Thoughts and feelings on COP2 Swansea by Guest Blogger, Bethan Cox

I am sitting in my warm, dry home with a sense of gratitude.  I have a lot to be grateful for - firstly that I live in the current era when my world has been relatively peaceful and easy.  I’m not sure how long I will have the ability to live a life with so many possibilities and choices.  I went to the COP2 Swansea event today to watch the film Age of the Stupid. Even though I had seen the film before I wanted to support Emergence with their Swansea based events around COP21.

I’m so glad I went. It felt like I really re-connected with people and the fragile world that supports us.  It was a beautiful start to hear Fern reading the poem Extinction by Jackie Kay, it set the tone to what I found a depressing but at the same time uplifting afternoon. 

credit: Eleanor Flaherty

We began by sharing with each other someone who had been an inspiration to us.  Chris Seeley was a huge inspiration to me, I met her through an environmental training course, where she introduced me to Joanna Macy and the importance of honouring my emotions as well as my actions towards living on this planet, within the looming crisis of climate change.  Chris helped to create a space to discuss deep environmental issues and explore our emotions linked with these issues.  Through this work I came to discover more about myself, and found out what nourishes me. Chris helped me to find the confidence and skills to make significant changes to my life and become self-employed.  Chris passed away almost a year ago, I know she inspired many people and her beliefs and creativity will live on through them.

credit: Eleanor Flaherty

Phil Ralph then led an interesting discussion/talk – this brought up lots of thoughts for myself and others in the group.  It made me think about how I blame others for the state our environment.  I realised that I can only truly know what I feel and think, not what others feel & think and that I am the only person who can act differently.   Although we can influence others, they are in control of their own actions and thoughts and have to make their own choices.  I’m sure other people picked up completely different ideas and feelings from this talk/discussion, only they would be able to tell you about what it brought up for themselves!

credit: Eleanor Flaherty

Then for the film - The Age of Stupid.

I felt complete despair when I was watching the film, there are so many images that stuck in my mind and other people in the group later described images that stuck with themselves…

Eleanor  - the African lady having to wash oil off a tiny fish with soap powder which they would eat, when in complete contrast the American guy caught a large fish and threw it back.

Jane - the anti-wind farm campaigner gloating that they had successfully stopped the wind farm at the same time as saying how she’s worried about global warming.  Anna wanting to the throw a mug at the screen when she watched that bit.

Jo - the images of the effects of oil consumption has had on villages in Africa and the stories told of murder by the government to prevent problems with oil extraction.

Pete - the graph showing the CO2 emissions when the film was made in 2009 climbing to reach a maximum by 2015, after which they would have to decrease rapidly, for us not to go beyond the tipping point of 2^oC rise in temperatures. 

Several people felt haunted by the last image from space of the dead world surrounded by space junk.

I found the real footage from past news reports all documenting the way things are going really upsetting.  What I found the hardest to take in was that we knew all this seven years ago and the positive actions they suggested in the film haven’t happened.  The opposite seems true - consumerism is still the strongest driving force affecting people & the decisions of politicians.

I was left feeling hopeless and helpless and a massive part of the problem.  I was pissed off! How can humans - the amazing, inventive, creative species that we are - have created this path of destruction which seems unstoppable?

credit: Eleanor Flaherty

I’m so glad I stayed after the film, as I felt confused and despondent wondering what the point was.  As others shared their feelings I realised I wasn’t alone - people were equally as confused, upset, and left with feels of guilt.   There was also a strong sense of belief in the power of people coming together to share in the emotions of it all and finding support and solutions together.  I liked Phil’s description of the fact that two quantum states can exist simultaneously and somehow we can balance the dichotomy of feeling hopeless and hopeful at the same time.

We discussed ways we can go forth and take control of our actions and honour our emotions around climate change.  I’m really looking forward to seeing the final list of pro-active projects and actions out there that Anna compiles, as there were way too many projects for me to take note of them all.

I now feel after writing this that I’ve off-loaded even more of the mixed-up emotions the event brought up.  I’ll finish by quoting a few bits from the day with the derivations of words from Phil.  

I feel comforted (together strong) by the sense of community (one together) we shared today with people, who at the start were mostly strangers to me.  I am less apathetic (without emotion) I and know it’s ok to “feel the pain because I care” (thanks Dai).  I have a sense of gratitude to all involved with the event, Fern, Phil, The Environment Centre staff and all the other participants.  I feel reconnected with a deep compassion (co-suffering) for the people and planet I thrive on.  

Beth Cox - I’m passionate about deepening connections with myself, our environment and the people I share those spaces with. I was Pembrokeshire’s Biodiversity Officer for 10 years, I am now a full time yoga therapist in Swansea, I have been teaching yoga to individuals and groups for over 5 years.  (wwwyogapractice.co.uk) 

The third and final COP SWANSEA event takes place on Saturday 5th December at Volcano Theatre, 27-29 High Street, Swansea SA1 1LG - screening This Changes Everything. Event runs from 2pm to 8pm. For tickets and further details, please click here. 

