Beshara Magazine
The Eco Crunch
– a view from Cheltenham and Oxford
By Richard Twinch, October 2008
For those who recognise the reciprocation of cause and effect we need to look little further for why we are being visited by a crisis of such ferocity at this time.
Financial commentators have pointed out that the period of turbulence experienced in the last few weeks is nothing new. In The Secret Life of Real Estate (published 2008 Shepheard Walwyn) Phil Anderson shows it is part of an economic cycle of "boom and bust" that can be traced in recent times back to 10 May 1800 when the US federal government started selling off its newly acquired land . This action for the first time, in the recently independent nation, put a locational value on one piece of real estate over another and established the mantra "location, location, location". This, according to the financial "chartists", has run the economic cycle in the west ever since on a more or less clockwork 18 year cycle – they say we now face the 4 year downturn.
Economically cycles create inflationary "bubbles" which must burst -often in spectacular fashion destroying economies and nations in their wake. Modern market economies emerged in the18th Century and with them investment bubbles. 1720 saw the South Sea Bubble in England. Holland and the Ottoman Empire experienced the extraordinary hyper inflation of tulip prices (see Bulent Rauf: The Last Sultans: Epoch of the Tulip). Bubbles inflate when an object of desire is in short supply (either naturally or artificially) and a collective panic sweeps over the masses desperate to avoid missing out. Those who are aware of the process, either by luck, intuition or cunning have already removed themselves from the cycle before the boom flips to crash in a twinkling of the eye.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, in his talk to the Cheltenham Literary Festival last night (17th October), drew our attention to the parallels between the financial world crisis and the potentially far more calamitous crisis facing the world climate, now that we have entered the "Anthropocene Era" where human activity shapes nature at every turn. As with the ecology, the economy has not examined the underlying persistent imbalances that have been lying in wait for a triggered response – in the case of the financial crisis the implosion of Lehman Brothers Investment Bank a few short weeks ago. We were, Sachs described, too complacent with the way things appeared to be going to question where all the seemingly inexhaustible flow of money was coming from and where the risks lay. Our inattention diverted us from seeing that we were hurtling towards a cliff. In the same way, Sachs continued, our inattention to the long-term needs of the planet have been overlooked, such that a similar catastrophe potentially awaits us as hidden thresholds are crossed which will have totally unpredictable consequences, not only for humankind but for all living creatures - millions of species of which are potentially perishing already as their habitats are stripped away before science has even recognised them.
The thesis of his latest book “Common Wealth: Economics For a Crowded Planet”, lays out much the same challenges that Sachs so brilliantly described in the 2007 Reith Lecture series. The challenges he describes are threefold:
(1) Ecology (2) Extreme Poverty, which results in violence and destruction (3) Unchecked population growth which exacerbates both the problems of poverty and ecology.
This may seem like "old news" to some, and Sachs admits that in some ways the book is already outdated as economic, political and ecological events have tumbled one upon the other, such that the predictions of yesterday have become the facts of today (starvation and violence in Chad and Darfur, no ice in the Arctic Ocean and the collapse of market-driven capitalism). Sachs is no gloom-mongerer - he is an optimist who, inspired by the great John F Kennedy, passionately believes in the ability of the human to be "as big as he wants" to solve these vast problems which drive many to despair. He points to the collective global action to heal the ozone layer that has proved successful in the last ten years, and also that there are signs that the necessary on-going cooperation to settle the financial problems may provide a framework for dealing with the ecological problems. He sees the path towards the cliff edge as veering away from disaster at the last moment.
One particular aspect of the recent credit crunch and its aftermath that Sachs, a self styled "PhD Beggar", described, was the inability of the wealthy nations of the world to deliver on their 2005 commitments to “Make Poverty History” at the Gleneagles Summit – a commitment that was only one ten thousandths of the world GDP. For me it was shocking to hear that Wall Street bonuses exceeded the total aid to Africa from the whole world. For those who recognise the reciprocation of cause and effect we need to look little further for why we are being visited by a crisis of such ferocity at this time.
The questions at literary festivals often generate interesting points for discussion, of which water in the ecological arena is the most pressing and difficult issue – the carbon cycle can be fixed, said Sachs, but with water "everything is local" which makes it "very difficult". Sachs, following JFK, is a believer in leadership as a means of generating hope through defining clear goals and making them seem less remote and therefore attainable. On the vexed question of individual response, Sachs encouraged learning, citizenship and personal involvement.
