Localization v. Globalization: A False Dichotomy

Posted on December 9, 2011 by zoeweil
For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Common Dreams, a progressive news site. Here’s an excerpt from “Localization v. Globalization: A False Dichotomy”:

“The economic localization movement is growing. Locavores have become widespread, with the “100 mile diet” representing the new eco-conscious food trend. Author Helena Norberg-Hodge begins her TEDx talk, The Economics of Happiness, with this impassioned plea: ‘For all of us around the world the highest priority, the most urgent issue, is fundamental change to the economy,’ and goes on to say, ‘The change that we need to make is shifting away from globalizing to localizing economic activity.’ This, she suggests, is the economics of happiness. Even in my own town, a yoga studio has a sign on the wall urging yoga practitioners to shop locally.

As a humane educator who teaches about the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental preservation and animal protection, I am uncomfortable with the fervor surrounding localization. While the farmer’s market and local food movements have certainly been beneficial – helping farmers, communities, and individuals alike – it’s not realistic, desirable, or responsible to reject global trade out of hand or to advocate localization as the urgent answer for our times.”

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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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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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“

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Helping Youth Become Solutionaries: The Rockville, Maryland Proposed Deer Hunt:

Posted on August 22, 2011 by zoeweil

For my blog post today, I wanted to share a letter I wrote to the mayor and council members of Rockville, Maryland, regarding their proposed deer hunt. While they are hearing from many people and experts, I specifically wanted to address the issue as a humane educator.
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To the mayor and council members of Rockville, Maryland:

I am the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education, and it’s come to my attention that Rockville is considering a deer hunt. I wanted to write to express my concern, specifically about the effect on children of a deer hunt. As a humane educator – someone who teaches about the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection in an effort to provide students with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be solutionaries for a better world – I believe that a deer hunt would represent not only a poor solution to the problem Rockville faces, but also be detrimental to youth.

At a time when it’s so important to foster reverence and compassion among children and to increase their “nature literacy,” a deer hunt has the potential to quash that empathy and appreciation and dull their creative and problem-solving capacities. We are capable of finding safer, more humane, more peaceful methods for addressing local challenges with wildlife, and if Rockville simply resorts to a hunt, the message that healthy, humane solutions are possible is lost. And because it is lost among youth who most need to cultivate these critical thinking skills for a changing world, there is the likelihood that many young people – especially the brightest and most creative – will lose a tremendous opportunity for innovation.

Perhaps the students in Rockville schools could address the challenge of deer proliferation in Rockville, studying the issue and using it as a real-life example in their science, math, social studies, government, and language arts curricula. Inviting youth to first study and then come up with ideas for solving local wildlife challenges would be wonderful pedagogy and help Rockville set a precedent for engaging its young population in solutionary thinking. It would also prevent the dulling of young people’s compassion and love for other species, a quality we should be nurturing at a time when habitat is being destroyed, species are becoming extinct, and humanity is threatening the ecosystems upon which we all depend.

Zoe Weil

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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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Look Beyond Either/Or to the Both-And

Posted on April 18, 2011 by zoeweil

I’m swamped with our new graduate programs right now, so here’s a repost from 7/20/09 that I hope you’ll enjoy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways in which we humans seem to gravitate towards “either/or” choices. Either we protect Northern Spotted Owls or people’s logging jobs. Either we invade Iraq or not. Either we pull the troops out or stay. There are more. Either we trust our minds or hearts. Either we are Christian or Muslim. Either we are Republican or Democrat.

Yes, there are people who want to protect owls and jobs, think beyond either/ors and work creatively to come up with the wisest choices in Iraq, trust both their minds and hearts, see the connections between all religions, and consider themselves Independents. But it seems to me such people are the minority.

Among activists, the either/ors are sometimes cast starkly: either someone (or some company or industry) is good or evil. The CEO of Altria (formerly Philip Morris), of Exxon-Mobil, of Monsanto –- they must be evil, while the CEO of Working Assets/CREDO must be good.

It’s just not this simple. But complexity is, well, complex. Commitment to seeing both-ands instead of either/ors demands more from us. It may at first even appear wishy-washy, as if you’ve lost your passion and your commitment if you don’t immediately “take sides.” It shouldn’t. Instead, a commitment to both-and is a commitment to problem-solving at the deepest level. A realization that people have the capacity for dangerous, unwise, unhealthy choices, as well as compassionate, kind, and brilliant choices means that we can try to influence the former, rather than call people names and divide the population into us and thems.

