The Power of Kony 2012 and What It Means for Our Future

Posted on March 19, 2012 by zoeweil
For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for One Green Planet, a website dedicated to ethical choices. Here’s an excerpt from “The Power of Kony 2012 & What It Means for Our Future”:

“As I write this more than 70 million people have watched a 30-minute video, uploaded less than a week ago from the group Invisible Children, about Ugandan Joseph Kony’s atrocities…. What interests me, and what I think is worth reflection, is the phenomenon of this film itself. This is not some funny 1-minute YouTube video that’s gone viral. It’s a thirty minute documentary about a war criminal in Africa whom few have ever heard of. When one thinks of all the people perpetrating atrocities in the world, why did a video about Joseph Kony go viral, and, more importantly, why does this matter?

The film itself is masterful. It’s about good guys and bad guys; innocent children who need rescuing, and innocent children who want the bad guys punished. It leaves the viewer in tears, but then it gives us something to do. The action plan is clear, simple, and doable: spread the word, make Joseph Kony famous, participate in an urgent (and time-limited) campaign, and Joseph Kony will inevitably be stopped and the abducted child soldiers returned to their families.

The real brilliance of this film’s message is revealed toward the end when a graphic of a pyramid depicting the movement of power, from the moneyed and government elite at the top, to the institutions below, to the people at the bottom, is inverted and the people – us, those who use and share social media and harness the voices of millions – begin to influence the actions of the moneyed and government elite. The very fact of this video’s viral success proves its point. We citizens, at home with our computers, can wrest (at least some) power back and make important and good things happen through our voices.”

Read the complete post.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: systemic change, videos | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

An Exciting Time to Be Alive: Reflections on the TED Conference

Posted on March 7, 2012 by zoeweil
Image TED.com screenshot

I had the opportunity to attend a live streaming of the TED conference on February 29. The line-up of speakers was exciting. I learned about liquid metal battery technology from Donald Sadoway that will enable wind and solar energy to be stored, making their use more convenient and realistic. I learned about new autonomous flying robots that will be able to act as first responders and do search and rescue in emergencies from Vijay Kumar. Climatologist James Hansen offered a “feed and dividend” solution to our climate change challenges, while Reid Hoffman and Lior Zoref demonstrated the power of networks and crowdsourcing for collaboration and innovation.

What I love about TED is the opportunity to learn so much so quickly. Obviously, in 18 minutes, the maximum length of a TED talk, I don’t learn anything deeply or thoroughly; but each of the speakers is easy to find on the web for follow up should I wish to dive into a particular topic or idea.

In the midst of looming catastrophes (global warming, extinction of species, the continuing growth of the human population and all that such growth requires, resource depletion, etc.), there is a simultaneous emergence of the ability to learn from and collaborate with people across all borders and to innovate and create systemic change more quickly and efficiently. While atrocities persist, so does the exponential growth of people embracing human rights (women’s, children’s, gay, disability, etc.), animal protection, openness to and acceptance of new ideas, and more. TED is one example of this, with people coming together to learn, share, and exchange ideas for a better world. It’s an exciting time to be alive and to contribute.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: humane education, systemic change | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Choosing My Father’s Ties: Changing Systems

Posted on February 10, 2012 by zoeweil
When I was a child, my father would come into my room most mornings and ask me to choose which tie he should wear with the suit he had on that day. He usually brought two ties into my room from which I could choose. As I got older, sometimes I felt that neither choice was ideal, and I’d head over to his tie rack to suggest a better option. I adored my dad, and I took my job helping him with his ties quite seriously.

As a humane educator, my job now includes offering other people choices, although the choices revolve around more pressing issues than tie fashions. Offering positive choices is the 4th element of quality humane education, and it’s a critical component to creating a humane, sustainable and peaceful world. Humane education explores the greatest challenges of our time (e.g., global warming, resource depletion, human rights, institutionalized animal cruelty, habitat destruction, overpopulation, economic stability, etc.), and it offers positive choice-making as an integral component of changemaking. Like my father, I try to offer people a couple of choices that are reasonable and good, but sometimes no such choices are available, and my students must head to the “tie rack” of choices to find something better.

