How can a country kick-start systemic greening using collective intelligence?
“Let us put our heads together and see what life we will make for our children.” -Tatanka Iotanka (Sitting Bull, Lakota Leader)
Systemic greening instigation – how consumer awareness shifts play a role in instigating our environmental and social regeneration
I have promoted what’s been singled out and framed as nature-based solutions since I can remember. In the 1990s, at the beginning of my growth as an environmental and social systems thinker that I have become over the years, I always felt the resonance of nature. How this resonance produces answers if we are willing to hear them. Answers that nourish and sustain us on all levels of our existence. Hence, it was easy for me to intuit even as a youngster, growing up in Poland’s forested and still relatively unspoilt, rural south that nature must hold all answers to our problems. The body of work on systemic greening that I am presenting here had originated in a rainforest and developed later in various natural places.
Nature not technology makes us individually and collectively more innovative
If we stop our chattering minds for long enough; observe and listen to it, we will access the parts of our own nature that will connect with the natural world around us and enable us to hear this inexhaustible wisdom. This is how many, often ground-breaking, discoveries and solutions come to being. One of the most poignant examples of this, that spoke to me incredibly loudly, was when I discovered the work of Viktor Schauberger.
I stumbled upon the work of this visionary forester and inventor wanting to know about a water vortex and how it works. What got me to that point was my search for water distillers so that I could drink pure water that is alive instead of tap water that is inert and lifeless. That consequently put me on the trail of vortex water revitalisers, together with little-known science behind this innovation, which dates back to the 19th century. Some of this great naturalist’s water vortex innovations include: timber slide or log fumes, soil-energising plough, and ambient air purifier.
Seeking highly intelligent answers to our crises in Nature
Schauberger’s views on water align with the indigenous philosophy of water as sacred living entity, which we shouldn’t treat purely as a resource for us to exploit. He called water the “blood of the mother Earth” and showed that by mimicking the water flows in nature, we could harness its power without disturbing ecosystems. He learnt early on and was eager to educate others about water holding the key to all our ecosystems’ equilibrium.
Nature taught Schauberger, who viewed water as a vital and living organism, how the energy of moving water creates whirls he called vortexes and that keeps the water from becoming stagnant. It was evident to me that spending time in nature sharpened his powers of perception and gave him enough thought elements to build upon cognitively.
Today, the applied science of cognitive learning has been catching up with what our naturalist predecessors used all along without knowing what it was and the mechanisms of how it worked, scientifically. It is fair to say that even a few decades ago scientific observation was considered the most reliable source of this type of evidence-based knowledge sourcing. Later it moved into the laboratory, cutting itself from the natural processes and this higher knowing almost entirely.
A naturalist – nature apprentice unlocking nature’s secrets
This higher, more intuitive, learning process is a superior process of seeing, hearing and feeling what we query to know. Further still, when combined with cognition, it becomes an optimal way of learning. Whilst we cannot bring a forest into all our living spaces, we can however bring in this (rain)forest ecosystem-type of thinking. This is already happening. And this we are well advised to do to save ourselves from predictably costly and painful consequences of the current economic system. The system that has for long disregarded the natural laws that govern all existence. As this system co-opts the majority of humans, it’s the system that needs realigning to offer the majority new, better ways of engaging with it.
The kind of which, our indigenous predecessors relied upon and accessed so easily thanks to this body-mind-soul-nature connection. Naturally then it is not so strange to infer that we have more power than we tend to think, or believe, in how we affect the world around us. Realising this can make the world of difference to our local nature-focused economies that give rise to social and ecological lifestyle enhancements. As these intrinsically link in ways that affect our wellbeing, both individually and collectively, all progressive social and economic structures should enlist their services.
How can this process unravel its mechanisms in practice?
If your local businesses or politicians talk about their commitment to you, your family and your community’s well-being, ask them what they’re doing about climate. What practical steps they’re taking to improve the situation where they hold their office to serve the public good. And most importantly, ask them how you and your family can get involved hands-on in this plan. If they cannot answer these questions and provide you with tangible steps for you to follow, then they are probably not doing enough to practically solve climate problems that affect your community. In other words, they most likely just add to greenwashing by paying a lip service to you as a taxpayer, making empty verbal declarations that distract from the reality of inaction that they support.
Practical activism as a force for community and environment regeneration
Ecoplazas are a framework that facilitates, celebrates and rewards diverse ecologically and socially inspired practical activism – i.e. regenerative action. This form of direct social activism turns us into becoming discerning, inquisitive and informed residents and voters. On top of that, it enables us to join the dots and help us become smarter as groups. Harnessing this readiness, intelligence and creativity of community well-being-focussed public is what I had proposed in my Regeneration program for London and a Greening template, 2004.
