Climate Change Despair & Empowerment Roadshow
A PROJECT OF THE RAINFOREST INFORMATION CENTRE
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au

The "Climate Change, Despair and Empowerment" roadshow is based on the highly successful Endangered Species roadshow which the Rainforest Information Centre organised in the run-up to the NSW state elections in 2003. On that occasion we travelled to some 100 cities and towns around the state with our film On The Brink (with David Attenborough, Olivia Newton John, David Suzuki & Jack Thompson) leading to a deluge of letters to politicians about our concern for endangered species. This roadshow was one of the factors which led, a week or two before the elections, to Bob Carr promising to protect all remaining old-growth forests in northern New South Wales and a few weeks after the elections honouring this with the reservation of 65,000 hectares. (see www.rainforestinfo.org.au/spp/index.htm )

Click here for description of one day Despair & Empowerment Workshops

This roadshow will assume that most people attending have seen An Inconvenient Truth, are somewhat aware of current news and are among the 93% of Australians which CSIRO research has found are concerned about the issue. (The Australian , November 15, 2006).

The roadshow aims to:

* catalyse, invigorate and support grassroots climate study/action groups across Australia.

* Address the hopeless despair that many people feel and provide tools to transform despair into empowerment and effective action. This will be based on the Despair & Empowerment work of Joanna Macy and the "Climate Change, Despair and Empowerment" talk which John Seed gave in Massachusetts last year with Pullitzer Prize winning journalist Ross Gelbspan. A 60-minute film was made from this event and this is available for free to anyone who agrees to use it to educate their family friends or community. Likewise the DVD of the extraordinary 60-minute .presentation on Climate Change that Ross Gelbspan made to the World Affairs Council in 2004.

* unveil the false and "business as usual", solutions being touted by the major political parties such as nuclear power and so called "clean coal".

* raise awareness and inspire political action towards the real solutions that we, the people, must insist upon. (eg. end Australia's $6.5 billion a year in subsidies to the fossil fuel industries, support energy efficiency, solar, wind etc.)

* provide resources for the many things that we can all do to turn the situation around.

* Support a network of Climate Study/Action Groups across Australia through 1) the development of a website which includes all resources that are made available at the roadshow plus more. 2) meeting facilitation support and consulting on group process as needed.

The roadshow premiered at Woodford Folk Festival on December 27th, 2006. The format is to offer 3 or 4 (or more) roadshow forums in a district or city on consecutive weeknights followed by a 1-day Climate Change Despair & Empowerment workshop nearby on a Saturday or Sunday shortly thereafter.

The evening forums will include:

* a video presentation that includes footage of Al Gore speaking about the huge impact that Australia could make in the US if Australia signs Kyoto.

* A look at what the real solutions are likely to be. Some examples of this are at "What You Can Do".

* a discussion on the role of the denial of feelings of helplessness and despair in making us feel helpless, hopeless, paralysed, what can one person do anyway, its too late etc etc. This addresses Gore's insight that many people move straight from denial to hopeless despair about this issue without leaving any space in between for effective action. (see www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/cabmourn.htm for a more general version of this argument).

* Where no climate study/action group currently exists, the group will be invited to form one there and then. If one already exists, representatives from the group will be invited to give an update on their group's direction, meetings etc. We will discuss the importance of direct democracy and grassroots and that each of us now needs to awaken those around us to the urgency of understanding and action. US Supreme Court Justice Brandeis, 1930: "The most important office of government is citizen."

* Open a discussion on local initatives and local directions

* Invite people to host "house parties", invite their friends to watch DVDs, build the network, discuss solutions and spread word of the climate study/action groups. Two DVDs are being offered for free to anybody who wishes to host these events: 1) Boiling Point by Ross Gelbspan - Pulitzer prize winning journalist Gelbspan makes a compelling presentation on global warmiing and some broad sweeping solutions; 2) Climate Change Despair & Empowerment with Ross Gelbspan and John Seed - recorded in Massachusetts, Gelbspan speaking on climate change and John Seed speaking on despair & empowerment followed by questions and answers.

* an invitation to the "Climate Change, Despair and Empowerment" 1-day workshop at a nearby venue on Saturday or Sunday. Graduates of Joanna Macy's 30-day training will be facilitating these as well as Ruth Rosenhek and John Seed. We'll train others up for both this piece and for the presentations themselves.

In the one-day "Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment" workshops, we will be offering experiential processes that generate empowerment as follows:

Through Joanna Macy's body of work known as "despair and empowerment" (see her book "Coming Back to Life", http://www.joannamacy.net and http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/cabmourn.htm ) we allow ourselves to recognise our feelings about what is happening to our world. By acknowledging this level of our being rather than just our thoughts on the subject, people around the world have found that feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, "what can one person do anyway?", "It's all to late" etc are transformed into inspired and empowered positive action.

Through processes which nourish our vast ecological identity, we expand from the narrow confines of our social identity to experience our ancient ecological heritage, that every cell in our body is descended in an unbroken chain from the first cell of life. Then our kinship with all of life shines through the fog of civilisation and rooted in the history of Earth and in the living Earth itself, we seek wisdom and clear thinking on our role as we and our fellow beings face the crisis of global warming.