When there’s nothing quite good enough on the tie rack – no pattern or fabric that fits – system-changing and creativity are paramount. I never faced an insoluble tie choice with my father, but there were days I lingered for a long time, uncertain about the best choice. The best choice might have entailed designing a new tie.

We need to design new systems to solve many of our entrenched problems. The key is to recognize when a choice is good enough and when to engage fully in the process of designing a MOGO (most good) choice because none are suitable. In my book, Most Good, Least Harm, I offer 7 keys to operationalizing the MOGO principle. Key 5 is “Model your Message and Work for Change.” In other words, wear the best tie you can while designing the best tie possible. We must all engage in system-changing — whether through our work, our volunteerism, or our charitable donations — in order to create the systems that make all our choices MOGO ones. And, at the same time, to the greatest extent possible we must model our message relying on what “ties” currently exist.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Is Gaming the Answer to Our Global Problems?

Posted on February 6, 2012 by zoeweil

Watch this TED talk about gaming as a solution to our problems:

As a non-gamer, this TED talk raised many questions for me:

  • Will gamers like real-world solutionary games as much as Warcraft?
  • Is the speaker’s vision and call for more gaming likely to achieve the results she suggests?
  • Does gaming 22 hours/week on top of school or work leave time for real-life solutionary efforts?
  • Does the optimism of gamers spill over into engaged changemaking work?

If there are gamers out there who read my blog, I’m eager to know. Please share your thoughts.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed. 

Filed under: systemic change, technology, Uncategorized, videos | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

A Prison Without Bars Reminds Us We Can Change Entrenched Systems

Posted on January 25, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of randy OHC via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “A Prison Without Bars Reminds Us We Can Change Entrenched Systems”:

“I recently learned about the Bastoy prison in Norway, where 115 prisoners, some of whom are murderers and rapists, live without bars or barbed wire. Set on a one square mile island, the inmates live relatively free lives. While they are not permitted to leave the island and must appear for a head count four times a day, little could stop them if they chose to walk across the frozen ice in the winter, or swim in the summer, to the mainland just two miles away. But in the 20 years this “alternative” prison has existed, they haven’t had anyone leave. Prisoners must apply to Bastoy to live a different sort of prison life, one in which they work (and are paid), are part of a community, grow food, compost, build, cook, do their laundry and live a relatively normal village life. In the evenings, only five guards remain on the island….

“As someone who promotes solutions to complex challenges and solutionary education, I find Norway’s approach intriguing and compelling. If the goal is to provide the most effective, practical, efficient and fiscally wise approach to tackle the thorny problem of criminals and imprisonment, Norway seems to have come up with a positive solution that is cost-effective, positive, successful and humane.“

Read the complete essay.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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An Eighth-Grader’s Letter to Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook

Posted on January 20, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of ralphunden via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “An Eighth-Grader’s Letter to Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook”:

This past week, I taught a humane education course to an eighth grade class in Blue Hill, Maine. The course focused on changemakers, people who work to transform unjust and inhumane systems into ones that are healthy, peaceful and compassionate.

On the first day of class, I had the students listen to an episode of This American Life, which aired an excerpt from Mike Daisey’s one-man show about the production of Apple products. Then I gave them a homework assignment to write to Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, to share their thoughts, feelings and ideas. I wanted these students to have the opportunity to use their voice to help change this unjust and inhumane system, since they couldn’t use the power of their wallets to simply choose more humane electronics.

Below is just one of their letters. I hope it will inspire you to also use your voice to create change.

Read the complete post.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: changemakers, humane education, systemic change, youth activism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Beyond the Starfish: Creating Systemic, Lasting Change in the New Year

Posted on January 2, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of jacQuie.k via Creative Commons.

Happy New Year! For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from Beyond the Starfish: Creating Systemic, Lasting Change in the New Year:

“In his book, But Will the Planet Notice?, economist Gernot Wagner shares a parable humanitarians have heard many times. It’s the oft-told starfish story in which a pragmatic man tells a boy rescuing beached starfish by throwing them back into the sea that he can’t possibly make a difference given the thousands of starfish on the beach. As the boy throws a starfish back into the ocean, he responds to the pragmatist by saying, ‘I made a difference for that one.’