With this particular idea being – everyone doing their bit, creates a momentum of all small actions. A large tsunami of this nature positive dynamic can cancel out climate change by slowing down or reversing, devastating for all life, tipping points. To date I must have talked to tens of thousands of people in my personal and professional peer groups about this advanced method that awaits instigation. Taking responsibility for our own living and working spaces rather than passively relying on external forces to do this for us is an optimal way forward.
Oxygen creation and conservation in our neighbourhoods
While I’ll be the first to come up with a great soliloquy about the importance of guarding against and exposing bad actors and their deliberate deceptive practices of greenwashing, purposeful going slow, restricting or denying funds to pay for the centuries of environmental and cultural damage. It is better and far more effective to plant trees in every corner where we live, en masse, now!
There is no better and pollution-free carbon removal solution than a peaceful, imaginative and beautifying act of planting trees, by millions that we can do as a community. Let’s look at the tree planting solution; it is easy, accessible, and affordable. Every person in the world, from a child to elderly, can do this with some guidance and resources. What’s more, if done in a structured and coordinated way, a city or region can establish many micro-carbon sinks – lush oases of greenery and forest gardens with fruit bearing trees – that community members can harvest and add to their diets. This is good for our own health and that of our pockets, too.
Environmental regeneration divests funding from national health bill to green projects!
Natural carbon removal projects would also, I believe, reduce national health bill of every country. Especially, if we combine this solution with walking and cycling measures and holistic nature therapies such as a forest bathing. Councils can facilitate these together with resident businesses. We would see a realistic dent in the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that we all put out into the atmosphere continuously as we go about our daily lives.
If everyone of us planted only one tree, we would create many natural assets and biodiversity spots capable of absorbing vehicle pollution. Furthermore, physical motion of digging a hole and planting a sapling which we can then watch growing, has a subtle power of affecting and even transforming our belief system. We are no longer helpless, passive observers of climate deterioration; we become practitioners of the change we want to see around us. With time, these small efforts could amplify to the point of bending a climate curve in our favour in terms of Oxygen-GHG balance.
Rewilding our urban concrete spaces to invite back biodiversity
Considering how fast and profound changes to our natural environments have become, insulating the house better, signing petitions, using energy efficient light bulbs, spending money with local green start-ups and putting money into a charity box is more important than ever. Although these are perfectly sound actions, many people also feel an urge to get more involved. Hands-on. This could include you. So, if you live in a city but don’t have access to a green patch of land that you can green up, start connecting with others to see if there is a public piece of land (especially disused one) where tree planting is possible. There are many not-for-profits that offer these nature services whereby they plant a tree on your behalf. It is important to realise that each one of us can affect the climate where we live by planting trees, either directly or through such scheme.
Well trained and dedicated teams will select right trees that store most CO2 and are best suited to the soil and climate where you live so that you don’t have to think about that! And if you want to turn this into a day of fun for your family and friends, you can organise a tree planting event, locally in your neighbourhood. It is also an occasion to invite others to plant some trees for the climate, with you and building new ‘friends of climate’ networks. Another good way is to join your local rewilding project group. Earthvoice is part of the solution by supporting such a scheme so plant trees with us today!
Creating ecosystem thinking in our communities – extrapolation of results
In 2019 the story of Philippines passing law, requiring children to plant 10 trees before they graduate, was shared at least 75,000 times by various news media organisations and their users according to CrowdTangle. But the excitement was short-lived as the bill was only passed by the lower house, and not the Senate so it didn’t quite make it into the law. Like me, all those who have seen the headlines and read the report by AFP Fact Check straightening the details, hope that the bill gets passed. Overwhelming support for the bill in Philippines, as registered, especially on the country’s Facebook pages, is a proof point that nature-based solutions have traction in many societies. People understand this simple and human-friendly climate solution and want to see it enacted.
This is a brilliant initiative that ecoplazas could so easily facilitate working in conjunction with a charity that can supply endemic trees for planting by anyone who wants to volunteer to do this. This could also bring back the old tradition of gleaning after the harvest where anyone can collect good leftover fruit. The surplus of fruit and products made from it could also feed the homeless and other disadvantaged people in our neighbourhoods.
This article presenting the original award-winning concepts is the work of the Earthvoice editor, Kinga Monica. She is available for consulting on practical instigation of these concepts, sustainability, and ecotourism consulting, internationally.
To read more on this topic and the solutions that have helped shift some gears of the climate change action to date, please follow my articles here and on Medium.
Bibliography
A Big Strategy: In times of Crisis. A Model to Help Regenerate The Environment, Community And Sustainable Economy.Published in 2012. Authors and innovators of this advanced methodology: Peter Hughes & Kinga Monica
Alexandersson, Olof: Living Water: Viktor Schauberger and the Secrets of Natural Energy, 1982