"POSITIVE" + "EMERGENCY" - Robert

photo : Lyne Lefebvre
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POSITIVE EMERGENCY?
I have been wanting to do to many things at once and end up not focusing. Giving myself objectives of doing things one after the other, finishing one before starting another, I often fail...phone rings, job matters to take care of, get back to course/thesis for a short period, dog needs a run, I need to eat...Not often time to dive back into Findings, so start reading a course participant, expected in a reunion, not enough time left to answer, and time again flies too fast.

> I wanted to get chapter 4 finished, so I can have a better over all glance at findings..won't get there.
> I wished to send it to Lucie my supervisor before leaving for RRU...won't make it.
> I was hoping to journal a little post everyday. I haven't done it for the past week.
> Here is one (check)
> I had in mind to keep track of all the entrees in the 8 groups. Not quite there yet.
> I was hoping to get the readings done ahead. The plane will have to do.
> I intended to start choosing and translating my future board content. On res will have to do as well...
> I wanted to start preparing my pres for residency, just looking at which photos could suit my purposes takes me too long. I was hoping not to feel overwhelmed...
> Aside that, I don't have to run with my dog, he's in the country, swimming with friends (check)
...

So...Here is one thing done. A brief journal of the day, no matter how depressing it sounds to visualize things you -want- to do as -checking- them out. I am not really, but I am just observing. It may help me focus on one thing a day, each one a little bit, until I leave for residency. I did promise myself a year of peaceful and calm attitude towards multiple tasks needed, as opposed to always feeling I am running after time, which I hate, ca be a source of stress instead of a relief, and have put myself into more then often during the past 3 years I find.

I also wanted to make sure I responded Robert, one of our instructors, as he said he was « interested to hear more about how it takes you deeper and the kinds of insights it reveals. » This might be answered more clearly as chapter four takes form. Robert also commented he «sense(d) that the paradox between "positive" and "emergency" approaches is a key tension driving your thesis work.» I can at least say he's right that understanding this tension was my initial intent - although it came out that effective strategies for mobilizing and the strengths of citizen collective solidarity feel they came out to be central -, and that my findings so far have not helped me feel that my gut feelings, re/actions and personal subjectivity were the best approach to effective environmental communication... although I do share much of my interviewees impressions, and although I believe I have sort of - matured - or learned differently along the way, I remain with the similar feeling of dissonance I experience all the time when faced with awareness of our responsibility as opposed to our actions in terms of ecocide so far. Anyhow, what those 2 words inspired me in a glance, as a picture, was the one chosen for this little post. Positive and Emergency combined. Sounds like a Band-Aid won't be a good enough cure for the crisis though.
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BON MATIN / GOOD MORNING

photo et montage : Lyne Lefebvre
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I forgot to say I woke up to 2 bad environmental news (aside all the other terrible ones), which perhaps put me in a bad mood for the day (?). Well, at least I woke up informed. I usually wake up to the radio as my alarm. Radio-Canada.

One new was for you guys in BC, and the other for a little village here in Quebec. Yours stated that a Chinese petroleum company had come up with a deal for fracking with great financial compensation proposal for an indigenous group. It was stated as being a -good news- for BC and BC's First nation community (I had read it had many opponents). Then, the issue was over a little hamlet/village (168 people) in Gaspésie, called Restigouche, who adopted regulations to impose a minimal distance (2km) between fracking and drinking water sources to protect their drinking water, but only AFTER Quebec had authorized the exploration/exploitation (French article).The actual so-called Quebec law is 500 m. The company is suing the little hamlet for 1,5 billion, and the village's defense will cost them 200 000 to start with. They asked for help, but our Quebec government decided not to help. They we're hoping that their case could lead to a premiere positive initiative, in favour of water, against petroleum...

Instead, the PDG of Gastem (the fracking guys), had earlier said, when the little community and their mayor we're against the project, that «ecologists we're fascists»....well tough luck for them was decided last week since they voted a law prohibiting fracking close to their water. (The law is called le règlement dit de Saint-Bonaventure and 75 municipalities in Quebec, from citizen solidarity, have adopted it BEFORE the -enemy- came along, and 23 are working at it (source). It asks for 2km distance between a water source well and fracking.

The article states Mr. Savoie, Gastem's PDG words saying : «C'est un peu farfelu, ça, frivole, ridicule, étant donné qu'ils [les élus] n'ont pas d'expérience. Ils imaginent le pire. Et là, les «chemises vertes» arrivent, avec leur attitude fasciste. Il se fore 15 000 puits par année en Alberta et personne ne s'en plaint».

Which means in quick free translation « It's a little wacky, it frivolous, ridiculous, since they [Mayor and his politicians] do not have the experience. They imagine the worst. And then the "green shirts" come with their fascist attitude. They drill 15,000 wells per year in Alberta and nobody complains » said Mr. Savoie.

How not to feel sick, be outraged, remain positive and peaceful is not always as simple as it seems. Among some of my findings roughly and very briefly put part says : (in order to mobilize) people don't want to see tragic or aggressive images, catastrophism is not a winner, we need solutions, the limy little duckling stuck in petroleum is too depressing, encouraging guilt is not the way. We need to touch the emotions. We need to encourage the sense of responsibility, without the guilt feeling of being responsible...not easy. I am sort of resuming and translating partially some of my interviewees/activists observations very very freely here, with my warmest thanks for everything they have accepted sharing with me.