Climate change on ice … and pallets! - reflections on COP1 SWANSEA by Anna Pigott

'Surprising' was the word that I chose when it was my turn to sum up my experience of COP1 as we reflected on the afternoon's activities at the end of the day. I chose this word because, from my point of view as a member of the organising team and someone who had arrived at the event with just a bit of trepidation in my heart, it turned out to be very pleasantly surprising day. People had turned up! Up to 40 people all in the room at one point, all giving up their Sunday afternoons, all with a shared concern about climate change and a desire to talk about it. That seemed pretty amazing to me, and I don't think I was alone in agreeing with one person's glowing summation at the end of the day which was simply, 'I love Swansea!'.

But that wasn't the only way in which I was surprised, it turned out. COP1 had other tricks up its sleeve for me. I'll come back to that later. First, perhaps you'd like to know what on earth we did for six hours in a room with climate change.

It began – as all good climate change events surely do – with trying to draw a complete stranger's face while looking only at them and not at the piece of paper. Well, it certainly broke the ice! (Get it? Sorry).  We spent some time getting to know our fellow COPers, lounging on the fabulous Cinema & Co pallet sofas, laughing, drawing, finding out what we had in common, and generally easing ourselves into the day.

Credit: Eleanor Flaherty

With a reshuffling of the pallets, we were ready for Philip Ralph to take the floor with his One Eyed Man performance/stand up/improvisation/dialogue (it defies definition!). The atmosphere was somewhat tense, and while some people needed to get some thoughts off their chest in response to Phil's musings, others simply needed to listen to him lay bare his own feelings about climate change, and about life, with remarkable honesty. As a group, guided by Phil, we grappled with issues about blame, about who's 'we' and who's 'they' and, most importantly perhaps, where's 'I' in all of this? I personally found it hugely affirming just to hear another person talk candidly about how climate change makes them feel, however grim that might be.

Credit: Eleanor Flaherty

It's not easy to know what to say after an experience like that (and I don't just mean Phil's impromptu George Michael impression), and so afterwards we dispersed, blinking, into a welcome tea and cake break, and a few more people drifted in from the street to join us.

Then we got to the film bit. Chasing Ice is a documentary which follows the attempts of photographer James Balog and his team to document the retreat of glaciers in Iceland, Greenland, Alaska and North America. It is both beautiful and distressing at the same time. Although I found the personal narrative a bit OTT at times, the imagery spoke for itself. The reality of man-made climate change is inescapable in this film and that was the difficult bit. I suppose there is always a tiny part of me that likes to cling to a hope that it isn't happening – that the earth is not loosing its wonderful icy landscapes and that there aren't a host of scary consequences for life on earth that go with that. It is easier not to be reminded. But the film reminded me that it is happening, and that I am nostalgic for ice I have never visited. In fact I am terribly sad about it. And so were other people, it turned out. In the small group of people I sat with after the film, some reactions included 'bleak', 'sad' and 'helpless'.

After the film and some time for us to reflect there was a lovely, peaceful, half an hour with a kaleidoscope of things going on in the room – some people drawing and writing their thoughts on the boards up on the wall, others choosing to stay huddled in their groups, mulling over the film, sometimes with visible emotion. Some people ate lunch, others browsed the reading material left out for sharing. Eleanor Brown played some much-needed soul-soothing music. This was certainly unlike any cinema experience I'd ever had before.

Eleanor Brown - Credit: Eleanor Flaherty

The final part of the day was spent turning our gaze towards action and inspiration. Sometimes a gloomy prognosis can be a perfect spring board for optimism – as long as there is space and time for that to happen. We had more flipchart sheets' worth of ideas and projects than can be shared here, but words flowed and connections were made between people and projects previously unknown to one another. We heard about local co-operatives and democracy initiatives, useful websites, inspiring philosophies, emerging campaigns and much more (watch this space for full details!).

So, back to the surprise. When I got home, despite COP1's optimistic ending, I was jittery and depressed. I didn't expect that. You see, I like to think I'm one of those people who 'gets' climate change. I know it's a big deal, and I make adjustments to my life and my work and so on .. so I know how to cope with it, right? And I know how to think about it, of course ... I mean, after all, this COP thing was more for other people than for me, wasn't it? Hum. That evening a cloud of gloom caught up with me – the one that I generally manage to avoid by not actually thinking about climate change too much and just trying to do stuff about it. And here's the melodramatic bit: I had an existential crisis. Yeah I know! An actual one, right there in the living room listening to Enya (don't ask – it was a coincidence). I was suddenly all adrift, and panic set in: what the heck does it actually mean to be human if climate change really does spell such terrible consequences for life and – perhaps more poignantly – what does it say about us as a species if we fail to do anything about it? If we are just living to eventually go extinct and cause horrible suffering and joyless societies in the mean time – well what's the point in that?! It's not exactly easy to figure out the meaning of life at the best of times, but the prospect of catastrophic climate change doesn't make it any easier!

