Author Archives: Brett Parris

About Brett Parris

PhD economist. DPhil candidate in religious ethics at Oxford University. Yoga teacher. Working on spirituality, ethics, development & climate change. (he/him)

Faith, Truth, and Discernment

Balliol College Chapel, University of Oxford

15th May 2022

Readings: Job 19: 21-27a; John 16: 5-15

For a pdf version click here.

For the audio click here or on the link below (though there is a bit of an echo)

There are a few interesting things going on in the two readings we’ve had today. They are quite different – though there is a theme or cluster that emerges: misconceptions, faith, truth, and lies. Or, to put it simply – how we orient towards, and discern, truth.

So in our first reading we find Job still wrestling with the worst set of friends one could imagine. If you don’t know the story – briefly, it starts with a conversation between God and Satan. God is like, “Hey, check out Job – isn’t he great?” And Satan is like, “No, he only likes you because you give him stuff.” So God says, “OK fine, go test him – but don’t actually kill him.” So Satan strips Job of everything dear to him, and his three friends are like the worst Instagram influencers, with their spiritual platitudes: “Somehow you’ve attracted this” they say. Job is like “No, I haven’t.” In our reading today we find Job again responding in torment, but two things are happening:

One, Job is labouring under a misconception of what is happening. He says:

21Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! 22Why do you, like God, pursue me, never satisfied with my flesh?

But it’s not the hand of God that has touched him. It’s not God pursuing him. Many people grow up with a very strong view of the sovereignty of God – whatever happens, God is behind it. Modern day New Age versions of that are things like “Whatever happens to you, you’ve attracted it.” There’s a whole literature in social psychology on this idea where it’s called ‘Belief in a Just World’. The key idea in the Belief in a Just World is that there is no such thing as undeserved, random suffering. There must be a reason for your suffering. That accident or illness you had? What had you done to bring that on yourself? How have you attracted misfortune? A past life perhaps? A secret sin maybe? You’re poor? What’s blocking abundance for you?

Now don’t get me wrong, personal responsibility is absolutely important – but when it becomes the only lens through which we see spiritual or social realities, it gives us a distorted and fractured picture. It’s one thing to suffer from a terrible event. It’s quite another to add a whole extra layer of suffering due to the meaning we give to that event. It’s no coincidence that the alt-health pseudoscience industry thrives in the insecure gig economy of multilevel marketing schemes, supplements, and wellness coaching. It’s a seamless move “You need to take personal responsibility for yourself … And the best way to do that is to buy my course / program / supplements.” Suffering viewed though an individualistic, victim-blaming lens only has individualistic consumerist solutions. There’s never any mention in wellness world of social conditions – the monstrous inequality built on inherited privilege, the structural racism and sexism, the low wages, the unaffordable housing, the underfunding the NHS, the woeful funding for mental health, the lack of shelters for vulnerable women, and on and on.

The Hebrew and Christian scriptures resist the simplistic messaging that everything bad that happens is the fault of the individual somehow. In the Gospel of Luke 13:1-5, Jesus is asked about some Galileans who were killed by the Romans. Jesus replied,

“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

So he’s saying “No – bad things aren’t doled out to people based on their moral merits. But – a turning towards God is also needed.” He’s not threatening them – he’s just saying, heal your relationship with God, so that when your time comes, maybe by some random accident, you’re ready to face death. Don’t die unprepared like these guys did.

“Die before you die” is how some in the Sufi Muslim tradition have put it. Christians talk about rebirth, and the image of baptism reflects this process of being reborn – of dying to one kind of life, and being reborn into another.

In this story of Job, it’s not God behind Job’s suffering at all. The story is framed as a test with the devil as the tester, but the main point of the story is ultimately about steadfastness in faith. It doesn’t mean we should also understand bad things happening as a test. But they are an opportunity to choose how to respond.

The holocaust survivor Victor Frankl wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, that the one thing no-one can take from us is our capacity to choose how to respond to whatever is thrown at us.

And that is the second key movement in the reading. So Job responds:

25For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; 26and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,

Other times, he’s despairing. And something like around a third of the Psalms are what we call ‘lament Psalms’ – basically the people complaining to God about how hard things are – sometimes even blaming God. The Hebrew scriptures show people’s conceptions of God in all their messy humanity.

In this short passage from Job we see both a misconception about what is happening to him, and yet, a response of hope and faith. “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and … in my flesh I shall see God.”

I think it’s hard enough at times to respond with hope and faith when you don’t believe God is directly causing your suffering. So for Job to respond in this way in the story when he worries God might have it in for him is all the more impressive.

Turning to the New Testament passage we heard from, Jesus is talking about how he has to go – again. You can imagine the disciples being like, “Wait, what? You just got back – from being dead. Now you’re going again?”

But Jesus, says Yes, he has to go. For a very particular reason – so that ‘the Advocate’, identified in the previous chapter as the Holy Spirit, can come in his place.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, the third person of the Christian Trinity – traditionally often viewed as feminine.

The Holy Spirit represents the breath of God, the life force, echoing the ruaḥ ‘elohim in Hebrew, the breath of God hovering over the waters of chaos in Genesis 1. The word for spirit or breath, ruaḥ in Hebrew is feminine, as it is in Aramaic, the language Jesus most likely spoke. In Syriac, the word for spirit is also feminine – rucha and so the churches of the East often used maternal imagery for the Holy Spirit.           

The Spirit also finds an echo in the Sanskrit in notions of prāṇa – the vital breath, breath of life, vitality; and in especially in śakti – the energy and power of the divine, again conceived as feminine.

One of my favourite Hindu depictions of God is as Śiva Natarāja, the cosmic dancer – the Lord of the Dance – you may have seen a statue of him – with Śiva on one foot, the other foot extended, arms outstretched, dancing in a circle of flames. There is a big statue of him outside CERN, the huge particle accelerator in Switzerland – representing God as the cosmic dancer – the life force who spun everything into existence. The power, energy, and life of the cosmic dance is the feminine śakti.

So what will this Spirit do? In John, Jesus said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

There’s a lot in here. Firstly, “the Spirit of truth” – what does that mean?

A few chapters earlier, in John 8:44, Jesus describes the devil as ‘a liar and the father of lies’. So there is this contrast set up in Jesus’ teachings, between the Spirit of truth, and the father of lies. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul warned his readers to be discerning, because this liar is so good that, “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” (2 Cor 11:14)

It is my belief that our societies are suffering a crisis in regards to the notion of ‘truth’.

We have massive problem with communities riven by pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, and politicians and business leaders who often seem incapable of telling the truth. There is still a problem with climate change denial – in my country, Australia, it’s so bad the government wants to build new coal mines! And we saw people react in very different ways during the pandemic, with many going down the Covid-denial, anti-vaccination rabbit hole. ‘Conspirituality’– which is the overlap between conspiracy theories and spirituality  – is a huge and growing problem.

The conspirituality phenomena reinforces the importance of truth, since our ethics are related not only to what values are nurtured by our spirituality, such as compassion, but also how we understand how far those values extend. For example, a spiritual tradition may encourage its adherents to be compassionate. That’s great! But it may also teach that the world is not really real, and that the purpose of spiritual practice is to dissociate from the world and eventually escape from the illusion. In practice then, the scope of compassion may be quite individualistic and passive, being limited to whatever sentient beings happen to cross practitioners’ paths. Alternatively, a tradition which not only teaches compassion, but also supports a robust philosophy of physical and social science, will arguably better equip its adherents to engage with complex systemic issues such as climate change, viral pandemics, structural racism, and pervasive sexism. In each case, there is a truth about the world to be discovered. It is not just a matter of differing opinions, perspectives and stories.

A common feature of much conspirituality thinking is the combination of a very tenuous grasp of science, and a degree of confidence untroubled by this lack of expertise. This phenomenon has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, after a classic paper aptly named Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. More recent research also finds a link between the tendency to believe conspiracy theories and lower critical thinking abilities. A key anchor point of this analysis is that there is actually such a thing as expertise.

During the Brexit debate – Michael Gove famously refused to name any economists who supported Brexit, saying that “people in this country have had enough of experts”. And we can all see how well that is going.

Many say that we are now in an era of ‘post-truth’ politics. In the United States, the Washington Post estimated that President Trump’s speeches and tweets had contained over 30,000 lies over the four years of his presidency.  And who can forget Trump’s Counsellor, Kellyanne Conway, who introduced the world to the phrase “alternative facts” in January 2017, when shamelessly defending White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s manifestly false statements about the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd. It all culminated in the ‘big lie’, that the 2020 election had been stolen, and with the storming of the US Capitol on January 6th last year. But even here in this country, and in my own, politicians seem to be coated in Teflon – there no longer seem to be any consequences for demonstrable lies. Politicians have always lied, sure – but there used to be consequences.

Once we lose our grip on the notion that some things are true and other aren’t – it becomes a cancer that eats away at our civilization.

In John’s story of Jesus’ trial (John 18:37-38), Jesus says “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” And then the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, asked him, “What is truth?”

Was Pilate a philosopher? Probably not. But this questioning of the nature of truth is the hinge point of the trial. This dissembling about truth is what makes possible the monstrous injustice of Jesus’ crucifixion.

There is a subfield of philosophy called ‘virtue epistemology’ which explores the connection between ethics and how we acquire knowledge. The idea is that the cultivation of intellectual virtues are crucial for developing the discernment needed to acquire knowledge and wisdom.* These virtues typically include traits such as: open-mindedness, curiosity, diligence, discipline, self-awareness, honesty, courage, perseverance, humility, openness to constructive criticism, etc. The kinds of things we are meant to be learning here.

‘Intellectual vices’ have received somewhat less attention, but include traits such as being impervious to evidence, carelessness, dogmatism, prejudice, wishful thinking, over-confidence, gullibility, negligence, conformity, and obtuseness. One vice in particular warrants mention – that of intellectual insouciance, which Quassim Cassam [2019, p. 79] defines as “an indifference or lack of concern with respect to whether their claims are grounded in reality or the evidence.” Philosopher Harry Frankfurt (2005) memorably described this trait as being a defining characteristic of – and I quote what has now become a technical philosophical term – the ‘bullshitter’. A liar, at least, has a regard for the truth, knowing they are speaking a falsehood. The bullshitter, by contrast, speaks only for rhetorical, persuasive effect, and is wholly unconcerned with the truth or falsity of their claims. They just don’t care, as long as their words get them what they want. This rhetoric that is unmoored from even a care for the truth is the essence of the post-truth politics infecting our current age.

Why does truth matter? Well for a start, coherent, evidence-based ethical deliberation and public policy is difficult at the best of times, but when even the notion of truth itself begins to dissolve, they become virtually impossible. This process occurs not just through overt philosophical attacks on the notion of truth, and manipulative corporate PR campaigns, but perhaps more insidiously, though the flooding of information channels with so much general disinformation that regular citizens become disoriented, lose hope of ever being able to discern what is true, and give up, making them more vulnerable to specifically-targeted disinformation. Disinformation and propaganda were used extensively by the Nazis in the creation of the so-called ‘Hitler myth’, portraying Hitler as Germany’s saviour [Kershaw, 1987]. Writing after the war on The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt [1951, p. 446] highlighted the critical role of propaganda: “Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself; the masses have to be won by propaganda”.

And as we have seen, lies and propaganda have been a fundamental part of Russia’s strategy, such as it is, in Ukraine. Access to foreign media and social media was severely curtailed, with Facebook and Twitter banned. Even language was tightly controlled, with a 15 year jail sentence possible for anyone spreading ‘fake news’ which ‘discredited’ the Russian armed forces. Even describing the invasion as a ‘war’ rather than the Kremlin-approved ‘special military operation’ risks arrest [Sherwood & Milmow, 2022].

So part of the role of God’s Holy Spirit is to lead us into truth – it is no surprise then that intellectual virtues are central to that enterprise.

What’s next in the reading?

Jesus said of the Spirit: “He will glorify me” – how? Through the hearers and bearers of the divine spirit – through those who are marinated, soaked, in the divine Spirit. So who are they? Are they those who thump their chest and loudly tell other people what to do, in the name of God? Are they those who misuse the Bible as a weapon against the poor, against women, against gay, and transgender people – against people of other faiths?

No. So many things are done in God’s name which bring God only rejection and derision, rather than glory. You scratch the surface of most of them and you find contracted, fearful human beings, who are seeking to control others. And so many petty, ego-driven, human games.

In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 7, is a passage that I think should be engraved in every church:

Jesus said, 21 ”Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

So if words and actions, and ‘deeds of power’ done in God’s name, do not bring glory to God, and instead cause people to turn away from God, and to blame God – it’s a fair bet that God’s Spirit is not driving that.

Perhaps a better rule of thumb could be described as Marie Kondo theology: Does this spark joy? I am sure we all have our favourite places in nature – the places where we feel grounded and refreshed – where we can sense the life-force pulsing through the universe. The Celts called them thin places. But what are the things that reflect God’s glory in the human realm? For me, the things that strike me dumb with awe and wonder are humans at their most creative, most loving, most expansive, most courageous, most skilled, most playful, and most vulnerable. A striking work of art. A sublime piece of music. Soaring beautiful architecture. A generous act of forgiveness. An honest, vulnerable, authentic conversation that invites us to respond with love and connection, and with the flash of recognition – “Ah you feel like I do. You see me. I’m not alone.” A courageous stance in the face of injustice, hate, and oppression. Caring deeply, and with boundless compassion for the wounded, the sick, and the vulnerable.

These are the things that bring glory to God, that reveal the stirring of the Spirit in our midst – like ripples on a still lake, which make us wonder: Is there more going on than what we see?

* On virtue epistemology and intellectual virtues, see: Sosa, 2007, 2009, 2017, 2021; Baehr, 2011; King, 2021; Zagzebski, 1996.

