Peak Oil and Preparing for the riots of 2030

Both the USA and the UK have never had to face the issue of running out of natural resources– 
but we will.


“Oil is one commodity and water is the other one I see looming on the horizon, especially in the West.”

Not my words of warning – I quote from the blog of Eric Holdeman, “Emergency management in the blogosphere,” writing on the German Army report on peak oil, Review of Bundeswehr Report on peak oil: Section 2.2. Tipping Point (Nov. 2010) that has just become available in English translation.
The approved version of the German report was released last November, although it had been previously leaked, and it was only available in German to start with. Now it is available in English. Alarmingly it has received almost no media attention, even in Germany. Because everyone, emergency planners, politicians, educators, journalists, needs to recognize and act upon what it is saying.

Interestingly, Holdeman writes, his blog post on Preparing for the riots of 2030  struck the greatest nerve with people. “Some commented that it won’t take that long to get to the point before we have major riots in our urban areas.” Holdeman’s premise in that blog posting was that rioting would develop out of the “disparity of income and the lack of upward mobility coming home to roost.” He now adds “a shortage of resources to that list that can accelerate and acerbate the feeling of hopelessness.”
Oh yes! The recent riots on the streets of English cities strike a chord here! Wait ‘til the effects of oil shortage start to bite! 2030 or sooner?

Passing the Moral Buck

One thing that has struck me throughout all the debates that have rumbled on about the recent riots on the streets of England is something M Scott Peck wrote of in his book People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, (London: Arrow, 1990, p. 249). Peck warned of the phenomenon whereby there is a fragmentation of conscience across a group of individuals such that it becomes less than the sum of all the individual consciences. He called it ‘passing the moral buck’, and saw therein a great potential for evil.
Clearly there were quite a few of these looters and rioters who when they woke up and reflected in the cold light of day on what they had done, felt rather stupid, even remorseful. At least I hope so!
The holistic education of our kids that I support so wholeheartedly should include group behavior dynamics, alongside conflict resolution and learning to be good decent honest responsible citizens in the community. Academic league tables are far from all that matters in our classrooms.

Kick a Puppy, get a Mean Dog. More on looting and rioting

"Kick a puppy and you get a mean dog," the expression goes. Sure. What we need more than anything else in the aftermath of these latest lootings and riots on the streets of English cities is to ask ourselves why the puppies feel kicked - why they are growing up to be mean dogs.
And, somewhat controversially, David Cameron UK Prime Minister has now asked for advice from Bill Bratton former head of the New York Police Department. In Bratton's first two years at that post, reports of serious crime dropped 27%. And Mr Bratton is no stranger to UK policing, having teamed up with British officers at other times over the past 20 years.
According to Sky News, "In 2009, the Queen awarded him the honorary title of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Mr Bratton, who is now a security expert, left the Los Angeles police force in 2009 after significantly lowering the crime rate." So he clearly has wide ranging and valuable experience. Yes our UK police are wonderful, but what is wrong with having the humility to also ask others for advice.

In his ‘Call to Renewal’ Keynote Address to a Sojourners conference in 2006, Barack Obama reminded the audience ‘the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man. Solving these problems will require changes in government policy; it will also require changes in hearts and minds.’

Simone Weil once said: ‘A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.’ Or as Barack Obama has described this in our twenty first century world, in an address to a Sojourners conference in 2006: ‘When a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we have a problem of morality; there's a hole in that young man's heart; a hole that government programs alone cannot fix.’

So we need to dig deep into all our resources to try to understand this current crisis.

For anyone who wants to explore this further, and wants to make their own contribution to help society heal what is wrong at its roots, I now unashamedly recommend my own book - the result of much research into this and other contemporary world issues. There is a whole chapter on Community, how it is formed and why it becomes broken, how we are failing our youth, the need for education and healing, etc. all brought together with the wisdom of renowned thinkers and leaders past and present and with lots of suggested resources for further action on both sides of The Pond.

