A Farm for the Future

This programme is well worth watching; it gives an easily understood but informative introduction to the challenges of UK food production in the face of 'carbon rationing' and 'peak oil' - useful for anyone wanting to know more about these topics, including Permaculture and how it could form part of the answer. Available on BBC iPlayer until approx 5th April (click the title link above).

Costing the effect of damaging our environments

New Scientist has an interesting article on estimating the cost of damaging our environment - by putting too much CO2 into the atmosphere, but also by other means. And some big cost figures are mentioned. Food for thought.. http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn15143-putting-a-price-on-the-ecocrunch.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

Life Audits, Social Business etc - Notes from 17/9/08 Chipping Norton meeting

We had some stimulating discussion today about Muhammad Yunus' work and writings, Susan George's writings, Witney's Meller Gallery, and life audits. A sample life audit document is attached, for info. Clearly very sketchy at this stage. group had various comments about this, including that it needs to be broken into short chunks, needs more open questions, more balanced selection of questions, should not be intimidating, etc. For next month we agreed to try and think about what a life audit should be, and come with our own ideas and suggestions ready to discuss them next month. Muhammad Yunus is the founder of the Grameen Bank and pioneer of microcredit banking and social businesses. His two books (listed below) give a very stimulating vision of how to tackle poverty effectively, wherever it is found. Well worth a read (in Marcus' opinion):

• 'Banker to the Poor' - the story of how Grameen Bank developed
• 'Creating a World Without Poverty' - introduces his concept of a Social Business, and gives a far reaching vision of how they can be used to tackle much of the poverty and injustice in our societies across the world.

Susan George has actually written several books concerning international debt, including some more current ones - see the following:

• http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/Books+3263.twl
• http://www.ccow.org.uk/debt

The Meller Gallery in Witney is an inspiring example of how christian thinking, creative arts, business and humanitarian concern can come together in a highly effective way - see here:

• http://www.veritasse.co.uk.

What can I do about Justice and Sustainability?

Understand our society

Develop credible values and views

Understand our influence, and how best to use it

Express our views!

Do our bit to help

Take the next step

‘twas ever thus..

Greed and Hatred (Selfishness, Prejudice) always creep in

We must be vigilant to recognise it; bold to speak and act against it

History

Our addiction to cheap plentiful energy

Technology; a powerful, double-edged weapon

The rise of the Company

Companies – originally a people-structure to harness resources, for sustainably benefiting people

But they have become something rather different..

The Established Order: ‘I must serve the Company’ – but does the Company serve Society?

What’s wrong

Deep injustice is still built into the fabric of Western society

Power is concentrated at the top (Boards of selfish white males)

Trade and labour conditions, trading and IP rules, favour the rich and powerful

Government influenced by selfish commercial interests (and selfish voters)

Media strongly reflect debased vision and values, not truth and justice

I am complicit

Ignorant

Turn a blind eye

Say nothing - Let it happen

Carry on doing things the same old way

We need to disentangle ourselves!

Yesterday’s challenges

18th-20th century, in the West

The Slave Trade

Labour conditions

Education

Votes

Social security

Healthcare

Today’s challenges - global

Stop Climate Chaos

Make Poverty History and the Millennium Development Goals

Fair Trade

Trade Justice

Drop the Debt (Jubilee Debt Campaign)

Stop the Traffik

Sweatshops – eg International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF)

Control Arms

Selfishly selective political/military interventions

AIDS, Malaria etc (eg www.unaids.org/en www.rbm.who.int)

Today’s challenges – local

Selfish Capitalist lifestyles and Mental Distress (depression, stress, addictions etc)

Centralisation

Community life

Solutions:

Engagement with beauty and the natural environment

Exemplary living

Counselling and support

What difference can it make?

People’s attitudes obey a ‘Bell Curve’ distribution, with The Crowd at the peak, and Activists at either extreme

A small group of Activists can pull the Crowd in either direction

Examples (negative): Nazism, Serbian nationalism etc

Examples (positive): The Slave Trade, Environmentalism

My circle of influence

We have unprecedented information, access and influence

I am directly connected to dozens of people and organisations

Do they all know what I want to happen?

Am I using my powers of support and veto?

Common interest/campaigning groups

Avaaz.org – web/email campaigns

Tearfund – prayer and campaigning updates; SuperBadger on Facebook

Oxfam – events, briefing sheets

www.writetothem.com – contacting MPs, MEPs, councillors

Our disposable resources

Finance

Knowledge and skills

Time and energy

Contacts and relationships

Can we harness them to better effect?

Search for ‘win-win’ redeployments

Actions

Lifestyle audits

Work out marginal benefits and costs of different actions

Prioritise

Review

Make myself accountable

Get together with others

The G8, Campaigning, Soundbite Society, Selfish Capitalism, and WAFTAG - useful discussions/info, from 7/7/08 Witney meeting

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead (1901–78), cultural anthropologist and writer

The G8 summit

opened Monday 7th in Toyako (Hokkaido island, Japan). The news seems to be changing fast (see web links below). Statements have now been issued on fulfilling pledges made on poverty at Gleneagles, halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and ensuring biofuel investments don’t affect food prices/availability. However experts say these still leave many ends un-tied. So, very much a case for vigilant watching, praying and joining our voice with other people of good faith on these very important issues.

• Do pray hard, and consider campaigning online – eg via Avaaz.org.

More info:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7494702.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7489993.stm

Campaigning

Speaking up for truth and justice is a key activity for Christians – but generally we do little of it. It can seem a daunting jungle of forums, claims and counter-claims, but we can make a worthwhile difference by speaking, writing, emailing etc, and there are organisations and websites that do a good job helping us tackle key issues. In Fair Doers we should eventually systematically review priority organisations and activities, but for now the following two are recommended – do sign up with them!

www.Avaaz.org – non sectarian, but one of the best in promoting focused, balanced, timely and effective action – and feeding back results.