References

Arendt, H., (1951) The Origins of Totalitarianism, Modern Classics; Penguin Books, London, 2017 Edition; xlviii + 703 pp.

Baehr, J., (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, xiii + 235 pp.

Bradner, E., (2017) “Conway: Trump White House offered ‘alternative facts’ on crowd size”, CNN Politics, 23 January.

Cassam, Q., (2019) Vices of the Mind: From the Intellectual to the Political, Oxford University Press, Oxford, xi + 202 pp.

Frankfurt, H.G., (2005) On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ & Oxford, 67 pp.

Frankl, V.E., (1984) Man’s Search for Meaning, Revised and Updated; Washington Square Press, New York, 221 pp.

Kershaw, I., (1987) The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich Oxford University Press, Oxford; Reissued 2001, ix + 299 pp.

Kessler, G., Rizzo, S. and Kelly, M., (2021) “Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years”, Washington Post, 24 January.

King, N.L., (2021) The Excellent Mind: Intellectual Virtues for Everyday Life, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, xii + 280 pp.

Kruger, J. and Dunning, D., (1999) “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 77, No. 6, pp. 1121–1134.

Lantian, A., Bagneux, V., Delouvée, S. and Gauvrit, N., (2021) “Maybe a free thinker but not a critical one: High conspiracy belief is associated with low critical thinking ability”, Applied Cognitive Psychology, Vol. 35, No. 3, May – June, pp. 674-684.

Mance, H., (2016) “Britain has had enough of experts, says Gove”, Financial Times, London.

Sherwood, H. and Milmo, D., (2022) “BBC, CNN and other global news outlets suspend reporting in Russia”, The Guardian, 5 March.

Sosa, E., (2007) A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume I, Clarendon Press, Oxford, xiii + 149 pp.

Sosa, E., (2009) Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume II, Clarendon Press, Oxford, xii + 254 pp.

Sosa, E., (2017) Epistemology, Princeton Foundations of Contemporary Philosophy; Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ & Oxford, xiii + 235 pp.

Sosa, E., (2021) Epistemic Explanations: A Theory of Telic Normativity, and What it Explains, Oxford University Press, Oxford, xii + 234 pp.

Zagzebski, L.T., (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, xvi + 365 pp.


Words, Actions, and Love

Sunday, 20th October 2019

Balliol College Chapel, University of Oxford

Balliol College Chapel, Photo by David Iliff. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

Readings: Amos 5: 4-24; Matthew 7: 12-29

For pdf version click here.

For the audio click here or on the link below (though there is a bit of an echo)

Part of my preparation for this talk was a bit unusual – it involved binge-watching Christopher Hitchens debating various religious leaders on YouTube. Hitchens, who died in 2011, was a student at Balliol graduating in PPE in 1970. He became a famous writer and polemicist, and a fierce opponent of religions. His most famous book on that subject, from 2007, was called God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I certainly don’t agree with all that Hitchens said, but one thing that struck me repeatedly when reading and listening to him, was his insistence on calling out what we might politely call bovine excreta: the fatuous pomposity of some clerics, the facile nonsensical arguments of others, the defenses of the indefensible in the name of religion, and his courteous but nonetheless devastating responses to his opponents. He was not in the business of playing nice. Much like Amos in the reading we heard earlier. And, ironically, much like Jesus.

 In one debate Hitchens lashes his bishop opponent, saying “How can this church say it has any moral superiority? It has difficulty catching up with what ordinary people regard as common, moral and ethical sense.”

(Quote begins at 4.55)

Hitchens was in fact rather more mild than Jesus in his own excoriating attack on the religious leaders of his day. In Matthew 23:27 Jesus rebukes them saying, “For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.”

So the first point I have learned and want to emphasise, is that the critics of religion are often right – and those of us who have a faith, need to listen more to the best critics. They are often modern examples of the ancient Hebrew prophetic tradition of speaking truth to power. And so not only are the critics often right, they were also anticipated by the Hebrew prophets and by Jesus himself! 

If you have a faith, then all truth is God’s truth. Don’t be afraid then, of thoughtful critics and piercing questions, and where your search might lead. Our faith is meant to grow, and it doesn’t always grow by becoming stronger every step of the way. Sometimes long-held beliefs will be stripped away from us, like the pruning of a tree, making room for new growth. Life will occasionally throw shattering experiences at us, and our faith may crumble to dust for a time. But if God is real, and if God loves everyone, and I believe both are true, then God will help us in our honest searching.

 The scriptures of the various religions were usually written to paint the rulers, and the ruling classes, in the best possible light – often giving divine sanction to the existing power structures. These ancient academics knew what their patrons wanted to hear. The Jewish scriptures were unusual though, in recording the failings of their kings, and numerous instances of prophets like Amos rebuking them. In Amos, we see the prophet open, onto the rulers of Israel, what I believe Biblical scholars today technically call “a can of whoop-ass”.

 In the reading from Matthew, Jesus overturns all expectations by summing up the law and the prophets with the command to treat others as they would want to be treated; elsewhere commanding his followers to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5.44Luke 6:27 & 35), and in the Gospel of John (John 13:3415:1215:17), summarising this simply as “love one another”. So that is the point: to love God and to love one another, to love others as we love ourselves, and to treat others as we would want to be treated. And then in the rest of the reading from Matthew, comes the kicker: “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

 So Jesus is fully anticipating the hypocrisy and delusion of the kinds of religious believers that Hitchens so loathed. Notice what they focus on in their defence – “deeds of power.” Not deeds of love. Not deeds of service. They have missed the point entirely. There are two aspects to Jesus’ reply: First, that he never knew them. There was no real relationship. They weren’t doing what they were doing grounded in that relationship of love, and service, and transformation. And as a result, second, they became blinded, doers of evil, of unloving actions designed to serve their own selfish ends and their own lust for power. Jesus anticipated this. 

In the year 380, under the Emperor Theodosius I, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. In my view, this was a disaster. Wherever there is power, some people are attracted like moths to a flame. So ever since Christianity became the state religion, and probably for some time before that, we’ve had people seeking positions of power in the churches for no reason other than their love of power and control. Many were weeded out, but not enough. And so, while there were many saints and mystics and countless unsung good and faithful people, Christian history also became littered with the wreckage of broken lives from imperialism, persecution, pogroms, and institutional abuse. “‘I never knew you” Jesus says, “go away from me, you evildoers.”

The emphasis in both Amos’s and in Jesus’s words is on what we do. And that is the second point. The journey of faith is mostly about what we do, not what we think in our heads and what we say we believe. The life of faith is not primarily about intellectual assent to a set of propositions. It’s a dynamic relationship of love with the Divine that transforms us from the inside out, affecting every aspect of our lives. Jesus said in the reading “You will know them by their fruits.” The apostle James (James 2:18-19) in his New Testament letter, said “You believe that God is one; good for you. But even the demons believe that”. In other words, faith is not just intellectual agreement. James goes on: “faith apart from works is barren” (James 2:20). Or as Jesus put it in our reading today (Matthew 7:12) “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”

At the World Economic Forum in January this year, the young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg delivered a stark message: “Adults keep saying: ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope.’ But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”

At the UN in New York in September Greta delivered another scathing speech saying, “You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.”

Again – it is actions that matter. Not words. Just like in Amos. Just like Jesus said in Matthew.

I’ve found it intriguing that the term ‘social justice warrior’ has become a term of mockery and derision in some circles. Or the word ‘Snowflake’. The comedian John Cleese famously tweeted last year: “Yes I’ve heard this word. I think sociopaths use it in an attempt to discredit the notion of empathy” (8 July 2018)

Cleese makes an important, and profoundly biblical link here. And this is the third point I want to emphasise: that concern for justice is rooted in empathy, and sustained by love. And conversely, lack of concern for social injustice, is rooted in a failure to love.

‘Sin’ is an immensely powerful and important idea that has been distorted and trivialised. It essentially means ‘missing the mark’ – like a drunken archer. It’s been mocked and caricatured – often deservedly so, with the church’s obsession with bodily functions. But, you know, once you’re the state religion under the patronage and protection of the empire, you can’t go about challenging the imperial structures of abuse, extraction and oppression – so you have to shift your focus to something more manageable and more private, like what people do between the sheets, and controlling women’s bodies.

In essence though, ‘sin’ means acting without love – using and abusing other people, animals and the natural world as instruments for our own selfish ends. It’s that seeing others as a means to an end – a means merely to our own satisfaction – that is the essence of sin. Using others when they should be treated with love and respect and concern for their highest wellbeing. Acting without their consent. Rejecting the bond of shared humanity. Ignoring the suffering of those who can’t do anything for us. Rejecting our connection to the animals and our duty to care for them.

Christopher Hitchens and Greta Thunberg, in their different ways, both display a fierce, prophetic, fiery denunciation of sin – though neither of them would likely call it that. 

Hitchens railed against the hypocrisy of the church, the protection of abusers, the alleged war crimes of a certain US Secretary of State, and the cowardice of the West that allowed 8,000 mainly Muslim men and boys to be slaughtered in Srebrenica during the Balkan wars in 1995.

More recently, Greta Thunburg thundered against the world’s disinterested leaders, wallowing lazily in denial: “You are failing us.” she said, “But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”

Exactly like Amos. Enough with the insipid platitudes. Through Amos, God said, “I hate, I despise your festivals. … But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.!” (Amos 5: 21 & 24).

So it is action that matters – action rooted in and flowing from love. And love for ourselves, for other people, for all sentient beings and for the planet we live on, implies a resistance towards all that is dehumanising, oppressive, unjust, and degrading – a resistance toward all that flows from a lack of love, or what we call ‘evil’. 

In 1867 the British philosopher and political theorist John Stuart Mill said “Let not any one pacify [their] conscience by the delusion that [they] can do no harm if [they] take no part, and form no opinion. Bad [people] need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good [people] should look on and do nothing.” 

So these are not simply individualistic teachings. This is not merely about our personal private spirituality. It is about our shared humanity and our love for our fellow beings – and about the systems and structures that perpetuate abuses of power. The reading from Matthew said that Jesus inspired the crowds, who were astounded at his teaching. Why? Because, “he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.” 

Jesus upturned their expectations, and blew apart their pre-conceived ideas of who God was, and who they were before God. He taught with authority. Reminding people that the scriptures and the traditions were meant to serve the people – especially the poor, the outcast, the sick, the powerless. Not the powerful, who hoarded their wealth and abused the poor. Not the pompous, with their elaborate ceremonies and festivals. In the context of a just society, and of love and concern for our fellow beings, for the powerless and the oppressed, then sure, festivals and ceremonies can be a beautiful celebration of that. But without justice; without ‘righteousness’ – things being made right; in a world groaning under oppressive, deceitful, inept, and corrupt rulers, then Amos says, their feasts and fatuous, self-congratulatory celebrations are an abomination to God. The image he uses is like a dam bursting upon them.

We who are here at Oxford now, are here at a time of immense global challenges as we humans abuse the freedom we have been given, acting in unloving and indifferent ways towards the poor and our planet. In my view, climate change is the biggest challenge. Not because we are feeling the full effects now. But because there is inertia in the system – a time lag – and so the window of opportunity to rein it in is now. But there are other issues too – like the massive inequality that sees the wealthiest 10% reap almost all of the gains since the financial crises, while the rest of the country has suffered under brutal austerity policies and public service cuts. And like the often brutal treatment of women, of people with disabilities, of people of colour, and of LGBTQI+ people all over the world.

So we have a choice as students, as visitors, and as faculty, how we respond to all this. Through it all, God is with us. Calling, drawing, seducing even. In the Islamic mystical tradition of the Sufis they speak about the fanā’ – the annihilation – the idea that we need to die before we die. It’s exactly analogous to the idea of Christian baptism – dying to our false selves and rising united with Christ, allowing ourselves to be transformed through that mystical union. It’s the annihilation of our false ego, the annihilation of our intellectual concepts about what God and life should be like, stripping us back to raw, honest, humble, being, ready to be embraced by the intoxicating, joyful, love of the Divine – that love which is the essence, the vehicle, and the goal of the journey. 

I will finish with one of my favourite poems by the Sufi master Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī – better known as Rumi, who lived in the 1200s and who taught in Konya in what is now Turkey. Towards the end of the poem Rumi invokes Shams of Tabriz, who was his teacher and who represented for Rumi the love of God. I love this poem because it captures the idea that real clarity of direction and action in a suffering world comes most fully after allowing ourselves to be swept away and transformed by the intoxicating love of God. It is that Divine, healing, transformative love, that sustains us, carries us and enables us to love others. This translation is by Andrew Harvey, who was once a fellow at All-Souls:

The whole world could be choked with thorns:

A lover’s heart will stay a rose garden.

The wheel of heaven could wind to a halt:

The world of lovers will go on turning.

Even if every being grew sad, a lover’s soul

Will stay fresh, vibrant, light.

Are all the candles out? Hand them to a lover –

A lover shoots out a hundred thousand fires.

A lover may be solitary, but he is never alone.

For companion he has always the hidden Beloved.

The drunkenness of lovers comes from the soul,

And Love’s companion stays hidden in secret.

Love cannot be deceived by a hundred promises:

It knows how innumerable the ploys of seducers are.

Wherever you find a Lover on a bed of pain –

You find the Beloved right by his bedside.

Mount the stallion of Love and do not fear the path –

Love’s stallion knows the way exactly.

With one leap, Love’s horse will carry you home

However black with obstacles the way may be.

The soul of a real lover spurns all animal fodder,

Only in the wine of bliss can his soul find peace.

Through the Grace of Shams-ud-Din of Tabriz, you will possess

A heart at once drunk and supremely lucid.

