Obsolete Beliefs and Aspirations

A month ago on this blog (23 November 2010) I posted a review of A New Renaissance – Transforming Science, Spirit and Society. This is a collection of 25 essays from acknowledged experts in their fields in response to a challenge from the Scientific and Medical Network to consider ways forward out of the socio-economic and ecological global crisis we find ourselves in.

The scene is set in the first chapter, written by Ervin Laszlo on The World’s Health Problem: an Integral Diagnosis. In his analysis, Laszlo concludes: “the world is (1) socially, economically and ecologically unsustainable, (2) saddled with irrational behaviours and (3) governed by obsolete beliefs and aspirations.” And over the next few weeks I want to consider one by one these irrational behavioural patterns and obsolete beliefs and aspirations, which he lists, before looking at possible solutions.

So here is the first obsolete belief: we think the Planet is inexhaustible, and this has guided our actions quite thoughtlessly for too long. We have carried on mining and extracting our fossil fuels without thinking that these have been laid down in the earth over hundreds of millions of years, and will take the same time scale to replenish. And we continue to fill our landfill sites to the brim with our waste, much of it toxic. We havn’t thought for a moment that the space available for rubbish is finite, or considered what happens as these massive rubbish piles degrade.

In his wonderful book Harmony, HRH Prince Charles tells us that “according to UN figures, the US alone buries 222 million tons of household waste a year” with China catching up with 148 million tons. The biggest immediate problem of these massive piles of waste is that they produce greenhouse gases that trap the earth’s heat and contribute significantly to the global warming and its effects that we now witness around us.

An early awareness of our violence against the natural environment probably came with James Lovelock’s invention in 1957 of the Electron Capture Detector, a device used for measuring chemical compounds in atmosphere and matter. This enabled the discovery of residual pesticides in the food we eat, the evidence for which Rachel Carson exposed to a general public in her book Silent Spring in 1963. In this she brought together the available research at that time on toxicology, ecology and epidemiology. She sought to put the world on alert as to the dangers ahead for humanity that she foresaw if we continued to use chemicals indiscriminately in our homes. She warned of the dangers of using such chemicals for agricultural and horticultural purposes, if we did not understand the possible long-term harm they may cause. She saw that the resultant build up of these substances in our food chain could be catastrophic to wild life environments and our own health. Most importantly, the book shattered our assumptions until then that the environment had an infinite capacity to absorb pollutants and maintain its own stability. Although much of what Carson wrote is now out of date, it shook our assumptions about chemicals, made us aware of chemical pollution for the first time, and kick started the ecological movement into action.

So why, Laszlo asks, do we behave so irrationally still? Why do we continue to run our global economy on polluting and finite fossil fuels when we have the technology to harvest energy from sun, wind, tide, geothermics and plants? Why indeed?
Einstein once said that we cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created our malady. Or in other words we cannot heal our planet and ourselves with the same kind of thinking that brought us to this current malady.
Laszlo tells us that we need a new kind of consciousness. Not only that, but there are signs around us that this is now emerging, a different kind of perception, of awareness, particularly in young people; a consciousness of connectedness and belonging, of oneness with nature. The evolution of this consciousness, Laszlo tells us, "is a precondition of healing our seriously damaged but not incurably sick planet."
I will look into this in more detail over the coming weeks as I consider some of the other irrational behavioural patterns and obsolete beliefs and aspirations listed by Laszlo that threaten our future.

Women of the Bible No. 5 Rachel

"Rachel came with her father's sheep...and Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept."




Genesis XXIX vv. 9,11


This needs a little more explanation. It was in fact a family reunion. The bit of the story missed out above is that Rachel's father was Laban, and Jacob's mother was Rebekah, Laban's sister. Therefore Laban is Jacob's uncle, and Jacob and Rachel are of course cousins. Jacob told Rachel of the family connection, and she ran to tell her father, and Jacob stayed with the family for a month.

The kiss was the traditional patriarchal greeting between man and woman, and Jacob's tears were almost certainly of joy at finding his family again.

The story goes on...Rachel had an older sister, Leah. But it sounds as if Rachel was the family beauty. Perhaps what happened was therefore inevitable. Jacob fell in love with Rachel, and it was agreed that he would work for Laban for seven years in return for her hand in marriage. Those seven years apparently flew by because Jacob was so in love with Rachel, but at the end of that time Laban deceived Jacob - after what must have been a wild feast, Jacob was tricked into spending the night with Leah. On tackling Laban about this afterwards, Laban explained that the first born must be matched up first, and made Jacob work another seven years for the hand of Rachel! The story continues in v. 31 et seq ... for another time!



When I was a little girl I used to cycle the lanes of Kent in the summer evenings, and particularly liked stopping at a field where a small herd of black and white speckled goat-like sheep, with horns, used to graze. They had tinkly bells round their necks - and I loved the noise those made as the sheep moved across the pasture. My mother told me they were called Jacob sheep.

It is said that these Jacob sheep were so called after the story in Genesis Chapter 30, v. 32 et seq., where Jacob takes all the speckled and spotted sheep and goats from Laban's flock as wages for work done. That again is a longer story for another day...

Lord Northbourne, compassion in farming and spirituality

This is day 2 after submission of my completed ,manuscript and I am feeling an immense sense of anticlimax, it has to be said! I suspect this will soon be drowned out by the necessary checking of proofs, cover designs etc etc. But in this lull I can take advantage of the time to read other hitherto neglected books.

I have discovered a real gem! Lord Northbourne lived from 1896 to 1982, and was a farmer, painter, Olympic rower, and widely respected author on both ecology and religion. So reads the publisher's note on the back cover for "Of the land and spirit - the Essential Lord Northbourne on Ecology and Religion." This is an anthology drawn together from his books and articles. Long before Rachel Carson and her exposure of the dangers of chemicals in our food and our soil, in Silent Spring, Lord  Northbourne was recognising the need to respect the cycle of nature and the part we play in it, alongside his vision that the root of many of the world's problems was a loss of our spirituality and healthy relationship with the land. He first coined the term "organic farming" and supported Rudolf Steiner's similar principles in horti- and agri- culture. I shall come back to his work from time to time as I continue reading but his work is immensely interesting.

I think the pig was called Winston - he was very friendly and smelly!!