• Sign up, and respond to their (brief) email calls.

www.Tearfund.org – highly regarded Christian charity, which puts emphasis on campaigning as well as helping on the ground.

• Join their ‘Superbadger’ application on Facebook (contact Marcus if you’d like help).

Judging right courses in a ‘Soundbite Society’

The group discussed that some are sceptical of the current ‘climate’ of opinion (sorry for pun..) on global warming – is it real, or just a fashion? But some of the most questioning are also strong advocates of not polluting and living sustainably, so regardless of background reasoning, we probably all agree on practical strategy. However this raises the important issue of how we assess truth in a society that is strongly driven by media, marketing lobbies etc.

The answer probably lies in making the best assessment we can of the motivation, expertise and reputability of the key opinion sources, judging our actions on the balance of probabilities with careful reference to biblical priorities and the precautionary principle. And keeping our decisions under review. Marcus and Matt will try and do a study on this topic, and present back to the group in future. Any inputs and expertise welcomed – do let us know!

Selfish Capitalism

Oliver James is a clinical psychologist, writer, and documentary producer and pundit on TV and radio. In his books Affluenza and The Selfish Capitalist, he describes and illustrates scientific studies on mental wellbeing and its inverse association with Virus values – placing a high value on acquiring money and possessions, looking good in the eyes of others and wanting to be famous. Although we may think we don’t do these things much, his book shows that these values are surprisingly prevalent in all the English-speaking nations (including the UK). I (MJS) was certainly challenged on how they can exist in our local christian circles and in my own life.

The Vaccines to Affluenza are:

• Have Positive Volition (not ‘Think Positive’)
• Replace Virus motives (with Intrinsic ones)
• Be Beautiful (not Attractive)
• Consume what you need (not what advertisers want you to want)
• Meet your children’s needs (not those of little adults)
• Educate your children (don’t brainwash them)
• Enjoy motherhood (not deperate housewifery)
• Be Authentic (not Sincere), Vivacious (not Hyperactive), Playful (not Game-Playing)

These are explained in the book(s).

Although Oliver James doesn’t seem very sympathetic to organised religion, I’m struck by the parallels with Christian values of avoiding greed, envy and materialism rather than spirituality.

• To what extent are we infected with the Affluenza virus of Selfish Capitalism?
• How we can cultivate the ‘vaccines’ in our own lives and our local (or wider) society?

More info:

About Oliver James http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_James

His website http://www.selfishcapitalist.com/

Guardian article by him (provides a good summary of his arguments)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/03/comment.mentalhealth

Video - interview with Mariella Frostrup (good summary for those who prefer listening/watching to reading) http://www.selfishcapitalist.com/selfish_multimedia.html

Independent article by him; more politically focused:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/oliver-james-despite-ourselves-we-are-all-gordon-gekkos-now-774535.html

WAFTAG

Witney Area Fairtrade Action Group is Witney’s local group supporting and promoting fair trade. Although its campaign for Witney to become an officially-recognised Fairtrade Town is stalled while we wait for emotions to calm down on all sides, longer term there seems little real difficulty in achieving this, and actually it is merely the icing on the cake – the real benefit to both Witney and developing-country producers lies in creatively working with shops and other outlets to increase awareness and uptake of fairly traded goods.

• There is lots to do constructively here, and anyone’s ideas or energy would be welcomed.

A current activity is planning an art competition for children, advertising fair trade during Fair Trade Fortnight in March 2009. This will link Witney’s schoolchildren with some of the poorest communities in the world, by increasing understanding, and sales of Fair Trade products in Witney. Witney’s Meller art gallery has a Christian ethos and supports fair trade. Maybe they could support the competition? Wendy will look into promoting the competition via the Meller gallery and Waftag’s Schools sub-committee.

More info:

www.waftag.blogspot.com

update from CCOW

Dear Friends,

If you are putting together intercessions for Sunday, do please remember to pray for the situation in Zimbabwe and for the Climate Change Bill as it makes its way through the House of Commons. All the development agencies are also asking supporters to email their MPs about some critical measures in the Climate Bill.

There is a lot of material related to Zimbabwe available online. The Guardian has a very powerful video clip about the violence surrounding the current election campaign. In terms of the church response, you might want to look at material about the Zambian Catholic bishops' letter to the SADC ; the pastoral letter from the Anglican Bishops of Central Africa ; and the letter from the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches . There's also a good summary with prayer material from Christian Solidarity Worldwide. On an ongoing basis, you can receive regular updates from Tearfund by signing up for their regular Zimbabwe prayer email. Christian Aid sends out less frequent, but more in-depth updates drawing on the experiences of their partners. To join the mailing list for their "Voices from Zimbabwe" briefings, email cmoyse@christian-aid.org. We'll also be posting more on our website about Zimbabwe next week.

On the Climate Change Bill, there is plenty of material for prayer points and action available from CAFOD, Christian Aid, and Tearfund. The websites also contain the background information about the Bill, the Government's refusal to take on some amendments made in the House of Lords, and what needs to happen next. The email actions are quite important; there is very little time for campaigning. Please do encourage people to participate.

Thank you for your prayers and action!

God bless,

Maranda

New on the CCOW website: Report on "Journey to Justice," the commemoration of the 1998 Birmingham Jubilee Chain.

'Sisters on the Planet' - Inspiring Oxfam DVD

This DVD shows how four inspirational women from Bangladesh, Uganda, Brazil and UK - are leading their communities in the fight against climate change. It launches an Oxfam campaign on climate change, focusing on how this affects the poorest people in the world and women in particular. Contact Marcus if you would like to borrow it.