 Jalal-ud-Din Rumi (1207 – 1273), as translated by Andrew Harvey (Ed.) (1997) The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World’s Great Wisdom Traditions, HarperCollins, New York, p. 159.

Thank you.

Why Christians Should Vote for Marriage Equality

The ‘No’ campaign against marriage equality in Australia’s upcoming plebiscite is a poisoned chalice for conservative Christians. The ‘No’ campaigners have misunderstood what this poll is about and they have misjudged the mood of the very people on whom their future depends. This is not a plebiscite about our personal views on marriage – it is a plebiscite about the kind of society we want to live in. Do we want a society where the human rights of minorities are protected under law? Or do we want a society where the majority gets to pick and choose which human rights minorities should have? The first is a democracy. The second is a theocracy. People of all traditions can thrive in a democracy. In the world’s theocracies, minorities are persecuted and women are subjugated.

Let me address you directly if you are a conservative Christian: I’ve been where you are. I am a straight white male and did a theology degree at a conservative college. It wasn’t until I had gay friends that my understanding began to change. But I am not going to argue that you should change your personal views on marriage. Others have done that far better than I could (e.g. here and here). You don’t have to agree with marriage equality personally. That is not what this is about. Instead I will argue that if you care about the protection of religious freedoms, and care about the persecution of Christians around the world, you should care about strengthening secular liberal democracies and so you should vote ‘Yes’ to support marriage equality.

Democracies are not built primarily on consensus and unity. We don’t all have to share the same views. Healthy democracies are instead built on agreed principles for managing non-consensus and diversity. Democracies flourish not only despite diversity, but because of it. And the best model of governance we have come up with to manage non-consensus constructively, and to protect religious freedom, is secular liberal democracy, where the rights of minorities are upheld and protected by law.

Six steps to bigotry

A common approach of the ‘No’ campaign is illustrated by an article called, without a trace of irony, ‘I oppose same-sex marriage (and no, I’m not a bigot).’ But this article and others like it, perfectly illustrate the logic of prejudice, literally pre-judging, or bigotry, in six steps:

  • Step 1. Take one particular view of ‘traditional marriage’ from one particular tradition as being paradigmatic for all (e.g. ‘biological duality for procreation’).
  • Step 2. Ignore multiple exceptions from within that tradition (e.g. polygamy) and across other cultures (polygamy, polyandry and gay marriages etc.).
  • Step 3. Argue that this particular definition should apply for all time, even in a secular democracy.
  • Step 4. Implicitly support the view of governance that the majority should be able to impose its religious views on minorities.
  • Step 5. Use the ‘traditional’ definition of marriage to pre-judge and deny the reality and validity of other forms of marriage: “It will be called marriage, but it won’t be marriage as we know it. It won’t be ‘marriage equality’: it will be an entirely new thing.” Nonsense – that is textbook bigotry: it’s not how we do it, so it’s not real.
  • Step 6. Ignore the abundant evidence that the ‘debate’ is drawing out hateful, bigoted and emotionally damaging arguments directed against LGBTI people who are some of the most isolated, vulnerable and historically marginalised and persecuted people in our societies.

Is there a more fruitful approach? I believe there is.

Our understanding of human rights is evolving

We are fundamentally discussing a question of equal recognition under the law, which has enormous practical implications for gay couples. ‘No’ campaigners say that marriage equality is not a human right, but clearly our understanding of human rights is evolving.

Previously the churches have denied the rights of non-Christians, Christians of other denominations, slaves, free African Americans, Australian indigenous people, and women – especially in leadership. In every single case those churches found themselves on the wrong side of history, and, I would argue, on the wrong side of the movement of God’s Spirit towards greater love, freedom and flourishing.

The moral authority of the churches in the wake of the child sex abuse scandals is at its lowest ebb for hundreds of years – perhaps ever. People are turning away in droves and the demographic trends for the churches in the West are catastrophic. I can think of no better way of inoculating younger people against the message of Jesus than this ‘No’ campaign. Except perhaps the child sex scandals. And the churches’ hopelessly inadequate response on climate change. And their complicity in the policies which have led to massive inequality and the slashing of aid and social services, so that the good Christian burghers in the leafy suburbs can get their tax cuts. Or the support of so many conservative Christians for Australia’s indefinite detention of genuine refugees and asylum seekers in inhumane conditions. Shall I go on?

From a secular perspective, and from the perspective of the vast majority of younger people, on whom the future of the churches depend, marriage equality is most definitely a human rights issue – and a pretty straightforward one at that. From this perspective, the conservative churches backing the ‘No’ campaign, with their moral authority already in tatters, look like reactionary troglodytes continuing their centuries old persecution of a vulnerable minority, just like the churches who supported slavery, segregation, and the denial of women’s rights, and the sooner they are swept into the dustbin of history the better. If the ‘No’ vote succeeds, and the churches have contributed to its defeat, the inevitably temporary ‘victory’ will be bitterly resented by most younger people who are already disgusted with the conservative churches’ lack of leadership on issues like climate change. So I ask you, conservative Christian: How on earth does any of that serve the cause of Christ?

The desire for same-sex marriage is not new

The one man-one woman model of marriage is certainly the most common model, and is indeed that practiced by the majority. But so what? From a secular, religiously-neutral perspective, does this make it the only possible valid expression of marriage between consenting adults? Of course not. That has never been true historically globally and it is certainly not true now. The claim that the one man-one woman model is not just the majority but the ‘universal’ view until about twenty years ago is simply false. It is also akin to arguing that women were never interested in political representation until they formally began agitating for universal suffrage in the 1800s. It can take centuries for the long-held desires of an oppressed group to finally burst through the cracks in the system into the collective consciousness. That’s what we saw with the anti-slavery campaigns. That’s what we saw with the women’s suffrage movement. That’s what we saw with the civil rights movement. And that is what we’re seeing now with LGBTI recognition. The desire for same-sex marriage is not new. It is only the legal possibility in Australia that is new.

But, but … the slippery slope!

Please. There has been some spectacular idiocy on display with people arguing that if we allow marriage equality, then people will be wanting to marry all kinds of things – pets, farm animals, trees, pandas, garden furniture perhaps. In general slippery slope arguments are extremely weak, because the simple response is that if another question arises, then we discuss it and use our judgement based on the objective evidence like mature adults. And no, this certainly does not open the gates to the marriage of children, because the rights of children are also protected by the requirements of informed consent, and we have a much greater understanding nowadays of the need for a child to be of a certain age and stage of brain development before informed consent around sexual activity or marriage is even possible. In other words, there are watertight, evidence-based arguments against child marriage, whereas there are none that would prevent marriage equality between consenting adults.

What kind of society would you want to live in if you didn’t know your position beforehand?

Let’s try a thought experiment: you get to choose the system of government you want to live under. You can choose either a secular liberal democracy where the rights of all citizens are protected under law. Or you can choose a form of government where the majority decides what rights minorities will have. Now, the kicker is that you don’t know in advance whether you’ll be in the majority or the minority. And for some added realism, let’s assume you have to choose before you’re born. You might be born a straight white able-bodied male. Or you might be born a person of colour. Or a woman. Or an LGBTI person. Or a person with a physical or mental disability. What system will you choose? Be honest.

It seems to me that if you support the ‘No’ campaign, you want the second option, where the majority decides what rights minorities will have. I hope it is clear that this is precisely the same political logic by which the rights of Christians in some Muslim majority countries are being crushed under Sharia law. That’s how theocracy works. So I have two questions for conservatives:

  • Are you so hypocritical that you would support theocratic majority-rule if you’re in the majority, but secular liberal democracy if you’re in the minority?
  • Are you so blind that you cannot see that your approach weakens the very institution of secular liberal democracy which you should be trying to strengthen globally in order to end the persecution of Christians?

The non-scriptural arguments against marriage equality are dishonest

The arguments being mustered to support a ‘No’ vote are toxic because they are fundamentally disingenuous and dishonest. They are not motivated by an objective consideration of the evidence, but by a prior conviction about what can count as a ‘real’ marriage based on particular interpretations of particular scriptures. Non-scriptural arguments are then sought and cherry-picked, however dubious their quality, to support the supposedly scriptural position. And that is precisely why the arguments in this plebiscite are so damaging.

The ‘No’ campaign, including many church leaders, are using all manner of specious arguments to support a position which does not in fact derive from those weak arguments, but is rooted instead in a particular interpretation of scripture. And in propagating those half-baked non-scriptural ‘No’ arguments, a torrent of damaging disinformation is being disgorged into the public arena and onto some of the most isolated, vulnerable and historically marginalised and persecuted people in our society. LGBTI people are being told they are damaged and deficient, that their relationships are inadequate, that they cannot be good parents, and on and on the vile, poisonous lies flow. None of this toxic nonsense is supported by objective evidence, and it should be beneath people of supposed integrity to propagate such hateful and damaging falsehoods.

Some suggestions for the ‘No’ campaign

So by all means conservatives, make the case for your traditional view of marriage – our secular liberal democracy gives you that right after all. But stick to scripture and frame your arguments as your religious beliefs. If you go further and argue that you should have the right to legislate that view, or worse, start disparaging LGBTI people and their relationships, do so knowing the incredibly damaging effect you are having on LGBTI people, on the reputation of the churches, which are increasingly seen as morally bankrupt, and on the ability of generations of Australians to hear the message of Jesus.

Please encourage all of those on the ‘No’ side to have the integrity to make their case explicitly and solely on the basis of their interpretation of the scriptures of their tradition – and for added integrity points, make it clear that there are alternative interpretations by well-respected theologians who fully support marriage equality. And please encourage your conservative compatriots not to pollute the discussion with pseudo-scientific, spurious and hateful claims about the mental health of LGBTI people, the quality of LGBTI relationships, the abilities of LGBTI couples to be good parents, or baseless claims that these relationships can’t possibly be considered a marriage by definition, simply because your tradition doesn’t recognise them. That is the very essence of bigotry.

If you’re a conservative, vote ‘Yes’

Many conservative clergy and pastors seem unable to comprehend, from within their ecclesiastical bubbles, that the moral reputation of the church in the West is in freefall – for reasons which have nothing to do with upholding the message of Jesus. The ‘No’ campaign is only accelerating that decline. It is a pointless, damaging campaign that will inevitably be lost, if not this time, then the next, simply because in a secular democracy there are no sound evidence-based reasons to deny marriage equality and an overwhelming human rights principle of equality under the law to affirm it.

If Christians acknowledge that a governance framework that protects the religious freedoms of minorities is essential to protect the churches in countries where Christians are a minority, then they should uphold and protect the principles of secular liberal democracy. And in a democracy, the human rights of all must be upheld. That is why, even if you are a conservative Christian who might personally be opposed to same-sex marriage, you should vote ‘Yes’ to support marriage equality – and do so with a clear conscience. Right now, Christian minorities around the world need non-Christians to support their human rights and to stand up for their personal and religious freedoms. One day you might too. That is how a democracy works and that is how we can flourish together.

Cultivating Joy

Last year a friend confessed to how a simple question over drinks in the pub sent him off on a tirade about the abysmal state of politics in his country. He described his animated rant as ‘throwing the toys out of the cot’ like an enraged toddler. He was surprised by the depth of his anger.

I have certainly felt like that at times. To engage in sacred activism, we need to maintain open hearts – open to some of the harsh realities of the world, and seeing enough of those realities that we can be informed and motivated to try to help change things for the better. Sometimes though, it can become overwhelming. We can’t be actively engaged in everything – and being open to too much can leave us feeling overwhelmed or paralysed. So we also need to filter and focus on a small number of issues that we feel passionate about – maybe only one or two.

While filtering and focussing can help manage our time and energy, the process of filtering itself can take its own toll. I find that with just clearing my emails, going through my Facebook and Twitter feeds, watching the news, or opening a newspaper – the headlines alone often send torrents of pain and sadness into my consciousness. Maybe you’ve had a similar experience.

One solution of course is just to block it all out – and I can understand why many of us do that. Some spiritual teachers actually encourage people to avoid the news or anything ‘negative’ – which is another way of counselling us to turn away from those in need. The way of sacred activism demands instead that we engage with some of the pain of the world and to respond to it with active compassion. The key of course is ‘some’ of the pain. We have to filter. But one of the challenges with even effective filtering is that we may not notice the creeping sadness and rising anger. Over time, it can make us feel jaded, bitter, cynical and frankly, not a lot of fun to be around.

So this is a two-fold challenge for those of us who want to maintain open-hearted, compassionate engagement with some of the world’s pain.

First, we need to remember to draw deep from our spiritual practices – prayer, meditation, yoga, dance, music, making art – in order to be refreshed enough to be able to pour out love and compassion without burning out. In one of his talks in Turkey, Andrew Harvey told this story:

I once asked Mother Theresa in the late 80s how she did what she did – I’d been to Calcutta and it takes an enormous amount of courage just to stay in Calcutta. She said, “Honestly, I don’t do it. What I do, is that I get up at 4.30 in the morning and I spend an hour and a half just gazing at the host, and I fill up. And then quite consciously during the day, I give away everything that I’ve had, then go to bed totally empty and exhausted. Then in the morning I get up. I fill up. I give everything away. I go to bed exhausted. I get up. I fill up. I give everything away. I go to bed exhausted.” The Dalai Lama gets up at 4.00 every morning and practices for two hours, so that he can be this bonfire of love and generosity. That just doesn’t come naturally. That’s something that he works on. I didn’t come into this room without praying deeply beforehand. I do it because I love you and respect you and I want to give the best of myself. I want to be absolutely here. That doesn’t come naturally. It’s divine work. You breathe it in, in order to be able to breathe it out in acts of love and compassion. And you must give it all! All! Because if you give it all, you create a bigger space of emptiness to be filled. And then if you give it ALL, you create an even bigger space – and so on.

Second, we need to actively cultivate joy and celebration.

