interesting person : William Hazlitt.

Since I first read about Hazlitt in Heat 12, in James Ley's wonderful essay, I've been wanting to learn much more about him.

Hazlitt was part of the English Romantic Movement, inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, and was a committed Radical all his life, in contrast to his friends Coleridge and Wordsworth. He wrote essays that were widely revered as the best of his time.

As Ley states, 'Although he was a believer in objective truth, Hazlitt saw truth as an active principle. 'The mind strikes out truth by collision', he wrote, 'as steel strikes fire from the flint'. He argued that pure rationality was, in fact, a form of irrationality, because it was lifeless and inhuman. In this he is quintessentially Romantic: he valued energy and spontaneity; he lothed any attempt to deny the importance of the emotions as a vital, defining part of existence.'

later Ley writes:
'he was fascinated by the way character informed opinion. When he addresses his subjects he is looking to understand not only their ideas but also their psychology.'

In other words, a very interesting person.

So here are my first attempts at discovering more:

wikipedia article

The Hazlitt Society

sacrifice and the climate

i think that the majority of people in Australia care about climate change to the extent that they are willing to make sacrifices and take austerity measures to prevent the worst of it from happening.

We as a society need to take such measures stoically and determinedly, pouring our resources and support together. There is a beautiful call to action here, that uses the urgent words of Martin Luther King as its point of departure.

However, many people are, understandably, wary of making sacrifices alone, especially where they cannot be assured that it will make a difference, and when freeloading has been made acceptable by the actions of Australia and the US.

In the words of Nicholas Stern (in the SMH on the Weekend) Kyoto "was an important symbol of international collective action and responsibility, and any one country not signing - particularly a big country like the United States or a respected country like Australia - encourages others to think freeloading is unavoidable". By freeloading he means getting the benefits of slowing climate change without signing up for the costs.

Take for example, voluntarily reducing household emissions, or buying green energy. If an economic unit (say a company or a household) decides to buy clean energy (in the absence of a bigger plan to reduce energy use), of course they are setting themselves back economically, in a market that is based on spending on investments that grow. But if everyone does it, there is a collective ethic of 'this is the right thing to do'.

Unless there is a broad, society-wide consensus on a plan of action, and punishment measures endorsed by many (both formal, eg fines and informal eg public shaming), it will feel pointless to take individual action.

On the same token, there has to be the same commitment by the corporate world to reducing emissions as there is among society. For too long, society has borne the burden of 'externalities'- all that bad stuff (such as pollution) that economic activity generates. Company directors should no longer get away with taking ever-rising profits, whilst spreading out the losses to society and the environment.

Everyone has to be willing to shoulder similar economic burdens from the adaptation and mitigation of climate chaos.

Russ Grayson from the community gardens network has a great article about relocalisation on Online Opinion...

Here is an extract where he talks about peak oil (the proposition affirmed by many energy experts that in the next few years, the global rate of consumption of oil will outstrip the rate of supply):


Four qualities needed for success

Peak oilers act in a competitive marketplace for ideas, and to be successful they will have to carefully craft their key messages to have three qualities.

First of all, they need to distance themselves from apocalyptic thinking, from the doom-and-gloom messages associated with past pseudo-disasters. Going back to the late-1960s, these include Paul Erlich’s “population bomb” scenario, nuclear winter, environmental collapse and the Y2K computer glitch. Being seen as yet another disaster scenario does little to empower citizens to act in their own lives and to take the kind of collective action necessary to make positive changes.

Another quality is that of not putting full responsibility for adaptation to peak oil and global warming on the shoulders of households and individuals. It is unlikely that peak oil and global warming will be successfully dealt with without concerted government and industry action. To put responsibility onto individuals and the community alone is to ignore the reality of policy and international accords and the responsibilities of government and industry.

The third quality is that the ideas relocalisers propagate need that difficult-to-define property that makes them “sticky” enough to capture the public imagination and adhere to it. In this, the relocalisers have done reasonably well so far, given that they are really only a proto-social movement at this stage. Their message now needs to be taken further into mainstream society.

Oh, and also, I found the official website of open spaces!! yay for that!

i had to reproduce a picture from the greencampusnow website. It's just so cute!! its of greenies in the quadrangle at Sydney Uni saying that Research, that sacred cow, won't stop climate change. shock and horror!!

and i can't help thinking that the white thing dangling from the umbrella is a lightening bolt!

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here are some more greenies, at O-week for Sydney Uni last week. Fifty people turned up to the first environment collective meeting on Monday, apparently, which is extremely exciting!

Newcastle Rising Tide and the Gotan Project

I feel like crying with joy for the brilliance of some climate activists in Newcastle, whose parody website of the NSW Minerals Council advertising campaignhas just been resuscitated (SMH article) by an Afghan webhost.... or maybe i'm just overcome by the beauty of music, because I just came back from the Gotan Project at the Opera House!!

the delicate activist flame

One of the most common topics that seasoned environmental activists talk about is burnout.

It's related to something that Don Alexander writes about in this article - that activists, (if they've got a martyr complex), sacrifice more than they get back from activism.

A good analogy of the difficult side of activist experience is being dumped by a wave, and struggling to reach the surface to breathe- that kind of disorientation that comes when the pace of change is fast, and everything in your worldview is questioned and turned on its head.

I guess that's why i've been treading warily amid the student activist milieu since i've come back from overseas- wary of committing to anything that will consume me and drag me under.

So i've been a bit of a contemplative for the last few months- valuing time alone to think- especially walking long distances (eg sydney uni to town hall), and the commute to work and from uni...

Videos from Labor Party coal action!

Here are two videos of the action blockading the ALP offices on Tuesday morning, for crimes against the climate:

One from me:

If you observe the barrier that the woman sitting down is locked on to by her neck- that's a big slab of plywood that was carried up NINE FLOORS in order to get to the office! just shows the commitment of Rising Tide folks. We sang a few Paul Spencer songs when there, eg Banner drops and lock on pipes: "I hate the liberal party with a passion deep and hearty so i voted for the labor party man, but the lying little weevil turned out just as bloody evil, its clear they're out to get us if they can...." as well as some other songs.

Another (better) video is on the Sydney Morning Herald website (Windows media- can't be viewed on Macs). here is the article that accompanies this on the SMH website.