All eyes are on Copenhagen as the final days of the global warming summit heats up (avg. Joe pun). Kidding aside… It’s my bet the world leaders at the summit will be sitting in quite comfortable temperatures in their various, well-appointed conference rooms. And therein lies the rub. If we want to “Be the change you want to see in the world” (including these world leaders), it’s time to lose the air conditioning in the summer, turn the thermostat down in the winter and wear (Are you ready for this?) hats. No, really. Physiologists (or professionals like that) say 70% of our body heat escapes through the head. (My wife Liz would say that with the hole I have up there, it might be closer to 95%.) At our place in South Bend this winter, we’re regularly turning the thermostat down to 60 degrees and walking around the place wearing hats, sweaters, for some even gloves… During a talk on “environmental stewardship” in Wellington, Ohio, I explained that common sense says that if we want to save the planet for our kids, avert more drought and famine in the more arid countries, etc., etc., etc., we’re going to have to actually: sacrifice. Oops. There’s that “s” word. Note: An advertisement for a transmission shop here reads: South Bend Clutch “We motivate the shiftless.”
gangs and armed robbery
I went to a Catholic Worker social event Saturday night. Sitting next to me was a man I hadn’t seen before. I asked him where he was from. He said he’d just gotten out of prison, for armed robbery. He’d been in for 10 years, this time. Previously, he’d been in for three years for armed robbery. He told me he grew up in the projects of inner city Chicago. From an early age was involved with gangs. It was one of only a few ways to survive down there, he said. During these years, he’d been shot in the eye and lost his sight in it. He said violence was a way of life and it was unusual for him to go through a day in Chicago “without hearing gunshots.” This time out, he has hooked up with a non-profit group called Companions on the Journey and he wants to start a mentoring program through the organization — to help kids who are in similar situations to what he was in as a youth. Note: During an interview with the Bowling Green News in Ohio during a campaign swing, I said in a “saner world” kids wouldn’t have to dodge hunger, needles and bullets growing up in these urban areas. But the only way to really systemmically shift this, is for some of the people in suburban and small town America to take a deep breath, roll up their sleeves, and move into these urban areas to live side by side with those trapped down there. That simple. That hard.
“Where are the voices of reason?”
I recently talked with Ken Peters in South Bend, Indiana. He was stationed at Alamagordo Air Force Base in New Mexico next to White Sands — during the time the first atom bomb was tested. Since then, the U.S. has gone on to amass thousands of nuclear weapons. Peters is opposed to nuclear weapons proliferation and speaks out against it regularly. He points to Jack Mendelsohn, a former US. State Department official, who says America should stop waving the nuclear threat at potential adversaries. “This nation (U.S.) can’t become more secure by reserving for itself the right to use nuclear weapons — while preaching abstinence for the rest of the world,” says Mendelsohn. Ken wonders: “Where are the voices of reason?” … Ken Peters’s wife Ellie gave me a small pamphlet that explained some 57% of our national budget goes to the Military, while 6% goes to Health and Human Services; 4% goes to Education; 4% goes to Housing and Urban Development; 1% goes to the Environmental Protection Agency… Ellie wonders: Where are the voices of reason in these figures? Maybe they all ‘took the last train for the coast.’
Economy of Communion
In the last blog entry, I wrote about part of The New Economy we propose. The essence revolves around a much more simplified, small-scale humanitarian approach. Today I met with Professor Mike Griffin from Holy Cross College in South Bend, Indiana. He, too, is interested in a major shift in the economy. What he proposes is an “Economy of Communion.” That is, the essence of transactions in this kind of economy would be centered on the common good. For instance, Professor Griffin is in the formulating stages of a class about the importance of exploring the dimensions of local agriculture. He would expose students to the concepts of local farmers growing for the local community and selling the food through local grocers, farmer’s markets, community sponsored agriculture… It is in this, that the interdependence between farmer and community members grows exponentially — bringing everyone is strong “communion” with each other. This only makes sense. Spiritual sense. Note: Professor Griffin is also a strong proponent of “fair trade,” which is about bringing us more in “communion” with our brothers and sisters in the Third World. Fair Trade promotes the selling of such things as coffee, clothes, arts & crafts… at “fair” prices to help farmers and artisans in poorer countries. Investing in things like fair trade is “putting flesh on the concept of love,” Professor Griffin added… Professor Griffin is a “friend of the Catholic Worker” in South Bend. The Catholic Worker was started by Dorothy Day. In her book Loaves and Fishes, Ms. Day writes that “poverty has many faces” and we must continually ask, not only how we are to help the poor in the immediate, but why the poor are poor systemically. And when we figure that out, then we are to, well, change the system(s). The New Economy we are working on, does this in spades.
reboot the economy
For the last week, I’ve been somewhat cloistered working on a significant update to our position paper on the economy. One of the resources I draw from is an article that appeared in Yes! Magazine. Author David Kroten writes that it should not be about pumping more stimulus money into a failing economic system construct. But rather, we should be creating: The New Economy. “There is good reason why both the Bush and Obama administrations, different as they are, have responded to the Wall Street crash with bailouts for the guilty, rather than face up to the need for a radical restructuring of the financial system,” writes Kroten. He goes on to propose that we reboot the economy by doing away with Wall Street financial speculation (which he says is nothing more than legalized gambling). And that we would also do well to go back to a small scale, decentralized local production for local consumption model that favors “productive work” and solid local investment. This only makes sense. Common sense.