One of my favourite movies is O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and on the soundtrack is a song, which at one level can be taken as a naïve Pollyanna-ish view. But at another level it is a work of spiritual genius. You probably know the song:

There’s a dark and a troubled side of life;
There’s a bright and a sunny side, too;
Tho’ we meet with the darkness and strife,
The sunny side we also may view.

[chorus]
Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life;
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way,
If we keep on the sunny side of life.

Tho’ the storm in its fury break today,
Crushing hopes that we cherished so dear,
Storm and cloud will in time pass away,
The sun again will shine bright and clear.

Let us greet with a song of hope each day,
Tho’ the moments be cloudy or fair;
Let us trust in our Savior always,
Who keepeth everyone in His care.

(Written in 1899 by Ada Blenkhorn.)

I have some issues with the last line, (if it’s talking about ‘care’ in the sense of protection from misfortune, I don’t think that’s really how things work – but that’s for another post!), but overall I think there is a certain genius to this simple song. It holds two important aspects of reality together.

It looks the hard times square in the eyes and says, “Yep, there’s a dark and troubled side of life, and storms that can take away everything we hold dear.” That’s how the world is. That’s how the Universe is. There are no guarantees. Misfortune happens – and it doesn’t only happen to people who are bad, or who deserve it, or who attracted a bad reality with their thoughts, or who didn’t set their intention right, or who accumulated bad karma – all of these are forms of victim blaming. Sometimes shit just happens. I don’t believe God or the Universe minutely calibrates each hurricane, drought, bushfire or disease according to who deserves what. This song was written in a relatively prosperous country in an era when young mothers often died in childbirth, babies and young children were regularly lost to to disease, and when a poor harvest meant a long, hungry winter. They didn’t have the modern luxury of a spirituality of privilege which blamed victims for ‘attracting’ misfortune.

But here’s the thing: they remembered that there’s another side of life too. We mustn’t allow that darkness or fear to shape our life. Misfortune or calamity doesn’t necessarily mean you’re out of step with God. It doesn’t necessarily mean there is something wrong with you. It’s not necessarily a ‘sign’ at all. Storms happen – that’s life – and this storm too will pass: “Storm and cloud will in time pass away, The sun again will shine bright and clear”, so “Let us greet with a song of hope each day.”

We need to remember to cultivate the strength and compassion to be open-hearted, to draw deep from our spiritual practices and also to cultivate the joy that makes life worth living and celebrating in the first place.

Global damage from Australia’s coal exports up to 1000 times greater than its climate aid by 2020

In her speech at the climate negotiations in Paris this week, Australia’s Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, tried in vain to make the case that “coal will remain critical to promoting prosperity, growing economies and alleviating hunger for years.”

Australia has been mouthing ambitious-sounding platitudes, while consistently failing to deliver policies that would actually deliver an ambitious agreement. In fact, Australia was ranked third last out of 58 countries on its climate policies.

Australia failed to support a group of countries pushing for end to fossil fuel subsidies – making a mockery of its claims even to fiscal responsibility, let alone environmental responsibility.

And Australia found itself outside the ‘High Ambition Coalition’ of more than 100 countries pushing for limiting warming to 1.5°C, which includes the EU, US, New Zealand, Canada, Africa and the Pacific island states. At the time of writing it had tried to join, but had not yet been welcomed into the group, with the convenors apparently preferring a narrower gap between rhetoric and actual policy measures.

What is behind Australia’s appalling record on climate change? When Australia is the driest inhabited continent, with ecosystems and population centres highly vulnerable to droughtsfloods and bushfires, to say nothing of the threat to the Great Barrier Reef – why is Australia so blind?

One word: Coal.

The Australian Government’s Department of Industry expects (pp. 44 & 56) Australia to export 400 million tonnes (Mt) of coal this financial year. When that coal is burnt, it will release around 955 Mt CO2-equivalent.* To put that figure in perspective, Germany’s COemissions in 2012 were just 817 Mt.

In July this year the US Government revised its estimates for the net present value of global damage caused by CO2 emissions. These estimates are based on very conservative Integrated Assessment Models, which, for many reasons, significantly under-estimate the costs of damage. Even so, the results are sobering – precisely because they are estimated by such conservative models, with the full backing of multiple agencies of the US Government. In short, these estimates are the least alarmist measures we have of the damage being inflicted on the world by greenhouse gas emissions.

By these US Government estimates, each metric tonne of coal burnt leads to between US$30 and US$292 damage to the world (in 2015 dollars; A$41-403). The low estimate is obtained using high discount rates (effectively valuing the future less), and the higher estimate takes somewhat better (but still inadequate) account of the likelihood of abrupt climatic changes and catastrophic damage.

Compare these estimates for global damage with the actual price of coal:

Source: OCE, (2015) “Resources and Energy Quarterly“,  Canberra, Office of the Chief Economist, Department of Industry & Science, Australian Government, September Quarter,  125 pp.

It is clear from these charts that the cost of the damage caused by burning more than a tonne of coal is now likely to be greater than the price of the coal itself.

Using the US Government damage figures, Australia’s coal exports this financial year will cause between US$12 billion and US$117 billion (A$16-161 billion) worth of damage globally.

The cost of this damage is completely ignored in the price of coal.

It may be argued that this reasoning does not take into account the potential economic benefits from the energy produced from the coal. That is true. I am also not making a distinction between thermal coal used for generating electricity (about 51% of Australia’s exports by volume) and metallurgical coal used for steelmaking (about 49%), for which alternatives are available.

The fact remains that the damages caused by the emissions from coal combustion are ignored in its price. Economists call this an externality. Coal companies externalise or dump the cost on people and the environment because they can. They pretend that coal is a cheap source of fuel and so is good for the poor. Coal isn’t cheap though – and it is a lie for politicians and the mining industry to continue to claim that it is. It only looks cheap because of the hidden subsidy it gets because its price ignores the damage its emissions cause (and we are not here, even considering the damage and health effects from the particulates and mercury caused by coal transport and combustion).

The prices of coal and other fossil fuels should be much higher to internalise the costs of the damage they cause – otherwise markets will continue to give misleading signals. The fact that free-market think tanks generally do not champion the internalisation of externalised costs shows that fundamentally they are industry shills and front groups rather than sources of informed and constructive economic policy advice.

But I digress. What is interesting is that the total revenue (pp. 44 & 56) expected from Australia’s coal exports this year is only US$27.4 billion (A$37.9 billion). That’s not profit – that’s just revenue. Since the coal industry is in dire straits globally, we can be sure that actual profits are a small fraction of revenues. That means that the unpriced damage caused by our coal exports is far greater than the profits made from those exports.

In short, Australia’s coal exports are causing massive environmental, social and economic damage which is not factored into their prices, for a profit that is far less than the costs of the damage. 

And it gets worse. Australia wants to export even more coal – including a proposal to massively expand production from the Galilee Basin in Queensland, overseen by a company whose Chief Executive in Australia failed to disclose that he oversaw an appalling environmental disaster in Zambia.

By 2020 Australian expects to be exporting 433 Mt of coal each year, which would lead to emissions of 1033 Mt and damages of between US$14 billion and US$144 billion (A$19 – 199 billion). Here are the government’s projections:

Source: OCE, (2015) “Resources and Energy Quarterly“,  Canberra, Office of the Chief Economist, Department of Industry & Science, Australian Government, September Quarter,  125 pp.

This brings us to Australia’s promises to help developing countries to adapt to climate change. The rich countries have together promised US$100 billion for developing countries. Where this is all going to come from remains unclear. With much fanfare, Australia has pledged A$1 billion (US$725 million) over five years. This is not new money, but will be redirected from the existing aid budget, which the Coalition government has cut since coming to office.

Assuming the A$1 billion is spread evenly over the five years, we have A$200 million per year promised to help some of the poorest countries in the world to cope with the damage Australia is helping to cause.

That means that this year the costs of the damage from Australia’s coal exports are between 82 and 805 times what we have promised to help developing countries with. By 2020, if export expansion continues, the damage will be 97 to 993 times more. In other words: By 2020, Australia’s coal exports will be causing damage equivalent to between about 100 and 1000 times more than the amount Australia has promised to help address that damage.

It is not hard to understand why developing countries despair at Australia’s short-sighted and self-destructive duplicity.

Notes:

* With an energy content factor of about 27 GJ/tCoal, and an emissions factor (including oxidation factor) for CO2 of about 88.2 kgCO2-e/GJ, this gives 2.38 tonnes of CO2-e (CO2-equivalent) from every tonne of coal burnt. The effects of methane and nitrous oxide released from coal combustion bump it up to 2.39 tCO2-e.

** This article updates some of the information originally published in The Conversation in 2013. Read the earlier article.

Marrying East and West

Statue of Jesus meditating in the meditation hall. Photo: Brett Parris

This week I had the privilege of staying at Saccidananda Ashram in Tamil Nadu, India – the home of one of the greatest spiritual teachers of the twentieth century. The ashram, also known as Shantivanam (meaning ‘Forest of Peace’), lies on the banks of the Kaveri River, called the Ganges of the South. Sandy paths wind their way between red-brown huts, beneath coconut palms and banana trees. The gentle rain smells sweet.

Fr Bede Griffiths – portrait in the dining hall. Photo: Brett Parris

Saccidananda Ashram was founded in 1950 as a place of meeting and interspiritual dialogue between Christians and Hindus by two French priests, Fr Jules Monchanin, who adopted the Indian name Swami Parama Arubi Ananda (bliss of the Supreme Spirit) and Fr Henri Le Saux, who adopted the name Swami Abhishiktananda (the bliss of Christ). The ashram is most famous though, for the man who arrived in 1968 and who lived there until his death on 13th May 1993, Father Bede Griffiths.

Inside Bede Griffith’s hut. Photo: Brett Parris

Father Bede was a towering figure of twentieth century spirituality, whose vision stretched into our own time and beyond. Born in 1906 and educated in England, he was deeply grounded in both the Christian and Indian Vedantic traditions. He was gently spoken, wrote prolifically and travelled widely, becoming a beloved figure across the word.

View of the library. Photo: Brett Parris
The main gate. Photo: Brett Parris

The Sanskrit name for the ashram, Saccidananda, means ‘Being-Consciousness-Bliss’ and was understood by its founders to be another way of describing the Christian Trinity. Bede recognised that Christianity had been largely shaped for its first 1900 years by Greek philosophical systems and Roman institutions, and that it now needed to be enriched and challenged by serious engagement with the ancient thought of India. In The Marriage of East and West (pp. 190-192) for example, he wrote:

“The doctrine of the Trinity was developed from St John’s Gospel by the Greek fathers, using the language of Greek conceptual thought, in terms of essence and nature and person and relation, and this has become the normal form of the doctrine in Christian tradition. But it is possible that the same experience could be interpreted in other terms, drawn from a different tradition. …Would it not be possible to interpret the experience of Jesus in the light of the Hindu understanding of ultimate reality? We could then speak of God as Saccidananda – Being, Consciousness, Bliss – and see in the Father, sat. Being, the absolute eternal “I am’, the ground of Being, the source of all. We could then speak of the Son, as the cit, the knowledge of the Father, the Self-consciousness of the eternal Being, the presence to itself in pure consciousness of the infinite One; Being reflecting on itself, knowing itself, expressing itself in an eternal Word. We could then speak of the Father as Nigurna Brahman, ‘Brahman without attributes’, the infinite abyss of Being beyond word and thought. The Son would then be Saguna Brahman, ‘Brahman with attributes’, as Creator, Lord, Saviour, the Self-manifestation of the unmanifest God, the personal aspect of the Godhead, the Purusha. He is that ‘Supreme Person’ (Purushottaman) of the Baghavad Gita, the ‘unborn, beginningless, great Lord of the world’, the ‘Supreme Brahman, the supreme abode, the supreme purity, the eternal divine Person (purusha), the primal God (adideva), the unborn, the omnipresent (vibhum).”

“Finally, we could speak of the spirit as the Ananda, the Bliss or joy of the Godhead, the outpouring of the super-abundant being and consciousness of the eternal, the Love which unites Father and Son in the non-dual Being of the Spirit. This Spirit is also the Atman, the Breath (pneuma) of God, which is in all creation and gives life to every living thing, which in humanity becomes conscious and grows with the growth of consciousness until it becomes pure, intuitive wisdom. The Atman is the Spirit of God in humanity, when the human spirit becomes pervaded by the divine spirit and attains to pure consciousness. It is conscious Bliss, consciousness filled with joy, with the delight of Being. This was the spirit that filled the soul of Jesus and gave him perfect consciousness of his relationship as Son to the perfect ground of Being in the Godhead.”

“Hindu experience can also help bring out another aspect of the godhead, the concept of God as Mother. The Hebrew tradition was patriarchal, and Christianity has preserved only a masculine concept of God. The Father and the Son are masculine in their very names, and even the Spirit, which is neuter in Greek, has been given a masculine character. But the Hebrew tradition also preserves a word for the spirit (ruah) which is feminine, and in the Syrian church this feminine gender was preserved so that they could speak of the Holy Spirit as Mother. There is also in the Old Testament the beautiful figure of Wisdom (hocmah) which is also feminine. …”

 “But it is in the Holy Spirit that the feminine aspect of the godhead can be most clearly seen. She is the Sakti, the power, immanent in all creation, the receptive power of the Godhead.”

It was both humbling and deeply moving to pray and meditate in Bede’s small hut, with its wicker bed, simple wooden chair and modest book case. In that small place I had the sense of being connected to a vast, spacious, blissful ocean of peace. Not a sleepy, placid peace – rather a peace crackling with Divine energy and power – the Shakti of God. I could have swum in that ocean forever.