‘There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root,’ wrote Henry David Thoreau. We all have to start striking at those roots.

More thoughts on the English city lootings

What is money? It is difficult to define. We have ingrained within our deepest psyche a sense that our monetary wealth reflects our success and affects our happiness.
But we know from studies that once a certain and fairly modest standard of living has been achieved any further increase in wealth does not improve our happiness. It is then influenced more by our status in society, the quality of our personal relationships and our physical health.And status emphatically does not mean celebrity status. It means being valued for our own unique gifts and qualities, whatever those may be.

And that is an important point in considering the reasons for the riots of the last week in English Cities: being valued for our own unique gifts and qualities, whatever those may be.

Because these lootings of shops and businesses were not about need. Many of these youngsters didn’t actually want for very much in material needs – many seemed to have expensive smart phones, and many also drove away from the trouble when they had done their worst in cars that were more than “old bangers.”
Yes the looting was about materialism and greed, and a lack of understanding between what is right and wrong. But what example have these people been set over the last few months by the Members of Parliament expenses scandal, or the News of the World Phone Hacking revelations. It is more than just these youngsters (and some not so young) who need to learn the difference between right and wrong. And what do our youth think when they see the ‘super rich’, to be found most visibly to them among the celebrities of sport, television and movie, but particularly the footballers.

The lavish life-styles led by many such persons breed an envy and greed, particularly it would seem among the young who are being taught by example that material wealth and celebrity status are the measure of ‘success’. Add to that a lack of education, jobs, stable family relationships, a lack of self worth or self esteem, and the recipe for disaffection and looting and violence is put together. All it takes is for the fuse to be lit.

I expand these thoughts and offer many ideas for how we can all do our bit to heal these and many others issues of the world in my own book. There is much more information on my website.

Love a Lout and Hug a Hoodie! Where have we gone wrong?

A young man murdered a teenager in a South London suburb in an unthinking moment of unprovoked aggression. This man has been sentenced to life imprisonment, and two families each lose a son. One was much loved. Nothing will fill the hole in his parents’ hearts. What about the other? In summing up the case on the steps of the Law Courts the police said that these two young people came from different worlds in the same city. One was a decent and loving child. One, he said, was a yob.
That was a few years ago now. Fast-forward to the events of the last few days in English cities and we see that little seems to have changed.
Prime Minister David Cameron returned early from holiday – some would say he should have come sooner - to take charge of what has unravelled as an appalling and frightening situation on our streets. Certain sectors of our society, he said, are quite frankly sick.
So how do we go about healing this sickness?

Five years ago, in 2006, when he was the UK Conservative Party leader, David Cameron expressed his view that kids guilty of anti social behavior needed compassion and kindness from those who worked with them. The press distorted his remarks. Go out and ‘hug a hoodie’ or ‘love a lout’, they proclaimed. His comments were ridiculed.
In fact there is a serious and real truth hidden behind this media scorn!
Cameron was speaking to the Centre for Social Justice on the link between social injustices and crime, particularly among the young. The point he actually made in a thoughtful and balanced speech was that long-term answers to anti-social behavior would be found in a ‘pro-social’ society. We have to get to grips, he said, with the causes of crime. We must understand the social circumstances that so often create the environment for the anti-social behavior in the first place. Of course we need tough sanctions and a sense of justice and boundaries. But if the police stand for sanctions and penalties, then all those who work with the kids must stand for love. Not, Cameron assured us, a soppy love, but a love that is all about relationships and emotional development in an atmosphere of security and trust.
Five years later, what has been achieved? Clearly not enough!
First let me say that neither Cameron nor I are in any way condoning the appalling acts of criminality witnessed over the last dew days. (Although the subsequent clean-ups organized by many decent citizens do reflect the makings of Cameron's Big Society.) But we do all have to ask ourselves what can we do, personally, to help prevent such happenings again. How do we give these perpetrators of violence and looting a sense of worth, a sense of moral values, of right from wrong?
The issues here are several, and complex, and unemployment and poor education, often indeed linked, contribute to a lack of self worth and self- esteem. But this looting is all about materiality, and greed, for consumer goods that are not going to make any of those people happier or more fulfilled in the long run. It will put quite a few into prison, perhaps blighting their lives permanently. And in destroying businesses the yobs are destroying the very hands that could feed them! We have clearly failed many of our own youth.

