“You Can’t Get There from Here: A Call to Wonder.” A conversation between Bayo Akomolafe and Paul Hawken.

Dear Beloved Community Circle friends,

Last week I listened to an inspiring and paradigm challenging conversation between two original thinkers whose work I have followed for years, Bayo Akomolafe and Paul Hawken. Their talk was titled "You Can't Get There From Here." They asked us in the environmental movements to question our assumptions and viewpoints about climate, like using words like "fighting" climate change or "combatting" global warming; like how we have demonized carbon; like how we have focused on the supply side of energy and not as much on the demand side (how much do we need? where does contentment lie?); like how we don't have a climate crisis but rather we have a relationship crisis; like how we focus on "there" and thereby sacrifice knowing "here" more intimately, and maybe how the view we hold are part of the thinking which helped create the environmental catastrophe facing human beings. In my opinion it's well worth watching, when you have time.  

warmly, John Bell

Watch here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkUr0wUG_IE&ab_channel=SchumacherCenterforNewEconomics

The 44th Annual E.F. Schumacher Lecture took place on Wednesday, December 4th, 2024 featuring Paul Hawken and Báyò Akómoláfé in conversation. This virtual event was hosted and moderated by Alex Forrester, Board Member of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics and Co-Founder of Rising Tide Capital.

From Alex Forrester's introduction:

"We have an opportunity today to witness and participate together in a rather beautiful engagement. Two prominent, outspoken thinkers coming from very different backgrounds and traditions who have nonetheless discovered each other and new parts of themselves in the warmth of friendship.
 
This is the very first public conversation between Báyò Akómoláfé and Paul Hawken, but it will certainly not be the last.
 
At first glance, it is an unexpected pairing.  A post-humanist philosopher on one hand who speaks poetically about monsters and middles.  And an environmental leader and social entrepreneur on the other, whose books about business and global warming have inspired a generation of activists to leverage practical hands-on approaches to change.
 
But we are living, as the old saying goes, in interesting times. And as we head into the second quarter of this most fateful decade amidst rising temperatures and burning forests, there's a growing awareness that the efforts thus far to avert disaster have not succeeded.
 
The data about global warming is overwhelming and yet the social and political energy required for this moment have not found their way yet along the critical path. It's forcing a new conversation in climate circles.  Not just of the methods, but of the problem itself.
 
It is this reconsideration that we are invited into dialogue about today. What if the problem isn't how to change the world, stop climate change, or win the fight against carbon emissions? What if that's the wrong question entirely?
 
Perhaps it's time to step back and re-examine the deeper premise of our movement — to question our schemes and strategies, the language we use, and the conceits they betray."
 

Watch here.