The ashram’s work continues under the leadership of Brother Martin, a prolific author and speaker in his own right. Though it is primarily a place for prayer and meditation, the ashram also runs a number of social programs to help the poor. It operates a home for the aged and destitute, provides books, clothing and school uniforms for some 420 local children each year, and also provides milk to children under three years of age to supplement their nutrition.

What a joy to have the chance to stay in a place, not only of tremendous historical significance, but also one which continues to nurture deep interspiritual transformation and which provides an ongoing example of true sacred activism.

Complexity, Psychology, Sustainability & Spirituality

How can understanding complex systems, becoming conscious of our own cognitive biases, taking a sustainability reality check and embracing spirituality all help to make your business or organisation thrive?

Last month I had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours exploring that question with a fantastic class of bright Monash University MBA students at the kind invitation of Jeff McLean. Jeff introduced me and chaired the session.

We covered a lot of ground and I tried to emphasise four points:

1. It is critically important to understand some of the core concepts of complex systems theory. It generally doesn’t occur to us to look for things we don’t know exist, and it’s easy to lull ourselves into believing that our tool kit is fit to solve any problem. But as the saying goes, “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The lack of understanding of complex systems is a huge problem for economics and for public policy-making in general. (A few years ago I co-taught a unit at Monash on the application of complex systems ideas to economics. If you’re interested, the unit guide with a big list of references is here). But understanding complex systems has application in many other areas, such as business, social science, and even parenting and spirituality – though those are topics for other posts!

2. We need to be aware of the different kinds of logical fallacies and cognitive biases in order to discern good-quality arguments, information and strategies. Understanding some of these fallacies and biases also helps us to understand the ways in which we may be inadvertently fooling ourselves and driving our organisations or personal lives into a ditch.

3. There are some ‘brute facts’ on the sustainability challenge which we must all grapple with – whether as business people, policy makers, NGO staffers, public sector workers, communities, families, parents or individuals. Things are  much more serious than most of the media make out. Like the ancient Romans, our system is designed to keep us endlessly distracted with bread and circuses.

4. Spirituality is critical – and by spirituality I don’t mean simply what religion we profess (or don’t as the case may be). I am talking about our worldviews, the deep drivers of our lives, where we look for meaning, what informs our life-goals, how self-aware we are of our own biases, limitations and possibilities – and how well we attend to our mental and spiritual health and well-being. The groundswell of sacred activism emerging around the world is an important response to the ecological, economic and social challenges we are facing.

The session will make most sense with the accompanying slides. I have updated a couple of the slides since the presentation (e.g. sustainability boundaries, social costs of carbon)  and two other slides have been added because I thought they were useful: an example of cherry picking data and one on plunging renewable energy costs (in case you’re wondering why they’re not mentioned in the talk).

For those not familiar with Australian politics, which gets a few mentions, our ‘Liberal’ party is equivalent to the Republicans in the U.S. or the Conservatives / Tories in the UK. On 14th September 2015, the hardline conservative Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott was deposed in a leadership spill by Malcolm Turnbull, who became our new Prime Minister the next day. If you’ve taken any notice of Australian politics over the last five years you may sense something of a theme.

You can listen to the talk, either by right-clicking on the links below and downloading the two mp3 files, or by just clicking on the play buttons and streaming. There is a little bit of background noise at times, since it was a live recording.

Part 1 (58 MB, 1 hr 2 mins)

Part 2 (56 MB, 1 hr)

I hope you will find the presentation and discussion useful. Please drop me a line using the contact form on this site if you have comments, questions or suggestions.

Thanks for reading – and if you liked these talks, please pass on the link to others who may be interested.

The unlimited possibility of transformation

If you could sum up the purpose of life in a single word, just one, what would it be? Love? Enlightenment? Salvation? Family? Friendships? Growth? What if there was a word that drew all of these ideas together?

Epektasis is an ancient Greek word that was used to describe the endless expansion and unlimited possibility of an authentic spiritual transformation – a transformation that can lead to the fulfilment of a potential within each of us that is beyond our wildest dreams.

Spiritual traditions emphasise different aspects of this transformational journey: Christian mystics speak of the journey towards union with God through divinization or theosis – the idea that human beings may take part in the very life of God through union with the Divine. The great Buddhist and Hindu sages speak similarly in terms of the liberation and enlightenment that comes through the realisation that we already are that One – that we are not separate from the pulsating heart of the universe. The Islamic mystics, the Sufis, yearn for baqa or the ‘life in God’ that comes from surrendering to the transformative power of divine grace. These are not simply once-off events resulting in a new static state. They describe a dynamic invitation into ever deeper and richer transformation, like the unfurling of the petals of a rose, or the transformation of a caterpillar into a stunning butterfly.

Spiritual growth and transformation necessarily overflows into the rest of life, so Epektasis also encompasses the journey of deepening transformation in our whole beings, in our intimate, family and social relationships, in society, in our relations with all sentient beings and with the earth itself. It is an invitation into the deep, transformative journey of sacred activism – the fusion of our spiritual path and its natural overflow into the world.

Epektasis is not something to be ‘achieved’ or to become attached to, like the ultimate goal on our bucket list. We are already beloved of God, children of the Divine, and held in grace. But there is always the possibility of allowing more of that grace to shine through us and to allow its healing warmth into the corners of our souls where we feel vulnerable, limited, constricted and maybe even ashamed. Through this transformative, sacred journey of love, healing and grace, we can grow into divine beings more beautiful, luminous and powerful than we had ever imagined possible.

Epektasis is a state of grace, a journey to be taken and an ever more brightly shining vision of our future selves. Not bad for a single word.

Time to stand up: reflections on the federal budget

This article was originally published  here by the Ethos Centre for Christianity and Society.  

By now you may have read some of the analysis of the federal Coalition government’s recent budget (e.g. here, here and here), or its Commission of Audit (e.g. here, here, here or here), which was released prior to the budget in an attempt to frame our economic challenges as a ‘budget emergency’. Australia has had tough budgets before, but five factors make the 2014-15 budget a low-point in Australia’s modern history and should continue to spur Christian leaders into outspoken and courageous resistance.

First, for a government which pursued former Prime Minister Julia Gillard relentlessly on the issue of integrity for supposedly lying on the issue of a price on carbon (ignoring the fact that she came to preside over a minority government), Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s and Treasurer Joe Hockey’s wholesale trashing of so many pre-election promises is breathtakingly cynical, surprising even a jaded electorate (see here, here, here and here). Like many Australians, I have grave concerns about the ongoing corrosion of our society’s ability to develop, debate and implement sensible policy in a context where public trust is treated with contempt.

Second, as an economist I despair at the near impossibility of having a sensible public debate on economic policy in this country. Both sides of politics are to blame, but the Coalition has used its pro-business reputation as being ‘better economic managers’ to drag the ALP so far to the right as to be almost unrecognisable. The previous Labor government managed to paint itself into a corner totally unnecessarily by buying the line that an early return to surplus was the key indicator of sound economic management. Economic reality forced it into an entirely predictable and humiliating back down.

The ‘trickle down’ theory of neoliberal economics, to which both sides seem to be wedded, is intellectually bankrupt. It is based on a naive atomistic, individualistic, view of the ‘self-made man’ who does not derive his fortune in any way from public goods such as a skilled workforce funded by public education, transport infrastructure funded by public investment, an energy grid built by public utilities, a healthy population due to public health measures, or a tax-payer funded legal framework that enables markets to function. Some might praise the Coalition for at least being consistent. They don’t seem to even be pretending to have a vision for an equitable and ecologically sustainable society. The ALP meanwhile, imagines that it can aspire to such a vision mimicking the economic ideology of their opponents.

The failure to understand the legitimate role that public investment and government debt plays in running an economy illustrates the influence that neoliberal political ideology has had on policy at the expense of sound economics. Neoliberalism is obsessed with small government as a matter of principle without understanding the important role that public investment and good governance plays in sustainable prosperity. Governments can borrow at lower interest rates than private companies because they are understood by financial markets to be lower risk. Australia’s infrastructure was largely financed by public borrowing and public expenditure even before Federation: between 1860 and 1900, the share of government expenditure in domestic capital formation was around 40 per cent. Government debt was around 40 per cent of GDP for most of the period between 1910 and 1939 before spiking to 120 per cent during World War II and declining to today’s relatively low levels by the 1970s (see di Marco et al. here). Until the relatively recent fad for privatisations and public-private partnerships, most of our modern infrastructure was also built through public investment. A certain level of public debt also enables bond markets to function, providing a low-risk means for citizens to invest in the public good.

Governments should be borrowing to invest in areas where the economic return will be positive – particularly in cases such as networked infrastructure where there is a natural monopoly (meaning for example, we don’t need more than one high-speed rail route between Melbourne and Sydney, or more than one national broadband network). The Chaser team confronted Tony Abbott in 2010 with the absurdity of him saying that governments should act like households and companies in managing their debt when in fact households and companies tend to be far more indebted than the government. Australia has one of the lowest levels of public debt of any country in the OECD (see here, here and here). I was surprised to find myself agreeing with Clive Palmer recently when he said, “To say we’ve got a debt crisis means that the world’s got a debt crisis much worse than ours.”

Most economists also agree that we do not have a debt crisis (see here). We do have budgetary challenges, but these are mostly on the revenue side. It is widely believed that Australia is a highly taxed country. In fact we are the fourth lowest taxed country out of the 34 countries in the OECD (yes, really). Our revenue challenges have been exacerbated by years of tax cuts in the previous decade while we rode the mining boom and rivers of gold flowed into government coffers. That was always going to slow down once the boom ended. Now we have a significant revenue problem that the federal government is seeking to palm off to the states, slashing health and education expenditure and cynically leaving the states to square the circle by raising taxes or slashing spending themselves.

Third, the government is seeking a return to surplus on the backs of the poor, the sick and the marginalised. This fact alone should galvanise Christians everywhere. Cuts of $7.5 billion to foreign aid over the four years of the forward estimates account for 20 per cent of the savings despite aid being only 1.3 per cent of the total budget (see here and here). Closer to home, the Australian Council of Social Service warned that the billions of dollars in cuts risked destroying Australia’s social safety net. Denying people under 30 income support for six months at a time and cutting benefits to poor families, is surely a recipe for increased depression and other mental health problems, family violence, alcohol abuse, suicide and crime. The $7 fee for visiting a doctor will also hit the poor – particularly those with children who suffer repeated illness and the elderly on pensions. This is likely to lead to delays in detecting serious illnesses and far more expensive treatments as a result. Raising the age of eligibility for the pension to 70 may be tolerable for sedentary office workers – but what about those doing backbreaking manual labour? Further cuts even after the budget was handed down, such as cuts to the Refugee Council of Australia have been described as “petty and vindictive”. The very real social and economic costs of all these cuts to the most vulnerable are ignored.

Fourth, the abolition of the mining tax and particularly the price on carbon pollution is a triumph of ideology and climate change denial over both economics and science. For a government that would rather cut benefits to the poor than to raise revenue from mining companies, and with no science minister, these moves were not a surprise – indeed they were election promises. If the Abbott government truly understood the threat that climate change poses to Australia but thought that the price on carbon was too high and should be lowered to serve weaker targets, that may have reflected a view that could command some respect, if not agreement. Instead the government wants not only to abolish the price on carbon, but the entire institutional infrastructure that the previous government had painstakingly established (see here and here). The Climate Commission was swiftly dispatched (and ironically, privatised, through citizen support and rebirthed as the Climate Council), and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation are under threat.  A well-constructed, self-financing market-based mechanism that had begun to lower Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions significantly, is to be replaced by a ‘Direct Action’ scheme which no experts believe will work effectively and which will cost tax-payers $2.55 billion to pay big polluters to reduce their emissions if they want to (see here). This dramatic reversal has horrified foreign ambassadors, with Switzerland’s Sven-Olof Petersson saying, “I’m amazed that a Liberal government does not choose a market mechanism to regulate emissions …I think that is really shocking.” Even China is concerned, with the ABC reporting that “The Vice President of China’s most advanced carbon emissions exchange says Australia could scuttle the creation of a global carbon trading system.”

Why the intransigence? Back in 2007 in his book High and Dry, Guy Pearse, the former advisor to the Liberal Environment Minister Robert Hill, turned whistle-blower and documented how a powerful group of fossil fuel companies had essentially dictated Australia’s climate change policies. Little seems to have changed, with the Prime Minister recently declaring in his speech to the Minerals Industry Parliamentary dinner:

 “Our prosperity rides on the ore and gas and coal carriers steaming the seas to our north, just as surely today as once it rode on the sheep’s back. …It’s particularly important that we do not demonise the coal industry and if there was one fundamental problem, above all else, with the carbon tax was that it said to our people, it said to the wider world, that a commodity which in many years is our biggest single export, somehow should be left in the ground and not sold. Well really and truly, I can think of few things more damaging to our future.”

Australia has enormous coal reserves and the government is working hand in glove with those who want to dig it up and export as much as possible. But once you start to take the economics of this seriously, and start to consider the wellbeing of our children and grandchildren, the case for expanding our coal exports falls to pieces (see here). Using very conservative climate models linked to even more conservative economic models, the US Government came out last year with some eye-popping figures for the so-called ‘social costs of carbon’. These models do not of course, take into account recent developments such as the fact that the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice sheet now seems unstoppable no matter what we do (see here).

What do the estimates of the social costs of carbon tell us? According to the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (here, pp. 48 &70) Australia’s black coal exports in FY2013-14 will be around 372 million tonnes (Mt). Combustion will release around 889 Mt CO2-equivalent. For comparison, Germany’s CO2 emissions in 2011 were just 807 Mt. Based on those conservative US Government estimates, our current coal exports are causing between A$12 billion and A$110 billion of damage globally each year (in 2014 dollars). By 2018-19 the Bureau expects our coal exports to rise to 438 Mt, producing around 1045 Mt CO2-equivalent, which will cause between A$15 and A$153 billion in damage (in 2014 dollars) for expected revenues of only $49 billion. The actual profits of course would be much less. None of this damage is included in the coal export price. This is a textbook example of what economists call an externality – a social and environmental cost imposed on others by the actions of private companies. It is bad economic policy pandering to the short-term interests of powerful lobby groups.

