"Preparing for the Inevitable: Thoughts on the Coming Crises and How to Intelligently Prepare" - Interview with Co-Presenter Robert Bolman by Willi Paul.

A Presentation and Group Discussion by Ravi Logan and Robert Bolman
Hosted by Michele Renee

Dharmalaya
356 Horn Lane (off of River Road)
Eugene, OR
March 18, 7:00 pm

* * * * * * *

Humanity faces four big and growing crises:

climate change
peak oil
credit collapse
and ecological destruction

- each of which has the capacity to bring down the course of development that dominates the planet. Together, in synergy, they will bring inevitable challenges that the wise should be preparing for. When are these crises likely to intensify? Which will come first, or have greatest impact? How will their effects be felt?

The main strategies of preparation include local community preparedness, wise investing, building sustainable living systems, creating community, and changing personal consciousness. Which of these are strategically most important? How to take effective steps in our personal and community lives?

These and other big questions about preparing for the inevitable will be addressed in a lively and insightful presentation and collective discussion.

* * * * * * *

Interview with Robert by Willi

You seem to be teetering between hope and apocalypse. How does this uncertainty impact your family and friends?

Some friends don't like for me to talk about this subject. Others are deeply interested. I always try to put a positive spin on it. The good news is that the human family WILL achieve complete, total sustainability. Sustainability is NOT optional. We have no choice in the matter because to do anything else is unsustainable. What worries me is that it appears that 90 percent of the coming transition will be involuntary. Basically, we need a complete, bottom-to-top restructuring of human civilization. Any politician who tries to bring about 10 percent of this change will be committing political suicide. So, a progressive liberal, environmentally conscious Democrat will say, "Vote for me! I'm gonna do two percent of what needs to happen and my opponent the Republican is only going to do one percent.

So, you can see that I'm TWICE as good as my opponent, so vote for me!". So basically, nothing very meaningful is going to happen. Our "leaders" are gonna keep putting crazy glue, band-aids, chewing gum and duct tape on to this entirely unsustainable paradigm until it falls over and goes KABOOM. Among the good news is that the current paradigm of global free-market capitalism will soon be full discredited and laying on the garbage heap of history alongside Soviet Communism. Also, there will presumably be moments when public consciousness will be wrenched into a state where larger changes could be possible. But mostly, I worry that we are going to get slapped around by the cold and indifferent hand of reality and there's no telling what the end result will look like.

What are the key local-level values in sustainability? How do these reflect permaculture and transition values?

Regretfully, local change is all we CAN do. We can't build a national, high speed passenger rail system. We can't impose a stiff tax on gasoline and diesel fuel. But we can take steps to see that our local communities can be as food self-sufficient as possible. I'd like for the City of Eugene (where I live) to do an audit of all local farm land. Not one more silly tract house ought to be built on the edge of the UGB. Like a threatened turtle, cities should pull in their extremities - using our remaining years of economic health and fossil fuel availability to densify our cities into pedestrian and bicycle scale communities served by electrified passenger rail transit. Out water and electric utilities should begin preparing for disruptions and unavailability of various parts. Our police and fire departments should have plenty of fuel storage on hand knowing that there could be interruptions. There should be strong urban/rural partnerships whereby our farmland is valued and prioritized. The days of tractor trailer rigs and 1500-mile supply chains providing our food will be going away. Eugene already has an Emergency Response Preparedness organization. People should participate and city government should be supportive of such activity.

Your list of the four big and growing crises is rooted in environmental economics and politics, yes? Which of these are having the greatest impact now? How might their combined effects be felt?

Probably the economy is affecting us the most presently. We never really "recovered" from the events of 2008. Our "leaders" just threw a lot of money at it - the net result being that our debt is growing much faster than GDP - itself utterly unsustainable. Peak Oil is still very much an issue. Shale oil fracking just pushed it back a few years but that will turn out to be a very short-lived reprieve. Within five years oil prices could easily exceed $100/barrel again which would be hard on the economy. Various ecosystems are in varying stages of collapse. A huge species die-off is underway. There's no telling how that could affect food production. Climate Change might not undeniably clobber us for a few decades or self-reinforcing feedback loops could spin out of control over the next few years. We just don't know. They say that sometime in June, water will stop coming out of the faucets in Cape Town, South Africa. Similar events could happen elsewhere, like in Las Vegas.

How are Dharmalaya and Maitreya Ecovillage prepper communities?

We're not like the "prepper communities" that you might find hidden in the hills of Idaho or Montana, but there is a focus on food production, self-reliance, etc. Perhaps more importantly though is an emphasis on "spiritual fitness". Having inner peace and equanimity will be extremely important in the coming times. I'll be expanding on that below.

What spiritual forces are on your side in this battle for the Earth?

I don't believe, first & foremost, in a "god" that consists of a big, white, bearded man up in the sky who watches everything that we do. But a growing body of scientific evidence supports the idea that there is a "field" of energetic intelligence that permeates everything. My own 40-year meditation practice has convinced me that we all have a vast ocean of silence, clarity and peace lying beneath the surface of our minds and all we have to do is delve in there day after day, dipping a toe into it and that more and more of that silence, clarity and peace can find its way into our day to day lives.

