[Oe List ...] The UN Climate Summit

[via OE]

For ST Monday.



The UN Climate Summit
 
With coal burning the favored means for warmth and cooking incold Manchuria, I wake up in the mornings to the scent of coal tar.  This week, northern China foisted a smogalert as particles in the air exceeded limits. 
 
I lived in Saskatoon, in the Saskatchewan prairie of Canadain 1976 as a director of the Institute of Cultural Affairs.  ICA started a global network of Humandevelopment projects after a Westside inner city Chicago experience featuring participatoryinvolvement of residents, with the enabling outsiders facilitating the process.  It was at once democratic and honoring of localwisdom.
 
Most volunteers were white folks who I pegged as utopiandreamers.  When they showed up in Manilain a rundown neighborhood in Santa Ana, I gave them a second look.  After a training session in Korea in '72 whenI returned from schooling in the United States, I came out with a globalperspective and local commitment that I later called glocal.  The globalization Iexperienced with the earthrise of '68 married a covenant with the local, themethods' focus of ICA human development.
 
Habitat '76 was the UN's emphasis in Vancouver and I helppresent a three-screen slide show on the efforts of comprehensive humandevelopment at the community level.  ICAcompeted for attention with NGOs present to highlight their work.  Like most international assemblies, it was heavyon gloss and glitz but short on engaging information.
 
I remember all these as the UN held a one-day summit onClimate Change last month presided over by President Barrack Obama.  NYC city saw a massive demonstration insupport of dealing with the worsening climate condition around the world.  Only last week, the twin typhoons in thewestern Pacific had Phanfone ravage Japan while Vongfong got Guam and Saipan ontheir toes, and still reeling from Phanfone, Japan again on the tail whip.  These were Japan's worst typhoons ever, cappinga number of occurrences higher than previous years.
 
Many in the academic community and members of the USCongress consider climate change as a liberal "ruse", not only to beignored but also to be denied, and when it affects policy, to be opposed. 
 
From 1974-84, I lived in an old building at the corner ofLawrence and Sheridan Uptown Chicago where I operated under global assignment.  We were methods' storm troopers!  ICA Chicago housed close to 3,000 global volunteersduring Summer Research Assemblies to report to each other, and finesse theirrepertoire of human development methods.  
 
The effort was quixotic, an assault on the"barbwires" of history by a bunch of rather well intentioned andhighly disciplined "utopian dreamers".  In 1986, it had enough sense to dissipatewhen the center structurally no longer could hold.  
 
Now known as the GreenRise building of Chicago, it installed483 solar panels on its roofs.  A culturalheritage site, I visited the place in 2009 to conduct my own emotional closure. I noticed green vegetables growing outof hydroponic contraptions on its windows.  ICA Chicago demonstrates what is humanly andenvironmentally possible in its own neighborhood.   
 
Most ICA's volunteers grew out of the tradition where theethos of the "dead one walking" (resurrection) is deep, thereby, havepeople who "just do it" (Loyola) without being anxious on who getsthe credit.  They joined the oikoumene of the times, with a spirit consciousness rooted andnourished on expenditure rather than competitive accomplishment, replicated inmany places when the group broke up into a "thousand lights".
 
David Zahrt returned with his wife to his farm in Iowa torun a bed and breakfast business, retired and resides in Carson City NV; at 77,he joins marchers this summer from California to Washington DC to dramatize thereality of climate change, and what ordinary folks can do about it. 
 
Joyce and Gene Marshall built a house in Bonham, Texasdemonstrating ecologically friendly materials, and serves as a gathering placefor a covenanted network of folks called the Symposium on Realistic Living.  They walk their talk!
 
The fallacy of the UN as a "doing" body is theassumption that it can enable nation states to work together on climate change,much as they thought they would on human settlements during the UN Habitat '76in Vancouver.  Not.
 
The crisis revealed by Ebola is not that the virus itself isa global threat but that certain parts of the world still struggle with basischallenge of hunger and nutrition.  Muchof that comes from nation states designed to act like "big brother"who provides what its citizens need. Not.  Nation States around theworld exist for the sake of its rulers, a favored few.  In fact, if Ebola did not threaten the oilbusiness, we would not have the high volume hue and cry we hear today.  Democracy teaches individuals to fend forthemselves in concert with other individuals, in their local communities.
 
That's the power of people like David, and small groups likethe ICA and RLI: they just do it!
 


j'aime la vie
pinoypanda2031 at aol.com

yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20141010/54bcdba9/attachment-0001.htm>