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April 2007
Friends, this is being sent to the Rainforest Information Centre's US email address list. If you would like to be removed from this list, please reply with "remove" in the subject line. Having finished the first 50 “Climate Change Despair and Empowerment” events in Australia (www.climate.net.au ), I’ve got 35 more booked in North America starting in Miami next week. www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/schedule.htm . For the next 5 weeks I'll be in Florida, Arkansas, Ontario, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey & New York.
The main purpose of these roadshows is to empower citizens climate action to prevent catastrophic climate change and to help build the grass roots climate action movement. The North American roadshow will support existing climate action groups and, where no such groups exist, start new ones.
A description of the Climate Change Despair and Empowerment roadshow, the deep ecology workshops and my schedule are appended. If you have friends who may be interested in the cities I'll be visiting, please forward this email to them and help spread the word in any way you can.
Flyers and other resources are at www.climate.net.au
for the Earth
John Seed Rainforest Information Centre
Box 368 Lismore NSW 2480
Australia
02 66897519
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www.rainforestinfo.org.au
www.climate.net.au
CLIMATE CHANGE DESPAIR & EMPOWERMENT ROADSHOW
The description and schedule below will be updated at www.rainforestinfo.org.au/climate
The "Climate Change, Despair and Empowerment" roadshow www.climate.net.au assumes that most people attending have seen An Inconvenient Truth and are somewhat aware of current news about the climate issue.
The roadshow aims to:
* catalyse, invigorate and support grassroots climate study/action groups across N America.
* Address the hopeless despair that many people feel and provide tools to transform despair into empowerment and effective action. This will be based on the Despair & Empowerment work of Joanna Macy and the "Climate Change, Despair and Empowerment" talk which John Seed gave in Massachusetts earlier this year with Pullitzer Prize winning journalist Ross Gelbspan. (The 60-minute film made from this event is available on DVD for free to anyone who agrees to use it to educate their family, friends and community.
* unveil the false and "business as usual", solutions being touted by the major political parties such as nuclear power and so called "clean coal".
* raise awareness and inspire political action towards the real solutions that we, the people, must insist upon. (eg. end the many billion dollars a year in subsidies to the fossil fuel industries, support energy efficiency, solar, wind etc.)
* provide resources for the many things that we can all do to turn the situation around. www.climate.net.au/resources/
* Support a network of Climate Study/Action Groups across N America.
By the time the "Climate Change, Despair and Empowerment" roadshow reaches the US next month, there will have been over 50 presentations and workshops in Australia. www.climate.net.au/schedule.htm
The format consists of 4 or 5 evening "Climate Change, Despair and Empowerment" presentations in a district or city on consecutive weeknights followed by two 1-day Climate Change Despair & Empowerment workshop nearby on the following Saturday/Sunday.
The evening forums will include:
* a video presentation that includes footage of Al Gore speaking about the importance of grass roots response - leadership in the wrenching changes that are necessary can only come from government and industry once we the people have given them the mandate and the courage.
* Solutions to the climate crisis
* a discussion on the role of the denial of feelings of helplessness and despair in making us feel helpless, hopeless, paralysed, what can one person do anyway, its too late etc etc. This addresses Gore's insight that many people move straight from denial to hopeless despair about this issue without leaving any space in between for effective action. (see www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/cabmourn.htm for a more general version of this argument).
* Where no climate study/action group currently exists, the group will be invited to form one there and then. If one already exists, representatives from the group will be invited to give an update on their group's direction, meetings etc. We will discuss the importance of direct democracy and grassroots and that each of us now needs to awaken those around us to the urgency of understanding and action. US Supreme Court Justice Brandeis, 1930: "The most important office of government is citizen."
* A discussion on local initatives and local directions
* We invite people to host "house parties", invite their friends to watch DVDs, build the network, discuss solutions and spread word of the climate study/action groups.
* We invite people to attend the "Climate Change, Despair and Empowerment" 1-day workshop at a nearby venue on Saturday or Sunday. We're training others up to make the presentations and to facilitate the workshops.
One Day Climate Change Despair & Empowerment Workshops
In the one-day "Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment" workshops, we will be offering experiential processes that generate empowerment as follows:
1: Through Joanna Macy's body of work known as "despair and empowerment" (see her book "Coming Back to Life", http://www.joannamacy.net and http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/cabmourn.htm ) we allow ourselves to recognise our feelings about what is happening to our world. By acknowledging this level of our being rather than just our thoughts on the subject, people around the world have found that feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, "what can one person do anyway?", "It's all to late" etc are transformed into inspired and empowered positive action.
2: Through processes which nourish our vast ecological identity, we expand from the narrow confines of our social identity to experience our ancient ecological heritage, that every cell in our body is descended in an unbroken chain from the first cell of life. Then our kinship with all of life shines through the fog of civilisation and rooted in the history of Earth and in the living Earth itself, we seek wisdom and clear thinking on our role as we and our fellow beings face the crisis of global warming. ****************************************************************************************
ONTARIO APRIL 27 - MAY 6 April 27-29 Ottawa ON deep ecology workshop, Marguerite Centre contact
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April 30 "Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment" morning presentation to high schools Pembroke On April 30 "The Hatchery" Haliburton ON "Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment" presentation 7pm contact
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May 1 "Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment" presentation Belleville ON, Eastminster United Church 7.30pm contact
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May 2 "Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment" presentation Toronto ON, OISE Auditorium, 7pm contact
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May 3 "Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment" presentation Hamilton ON contact
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May 4 "Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment" presentation Guelph ON 7pm contact
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May 6 Climate Change, Despair, and Empowerment workshop Institute for Traditional Medicine, Toronto ONT 10am - 6pm contact
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EARTH, SPIRIT, ACTION
The spiritual blight of separation -- from each other and the Earth --
plagues modern humanity and is the underlying root of the ecological crisis
or our times; the culturally-conditioned, competitive, isolated self is the
engine of the 6th extinction spasm currently unfolding around us.
Arne Naess, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Oslo University who coined
the term "deep ecology", said that "ecological ideas are not enough"; we
need "ecological identity, ecological self". Naess says that this is to be
brought about through community therapies, "healing our relations to a
widest community, that of all living beings". In this workshop, we
participate in a series of ceremonies and rituals synchronous with those
used by indigenous peoples throughout time. Through creative exercises,
despairwork and meditations, we acknowledge our interconnectedness with air,
water and soil as we invite the spontaneous healing of psyche and dissolve
the illusion of our disconnection from the living Earth.
Through meditation, breath and dialogue we explore the question: How do we
engage in social or ecological change work from a place of heart and spirit?
Together we grapple with issues of effectiveness, burn-out, and conflict as
well as the fear and apathy that permeate our society.
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