Lastly, making higher education far less affordable by deregulating student fees is a catastrophically stupid policy. It will increase poverty levels for students, increase class-based social stratification, decrease overall skill levels in the workforce, and make public debates of complex policy issues even more difficult over time as fewer people can afford a broad education that is not narrowly tailored to a particular job. Graduates will emerge with large debts which will harm their well-being and pressure them to seek high paying jobs at the expense of more community-minded jobs such as teaching, nursing, child care, social work and public service (see here).

What are we to make of all this as Christians? I am probably not alone in feeling bewildered at what is happening to our country. So many people have been working so hard to uphold the values Jesus taught – the care for the sick and the marginalised, justice for the poor, respect and welcome for the foreigner, humility and generosity for the rich. And yet – here we are. It is inspiring to see a few church leaders and other Christians standing up, even to the point of being arrested in protest. Bravofriends! But some of the most strongly ‘Christian’ electorates voted for these cruel and regressive policies. Many of those in federal politics and their supporters who are designing and implementing these policies also call themselves Christians. Many churches continue to preach a narcissistic prosperity theology that has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus. This surely points to a colossal failure of leadership among the Christian churches over many years – a desire to ‘play nice’, seduced by the promise of influence, and an unwillingness to consistently stand up for those Jesus placed at the centre of his concern: the poor, the marginalised, the sick, the outcast and children. Did Jesus hate rich people? Of course not. But he saw clearly that excessive wealth, selfishness and insularity were spiritual traps from which only humility, hospitality and service could free us.

If one good can come of our current malaise, perhaps it will be the re-ignition of a Christian sacred activism grounded in Jesus’ teachings, fuelled by deep prayer and with the courage to speak truth to power no matter what the cost.

Expanding coal exports is bad news for Australia and the world

This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.

In the coming months our new federal government will be promoting a massive expansion in Australia’s coal exports. In all likelihood they’ll hail it as “good For Australia”. It isn’t.

Most of us are familiar with the damage coal mining, export and burning does to the environment. We know it affects health, contributes to climate change, risks groundwater supplies and threatens the Great Barrier Reef.

For many, that damage is offset by what they see as social and economic benefits, here and abroad. But in almost all cases, those benefits are exaggerated or non-existent.

How much carbon dioxide are we exporting?

The Australian Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics expects (p. 106) that Australia’s black coal exports in the financial year 2013-14 will be 350 million tonnes (Mt).

With an energy content factor of about 27 GJ/tCoal, and an emissions factor (including oxidation factor) for CO2 of about 88.2 kgCO2-e/GJ, this gives 2.38 tonnes of CO2-e (CO2-equivalent) from every tonne of coal burnt.

The effects of methane and nitrous oxide released from coal combustion bump it up to 2.39 tCO2-e. That implies that the combustion of our coal exports will release around 836 Mt CO2-e. To put that figure in perspective, Germany’s CO2emissions in 2011 were just 807 Mt.

Greenpeace estimates the mega-mines planned for Queensland’s Galilee Basin alone would produce some 705 million tonnes of CO2 each year. That’s enough to chew through around 6% of the CO2 the entire world can release to keep warming to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures.

Burning coal causes billions of dollars in damage

Our coal exports are causing massive environmental, social and economic damage. These costs are not factored into coal’s export price.

In May the US Government revised its estimates for the net present value of global damage caused by CO2 emissions. These models may significantly under-estimate the costs of damage, but the results are sobering.

By these conservative US Government estimates, our current coal exports are causing between A$11 billion and A$103 billion of damage globally each year (in 2013 dollars). None of this is included in the coal export price.

When we consider that total revenues from exports in FY2013-14 (p. 94) are expected to be around A$41.5 billion, and actual profits are a much smaller fraction of revenues, we can be confident that the unpriced damage caused by our coal exports is likely to be significantly greater than the profits made from those exports.

If our coal exports were to reach 1000 Mt by 2020, they would be producing around 2390 Mt of CO2 and up to A$370 billion in global damage each year.

Pricing this damage could fund the repair

It will be argued of course, that this reasoning doesn’t take into account the economic benefits from the energy produced from the coal. True. But the export price should be higher to internalise the costs of damage – otherwise markets will continue to give misleading signals.

Correcting the market failure of externalised costs could be done either in Australia with an export tax, or in the importing countries with an import tariff or domestic price on carbon.

If Australia imposed an export tax itself, as Peter Christoff suggested, then the Australian people would capture the benefits of that revenue stream. We could fund climate adaptation measures, clean energy and disaster risk reduction in Australia. We could pay our international climate finance obligations to the poorest developing countries to help them to adapt to climate change.

The coal boom damages our economy

Treasury officials and researchers such as Richard Denniss and Matt Grudnoff have shown the resources boom helped to push up our exchange rate.

This caused significant damage to tourism, tertiary education, manufacturing, agriculture and other clean export industries – a classic example of the so-called Dutch-disease. These industries employ vastly more people (Table 06) in far more widely dispersed locations than coal mining.

Leisure tourism has also been hard hit, not only by the higher exchange rate, but by higher labour costs and difficulties attracting skilled staff.

A massive expansion of coal mining would make capital and labour even more expensive for other industries – exacerbating the crowding out effects already seen in the first phase of the mining boom.

Australia Institute researcher Mark Ogge has said: “Consultants for Clive Palmer’s China First coal mine in the Galilee basin estimated, in the company’s EIS, that this effect of driving up labor costs would mean 3,000 jobs will be lost in other parts of the economy, with manufacturing being the hardest hit.”

Powerful coal interests distort our political system

Guy Pearse and Clive Hamilton blew the whistle on the influence the fossil fuel industry has on Australia’s climate change and energy policies. Powerful coal mining companies and their lobbyists distort our political economy, and the expansion of the industry will only make the problem worse.

The tourism and education sectors are together just as significant export earners for Australia, and employ far more people, than coal mining.

But there is no equivalent to the giant mining companies in those sectors to make large political donations, or to fund well-orchestrated lobbying and media campaigns promoting their interests.

Our coal undercuts clean energy in developing countries

The argument is often made that if we really cared about the poor we’d export a lot more coal – but this is purest nonsense. It ignores the devastating costs of climate change and respiratory illnesses to the poor, and makes it harder for developing countries to transition to a clean energy future.

Wind energy is already competitive with new coal-fired power stations in India and solar is expected to be competitive by 2018.

The World Bank no longer funds coal fired power stations in developing countries and analysts at Goldman Sachs are already warning that coal export terminals are a bad investment because expected global demand for thermal coal has been over-estimated.

Australia should halt its plans to expand its coal production and exports – it enriches a few at the expense of millions and will inflict immense damage both on our own country and on the rest of the world.

Self-inflicted Climate Policy Chaos

If you are of a certain age you may remember the 1990 federal election, with Andrew Peacock up against Bob Hawke. What you may not remember is that the Liberal Party took to that election, a policy of 20 per cent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2001. That’s right – in 1990, the year of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s very first assessment report. The basic physics of how greenhouse gases warm the planet is more than 100 years old, and even back in 1990 the scientific evidence that greenhouse gases emitted by human activity were contributing to climate change was robust enough for the Liberal party to take a strong emissions reduction policy to the federal election.

What happened next? As is now well documented by numerous authors such as Naomi Oreskes, Clive Hamilton, Guy Pearse, and James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore the next two decades witnessed a massive disinformation campaign, denying the link between climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. It was funded largely by fossil fuel industries and libertarian market fundamentalists who could not stomach the idea of any problem that might require government intervention. The objective wasn’t to defeat the climate scientists, but simply to create the impression that scientists were divided. It was a staggeringly effective strategy, devised not only by some of the same PR firms involved in helping tobacco companies deny the link between smoking and cancer, but even some of the same individuals. Climate and energy policies in Australia, Canada and the United States have lurched and stumbled like wounded wookies ever since.

And so we come to 2013 and our refurbished Prime Minister’s surprise early switch to an emissions trading scheme blowing a $3.8 billion hole through the budget over the next four years. The CEO of coal-fired power generator InterGen complained that “only the scrapping of the carbon tax will finally remove this debilitating policy chaos”. The owners of Victoria’s filthy Hazelwood power station GDF Suez said “it creates further uncertainty for investors in our business.” And of course the ubiquitous Minerals Council asserted that it didn’t go nearly far enough and that the scheme should be abandoned.

There is a very good reason though for the policy uncertainty: vested interests have done everything in their power to prevent any policy clarity that would deliver strong emissions reductions. But while fossil fuel companies, coal-fired generators and their investors may have believed their own propaganda for 20 years, you can’t fool Mother Nature. The laws of physics don’t do dodgy back-room deals and they don’t care if you’ve managed to confuse the public debate and spook most of the politicians into pathetically weak emissions reductions targets. The game is up. The decade 2000-2009 was the hottest since records began (p. 19). Extreme weather records are tumbling all over the world – and this is just the beginning. The world’s major economic institutions and every major national academy of science are unanimous in saying that greenhouse gases from human activity are driving climate change (see here and here). As a result we are facing a catastrophe unparalleled in human history without deep and rapid emissions reductions.

Fatih Birol, the Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency, warned that about two-thirds of all proven reserves of coal, oil and gas will have to stay in the ground to prevent warming beyond two degrees above pre-industrial levels. The World Bank declared that a world of four degrees above pre-industrial temperatures “simply must not be allowed to occur.” Christine Lagarde, the head of that radical hippy drum circle, the IMF, said (also here) in January that “without concerted action, the next generation will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.” The International Energy Agency says (p. 9) we are currently on track for 3.6 to 5.3 degrees warming above pre-industrial levels by 2100 – temperatures the Earth has not seen for between 15 and 40 million years. There is no possibility that our societies and the ecosystems which support them could adapt to such a massive increase in temperatures.

Meanwhile Mr Abbott described carbon markets as “a so-called market, in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one.” And in May the CEO of the soon-to-be-defunct Australian Coal Association, Nikki Williams, disingenuously mocked climate activists as being purely “anti-development” and quipped, “I don’t know about you, but the last time I flew to Europe it was pretty apparent that the Arctic was still there.” Nikki, the Arctic has lost around 80% of its volume since 1979 (see here, here, here and here).

Opponents of strong emissions reductions are reaping what they have sown. They ignored the warnings from climate scientists for 23 years, funded crank denial groups to prevent action and now bleat about policy uncertainty. If they had taken the science seriously and engaged constructively on how best to achieve the deep and rapid emissions reductions our children need for a safe future, we would be in a vastly better, more certain, bipartisan policy environment. Our present policy chaos is a direct consequence of too many corporate leaders’ lack of serious engagement with the implications of real climate science, the lobbying against strong emissions targets that will protect our children and the ludicrous plans to massively increase our coal exports.

Some countries’ corporate and political leaders did take the issue seriously. On Sunday 7th July, 21 per cent of Germany’s electricity came from solar and between 1 and 2pm, 60 per cent of its total electricity was coming from renewables. Things are changing in Australia too, wreaking havoc with the business plans of the old coal-fired generators. Earlier this month, wind supplied 47 per cent of South Australia’s energy during National Science Week.

A report from the Climate Change Authority to the Government recommend a tripling of the bipartisan minimum emissions reduction target from 5 to 15 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020. Climate scientists say the cuts need to be much deeper. Another recent report by The Climate Institute found that the Coalition’s current Direct Action policy would be see Australia’s emissions rise by 9% by 2020 (see also here). 

If the polls are correct, Australia will have a Coalition government next week – and Australian business will enter a protracted period of climate policy chaos. Even if Mr Abbott has the numbers to repeal the carbon price and abolish its associated institutions – business leaders who have taken the issue seriously all know deep down that it will all have to be reinvented again at some point. The delays and uncertainty will gut the clean energy sector, entrench emissions-intensive interests, and make Australia’s economy more fragile and vulnerable in an inevitably emissions-constrained world. The next IPCC scientific reports will roll out over the next year, starting later this month, and will make a mockery of the Coalition’s climate policies.

To those business leaders who complain about the uncertainty and policy chaos, and who did not step up to defend the science of climate change, the need for a price on carbon and their own children’s futures – you have only yourselves to blame.

Coalition Climate Figures Don’t Add Up

This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey and shadow Minister for Finance, Andrew Robb, have announced A$7.5 billion in planned budget savings from scrapping key elements of the Government’s Clean Energy Future package. By abolishing the price on carbon, a Coalition government would need to plug a hole in the budget estimated in the Pre-Election Fiscal and Economic Outlook at A$9.7 billion over the three years from July 2014.

The savings are outlined in the Coalition statement, “Our Plan to get the budget under control”. Let’s break down the statements in turn and see how they stack up.

Discontinuing business compensation

Discontinuing the business compensation measures introduced to provide partial relief to selected sectors and industries for the hit from the carbon tax ($5.1 billion).

These measures include the instant asset write-off threshold, the Jobs and Competitiveness program, the Steel Transformation Plan, the Clean Technology Program, the Coal Sector Jobs Package and other measures.

Let’s look at each in turn.

Removal of the increase in the instant asset write-off threshold to $6,500 ($0.2 billion)

The instant asset write-off threshold (pp. 58-59) was already increased from A$1,000 to A$5,000 from 2012-13 with the passage of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax legislation. The further increase from A$5,000 to A$6,500 was intended to make it easier for small businesses to invest in new assets, including energy efficient equipment. It was originally costed at “foregone revenue of A$200 million over the period to 2014-15” (p. 122).