Arctic ice melts at an alarming rate
An Associated Press article today said that permanent Arctic sea ice is disappearing at an alarming rate. Multi-year sea ice used to cover 90% of the Arctic basin, but because of global warming it now covers only 19%. During a recent talk at Holy Cross College in South Bend, Indiana, I said to just slowly and incrementally cut back our fossil fuel use in the face of this mounting crisis is like “…rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” The U.S., which currently leads the world in the emission of greenhouse gases, needs to move from being a “Society of Consumers to a Society of Conservers,” quick. And there needs to be political leadership with the guts to tell Americans that we need to ration energy use, like things were rationed during World War II. And when you think about it from a common sense standpoint, it is war time again now. That is, there is a war on the environment. Note: The article also included the following paragraph: “The lack of sea ice may be good news to some who want to see the North opened to industry. Without thick ice blocking the way, shpis can more easily gain access to the Arctic’s natural resources.” This begs the question: Have we become that nuts that any of us would see this as “good news.”?
Foreclosure crisis, or opportunity?
An AP story today said that the “foreclosure crisis” is worsening. The latest evidence was a report Thursday that a rising proportion of fixed-rate home loans made to people with good credit are sinking into foreclosure nationwide, according to the article. The state hardest hit is Florida where one in four mortgages were either past due or in foreclosure… Now, this can be viewed as a “crisis.” Or this can be viewed as a step toward a part of the new economy we propose when it comes to real estate. In the new economy, many more people go to house-sharing. This halves expenses. The mortgage is half. The utilities are half. You share furniture, appliances, lawn equipment… Urban sprawl starts to reverse. Global warming gases diminish significantly. And money is freed up to help the poor here and around the world more… On a campaign stop in Winnona, Minnesota, we learned that town has a House-Share Program to help match people. Every town should have a similar program.
desperate and afraid
Liz and I are currently part of the staff at the St. Peter Claver Catholic Worker Houses in South Bend, Indiana. These houses, based on the ethos of Christian “hospitality,” take in people off the streets and allow them to live here long term. With the cold weather now upon us, the houses are relatively full. There was no room at the women’s house, for instance, for a middle-age black woman who came to the door last night. In turn, a friend and I gave her a ride the South Bend’s homeless shelter for the evening. She said she was both desperate and she was afraid to be on the streets at night. And it showed. The answer, in the short term, was a bed at the shelter for the evening. The answer, in the long term, is to exponentially step up the help for those on the margins of society.
Lunar Lunacy 2
Front page stories in newspapers across the country scream that, at last: Water Has Been Found On The Moon! I mean, there’s water in India. And there’s water in Uganda. And there’s water in El Salvador… A lot of it unsafe to drink. But the poor are drinking it, and dying. And then there’s all that polluted water in the Great Lakes. And what about not enough water in southern California? And… Yet we’re spending billions of dollars on this moon thing. Billions of dollars that could be spent setting up water purification systems in the Third World, better water filtration plants for the Great Lakes, and water pipeline conduits into Southern California. All on this planet. Have we become so devoid of common sense?
Did you say 50 billion dollars?
I went to a talk about nuclear weapons at Notre Dame University’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies yesterday. Retired General William Burns, who advocates for an incrementally scaled back U.S. nuclear arsenal, offered some relatively startling numbers. The one that particularly caught my attention was: In the year 2008, the U.S. spent $50 billion (that’s right, billion as with a b) on simply maintaining — not even upgrading — our nuclear weapons. During the Q&A period, I noted that the Catholic Bishops in America had issued a statement that nuclear proliferation in the face of world poverty is a social justice travesty. In “average Joe” terms, I noted that there are 24,000 people who starve to death every day in the world. Yet we just spent $50 billion last year to keep ourselves protected. Given this, do we become spiritually culpable for many of these peoples’ deaths? It wouldn’t take a moral theologian to, well… I also asked General Burns, based on his years of worldwide nuclear diplomacy, that if the U.S. disarmed all our nuclear weapons tomorrow, would we be nuked? He said no. Note: During a small dinner gathering with General Burns after the talk, I asked him how we can tell these other countries they can’t have nuclear weapons — while not only do we have them, but some are aimed at these other countries? The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty notwithstanding, he said because we think we’re right and they’re not. I couldn’t help but think how ‘right’ it is to spend 50 billion bucks to tremendously over protect ourselves, while little starving children in Uganda are taking their last breaths while their moms and dads look on helplessly?