Sense-Making in a Changing World

Climate Conversations 2: Big Picture Activism - Morag Gamble speaks with Helena Norberg Hodge

November 09, 2021 Morag Gamble: Permaculture Education Institute Season 3 Episode 2
Sense-Making in a Changing World
Climate Conversations 2: Big Picture Activism - Morag Gamble speaks with Helena Norberg Hodge
Sense-making in a Changing World with Morag Gamble
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Show Notes Transcript

 Welcome to this special  series of climate conversations  recorded during COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow , November 2021.

In November, while the global climate conference (COP26) was taking place I recorded a series of conversations.  I did wish I could have been there to be part of this global connection of movements and activism happening around the meeting of world leaders who are putting their plans on the table to limit climate change to below 1.5.  Disappointingly, the Australian PM embarrassed himself with putting fossil fuels ahead of the planet. I decided it didn't make sense for me to fly there, but I still wanted to know what was going on, and share this with you, so each couple of days I checked in with friends who were there.

In this Climate Conversation, author-activist and founder of Local Futures Helena Norberg-Hodge, joins me to explore her perspective of what's going on at the global climate conference.

We begin with an overview of the big picture issues that she sees are not  being talked about in Glasgow - issues that are at the heart of the change that needs to happen - what she calls Big Picture Activism, and an understanding of the economic, trade and invisible influences on nature and community.

Helena then describes what she sees we need to do to transition. Join us.

You can find out more about her work, her films, books, resources, papers, guides and conferences at Local Futures website.

Thanks for listening!

Morag Gamble
Permaculture Education Institute

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Morag Gamble:

Well, thank you for joining me today, Helena, on this, on this discussion around what's happening with COP. COP 26 is happening right now. We're up to, I think day 7 of the meetings. The world leaders have met. They've come, they've gone and laid out their plans on the table, whatever they may be to intentionally the plan was really to try and see if we could get below 1.5. So I'm really curious to know what is your take and what you've seen being put on the table. And also, what have you been hearing about what's going on around the edges from people that you know, that are, that are there?

Helena Norberg Hodge:

Well, I guess as you know, for a very long time, we've been trying to raise awareness about the way in which structurally a big, big and biggest problem in the world is that global corporations have been gaining more and more power over our governments. And with that overall world view of new knowledge. So we're now discovering that the internet and the social media is not this, amazing communication tool that we thought, it is actually highly manipulated. And of course the media in terms of newspapers and television are too. So for my sort of network around the world, we were already really watching this process starting in the early 90s when this whole process of globalization was taking off from which meant that trade treaties negotiated, supposedly between countries bilaterally and later on in multilateral trade treaties, where between countries, but actually what was going on was that by deregulating and creating a so-called free trade treaties, governments were signing on to deals that gave global corporations more and more freedom to do as they like. And that has included government signing black and white. We won't do anything that might reduce your profit-making potential. You foreign corporation coming into our country can do as you like. Now on top of it, these corporations have been telling governments what to do. And so that is, and it's not just about them coming in, but it's actually getting them to over-regulate at the local and to bring in regulations that have actually hindered the proliferation of smaller scale, more localized economies, which systemically will be by far the most effective way of massively reducing emissions simultaneously restoring biodiversity. So from that angle, we of course are not happy at all with the whole climate debate, as it has been publicly frayed, starting with[inaudible], putting it on the main sort of stream agenda and waking people up. It was already framed by someone who was in the corporate world. I've met him and I've met even in a [inaudible] who worked very closely with him. And I know that this is not coming out of some conscious evil intention, is not coming because this man is only wanting to make money. It's coming out of assumptions about growth, assumptions about GDP that are simply wrong. And yeah, so without a broader economic analysis connected to a deep ecological awareness and that needs to include an understanding of what's going on in the so-called global south, third world, it's hard for us to realize that from the outset, what Al Gore was talking about was how we, the individual consumer should wake up and stop driving a car so much, and we should be reducing our energy consumption. And the framing said nothing about the fact that he was advocating for giant industry to dump their populations of in the car industry or the chemical industry. And even in many forms of agriculture to go off to China and India and produce where labor was cheaper. So these trade treaties were facilitating that mobility of global giant to use cheap labor, wherever they like, and then bring the products in as freely. And however they liked. And of course their shifts led to an increase in emissions food, especially being transported back and forth across the world. And in the climate debate, even the activists are not addressing this. They keep talking about we and we should do this and we should do that. And there's almost no mention of the trade treaties. I believe Then on top of that, our colleague Camila Moreno, who's been at every climate summit for the last decade, at every major summit. She has witnessed how it's the corporations setting the agenda and seeing that it's, again, not question of ill will, it's a question of a blindness to the fact that we should not be allowing the agenda for saving the planet,, for dealing with unemployment, for restoring biodiversity, for also trying to maintain some semblance of democracy. We've got to wake up to the role of big[inaudible] and we are not hearing that coming out to Glasgow. We're not hearing it even very much from the activists. So I'm afraid that I'm coming from, a world where I'm not alone. You know, we are working with organizations that represent hundreds of millions, particularly in the small farming world, but organizations like focus on the global south or gray or et cetera. Many of these organizations, they are not so well-known, but I'm really happy that thanks to people like you, Morag we're beginning to have a communication between them and the permaculture movement and the ecovillage movement. And I see a lot of potential for us jointly creating a wake up where we're going to start talking about the real issues. And I just want to say that it can sound so big that people say, yeah, we know corporations are running the world, but let's not think about that because we can't change it. But please, if you do think that, please be aware of just to what extent they're running. They're aware of the fact that in and at the level of local regulations, it's their impact that makes your local council over police you. When you want to start a project to grow healthy food, or maybe sell fermented vegetables, or maybe build a club house, local policing local government is part of this overall agenda. So the over-policing at the local level and the complete deregulation of the global level. Let's talk about that. And let's see if we couldn't create a movement that understands that for job security, for some kind of sane future, with meaningful livelihoods, some semblance of democracy really dealing with climate. There is a systemic way forward that could be achieved so much more effectively and so much more rapidly that it means shifting from corporate rule towards supporting and sustaining more localized, diversified production on the land in farming fishery and forestry, it means supporting, shifting much more power to local communities, to not run their lives and their economies in any way they like, but to be free, to move in an ecological and genuinely sustainable direction.