Verdict: The A$0.2 billion quoted seems about right.

Discontinuing the Jobs and Competitiveness Program ($4.0 billion)

Assistance under the Jobs and Competitiveness Program (pp. 55 & 114) is in the form of free Australian carbon permits, not cash handouts. That means this measure represents revenue foregone rather than actual savings from the budget bottom line.

Verdict: Technically, judgement here hinges on whether it is appropriate to use an accruals or cash accounting basis for this “saving”. Foregoing revenue from permits that would no longer exist cannot be said to be a budget saving in the sense of making cash available in order to reduce the underlying cash deficit. Cash accounting gives a more accurate picture here and so real savings are overstated by A$4 billion.

Discontinuing the Steel Transformation Plan ($0.1 billion)

Originally the Steel Transformation Plan (p. 133) was budgeted at A$300 million over five years with figures for FY2013-14 and 2014-15 of A$75 million each. The portfolio budget statement (p. 38) shows budget of A$136 million for FY2014-15 and FY2015-16.

Verdict: Allowing for funds already committed, this announced saving of A$0.1 billion appears to be in the right ball park.

Discontinuing the Clean Technology Program ($0.4 billion)

The Clean Technology Program (pp. 56-57) is made up of the Clean Technology Investment Program, the Clean Technology – Food and Foundries Investment Program, and the Clean Technology Innovation Program.

In its May budget, despite “reprofiling” some funding, the Government maintained that the Clean Technology Program “will still provide A$1.2 billion over seven years from 2011‑12” (p. 213). In its August Economic Statement however, the Government announced “rephasing $200 million of funding from the Clean Technology Program and returning $162 million of unallocated funding to the budget” (pp. 39 & 60).

We know that the majority of funds in the Clean Technology Programs is already committed in the forward estimates period. An update was published in 16 July and more has been committed since then.

Verdict: The various changes to the three programs make it difficult to assess the accuracy of the Coalition’s announced A$0.4 billion saving. What can be said though is that the figure appears to include “savings” from funds that have already been committed and contracted. The proposed changes would also make it more expensive for small businesses and trade-exposed firms to invest in technologies that will enable them to save on their power bills. Unless one believes that our industries will never have to face a price on carbon, these changes simply increase their future vulnerability.

Discontinuing the Coal Sector Jobs Package ($0.3 billion)

The Coal Sector Jobs package (pp. 133-135) originally allocated A$1.3 in cash assistance over six years from FY2011-12 to the most emissions-intensive coal mines.

Cuts had already been announced by the Government in its May budget (pp. 68 & 250): “The Government will reduce funding by $274.2 million over two years from 2015-16 for the Coal Sector Jobs package to reflect the projected carbon price. The program will now provide funding of $763.5 million over four years from 2013‑14.”

Further changes were announced in the Government’s August Economic Statement (p. 39): “updating the Coal Sector Jobs package allocation in 2014-15, consistent with lower expected carbon prices, saving $186 million” (Actually A$186.4 million, Table B2, p. 62).

Total budget for FY2013-14 and the following three years implied: A$763.5 – A$186.4 = A$577.1 million total.

Verdict: The multiple changes to this package make figures hard to estimate, but with funds already committed for this financial year, an estimated saving of A$0.3 billion over the next three years is about right.

Discontinuing other small Clean Energy Future business compensation measures including the Energy Efficiency Information Grants, the Clean Energy Skills package, and the Clean Technology Focus for Supply Chain programs

Implied savings as the balance remaining from the A$5.1 billion subtotal: A$100 million.

Energy Efficiency Information Grants (pp. 58 & 87) are to “help small businesses understand the implications of the Government’s clean energy plan and how they can reduce energy costs.” Cost: A$40 million program over four years.

The Clean Technology Focus for Supply Chain (p. 59) initiative is an additional A$5 million over four years for the delivery of programs to small and medium businesses in clean technology industries to “enhance the clean technology focus of industry supply chains, which will help local businesses secure contracts for major projects”.

The budget (p. 131, fn 6) for Energy Efficiency Information Grants & Clean Technology Focus for Supply Chain programs is:

Financial YearAmount

FY2013-14 A$21 million
FY2014-15 A$19 million
Total A$40 million

We also know that the great majority of funds under the grant schemes have already been committed, and so it is hard to see how some of the proposed savings could be made without breaking contracts.

The Clean Energy Skills package (p. 131, fn 6) “has been allocated $32 million over four years, which is to be fully offset from existing resourcing.” This implies zero additional funds from the budget.

Verdict: Savings here seem to be overstated by A$60 million.

Energy market compensation

Discontinuing energy market compensation measures which will no longer be needed once the carbon tax has been scrapped ($0.5 billion).

Verdict: Compensation measures are generally in the form of free carbon permits so again, this would not be a saving from the budget bottom line. Real savings are overestimated by around A$0.5 billion.

Land sector initiatives & cuts to departments

Discontinuing various land sector initiatives which Labor has already slashed, as well as bureaucracies like the Climate Change Authority ($0.4 billion).

The budget of the Climate Change Authority (p. 11) is:

Financial YearAmount

FY 2013-14 A$8.707
FY 2014-15 A$8.776
FY 2015-16 A$8.854
FY 2016-17 A$9.241
Total A$35.578 million

This implies that some A$364 million will come from “various land sector initiatives” and other “bureaucracies”. That’s not good news for the environment – though the vast majority of the remaining Biodiversity Fund money is already committed as are funds for the Carbon Farming Future program, and the Regional Natural Resource Management Planning for Climate Change Fund.

Verdict: The only verifiable figure here is less than 10% of the supposed A$0.4 billion in savings, allowing a great deal of wiggle room and a black box of major cuts to other important energy and environment initiatives, some of which are already committed and contracted.

Other measures

Abolishing other measures linked to the carbon tax that are wasteful or will no longer be required once the carbon tax is abolished ($1.5 billion).

The Australian Renewable energy Agency (ARENA) seems to be the target here, as Tristan Edis has outlined.

Verdict: A$1.5 billion is an enormous figure to state with no detail on what is being targeted. The implications for Australia’s renewable energy future would appear grave.

Conclusion

The claim to save the budget bottom line A$7.5 billion with these measures significantly overstates the practical reality, primarily because of the misclassification of A$4.5 billion under the Jobs and Competitiveness Program and energy market compensation measures. A more accurate figure for the total cash saved by this set of measures is more like $3 billion – nowhere close to the loss of A$9.7 billion in revenue from abolishing the price on carbon.

These cuts also have serious adverse implications for Australia’s preparedness to tackle climate change in the future, since they discourage investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency and imply drastic cuts to vital climate adaptation funds.

I am grateful for the assistance of Claire Maries, Climate Change Campaigner with the Australian Conservation Foundation in the preparation of this article. Any errors are my own.

Psycho-spiritual development, vulnerability and creativity

Last week I was on a panel for One Just World at Federation Square’s Edge theatre for a discussion on the post-2015 international development agenda called The Recipe for Eradicating Poverty: Is there a Missing Ingredient? It was a great discussion and a fun night, with some terrific questions from the public. If you’re interested, here’s the video:

One young woman stood up and asked about the role of creativity and innovation in dealing with the multiple crises we are facing. I was glad she asked because we’re going to need an awful lot of creativity and innovation! I mentioned that a willingness to make ourselves vulnerable is a critical aspect of creativity, because we’re putting ourselves on the line whenever we try to do something new and authentic. For me this illustrates the whole issue of the role of psycho-spiritual development in responding to the challenges of poverty reduction, climate change and the transition to a sustainable pathway for humanity. Judging by comments afterwards, including on twitter, the idea of psycho-spiritual development seemed to resonate with a lot of people. It’s not something you can make an international development goal out of, obviously, but our individual development as human beings certainly plays a critical role in whether we can achieve the goals to eliminate poverty and achieve ecologically sustainable development.

When I talk about ‘psycho-spiritual development’, I am not simply talking about the roles of religion, ethics and psychology in development, though of course these are all relevant. My friend Matthew Clarke for example has recently published two books on religion and development here and here, and the newish field of behavioural economics is booming.  I am talking primarily though about our individual  psychological and spiritual development and how that contributes to those larger goals: how we treat people, how we express ourselves, whether we develop or stifle our creativity, how we conduct ourselves in resolving conflicts, whether we can forgive and move on or whether we cling to bitterness, and whether, in the end, we flourish as human beings. Much has been written about all of this of course, and I would like to explore different facets in future posts. For this first post on this topic, I want to highlight the work of Brené Brown on vulnerability, shame and ‘wholehearted living’ and how they are connected to creativity and behaviour change.

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work who has spent the past 10 years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. Her talk at TED in 2010 went viral. If you watch it, you will see why:

Brené Brown – The Power of Vulnerabilty TEDxHouston 2010

Brené also did a follow up talk last year:

Brené Brown – Listening to Shame TED 2012

I am a huge fan of Brené’s work, which includes:

Brené makes the point that there can be no creativity or innovation without a willingness to make ourselves vulnerable – to put ourselves out there. In fact, she says, “The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity.” (The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 96). And the more supportive the culture we’re in, the more free we’ll feel to be creative, whether we’re talking about the culture of our school or university, our work place, our family or household, and of course, our country. In a fabulous series of talks on The Power of Vulnerability, Brené tells a story of how, after her 2010 TED talk on vulnerability went viral, she received a number of calls from Fortune 500 companies who wanted her to speak. Most of them also wanted her to ‘nix the stuff on vulnerability’, because, “We don’t do vulnerability here.” What did they want her to talk about instead? “Our biggest problem – the lack of innovation and creativity.”

In a corrosive, hyper-competitive culture, where ‘failure’ is punished, where people are torn down, where anonymous trolls lurk in the sewers of the internet spewing bile over anyone they disagree with, and where our political and corporate leaders attack each other and those who work for them with monotonous savagery (especially in Australia it seems!), is it any wonder that so many people stifle their creativity? Is it any wonder that it is so difficult to have sensible, nuanced, and creative public policy discussions about how to extract ourselves from the mess we’ve created?

One of the biggest challenges that Brené highlights is that while shaming our opponents may be tempting, it is invariably counter-productive. In a recent take-down of a New York Times article advocating shaming as a means of behaviour change, she wrote:

Here’s the rub:

Shame diminishes our capacity for empathy.

Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.

You can’t depend on empathetic connection to make a campaign effective, then crush the needed empathy with shame. …

A man is convicted of domestic abuse and the judge sentences him to stand downtown during rush hour holding a sign that says, “I am a wife beater.” Would you like to be the woman he comes home to that night? Are you safer when he’s in shame or repairing shame? …

I define shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” Along with many other shame researchers, I’ve come to the conclusion that shame is much more likely to be the source of dangerous, destructive, and hurtful behaviors than it is to be the solution. 

Making the distinction between good and bad shame, and promoting so-called good shame is like saying there’s “good starvation” and “bad starvation” and that we need to address the obesity epidemic with “good starvation.” Just like there’s no such thing as “good starvation,” there’s no such thing as “good shame.”

The “good shame” that Reeves describes is actually a combination of guilt and empathy. And, interestingly, there is actually significant research on the important roles both guilt and empathy play in pro-social, positive behavior.

Is this just a case of semantics? No. We don’t refer to balanced, healthy eating as “good starvation” because it’s confusing, inaccurate, and misleading. It also obscures and confuses what we really need to do to move toward positive social outcomes.

The majority of shame researchers agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the difference between “I am bad” and “I did something bad.” Shame is about who we are, and guilt is about our behaviors. …

Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s place in order to understand what they are feeling. When we are empathetic, we can listen and respond authentically to others, and we have the skills to consider how our actions will impact others.

Again, why don’t we just refer to guilt and empathy as “good shame”? Because it’s inaccurate. It clouds the fact that being empathetic and communicating with others (colleagues, children, partners, friends) without using shame requires most of us to develop new skills. Labeling these skills “good shame” moves us away from the hard work of understanding, identifying, and acquiring the knowledge we need to change.
… shame never works as a catalyst for healthy, lasting change.

Shame is at the core of violence, addiction, disengagement, and fear. Shame is about anger and blame, not accountability and change.

Why all this focus on shame and empathy? Because I think there is a strong temptation for those of us working on social issues, poverty and the environment to climb onto our moral high horses and to ‘name and shame’ our opponents. We need to be very careful about that. Sometimes it can work – such as when particular corporations are challenged on their behaviours. But I think we need to focus on playing the ball, not the individual person and where possible, to appeal to people’s higher selves. Martin Luther King didn’t lead the civil rights movement by demonising and attacking his opponents, but by painting a picture of a brighter future together – a shared vision – and by appealing to the best instincts of the American people, calling that country to live up to its promise.

I am reminded of a scene from the 2001 film The Last Castle, set in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. Robert Redford’s character, a highly decorated Lieutenant General, who has been court martialled and sentenced for insubordination, at one stage grabs the raised arm of a guard who was about to beat a prisoner and says to him, “You are better than that.”. He makes a critical distinction between the guard’s inherent worth and potential as a human being, and the destructive behaviour he was about to engage in. He called on the guard to live up to his potential – to embrace his higher self.