Pondering all this in Oxford:
Cycles are an inescapable fact of the relative world which oscillates between opposites. We can no more do away with "boom and bust", as some have declared, than the Danish King Canute in the 9th Century could prevent the tide from rising, as urged to do by flatterers. He persisted until the point was proved and then said: "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth and sea obey".
Natural cycles persist, both short and long term. Most are unknown and mysterious, being to do with the deep cycles of the universe. Humankind has long valued those who have been able to predict, or say they can predict, when the cycles will turn. The motions of the heavens, to those with a clear uncluttered view of the stars, are the cycles that are most evident and naturally drew the attention of the ancients who wished to be able to predict the flow of the seasons, the motions of animals and later in history the time to sow and the time to reap. Astrology has largely given way to science which in many ways is its descendent in seeking to perceive the future by examining what has happened in the past.
The Bible and the Koran describe how the prophet Joseph was inspired to delve into the realm of imagination where deeper levels of meaning were unfolded to him. Through the gift of dream interpretation, he was able to recognise the cycles of seven bountiful years and seven years of famine which overtook ancient Egypt which was accustomed to the annual bounty of the Nile which washed the land with fertility. Wisdom dictated that Joseph store the surplus harvest for seven years and when the seven years of famine swept across the land he was able to make the grain available – not only to feed the people of Egypt – but those driven by hunger to travel from distant lands – including his brothers who had years before dumped him in a well and covered up their iniquity by blooding the famous many-coloured cloak.
Another exemplar of wisdom is the Arab prophet Shu'ayb. He is mentioned in the Koran and as a Midianite is sometimes equated with Jethro. But it is the great thinker Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi who draws out the meaning of the "Wisdom of the Heart in the Word of Shu'ayb" in the Fusus al Hikam (Ringstones of Wisdom). Shu'ayb came to a people who were devaluing weights and measures. He was given to perceive how the subtle movements of the heart respond to the self-revelation of God, through which everything is given its just measure (this is discussed in detail by Cecilia Twinch in her paper given to the Ibn "Arabi Society in Oxford in April 2008). She describes how “Shu'ayb called on his people to turn to the One God of all, to give others what is rightfully theirs and not to degrade the wholesomeness of the established order on earth. Otherwise, he prophesied doom; and being unheeded, an earthquake brought about the people's demise.” Our times are very similar in that the means of exchange have become hugely devalued through mathematical ingenuity and low cunning. When generosity (as practised by Joseph above) was privately proposed to Jeffrey Sachs in Cheltenham, as the best personal response to the current situation, he agreed that this was even better than his own answer to the vexed question of individual response.
Sachs puts his faith in inspired leadership (President Obama?) and the building of world institutions, but we have seen the failure of these same institutions to protect the world economy from excessive greed and self-delusion.
Our long term crisis is maybe not to do with lack of political leadership, commitment or even passion – all of which are absolutely necessary for dealing with situations at a human level. Our problem may well be due to lack of imagination – not the kind of imagination that thinks up brilliant technological, but potentially disastrous, mega-fixes for planetary problems, but the kind of imagination that Joseph was given to be able to interiorly perceive the flux of light and dark in our interior and be able to interpret these correctly to ensure stability and harmony with the natural cycles in the apparent exterior. Perhaps it is also a call to return to the values of the heart as a basis for reasserting "just measure" in the world of finance.
If we are unable to perceive the flux of the universe in our hearts, that from a "unitive" perspective is no other than the "self" of the universe as us, then we will just flow backwards and forwards with fluctuating tides as so much flotsam and jetsam.
Fixing the water cycle may be the hardest thing in ecology, but if we are truly to be "big enough" we must "fix" ourselves which is perhaps both the most local and biggest challenge of our time.
Richard Twinch is a long-time student of the Beshara School, as well as a graduate of Cambridge University and the Architectural Association. He wrote extensively for the Beshara Magazine and Building Design in the late 1980s and 90s. He has written and published software on constructional/energy issues and advised multinational companies. He taught, lectured and examined at The Prince of Wales Institute, The Royal College of Art and Oxford Brookes University. He has been practising architecture in Oxford for the last 10 years and is currently Events Co-ordinator for the Muhyiddin Ibn "Arabi Society.