Workshop 1 Samoan Circle Notes
What is to be done? (notes by Ben Gilchrist – Facilitator)
The aim of the Samoan circle, similar to a ‘fishbowl’, is to “stimulate active participation by all parties interested in or affected by an issue, and allows insights into different perspectives on an issue”. People are vseated in a circle within a circle. Only those in the inner circle are allowed to speak. All have a chance to speak out by simply entering the ‘inner circle’.
Roughly in the order the points were raised so you can track the flow of the discussion…
- Symbolic action engaging creativity and being for life
- Learning to live with less
- Science and action interaction
- Not too much! ‘the art of the great silence’ (story of a couple arguing on the tube about having an empty weekend – then in response booking a flight to Bucharest)
- Poverty does not mean space
- The same people are at events – we need to take it outside the normal group
- Resilience not adaptation but with social justice including future generations and all species – ‘commanding narratives’
- Movements learn
- People leave it to the experts – need to de-centralise power – human level science
- What about population growth?
- Gender and climate change – little research – we need female communicators
- The sea stores less co2 and the land isn’t enough for biomass for heat let along anything else
- Low carbon won’t address other environmental issues – we have to be holistic, not prolong the agony
- Ethics is simple – temperance, addressing consumer capitalism, but the science is complex
- Global perspective – stop flying, become vegetarian, but the oil and coal still in the ground will be used and is too much
- We don’t have models to deal with this in global history
- We must tackle the mantra for economic growth
- It’s not all restrictive, wealth does not equal quality of life
- Decide what we want, and then how we get it – not being against climate change, but for something
- What motivates us? It’s not about climate change, and therefore not about science
- Science attracts us as a universal
- What is a society? This conversation couldn’t happen like this in other countries
- Climate change to many means reducing possibilities but actually it can be about enlarging possibilities
My grouping of the points raised in rough themes…
Some specific ideas…
- Symbolic action engaging creativity and being for life
- Not too much! ‘the art of the great silence’ (story of a couple arguing on the tube about having an empty weekend – then in response booking a flight to Bucharest)
- Global perspective – stop flying, become vegetarian
- The same people are at events – we need to take it outside the normal group
Some bigger issues to address…
- Gender and climate change – little research – we need female communicators
- What about population growth?
- What is a society? This conversation couldn’t happen like this in other countries
- We must tackle the mantra for economic growth
- Ethics is simple – temperance, addressing consumer capitalism, but the science is complex
Some big problems…
- The sea stores less co2 and the land isn’t enough for biomass for heat let along anything else
- Low carbon won’t address other environmental issues – we have to be holistic, not prolong the agony
- Problem - the oil and coal still in the ground will be used and is too much
- We don’t have models to deal with this in global history
Some hope/reality check regarding simplicity…
- Learning to live with less
- Poverty does not mean space
- It’s not all restrictive, wealth does not equal quality of life
- Climate change to many means reducing possibilities but actually it can be about enlarging possibilities
Some ideas and comments for the next steps…
- Science and action interaction
- What motivates us? It’s not about climate change, and therefore not about science
- Science attracts us as a universal
- Resilience not adaptation but with social justice including future generations and all species – ‘commanding narratives’
- Movements learn
- People leave it to the experts – need to de-centralise power – human level science
- Decide what we want, and then how we get it – not being against climate change, but for something