A secure and non-violent future demands a daring, daunting and perilous mission

Grand and heroic projects are sadly most often allied with violent historical epochs, but life has evolved to present us now with an even more daring, daunting and perilous mission.

Nonviolence will play a
key role in addressing global
 warming.

Faced with global warming; entrenched inequality; crumbling economics; the exhaustion of our fossil fuels, particularly oil; exponential population growth; the degradation of the world’s top soils; vandalism of our forests; the looming crisis of our food supplies; the erosion of our humanity by God-like technology; the collapse of earth’s bio-diversity and endless wars brought about by a surreptitious and misunderstood anger that has infiltrated life at every level, we look, with desperation, for the exit sign.
Many turn to supernatural forces or beings in their search for a solution, but the answer they seek is right here, with us, we hold it in our hands or, at least, in our way of thinking.
The remedy rests with nonviolence and although that might seem easy and achievable, it is not. Living a genuine, and unflinching, nonviolent life is only possible through a courageous and radical reshaping of our lives: a truly grand and heroic project.
That said and accepted, where do we start? Facing sweeping emotionally and seemingly overwhelming difficulties, many do nothing, but to lean, for a moment, on a cliché – the journey to anywhere, in this case nonviolence, begins with the first step.
That first step can be here, in Shepparton, or more intimately, in your mind and that beginning is simply about using language that is nonviolent, both in terms of the words you use and, importantly, their intent.
Although subtle, such a change can alter your understanding and interpretation of events and equally how others feel about what is happening in their lives.
Along with paying attention to what we say, and how we say it, we should consciously avoid anything that normalizes violence, something about which the mainstream media is frequently guilty.
Television is among the worst offenders and so should be simply turned off, and other information sources – newspapers, magazines, books, movies and the various forms of social media – should be treated with caution and accessed selectively.
Much of what we imagine entertainment, and frequently sport, is fanciful cloaked violence and our modern commercial world is about winners and losers in which covert violence boosts bank balances.
Genuine nonviolence is a concept so difficult to both comprehend and employ that is rarely has any true traction prompting the observation from one that nonviolence was tried for a week and abandoned as it didn’t work, ignoring the fact that centuries of violence have completely failed humanity.
Bad things happen quickly, good things take time – violence springs from our ancient, reptilian brain; nonviolence arises from modern, sophisticated and mature brains.

Considering the opening gambit of global warming

Australia’s most recognized scavengers stalked the park as the media repeatedly told us that Cyclone Yasi was stalking Queensland’s North coast.


Frederick Buell's From
Apocalypse to Way of Life,
 available from Amazon.com.



The common crows, mouths agape, prowled about and there seemed something symbolic with their black image considered by some a harbinger of death or, at least, difficult times.

A further mental complexity arrived through the reading of Frederick Buell’s 2004 book, “From Apocalypse to Way of Life”, in which he discussed the environmental crisis in the American century, a scenario easily extended for the whole world.
Yasi made landfall some 2000 kilometres north of where I read and watched the crows, but the impact, beyond clear skies and a slight breeze, was endless warnings and then constant news about the devastation.
The effects of the cyclone, strangely, are being felt in other places, for instance, in Victoria with a deluge across the state, sufficient to see rescue and emergency services hard at work.
What we are experiencing is the opening gambit of the global warming that climatologists have been predicting for decades.
Humans have long imagined themselves as standing apart from nature, but the arrival of Yasi illustrates the fallacy of that view, just as nature driven difficulties in disparate parts of the world also clearly illustrate that same fact.
Like many other authors, Buell warns us of how we rationalize the deterioration of the planet, or how we repeatedly excuse ourselves of deforestation, freshwater depletion, ocean pollution, biodiversity loss and how human narrative says little about how we resolve, or escape from this impasse.
Having read only about 80 page of Buell’s work, I’m unsure what way of life he will suggest, but should he reflect the thoughts of many others, it seems likely he will discuss the need for a more restrained way of living in which we put fewer demands on earth’s environmental resources.
Huge industrial throughput of the past two centuries and the resultant refuse and toxins have stressed nature’s sinks, but that which is probably most stressed is the human psychology “sink”, something facing even further demands as it contrives, understands and deals with a new way of living.

Christmas offends, but I just love it

Christmas offends my sensibilities – but I just love it.
Christmas was born with the birth of a myth that invokes Christianity and became a marketer’s dream when the idea of gift-giving captured the modern mind.
Christmas, in its present form, worsens difficulties the world faces with the exhaustion of resources and encourages a way of life that is the antithesis of a sustainable world.
Christmas and climate change, or global warming if you prefer, seem unrelated, but are inextricably linked with industry working overtime and ploughing through resources to churn out what it is we want, rather than need, for this festive season.
Christmas does, however, have a positive dimension in that it encourages altruism throughout December, a generousity that is largely in retreat for the rest of the year.
Christmas is for many, wrongly and yet understandably, a real or imagined deadline for tasks ranging from the completion of projects to decision time about relationships or other personal moments of consequence.
Christmas gives oxygen to a lie that may seem innocuous and fun, but in a subtle manner illustrates to those at the heart of the deception, our children, that they should treat those in authority with some suspicion, bringing on an uneasiness that has the potential to surreptitiously trouble them throughout their lives.
Christmas, despite its Christian underpinnings and its consumerist overtones brings about brief moments that point to the richness of humanity and in so doing unearths the warmth, connectedness and collaboration that will be essential if humanity is to find the capacity to dispense with its differences and stand as one, rather than many, in confronting emerging difficulties.
Christmas for me will be particularly enjoyable as it will be the first I have spent with my one and three-year-old grandsons, something about which I often feel distress for long have I believed that we should all live where we live, meaning families should not be in disparate parts of the country, or even worse, overseas.
Christmas brings its dilemmas, but for me it is a particularly special time and I trust it is exactly that for you – season’s greetings!