I will at least name them for now (they authorized me to do so). Patrick Bonin (Greenpeace), Martine Châtelain (EauSecours), Kim Cornelissen (AQLPA), Bruno Massé (RQGE), Maude Prud'homme (RQGE/Tache D'huile), and Jean-Philippe Vermette (Agriurbain).

Gregg Segal's «7 days of Garbage»

Alfie, Kirsten, Miles, Elly   © Gregg Segal

Michael, Jason, Annie and Olivia   © Gregg Segal

Marsha and Steven © Gregg Segal

Dana © Gregg Segal

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Just thought I would share this really interesting California photographer Gregg Segal's environmental lense  “7 Days of Garbage”  project. As Jordan Teicher's article on Slate (more photos), I saw from the Grist newsletter says : « the average American produces more than 4 pounds of garbage per day. That’s more than double the amount produced in 1960, and it’s 50 percent more than the amount produced by Western Europeans ». I asked the artist for his permission to publish it here. Should he decline, I will remove it.

I appreciate his work, and some findings from my research so far converge saying art is an effective trigger to reach a wide public from its ability to « talk about environment, without saying it » (free translation from my 2014 Kim Cornelissen interview), which had me ponder as I felt this was perhaps not a transparent or awareness trigger I would have hoped for, as if -people don't want to hear about it so, let's -hide it- but hope or trust it will touch them anyhow ...It also came through the interviews that art/creative happenings etc... also allowed one's own critical thninking to take place, which could encourage the desire to mobilize.  Although clear and understood scientific information had a potential to reach people, touching one's emotions was vital for most my interviewees in order to decide to engage in pro environmental activism and they all felt it was similar for other audiences. And art, as we can also imagine, came as one of the efficient ways to do touch one's emotions. Well here, I love the idea, find it creative and feel touched or challenged somehow.

 I also wondered if people's decisions to participate changed their personal view, and as to how much they were influenced in their consumption choices that week, knowing they we're taking part in the project. Were they -self-conscious-? We're they concerned with their habits? Did they experience guilt? Did they -control- themselves on fast foods or useless spontaneous buys? We're they frustrated feeling they had to buy specific products that particular week? Did they discuss the need to buy particular stuff between them? Did they -play the game with transparency? Or even, we're they influenced by the looks of packaging, we're they tempted to read the label contents?  Should that have had any effect on their choices, then, we can think that even simply asking them to participate brought some -positive- behavioral changes, or at least critical thoughts to some extent, being confronted to their own consumerism?

Really fascinating to think of what went through their heads as consumers, as subjects submitted to outside eyes, and how they related to the environment through this experience. A good thesis subject just right there I thought! Then, how do we, the reader receive all this material to ponder upon...
(back with more on art's potential...)
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MAEEC 680

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View where I am sitting, writing at the moment. It is still cold up here this week. Last week was warm. This is only the 4th or 5th butterfly I see. Not a Monarque unfortunately, in decline as we know, this one looks like an eastern Comma, but I am really not sure. Could be a Vice-roi or a -faux Monarque, but not as defined... In any case, will just take a break to help him/her out the screen porch.

MAEEC EECO 680 is under way starting July 7th, and so is summer residency on august 4th.
Here I am, a year behind most of my 2011 cohort pals, and still feeling I have quite a long way to go.
I know Liz and Jen, -former teammates and 2011 colleagues- will join residency at the same time I will. Although I feel I still need ALL the time I can get, to write, I will be very happy to meet our new summer residency course mates and instructors, and to reconnect with previous friends, instructors, trees, peacocks, dears and racoons as well :-)

Since Peter Norman and Robert Pidgeon, our instructors for this last stretch of MAEEC specify : « this is not intended to be a time intensive effort.  The intent is to begin reconnecting and preparing to get the most of the residency. » I will take their word on it !  Hoping to take the month of July, which is my month off from teaching and related University program activities, as prolific as I can, in order to get last chapters of my thesis further done with.

After what was a little bit of a demanding process, I can add I was given the opportunity to do my thesis en français -in French-, my mother tongue, which will also mean translating everything to English will be a little time consuming, here as well. So I might stick to the very basics, in order to reach my goal of getting the thesis as far as I can, before my new university tasks arrive mid-August. Doing as much as you can and making priorities, is something you also learn during thesis writing. I am not always great at respecting my personal deadlines, since priorities do change. A family of five, and friends my age having great life/health difficulties have taken me out of my thesis responsibility path. I sometimes feel overwhelmed, but I know thesis must wait, when people can't.

So my thesis is coming along verrrry slowly, and my supervisor Lucie is among the most patient women I know :-) aside being a sweet sensitive brilliant being everyone at RRU would love I am sure. I am writing chapter IV at the moment, which I can see « avec du recul » (with some prospective reading of the situation? hmmmm sound complicated -verify on translate quickly..- google prefers -with some hindsight- I would have spontaneously written insight no H, no D...which is also a reason why French sounded like a better idea ) that it would have been useful to have chapter 4 on its way, right form the start, except I had no interviews yet. On the other hand, preparing sensitive and meaningful questions before starting the interviews also meant having chapters one and two on their way as much as possible to make some sense of this threading puzzle of subject, questions, hypothesis and methodology, for which I had and still lack clear knowledge on various levels. Learning to figure some things out through readings has been an ongoing process...

So this was intended to reconnect, brake the ice of 680, and make sure I can access my former blog as a starter. Back with a post as course starts.
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