There will be many times when taking sides is exactly what you need to do, but let’s not let side-taking become a knee-jerk reaction to everything that is presented to us in either/or terms. You’ll find either/ors everywhere. Listen for them. And then see if you can determine a more nuanced both-and…and a solution that works for all.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Local Versus Global, Consumerism vs. Simplicity

Posted on September 6, 2010 by zoeweil

I was reading an article in the July/August issue of Ode Magazine titled, “If you’ve got it, spend it: How consumer spending can help create a fairer, richer, greener and more stable global economy.” The article is an edited excerpt from Philippe Legrain’s book Aftershock: Reshaping the World Economy After the Crisis. Unfortunately, it’s edited in such a way that it’s hard to fully grasp Legrain’s perspective because the sections don’t always follow logically, and there are inconsistencies in the article that I suspect might not be true of the book. I plan to read the book to understand Legrain’s points better.

Essentially, though, Legrain argues that consumerism – albeit a healthier version than most of us think of when we hear the word – is a primary key to a happier and more just and peaceful world. One of the pull out quotes in the article reads: “Localism, not globalization, is the true enemy of the planet.”

Legrain’s is a fairly unpopular view among progressives of various sorts who are promoting local economies, food independence, and voluntary simplicity as keys to a sustainable, just, and healthy world. And it is one I appreciate. I have found myself grappling with the complexities and sometimes the contradictions of local vs. global, and of consumerism vs. simplicity, for many years. I’ve written about this in my book, Most Good, Least Harm, because it is not always clear what and to whom actually does the most good and the least harm from our choices, especially if we are trying to do the most good and the least harm to ourselves, other people, animals, and the environmental all at the same time.

If I were to choose to eat only foods that are grown locally, as opposed to the criteria that I have chosen (vegan, organic, fair trade), then those organic and fair trade banana growers in Central and South America, from whom I purchase bananas at our local food co-op, would lose a loyal customer. I care about those growers as much as I care about the organic wheat growers in Northern Maine, whose crop I buy whenever I purchase bread or flour. True, the ecological footprint of the bananas is significant, shipped as they are using fossil fuels, but when I imagine a post-fossil fuel world that relies upon sustainable, non-polluting energy, that world has an abundance of global trade. My only reason now for limiting my purchases of distantly-produced products is environmental. I have never been swayed by “localism” for localism’s sake, that is, to “support my local economy.” It feels insular to me. In the same way, I have never understood when the news reports the number of Americans killed in a battle or natural disaster and fails to report the number of non-Americans killed. Personally, I don’t care about Americans more that I care about Iraqis. I care about people.

And so I was glad to read Legrain’s ideas and grateful to Ode Magazine for publishing an unpopular view. Yet, I hope that when I read his actual book (instead of excerpts) it will be more nuanced, and there won’t be either/or scenarios as presented in the quote “Localism, not globalization, is the true enemy of the planet.”

In a complex world, with challenging conundrums and solutions still eluding us, we must think beyond either/ors and attempt to continually ask and seek to answer what does the most good and the least harm in the countless choices that make up our lives. In this way, we can hone our critical thinking skills and harness our creativity to find new ideas that don’t simply refute other positions but which bring us further toward a peaceful, sustainable, and humane world for all people, animals, and the environment.

Zoe Weil

Image courtesy of Sheila’s via Creative Commons.

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Jon Stewart’s Humorous Expose of Black and White, Myopic and Self-Serving Thinking

Posted on March 8, 2010 by zoeweil

I’m a big fan of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and recently I watched an episode in which Jon discusses the February snowstorms that hit the Mid-Atlantic states and what these storms mean for global warming concerns. You can see the clip here.

What does it mean when comedy becomes a primary source of reason? Please pass this along.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

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The Dance of Communication

Posted on March 1, 2010 by zoeweil

At the Institute for Humane Education we train people to be humane educators who are able to teach about interconnected global issues in ways that promote conscientious choice-making and engaged change-making for a humane, sustainable, and peaceful world. Our students take courses covering Culture, Consumerism and Media; Environmental Preservation; Human Rights, and Animal Protection. They learn about grave threats, pervasive manipulations, and forms of exploitation and cruelty that are shocking. The purpose of all this learning isn’t just to become more aware, but to become a humane educator who creates positive change. Classroom teachers incorporate pressing global issues into their curricula; filmmakers produce educational videos or public access TV shows; writers pen essays, books, and blogs; parents launch programs focused on raising humane children; entrepreneurs put the knowledge to use in new companies and projects that are humane and educate the public.

One of the challenges each faces is to communicate their knowledge in ways that awaken and empower their audiences, and the “dance” comes as each student exposes her or himself to dark and frightening realities and simultaneously seeks to be an inspired and inspiring communicator who elicits enthusiastic participation in ethical choice- and change-making among audiences.