The Dalai Lama, in Ancient Wisdom Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium (London: Abacus, Time Warner Books UK, 2000 p.192) stresses that education ‘constitutes one of our most powerful weapons in our quest to bring about a better, more peaceful, world.’ He emphasizes the need to open children’s eyes to the needs and rights of others, so that their actions have a universal dimension, and they develop their ‘natural feelings of empathy so that they come to have a sense of responsibility towards others.’ He reminds us that traditionally it has been assumed that ethical and human values would be taught through a child’s religious upbringing rather than in mainstream state education. With the declining influence of religion and faith in family life this vital part of a child’s education has become neglected. The Dalai Lama proffers three guidelines for the education of our children. First, he says, we need to awaken their consciousness to basic human values by showing them how these are relevant to their future survival, rather than presenting them as solely an ethical or faith issue. Then we must teach them how to discuss and debate, to understand the value of dialogue rather than violence for resolving conflict. That was a skill seen to be sadly lacking over the last few days on our streets. And finally, (although thankfully this did not appear to be in an issue this last week), there is the urgent need to teach children that differences of race, faith, culture, while important to preserve, are nevertheless secondary to the equal rights of us all from whatever background to be happy. (And of course this is best done in the security of a close loving family unit. But that is also another issue for me to take up and write about in another post.)
Regrettably the purpose of education as seen in most of our traditional schools is to train people for jobs, rather than to be the rounded and spiritually grounded citizens of tomorrow, and we are even failing in that purpose for many of our kids. Our education system is shackled by the needs of exams and syllabuses and league tables. And for those of little academic prowess the system does not seem to provide enough suitable alternatives – apprenticeships for learning a useful trade, for example. Wouldn’t it be good if in the future more of our schools come to be judged not only on their position in academic league tables but on how successfully they turn out well rounded, happy, respectful, useful, empathic and spiritual citizens?

And if school does nothing for them, where else can our youth discover a sense of belonging, a sense of value to society, a sense of community? Because it is surely when a community breaks up that we see aimless and marginalized children, where knife, gun and drug cultures flourish, alongside lawlessness, graffiti and a general loss of respect for one and all.

Whilst it seems clear to me that we are failing our children, there are plenty of examples of good work quietly going on beyond the public gaze, where kids are being helped to develop a sense of worth and belonging, a sense of purpose. There are places where families are supported in local networks, where children are made to feel loved and wanted rather than part of a ‘problem’. In the longer term the most effective initiatives will be those that cut across the ‘them and us’ divide, avoid any kind of social exclusion and foster a broad inclusiveness for all.
This is all about building what Robert Putnam calls ‘social capital’, through social networks and mutual assistance. Because this is not a problem unique to England.In the hopeful book, Better Together: Restoring the American Community, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005) Robert Putnam and Lewis Feldstein tell the stories of twelve such initiatives, from neighborhood groups to a Fortune 500 company, from a
church to a website, but all in their unique ways helping to build real community that has lasted and is respected as such.

So let’s all start looking at the ‘communities’ where we live. Consider your church, your kids’ school and your neighborhood. We can all add to that list our own places of work and leisure. How many real community characteristics are evident? How holistic is your child’s education? Are the kids and youth all valued, or are there dangerous pockets of disaffection. Do we have the opportunity, as governor, teacher or parent, to guide towards a more holistic education, and to love a lout or to hug a hoodie?

Postscript: I am delighted to see that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams speaking in the House of Lords earlier today said that education itself needs to be rebuilt, as the building of "character" and "virtue" has faded over the past two decades. He says there are no "quick answers", but it's not just about discipline but about the ethos of educational institutions. Exactly so!