labour practices and diversity, prioritising people and planet. Hair salons are the most amazing spaces for opening up dialogue on these issues, the trust and relationships built mean hairdressers are uniquely placed to be catalysts for real change in people’s lives. Shout out to all the salons and workers going through tough times right now, post-Covid here’s hoping the industry is at the forefront of ‘building back better’. The Green Libertines at @greensaloncollective that I’ve assessed so far have been smashing it. Local Cheltenham folk check out @ellahairandbeauty208 who use @greensaloncollective recycling service. No pictures of my lockdown barnet will be forthcoming! There’s nothing quite like having a virus that originated half way round the world coursing through your veins to remind you how interconnected the world is. How many people must the virus have passed through from the first person infected all the way to me in my sleepy corner of Gloucestershire? Was everyone who got it and passed it on ok? Or were some people less lucky than I was, without people to care for them or a free healthcare service to support them? The saying goes that you are only as healthy as your neighbour, and with a rapidly warming world, and further encroachment and deforestation, the likelihood of having to deal with future illnesses and pandemics rises. Humanity’s health is a reflection of the planet’s health. Those same mutual aid groups that sprung up in communities to help each other get through 2020 will be needed behind this year. The temptation is strong to blame the year for all the bad things it has contained (hands up if you say #2020 at least once a week 🖐🏻) but the truth is that many of 2020’s problems have been brewing for some time (pandemic risk, democracy breakdown, rise of right wing groups, climate breakdown, human rights and racial inequality) and the problem with system breakdown and exponential growth is that these issues won’t just disappear at midnight on the 31st Dec. It’s ok to despair that there’s no easy way out, a new number won’t erase all the problems, we’re in for the long haul in order to fix things, but nothing worth doing was ever easy really. And things can be SO much better. My body gathered it’s resources, identified the problem, all the systems pivoted to defeat the virus, some of which made me feel worse in the short term, but two weeks on I feel better, not totally normal but a little bit more grateful to my bones and blood and a little more thankful to be still breathing. 2020 might have been rough, but, as Arundhati Roy writes, we use it as a portal to something not just write it off as a ‘fluke’ of a bad year, how much stronger could we be? Gather ourselves up, bruised but not broken, and build back better. The moving Gaia installation from @lukejerramartist who I was lucky enough to have choose my words for @ofearthandskylj is currently on show at Gloucester Cathedral. Only astronauts currently get to experience the ‘blue dot’ effect, the psychologically transformative shock of viewing our entire planet as a finite sphere in space. Many astronauts become environmental activists on their return to Earth because the destruction of what they have viewed as a cyclical life support bubble is too much to bear. We really do all live together on a spaceship hurtling through the void, kept alive by 6cm of topsoil and 6km of atmosphere. As Buckminster Fuller said ‘there are no passengers, we are all crew’. 🌍 While most of us won’t get to space (not that I would actually want to, especially not escaping to Mars with Elon Musk thanks very much) it can be difficult not to look at the sky, the sea, or the horizon and not think these things are infinite, that what we do can’t impact any of Earth’s ancient routines. But the sooner we realise this world is a finite system, a closed loop of natural cycles perfected over millennia, the sooner we can start to live sustainably and regeneratively. We are nature. Some things are infinite though, human capacity for change, adaptation, creativity, co-operation and love. Kick back on the things that tell you you aren’t enough, that you must buy to live, that excess and extraction are success. You are enough, we can all have enough, if we’re willing to imagine new ways to live collaboratively and in communion. It’s time to evolve or expire. What’s your choice?

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