These days, it seems that few are engaging in such “dances,” at least in the U.S. Instead we are witnessing ever greater polarization, hateful and blaming, rather than solution-oriented speech, and more and more either/or scenarios instead of nuanced efforts at creating practical answers to problems and engaging positive acts.

In order to create healthier and more humane systems, such polarization must be abandoned, and for those who are newly exposed to atrocities, this is particularly difficult to do. Learning about the growing trafficking of child sex slaves, the alarming and escalating rate of species extinction, and the horrific cruelty perpetrated on ever more billions of animals in factory farms is hard to handle without succumbing alternately to rage and despair. When rage becomes the vector for sharing this information and seeking change it rarely succeeds, however, and when despair takes hold deeply or inexorably, it often results in apathy instead of action (even though, as Joan Baez wisely said, “Action is the antidote to despair.”).

Thus the humane educator – someone who willingly exposes her or himself to painful knowledge in a committed effort to educate for a better future – must learn a special dance: the dance of communication that awakens people’s compassion, elicits their creativity, and engages them as solutionaries while still educating them about terrible and frightening issues.

It’s a dance that begins as we each self-reflect, explores what motivates and engages us (and, conversely, what turns us off or shuts us down), and from that introspection nurtures a style of communicating that is at once direct and soft, heart-wrenching and empowering, pointed and nuanced.

No easy task for humane educators, or anyone who wants to create a peaceful world.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind

Image courtesy of Haags Uitburo via Creative Commons.

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Competition for the Good #1: Debate Teams in British Columbia

Posted on January 29, 2010 by zoeweil

I’ve just spent a week traveling to British Columbia and Seattle to offer humane education and MOGO (Most Good) workshops. In BC, I first gave a talk at the Vancouver Public Library, and I brought up my idea for solutionary teams in schools to exist alongside debate teams. (I’ve written about this idea in a previous blog post. I was surprised when one of the attendees said that in BC it’s uncommon to have debate clubs or teams at school.

The next day I was leading several workshops at a teachers’ conference, and as part of my keynote talk, I had planned to discuss this idea of solutionary teams in contrast to debate teams, but because I had been prepped by the comment the night before, I wanted to know from the audience if it was true that in British Columbia debate teams were uncommon. Did their schools have debate teams, I asked. They shook their heads. Well, do you have solutionary teams? Still no. So, I encouraged these Canadian teachers to lead the way on solutionary teams, and perhaps we in the U.S. will follow. That is, unless some teachers and school administrators who read this blog want to get them going in their schools!

~ Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

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What If Schools Had Solutionary Teams?

Posted on January 11, 2010 by zoeweil

Two debate-related events coincided last week that sparked this blog post. First, at my son’s high school the seniors had their debates. Every senior is required to participate in a debate in order to graduate. Second, I read this report that had been aired on NPR:

“In Mexico, thousands of people have died in drug-related violence in the past three years as the government has ramped up its war on drug cartels. But is the United States to blame for Mexico’s drug woes?

Some argue that the United States bears responsibility because of its market for illegal drugs, along with the flow of guns south of the border. Others blame Mexico’s government, saying it permitted a culture of corruption to flourish and resisted U.S. help for decades.

A panel of experts recently faced off on the topic in an Oxford-style debate. Part of the Intelligence Squared U.S. series, the debate featured three experts arguing for the motion “America Is To Blame For Mexico’s Drug War” and three arguing against.

In a vote before the debate, the audience at New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts voted 43 percent in favor of the motion and 22 percent against; 35 percent were undecided. After the debate, 72 percent agreed that “America Is To Blame For Mexico’s Drug War,” while 22 percent remained against and 6 percent were still undecided.”

Does anything strike you as odd about this debate? It certainly seems odd to me. How could something as complex as “Mexico’s drug woes” ever be reduced to an either/or question of blame? But so often, this is what debates foster – either/or answers to complex problems. Choose a side, argue it, and win or lose. Meanwhile the issue isn’t solved.

I think learning the skill of debate in school is useful. It fosters critical thinking and the use of logic. But I wonder why high schools have debate teams and make participating in a debate a requirement for graduation but don’t also have solutionary teams and make participation in creating solutions to problems a requirement for graduation.

Imagine if every school had a solutionary team; better yet, imagine if every school had a course in developing solutions to entrenched challenges. Better yet, imagine if the very purpose of schools was to prepare students to be solutionaries no matter what field they pursued upon graduation.

Maybe we should start with solutionary teams. Students could tackle a problem and (if we must have competition to make such a team fly) could compete. The winner would be the team that came up with the most effective and practical solution to a given challenge.

Oh, and then we could implement their solution.

Maybe we should institute a debate on whether this is a good idea or not.

Cheers,

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm

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