I like the metaphor used by the Transcendental Meditation people of bubbles rising from the bottom of a pond. This is how our thoughts are: they come percolating up to the surface where we perceive them. The trick is to begin perceiving them closer and closer to where they originate deep in that ocean. I believe that the more one's thoughts are informed by that ocean deep inside of us, the more our lives and behavior will be characterized by love, compassion, happiness and clear thinking. To avoid catastrophe on Earth, we need a miracle (or something resembling a miracle). I believe that there is a mechanism in nature whereby the "hundredth monkey phenomenon" can kick in and a wave of mental health can ripple across the human family and things will be transformed for the better.

We share an interest in many ideas, including changing personal consciousness. Please share how you intend to facilitate this?

I did so above to a degree. We're presently building a meditation sanctuary at Maitreya Ecovillage. My idea is that anyone in the neighborhood could leave their cell phone at home, walk over and meditate. It is widely accepted that meditating in a group is more powerful than meditating by oneself. Every neighborhood should have such a facility. I guess that traditionally those have been called churches, but I lament that many organized religions have dispensed with the more contemplative side of their practices - if they ever had them to begin with.

Please tell us who the "human family" is? Are there folks that are not included?

"Human family" is just the way I like to say "mankind". Everyone is included.

How is sustainability a behavior vs. a science? Is it "anti-profit?"

It is best articulated as a science. It is very clear. One resource that I like to direct people to is Chris Martenson's Crash Course. You can watch it on YouTube or go to PeakProsperity.com and watch it there. It consists of 20-25 videos of 5-15 minutes each. Each video is a different topic: Peak Oil, exponential growth, the debt bubble, population, resources, etc. His basic thesis is that the next 20 years are going to be totally different from the last 20 years and NOT because we have robot servants or personally owned spacecraft.

So, it's very scientific, understandable (for those not in denial) and real. Where behavior is concerned, if people began to think more clearly, the transition to sustainability would become a lot easier. Sustainability is "anti-profit" in the sense that it calls for a transition to an economic system and social philosophy that would be elicit howls of protest from mainstream economists, politicians and corporate folks.

What is your global population control plan? Is it top-down or bottom-up?

The trouble is that no politician ever got elected by saying things that people don't want to hear. But if we had actual LEADERS instead of the people that we currently have and if the population were trained to be more critical in their thinking, then the people could be told, "Look, here's what we have to do, here's why we're gonna do it and this pallet of document boxes is the scientific research supporting our decision." What I would suggest doing (beyond education) would be a program of financial incentives that would make a lot of people HOWL in protest. Yes, they would be onerous and draconian but they would be far better than the alternative.

If we don't address population voluntarily, then nature will do it for us and it will not be pretty. Also, the movie "Idiocracy" was a silly Hollywood comedy, but the central message was one that we ignore at our own peril: It is not in the best interest of our species and our future for less intelligent people to be having more children than more intelligent people. Hitler gave eugenics a bad name, but we need to revisit the matter of being proactive about the genetic fabric of our species. And this need have nothing to do with race. Intelligent people (of whatever skin color) should be the ones having more children. We could debate the details and how we decide who is intelligent to no end, but the basic idea is irrefutable.

Your call for an "enhanced faculty of discernment." Please explain.

I feel that humankind's biggest problem is that human beings in general and politicians & corporate executives in particular have the most amazing capacity for talking themselves into believing ridiculous things when doing so happens to be convenient for a career, a profit margin or some egocentric, inbred little model of reality. Examples include:

Free market capitalism and economic growth are the answers to all our problems. The United States is inherently good & right and we are admired the world over as great champions of freedom and democracy. I'm going to heaven because I found Jesus, but you're going to hell because you're a sinner.

Above, I specifically chose to refer to silence, CLARITY and peace because I feel that the more one is embedded in that silence within, the more one will tend to believe what is true as distinct from believing whatever happens to be convenient. I read the other day that Republicans running for office in close races are suddenly changing their tune where gun control is concerned. So, they're like weather vanes, just pivoting on a dime when it happens to serve their careers. I don't approve of bumpers, but if I had to sum it up on a bumper sticker, it would say, "Think Clearly". That is what human beings desperately need to begin doing.

It is a central truism of the annoyingly named "New Age Spirituality Movement" that HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS MUST CHANGE for the world's problems to be resolved. The concept has been articulated a thousand different ways with varying degrees of flowery new age rhetoric, but the simplest way to put is is to say that human beings need an enhanced faculty of discernment so that we begin making better decisions and acting in a way more conducive to our overall well-being and harmony.

* * * * * * *

Connections -

Robert Bolman is a natural builder, the developer of Maitreya Ecovillage, and a frequent dispenser of wisdom at the Eugene Poetry Slam and at No Shame Eugene. He is committed to looking with open eyes at humanity's unsustainable extravagances and thinking through what will be required to cope with the consequences.
robert.bolman at comcast.net

Ravi Logan is cofounder of Dharmalaya, a meditation teacher, and director of the PROUT Institute. He's hung out with permaculturists, green energy installers, natural builders, and others dedicated to a green culture. In 1990 he did a world tour, giving a modestly attended workshop on "Future Visions."
Info at proutinstitute.org

Willi Paul, Mythologist, draws heavily on the values of the permaculture and transition movements. Willi continues to explore sound myths, sound archetypes and mythic visions at Planetshifter.com and thru his band, The Chaos Era.
willipaul1 at gmail.com