This story is a reminder to all of us that in the face of great odds and much injustice, suffering and cruelty, doing something – anything – to help individuals does indeed make a difference. And yet, in the face of such daunting and pervasive problems as alarming rates of species extinction, global warming, a growing human population and all that this forebodes (even greater disparities between rich and poor, more people without access to clean water and enough food, depletion of resources, more pollution, etc.), and truly unimaginable cruelty and the killing of one trillion animals every year for food, it’s time for a better parable.”

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.  

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Making Choices About Charitable Giving

Posted on December 5, 2011 by zoeweil
A New York Times essay on giving asks where we should be spending our charitable dollars. While charitable giving increased a bit in 2010, according to Giving USA donations to organizations that address “basic human needs fell 6.6 percent.” While the author does not specify exactly where the giving has increased, she mentions that those with the deepest pockets and foundations with assets in the billions make different kinds of donations: “building museums to house their art collections; underwriting new wings in hospitals or halls named for them at their alma maters; using their money and influence to sway public policy and influence political campaigns; or seeking to solve problems in distant lands rather than in their own backyards.” It’s hard not to hear the judgment in the author’s voice. The take home message from the article is that our priority should be to give to Americans who don’t have homes and/or enough food to eat.

While the article includes a couple of quotes from those who challenge the either/or that the author sets up at the beginning of the essay between what she refers to as “checkbook philanthropy” (apparently a term used disdainfully) and what Doris Buffett (Warren Buffett’s sister) calls “S.O.B. gifts,” (donations that support “symphonies, opera and ballet”), these alternative perspectives are few and far between. Although she quotes Melissa Milburn from the Gates Foundation as saying, “We’re trying to move upstream to a systems level to either prevent family homelessness before it happens or to end it as soon as possible after it happens,” the article doesn’t delve into systems change work.

Given the greater need during a recession, it’s a tough call for philanthropists. Individuals need help, but the more individuals in need, the greater the challenge. When my son was nine and I took him to Boston for a couple of days, we passed a homeless man begging at the entrance to the T. I walked right by, inured to street begging from my years growing up in New York City and then living in Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, DC. My son, however, had grown up in rural Maine, and while there is significant poverty here, he had rarely seen anyone living on the street; and he’d never seen me walk by without helping. He was horrified and furious with me for not helping this man. So we promised each other we would never walk by someone in need without helping. And he kept his promise for many years. Whenever we were in cities and he saw people begging, he gave money. But then one year, when he was 14, we were in Rome for a couple of days. There was simply no way to give to everyone in need. He had to make choices. Did the person have children or pets with them? Did they seem able to work? Did some of their clothes look new and pricey? Were they drinking or smoking? These were terribly difficult choices for him, filled with judgments about people he didn’t know, but as his Euros ran out, there had to be some criteria or else he wouldn’t give to anyone.

My son, now 18, is quite generous. Since eighth grade he has given 10% of his income (not profits) from his jewelry business and his summer jobs to charity. Which charity? I’m honored that he’s chosen the organization I co-founded, the Institute for Humane Education. He insists that this has nothing to do with supporting his mom’s work, but rather an assessment of the best place to donate his charitable dollars: he wants his money to work on systemic change. He wants to see the biggest “bang for his buck” in terms of solving problems. He believes that humane education (which he’s experienced himself) is an excellent strategy for creating real change that makes a difference.

We all have choices to make about our charitable giving. How will we go about making those choices? I know that for me, supporting the local food pantry and individuals in need is important. So is supporting the arts in my community. But these will always comprise a smaller portion of my giving than donations to create systemic change, because I want to give where I have the greatest capacity to create lasting change that benefits all.

The New York Times article sets up a false either/or that fails to deeply explore the challenge of giving strategically and in a balanced way; that might, for example, call more forcefully for local and federal government programs and aid to those in need so that philanthropists can spark social businesses and non-profit ideas for system-wide efforts that are not necessarily the role of governments. Judgment doesn’t serve this effort of finding ways to solve our challenges through philanthropy and giving; new ideas do.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: changemakers, humane education, MOGO (Most Good), systemic change | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Opportunity of a Lifetime: Clean Energy Solutionary Habib Dagher

Posted on December 1, 2011 by zoeweil

Often we hear that renewable energy will never be sufficient to supply our energy needs. Watch this amazing TEDx talk by Professor Habib Dagher, whose plan to bring offshore wind to the Gulf of Maine may well be one of the most important, exciting opportunities of our time:

Watch this solutionary in action and share his talk widely.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.  