This catastrophic view is not one that I necessarily think will happen (because I hold on to a hope we can turn things around, and in many ways already are), but the day's activities forced me to confront the 'worst-case' as a possibility and, I think really for the first time, meant that I allowed the full significance of climate change in. That's why six hours in a room with it was necessary. I couldn't go and distract myself, and I was confronted with the sadness and fear that other people feel about this too. There is nothing like witnessing another person's emotions to make an issue more real. But there is also nothing like shared emotions to feel solidarity with one another.  It was impossible to leave COP1 and and still think 'no one else cares about climate change'. While the existential crisis has (thankfully!) subsidised for the time being, I am left with a hugely liberating sense that it is OK to talk, and that other people do care. Let's see what surprises COP2 and 3 have in store!

CLICK HERE for tickets to COP2 - Saturday 28th November, Environment Centre, Pier Street, Swansea SA1 1RY - screening The Age of Stupid. Event runs 2-8pm

CLICK HERE for tickets to COP3 - Saturday 5th December, Volcano Theatre, 27-29 High Street, Swansea SA1 1LG - screening This Changes Everything. Event runs 2-8pm

A Tale of Two Conferences by Anna Pigott

In 2012 I went to two very different conferences.  (I know this doesn't sound like the beginning of an interesting blog post but please bear with me..)

The first conference, a huge international gathering in London called 'Planet Under Pressure – New Knowledge Towards Solutions', focussed on the idea of the Anthropocene, a concept which describes the enormous influence that humanity now has on Earth. The conference left me feeling both overwhelmed by the enormity of what the Anthropocene sets out (what can I possibly DO?!) and underwhelmed by the proposed 'new knowledge'.  Over 3000 delegates attending an array of workshops during the conference were churning out this knowledge but … where was it going, and how could it all be joined up to produce the changes that were needed?  Something was missing, but I couldn't put my finger on what.

Later in the year, that something hit me between the eyes (quite literally, as I danced around a mini exploding volcano made of sand. As I said, this one was different): At the Emergence Summit in September 2012 it became joyfully apparent that there is something that connects all the problems of the Anthropocene – it is us, it is culture and, as Paul Allen has said, it is the stories that we tell ourselves about where we've come from and where we are going.  From our culture and values everything else flows, with no 'behaviour change programs' in sight. 

So, my question became 'how does culture change?', and this led to my current PhD research at Swansea University.  By my desk I have pinned a quote by the Welsh academic and novelist Raymond Williams which I think sums it up beautifully: “Culture is ordinary. That is where we must start.”  It is easy to take for granted the everydayness of our culture, so much so that it is often difficult to step back and see what shapes it.  I think the role of art is both taken for granted and seen as a 'luxury add-on' in this sense.   What Emergence has shown me is that art is much more than something that is just 'done to us' (or for us).  Being an 'artist' shouldn't be a title reserved for those who do it in exchange for money.  If we cook, if we garden, if we fix things, if we think and imagine, if we talk, if we play – we are being creative, we are artful.  This is how art and creativity make – and change – culture.  As Bertolt Brecht said “art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it”.

I have become especially interested in how 'meta-narratives' can influence cultural change. For example, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has described how the Industrial Revolution in western societies was underpinned by a narrative of aspiration and progress in which people self-identified as pilgrims on a long journey of collective endeavour for a better world.  These days this narrative has collapsed under conditions of environmental crisis, uncertainty and perpetual change, such that people behave more as tourists than as pilgrims, snatching at fleeting experiences rather than committing to shaky long-term aspirations.  Our problem now, Bauman argues, is that we can't imagine a better world, let alone aspire to one. 

Being on somewhat of a journey of discovery myself, Satish Kumar's activism is quite new to me, and I have been struck to find that he, too, advocates a 'pilgrim' approach, and also advises on how to do it.  He passionately and enthusiastically urges us to slow down and to take care of ourselves, a prerequisite of taking care of the Earth.  He also calls for a more holistic view ('soil, soul, society') which recognises our membership of an Earth community, not just a human one.   This brings me back to the concept of the Anthropocene and reminds me of philosopher Donna Haraway's suggestion of replacing 'Anthropocene'  – a term which puts humans centre stage – with the (albeit unpronounceable) 'Cthulhucene', a term which describes the tying together of human and non-human ecologies in a kind of 'responsible symbiosis', an approach which might better sustain us in, as she says, “staying with the trouble on Terra”.

Staying with the troubles on Earth and finding ways to transform them is likely to be a long pilgrimage, and whether we choose to embark on it will depend on whether we have the appropriate stories, visions and creativity to sustain and inspire us along the way.  In Wales, some examples of such visions include the One Wales One Planet manifesto initiated by Jane Davidson, which led recently to the Welsh Government's pioneering Well-Being of FutureGenerations Act, and CAT's Zero Carbon Britain Project which Paul Allen outlined in his previous blog post. Satish's meetings with Jane Davidson promise to be an exciting opportunity to explore and ignite conversations that are just beginning in Wales, and elsewhere, about where we've come from and where we want to go.  And although I can't wait to listen to them, wait I will have to, as all pilgrims must… 

Emergence is crowd funding to make a Landmark Series of documentary films of Satish Kumar in conversation with Jane Davidson. Click this link to find out more and help make this legacy project happen.

Anna Pigott is a PhD student at Swansea University, researching how visions of the future are created and represented in Wales and how they relate to social and political change.