Morag Gamble:

And what I just heard you say too is that this can happen rapidly. And that transition to a more local, bi-regional scale, which was kind of the scale of indigenous communities in this country too. Maybe we've discussed this bit a little bit in some of the previous conversations, but this is sort of like a snapshot summary. What is the pathway or multiple pathways that you see from shifting from corporate role to localization? What's in between?

Helena Norberg Hodge:

The biggest in between is a lack of awareness. So because of the lack of awareness, because almost no one has been studying, what's been going on at the global level at the level of global negotiations. Instead the I, to the extent that it's been on any kind of policy or political structures has been at the national level. So we've been thinking too locally and we ended up not realizing it caught up in a charade of a left-right political agenda, which has not addressed the fundamental ecological issues that also the fundamental issues around why we have unemployment, the fundamental issues around why we have an epidemic of depression and anxiety. The, for all the fundamentals have just been skipped over into a meaningless left-right debate. And whether the right has been posing as this, you know, really powerful voice over to make sure the economy grows to create jobs for you and to make your country great. And actually the entire world left and right have been taken us into a world where global monopolies are using every minute as we speak more energy and more resources and using fewer people. So we have this combined effect of job insecurity and massive expansion and the use of resources and energy, even as part of the green new deal, the big green new deal watch out. It's trying to masquerade behind still, depending on increases in fossil fuels using, you know, banging up sugar can monocultures to turn them into biomass, et cetera, et cetera, going small, going diversify, building community, going local, even in big cities. That's a bottom up movement that miraculously has actually accomplished quite a lot in this last 30 years. However, if that movement would even just be allowed to grow, as I said, without ridiculous policing nonsensical policing, you will be amazed at how quickly the growth, because it answers the needs of people and nature. It makes us healthy. It makes us happier, gives us energy. So yeah, I feel very optimistic about the potential. If we can unleash that wave of awareness, that would lead to many more hundreds of millions of people to help either defend or rebuild the local. And, you know, again, I need to stress, it's not about retreating into some kind of prison where there's no tray, there's no communication. On the contrary. We need more communication across the world.

Morag Gamble:

So is there anything that you see coming out of the COP conversations that you feel, oh, this is a good thing.

Helena Norberg Hodge:

Well, I have to say that Zac Goldsmith is a bit of a hero of the moment right now. And he has worked with me since he was about 17 and he's a committed, committed ecologist, and he is managing to push through a bit of protection for forest

Morag Gamble:

Didn't he Champion that, the, the agreement for the forests with the..

Helena Norberg Hodge:

Yeah. So he's, he's done that but for me, I'm asking more of him because we, if we don't deal with this system, I'm afraid that the algorithmic accumulation of fake money is driving such a destructive path that I'm quite sure we will put an end to it. The question is when. The question is when, how much more do we need to wake up and have

Morag Gamble:

People like him in the position that he's in is kind of makes me feel a bit hopeful that there does that conversation happening in that space.

Helena Norberg Hodge:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure that he's able to speak enough of that language inside, but I know that he knows it. And it's, I suppose for me, why I talk so much about big picture activism is that I see that both at the grassroots and inside the corporate world, inside big powerful political institutions and those players, there is just ignorance about this global system and what are the machinations and the various ways that it's managing to expand, despite the fact that there is a lot of goodwill, there is a lot of, you know, for sure the good intention of many of these corporate heads and the bill gates of this world. They are both is the desire to reduce emissions for sure, but there is an inability without our help to look at the bigger picture and to realize that it's going to mean also reducing the power and the wealth of global corporations, but since the accumulation of power and wealth in the hands of global monopolies every day is benefiting fewer people. This is another very hopeful sign that this very concentration gives us more allies, potential allies, and as it were fewer enemies, and even then, I don't necessarily want to speak about those, that tiny minority as enemies. Um, but I do want to say that as a structure and as an escalation of power in the hands of invisible, invisible leadership, where there's not a hope of voting, not a hope of having a voice, that is a very, I would say, evil process.

Morag Gamble:

It's changing differently. Well, I want to just appoint to Helena to that, the things that you have available for people to follow up on. So, with your organization, local futures, you have a number of films that people can access through local food futures, and you also have the local futures action guide and a short film as well now. So really as part of that education process of people diving in and starting to unpack that with your local community and find a way forward, you have an enormous amount of resources can get started.

Helena Norberg Hodge:

Yes. And we do have a paper, particularly on climate change. We have several articles and blogs specifically on that. We have several talks from our network of speakers, especially including Camila Moreno. So we have a lot of resources for anyone who's interested in this bigger picture analysis. And again, the big picture doesn't mean that you and I single-handedly are going to suddenly reign in Monsanto by ourself, but it's about the intellectual awakening that I am convinced would lead to mass movement building very quickly.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining me on this short snap correspondence around what's going on and how we need to think around all the issues that we're hearing at the moment. Thank you.

Helena Norberg Hodge:

Thank you Morag. I'm really glad with what you're doing.

Morag Gamble:

Thank you. All right. We'll talk to you again soon.

Speaker 1:

[inaudible].