For what it is worth, I think that is where we need to begin. We are all broken. We are all imperfect. We all struggle. We are facing an unprecedented, potentially nightmarish future. We need our best selves. We need to be out there, showing up, being authentic, being creative, treating each other with respect and kindness and encouraging friends and opponents alike to do the same. I am not talking about platitudes and warm fuzzies – I am talking about some of the most challenging and difficult work we will ever do: taking the risks to be creative, learning better interpersonal skills around negotiation and conflict resolution, letting go of perfectionism, taking off our armor, showing up, letting ourselves be seen, working on our hangups, phobias and assorted personal demons with a counsellor, therapist or spiritual director, and learning to live ‘wholeheartedly’. We will still cop brickbats and sniping from armchair critics and trolls, but so what? The title of Brené’s book Daring Greatly, comes from a 1910 speech by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, which is worth quoting:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly …” (Daring Greatly, p. 1)

This imperfect post is the tip of an iceberg, and I’ve hardly even touched on the spiritual side of psycho-spiritual development. More in another post. I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Complacency and hubris

Last week I gave a presentation to the Master Builder’s Association on climate change and its projected impacts. One of the most difficult things to convey in such talks is context – what does 2, 3 or 4°C degrees of warming above pre-industrial temperatures actually mean? Richard Jones Executive Director of the International Energy Agency said in April, for example, that we are on track for something like 6°C:

Now this is the International Energy Agency talking – not Greenpeace. In June Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil was interviewed, and this is some of what he had to say:

Hmmm. We’ll adapt? OK so what does 6°C warming in historical context look like? Well, as a former geologist, I’ve always been fascinated by paleoclimatology (not that I knew that word when I was six and was learning the names of all the dinosaurs). The chart below, which is a composite from various studies published in the scientific literature, gives some perspective, running from 542 million years ago, to today:

If you’re wondering where the dinosaurs were, they existed from roughly the Triassic (Tr), through the Jurassic (J) and into the Cretaceous (K) periods, 250 to 65 million years ago. Then we come to the Paleocene (Pal) and Eocene (Eo) epochs. Around 50 million years ago the earth experienced something called the ‘Eocene Optimum‘ in which temperatures were around 6°C warmer and there was little or no ice on the planet. As you can see from the chart – the Earth took several million years to reach this temperature and tens of millions to cool back to current levels. And of course we had the oscillations of the ice ages along the way, with temperatures a few degrees cooler than now at various times. 50 million years is a long time of course, so it may help to take a look at how horses evolved over that period:

So 50 million years ago, the last time we had temperatures 6°C warmer than now, horses as we know them didn’t exist – just little guys we’ve called Hyracotheriums (sometimes called Eohippus) that stood only 20 cm tall. So what would 6°C warming look like in historical context? Well, like this:

We’re not talking then, about going back to the days of plucking grapes off vines in merry olde England during the medieval warm period.  No, 6°C in less than 100 years is essentially a vertical line straight up, to temperatures that haven’t existed on Earth since the ancestors of horses were the size of small dogs and humans were a distant dream. As far as we know, the Earth has never experienced such a massive near-instantaneous temperature rise. That’s what Mr Tillerson smilingly assures us that we and the planet’s ecosystems can adapt to. As a result of the views of powerful interests like Tillerson’s and the hordes of other deniers, most governments are treating climate change, if at all, like a moderately significant economic reform – like tariff reform or floating the dollar, rather than as a national and global emergency. As Robert Manne wrote recently in his superb but chilling article A Dark Victory: How vested interests defeated climate science: “This is a victory that subsequent generations cursing ours may look upon as perhaps the darkest in the history of humankind.”

Well I for one am not giving up yet. I think our children, the poor and our planet are worth fighting for. Please give your support to one of the many organisations striving for urgent action on climate change. And maybe next time you hear someone saying that we’ll just adapt or that taking urgent action on climate change is ‘extremism’  – show them this chart.

A glimpse into another life

In a café recently I saw a tall, strong, intellectually disabled teenage boy walk up to an elderly gentleman who was quietly sipping his coffee. The boy suddenly shouted at him and knocked his glasses off his face onto the floor. His poor, worn-out mother, who was on crutches, was mortified. She made her son apologise to the shaken man and led the boy back to her car. As she drove away I wondered about her life. This never ends for her. She was just trying to have a coffee – a much needed break that the rest of us take for granted.

Our society needs much better support and respite for the hundreds of thousands of parents and carers who have been dealt a tough hand. We keep being told there’s not enough cash in the kitty – but as the figure below shows, Australia is the 6th lowest taxed country out of 34 in the OECD (as measured by total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP). It’s a mystery to me why so many Christians will man the barricades to try to prevent something like same sex marriage in the name of defending the faith, and will then happily vote for parties committed to cutting taxes and ensuring that there’s never enough money to adequately care for the poor, the sick, the marginalised, the oppressed, the elderly, the homeless and the exhausted. Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Environmental (and social) Outlook to 2050

The OECD recently released its Environmental Outlook to 2050 report, subtitled ‘The Consequences of Inaction’. The English summary can be found here and key facts and figures here. As you might guess, it makes for grim reading. Here are some of the key points:

  • World population is expected to increase from 7 billion today to over 9 billion in 2050.
  • World GDP is projected to almost quadruple by 2050, despite the recent recession.
  • Cities are likely to absorb the total world population growth between 2010 and 2050. By 2050, nearly 70% of the world population is projected to be living in urban areas.
  • By 2050, without new policies a world economy four times larger than today is projected to need 80% more energy in 2050 without new policy action.
  • By 2050, without new policies greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase by 50%, primarily due to a 70% growth in energy-related CO2 emissions.
  • The atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases could reach 685 parts per million (ppm) CO2-equivalents by 2050. As a result, global average temperature is projected to be 3°C to 6°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.
  • The greenhouse gas mitigation actions pledged by countries in the Cancún Agreements at the United Nations Climate Change Conference will not be enough to prevent the global average temperature from exceeding the 2°C threshold, unless very rapid and costly emission reductions are realised after 2020. They are more in line with a 3°C increase.
  • The Outlook suggests that global carbon pricing sufficient to lower greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 70% in 2050 compared to the Baseline scenario and limit greenhouse gas concentrations to 450 ppm would slow economic growth by only 0.2 percentage points per year on average. This would cost roughly 5.5% of global GDP in 2050. This pales alongside the potential cost of inaction on climate change.
  • Delaying action is costly. Delayed or only moderate action up to 2020 (such as implementing the Copenhagen/Cancún pledges only, or waiting for better technologies to come on stream) would increase the pace and scale of efforts needed after 2020. It would lead to 50% higher costs in 2050 compared to timely action, and potentially entail higher environmental risk.
  • Support to fossil fuel production and use amounted to between US$45-75 billion per annum in recent years in OECD countries. Developing and emerging economies provided over US$400 billion in fossil fuel consumer subsidies in 2010 according to International Energy Agency estimates.
  • By 2050, without new policies freshwater availability will be further strained, with 2.3 billion more people than today (in total over 40% of the global population) projected to be living in river basins under severe water stress especially in North and South Africa, and South and Central Asia.
  • Global water demand is projected to increase by some 55%, due to growing demand from manufacturing (+400%), thermal electricity generation (+140%) and domestic use (+130%). In the face of these competing demands, there will be little scope for expanding irrigation water use under this scenario. The main increases in water demand will be in the emerging economies and developing countries.
  • The MDG for sanitation will not be met by 2015; by 2050 1.4 billion people are projected to be still without access to basic sanitation.

It is good to see the OECD focussing more on the costs of inaction – particularly on climate change. Our policy debates among politicians in Australia focus overwhelmingly on the costs of action, without taking seriously enough the potentially catastrophic and irreversible costs of inaction. It’s like letting your house burn down because you’re only thinking about the cost of the water that’s needed to put out the fire.

The OECD report is described as an ‘environmental outlook’, but anyone interested in the social and economic implications should take a good look at this report. The social consequences, particularly for the poor, of failing to arrest climate change and other forms of environmental degradation will be  … well, ‘severe’ hardly begins to describe it.

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A bit more integrated …

I’ve been building this ‘new’ site for almost a year now, posting (very) intermittently, and uploading much of the content from my old site, as well as updating it. The focus has mainly been on economics, development, climate change and sustainability, under the banner of ‘integrated development’. But I realise I’d left out a whole area – that of spirituality and religion. I’m not sure why really – it’s such a critical area of life for most of the world’s people. It shapes cultures, countries and geopolitics. As my friend Matthew Clarke points out in his new book Development and Religion, when development agencies ignore religion, they ignore a fundamental part of what is important to local communities and societies.

Spirituality and religion is also deeply personal of course, and it was also a core part of my own journey, having studied theology in my 20s. Over the past few years that importance had been fading for me for various reasons, but now, to my great surprise, it has surged back into my consciousness, both for my own personal journey and also its relevance and importance for eradicating poverty, and shifting to an ecologically sustainable economic path.

So I’ve added a new static page on Spirituality, which I’ll update periodically. I welcome suggestions for resources and links. I’ll also start making my posts a bit more diverse than the purely ‘professional’ stuff on economics, climate change etc, which, let’s be honest, can be a bit dry at times. Hopefully this broader approach will make this site a bit more reflective of a truly integrated development policy research agenda.

Heron Island

I’ve spent the past week on Heron Island of the coast of Gladstone in Queensland at the Heron Island Complex Systems Summer School, staying at the University of Queensland’s Research Station.

It’s been a terrific week, with presentations on everything from bees, to finance to the Mayan civilization. Oh – and the snorkelling has been spectacular. This morning’s sitings were a bunch of sea turtles, a reef shark, a gazillion tropical fish and a half dozen manta rays. Brilliant.

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Tackling tax havens

You may have heard of the role of the Cayman Islands, Jersey, the Isle of Man, the US state of Delaware and others as tax havens. But guess which one tops the dismal list of those facilitating global tax evasion and money laundering? Switzerland! So much for that image of a global public citizen.

This week I attended a terrific talk by John Christensen who is the founder of the Tax Justice Network. Around half of the finance for world trade passes through tax havens to avoid taxation. Tax havens hide and facilitate the laundering of trillions of dollars on behalf of dictators, organised crime, high-wealth individuals and multinationals. Some $11 trillion in assets are held offshore, which deprives governments of around $250 billion annually.

Why are they a problem? (From http://www.tackletaxhavens.com/ )

1. Tax havens help rich people hide money that should be spent on schools, hospitals, roads and other public services

2. Tax havens force poor people to pay the taxes of the rich

3. Tax havens help criminals hide their loot

4. Tax havens help dictators and their cronies plunder the resources of developing countries

5. Tax havens allow banks to dodge financial rules and regulations

6. Tax havens corrupt markets, concealing insider dealing and supporting aggressive tax dodging by multinational companies

7. Tax havens create a private world of secrecy, impunity and power for rich elites

8. Tax havens widen the gap between rich and poor people

9. Tax havens make laws in secret which affect us all

10. Tax havens degrade our faith in democracy

The Tax Justice Network  also publishes a financial secrecy index which is a monumental amount of work and well worth checking out. Follow them on twitter at @TackleTaxHavens

Nicholas Shaxon’s book ‘Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World’ is also a terrific overview.

UPDATE: Check out the great article in The Age by Ben Butler on ‘Counting the Cost of Tax Havens’

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Solar thermal power in Spain

Last Monday I heard a fascinating talk by Santiago Arias, the technical director of Torresol Energy, which runs the new 19.9MW Gemasolar 24hr solar power plant.

From Torresol’s website:

Gemasolar is the first commercial-scale plant in the world to apply central tower receiver and molten salt heat storage technology. The relevance of this plant lies in its technological uniqueness, since it opens up the way for new thermosolar electrical generation technology.

Characteristics of Gemasolar:

  • Rated electrical power: 19.9 MW
  • Net electrical production expected: 110 GWh/year
  • Solar field: 2,650 heliostats on 185 hectares
  • Heat storage system: the molten salt storage tank permits independent electrical generation for up to 15 hours without any solar feed.

The seminar was hosted by Beyond Zero Emisisons and the slides and more information are available here. Well worth a look.

Another Melbourne University seminar that looks interesting this Wednesday is on ‘The Future of Solar Power in Australia‘.  There’s a bit of a theme here!

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The future of transport in Australia

Tonight I attended a useful seminar on the future of transport in Australia organised by the Melbourne Energy Institute and the Grattan Institute. Chaired by Professor Roy Neel, Chief of Staff to former US Vice President Al Gore and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, speakers included:

  • Ms Fiona Calvert, Director Strategy and Resource Efficiency Policy, Policy and Communications Division at the Department of Transport, Victoria;
  • Prof Nicholas Low,Professor of Environmental Planning, Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, University of Melbourne, and Associate Director and Founder of GAMUT  – The Australasian Centre for the Governance and Management of Urban Transport;
  • Mr Patrick Hearps, Research Fellow, Melbourne Energy Institute, University of Melbourne;
  • Mr William McDougall, Principal, Public Transport, Practice Leader, Sinclair Knight Merz.

There was a live webcast, but I’m not sure if the footage is being uploaded somewhere. I hope so.

UPDATE: The webcast has been uploaded here.

One point I’d missed was a fascinating Guardian article by John Vidal on information from Wikileaks that cables from the US embassy in Riyadh “urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom’s crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.” If true, and few seem to believe that official Saudi reserve statements are accurate, the economic implications are serious.

MEI’s next seminar is on November 16 on ‘The Future of Solar Power’ – should be interesting.

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Climate change talks

Well clearly I’m not overwhelming this site with posts so far!

So to break the silence, here’s a clip of a talk I gave on the 10th of August at an event organised by Lighter Footprints. Thanks guys for organising a terrific night and for uploading the clip. The slides I’m referring to can be found here.

To see the other speakers, Alan Pears from RMIT University and the Federal MP for Chisolm Anna Burke, click here and scroll down to the entry for 10th August.

Alan and I gave similar talks this week at a Community Forum that Anna organised. My slightly updated slides can be found here.

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Welcome to my new site

Hi all,

Thanks for visiting. Well this site is very clearly under construction – including the colour schemes. I’ll gradually migrate much of the content over from my previous site which can be found here.

Regards,

Brett