Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Rob Hopkins is an author and a Co-Founder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network. He approaches the question of “What could possibly go right?” with a fascination in the power of imagination for our future.
In today’s episode, Severn Cullis-Suzuki gives her perspective that spans from addressing the UN at age 12 through to her life-long activism for environment and indigenous rights.
The next several months could bring hurricanes, floods and fire, on top of the pandemic currently raging through the country. How do you shelter in place during an evacuation?
Thus, although Transition Towns thinking came about primarily through considerations about peak oil, all essential efforts toward re-localisation and community resilience may provide the strongest available single buffer against the many storms that are likely to prevail upon us.
We need a different way forward, what we might call the Theory of Comparative Resilience. My basic proposition is simple: Those communities that are best able to withstand future crises—whether pandemics, climate disruptions, or financial meltdowns—will be the ones that thrive economically.
Highlighting the term careful is important here: we can view the response of the state to this pandemic with care, we can be careful to see the gaps and address the ways that the state response is lacking. Careful in this context also means taking care and directly engaging with the crisis on a community based level in a safe way.
There are times in life when we wake up and realize we no longer recognize the world around us. When life throws us such curveballs, resiliency is what determines if we sink or swim. But what is resiliency exactly, and how do we foster it?
When we get intentional about doing what we can to strengthen and build up our communities now, we’re doing more than surviving. We’re setting the stage for renewed growth and revitalization once this pandemic dies down (and it will). One day in the not-too-distant future, we will find we made it through the tough times and came out on the other side stronger, better, and closer than ever.
Without ignoring the real pain and loss many are suffering, we also must lift up the need to raise, grow, and catch our food in ways that are closer to our communities and enriching to all.
Hear, hear. Perhaps this crisis will remind us all to recognize the importance of being in community with each other, and the urgency of building a more resilient food system for all.
I don’t know about you, but the never-ending stream of worrying news about the coronavirus and social distancing are taking a toll on my psyche. So I reached out to the delightful Leslie Davenport—a licensed psychotherapist who I got to know because of her work on climate psychology—to get her advice about how we can practice self-care, and care for our loved ones and neighbors, while trying to navigate this pandemic.
Public Health. What is that, really? It’s not just the services of research institutions, public education, medical professionals, hospitals, equipment, medicines, emergency rooms, insurance and such. It’s a healthy public. The question arising now is: What can we do, as a society, to support a healthy public?
Whether the Sanders campaign seizes this opportunity, or an alternate framework for collective action arises, a mass movement response to the coronavirus pandemic cannot come too soon. For our own sake, and that of our society as a whole, let us help the drive toward solidarity emerge.