Filed under: changemakers, energy policy, global warming, systemic change, technology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

The False Dichotomy of Localization vs. Globalization

Posted on November 23, 2011 by zoeweil
I recently watched Helena Norberg-Hodge’s TEDx talk, The Economics of Happiness. I’ve appreciated Helena Norberg-Hodge’s work for some time, but I was disappointed in her TEDx talk. Helena is an impassioned speaker, with much global experience underlying her perspectives, but I wanted more than what I perceived to be a simplistic, either/or solution to our problems. She begins her talk by saying, “For all of us around the world the highest priority, the most urgent issue, is fundamental change to the economy.” She goes on to say, “The change that we need to make is shifting away from globalizing to localizing economic activity.” Essentially, she believes that a return to localization will bring about happiness. I found myself thinking that this solution lacked nuance and complexity, and I doubted very much whether it was truly the urgent answer for our time.

As she went on to argue that 99% of us don’t benefit from globalization, I found myself thinking of the vast majority of us who have certainly benefited from many aspects of globalization. While the farmers’ market and local food movements have surely done good, helping farmers, communities, and individuals alike, I could only imagine the 99% of coffee drinkers I know here in New England, and all those who eat bananas, drink orange juice, enjoy black and green teas, consume avocados, lemons and wine, eat rice, and wear cotton foregoing it all for apples, potatoes, wheat, blueberries, mint and chamomile tea, mussels and clams, and linen clothing and deer hides. Further, I thought of the people in temperate climates who’ve been saved by medicines derived from tropical plants, and the people in the tropics saved by the medicines discovered by scientists working in New England laboratories.

Imagine what would happen to the Ethiopian coffee farmers depicted in the film Black Gold whose organic, fair trade coffee would no longer have a market outside their communities, or to the sustainable and fair trade collectives producing goods and clothes for a living wage that are lifting individuals out of poverty as these products are sold beyond their borders. I wondered what would happen to all these people were we to all choose to buy locally.

The choice between localization and globalization is a false one. There are more nuanced choices we can and should make. If the primary problems lie in monoculture farms, poisonous chemicals, fuel-guzzling animal agriculture, exploitation of farm workers, cruelty to animals, and reduction in biological diversity of crops, we can address these problems directly. Fair trade, organic, sustainable, diverse, plant-based farming will help solve these challenges without closing markets between north and south, east and west, or in the U.S. between the fertile heartland, citrus-bearing Florida, and California (where just about everything grows). I’m happy that my state of Maine provides blueberries and lumber to people across the country (although I would like it to do so without toxic pesticides and clear-cutting), and I’m also happy that I can live in Maine and still occasionally eat dates and drink red wine.

What I see as the bigger challenge with globalization is the fuel necessary to transport crops and products across the globe, but as Michael Berners-Lee reveals in his carbon footprinting assessment of hundreds of products and foods in his book, How Bad Are Bananas?, local doesn’t necessarily mean less carbon intensive. Bananas from equatorial regions, he points out, use a fraction of the fuel of hothouse tomatoes grown next door to him in England. These are complex problems that are going to require innovative solutions, and we’re going to have to find clean energy sources no matter what we do, whether we buy locally or globally, assuming we want to live without returning to a fuel-less life.

I don’t know many people – even local food advocates – who really want to give up everything produced outside of 100 miles or whatever constitutes “local.” It’s great that we’re witnessing a revival of local, sustainably-produced food, and I for one enjoy producing much of my family’s food in our 900 square food organic garden, but localization is not a panacea. My hope is that in the process of coming up with solutions to our very complex global challenges, we will not resort to simple answers that may fail to harness the creativity and brilliance we really need to build a just, healthy, and happy world for all.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.  

Filed under: creativity, economy, globalization, MOGO (Most Good), systemic change | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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