Transition Culture

22 Jun 2006

Meg Wheatley on Peak Oil.

On Wednesday 14th June I interviewed Meg Wheatley and asked her the 8 questions developed for the Skilling Up for Powerdown project. I also did a longer interview which focused more on Energy Descent Plans, which I’ll post as soon as I get it transcribed.

Do you see Peak Oil as a crisis or an opportunity?

I don’t see it as either. I see it as a lens, or mirror, that reflects what we really value in this culture. From that perspective it is neither an opportunity nor a crisis, but the first place I think we need to start is what does this show us about what we value, what does it show us about what we care about, what we’re willing to give priorities to. In that way, it’s a very powerful issue, because it’s so potent, you know, with prospects for a terrible future, or a more hopeful future, but it’s a very powerful way of looking at what we truly care about in this culture. If you could use it in that way then you could actually know how to reach more people, because you first get a sense of what is important to people, and then you could work more thoughtfully, “ok, how do we engage people in this issue, but from what they truly value�.

Because it’s not clear to me that everyone places the same value on this question of what do we do with the future and energy and oil as part of that. To environmentalists and people who care about the future or who even think about the future its rather straightforward you know, one of the questions is can we get there from here, well the answer is no, but I don’t even know what ‘here’ is for most people right now, I don’t know how people are framing the challenge, or framing the question, that’s the first thing I’d be quite curious about doing.

If the approach that you propose were to come to fruition, and you woke up 30 years from now, in that reality, what would it look like, smell like, feel like, talk us through it.

It would feel to me like a healthy community. I’ve been in a few of them, so I can respond to all of those; the taste, feel, smell. It’s where you’re in a community where you recognise that you’re all working for the same values, for a shared vision, for similar goals and you’re not working at odds and you don’t feel polarised and you don’t feel afraid of truthful conversations, and you don’t retreat from each other, whether its because of conflict, or just because I have no patience for what you think and contrasting it with what’s so prevalent right now. It’s possible to use any major crisis as not only a lens into what we value but then as the opportunity to come together and create shared values. If that were to happen, if we could create a shared sense of values from our energy dilemmas, then in 30 years I think we would feel like and work like a healthy community, we would be together rather than apart, we’d be working for similar things rather than polarised, and we’d actually enjoy living together. We’d feel optimistic and energised by the process of living together.

How do we get from here to there?

Yes, that for me is the very large question. First we have to establish what “here� is, as I was saying, really understanding how people are framing this issue, how it fits into their other values. So first we have to establish what “here� is. If we were to do that, then that would give us the means to really start to be in conversations and dialogue with one another so we can arrive at a shared significance about this problem. Not the same interpretation, but at least it’d be a big enough sense that we all do understand this even though from different perspectives. So there’s some deeper sharing or commonality there. What’s involved is first establishing what reality is for folks, what’s important for people, and then being in a long term conversational process where we really get clear about how we’re going to make this real. That is what works for everything, in my sense of the world, but first we have to figure out what “here� is.

To what extent do solutions to the energy problem involve action in other, non energy, fields?

Well, it’s all interconnected, right?. That question is a set-up to test whether we’re thinking systemically or not (laughs). Energy is woven into the fabric of our lifestyles, and our lifestyles are based on what we value, and what we value then determines the global economy, and the global economy determines, in the case of my country, the United States, who we go to war with, you know, it’s like this (intertwines her fingers), absolutely like this. That’s why it’s a very good thing to look at, because if you go into it assuming its not just an easy issue, you are able to see all the things that people value at the deeper level, which then show up as our approach to energy and consumption, but if you just take it at that simple level, you don’t get anywhere.

What are the problems and bottlenecks?

Well, they’re gigantic at this point. I think the biggest bottleneck at this point is that most people don’t care what other people are thinking. We’ve moved into a period where it’s harder and harder to have exploratory conversations where people are actually curious and willing to change their minds. There is polarization around this issue, people who see a very dire future if we don’t pay attention and get conscientious about our use of energy, and they end up screaming at the people who say its not a problem and we’ll solve it with our technology, you know this great faith that technology solves all the problems that it causes, which I think is a very dangerous but prevalent thoughtform out in the culture these days. If we can’t talk to each other and we’re not willing to have our minds changed, and to develop a broader perspective because of the conversations we’re in then we don’t get anywhere, we just get farther and farther apart, more and more polarized, which is what is happening right now, so I’d say that is the largest bottleneck.

What are the skills we need to learn and the training & education we need to put in place to respond to peak oil?

We really need to understand the value, and give a value, to loosening up our minds, becoming curious rather then certain, being interested beyond the polarities of the differences, being really interested in how someone else experiences this issue, or any issue. You can educate people into becoming more curious, but it’s a serious process. We’re certainly not doing in our schools, we’re not doing it in our organizations where we just want people to make snap decisions, we want children to give instant simplistic answers…. so really changing the quality of how we’re willing to think, I think, is the major intervention.

How can this issue be communicated to the widest possible audience?

I think the way to communicate it is not to start with a belief that you know what to communicate! (laughs). If you think about it, in the environmental movement how many times we’ve just tried to alert people to the dangers and does it make a difference or not? Does it make enough of a difference to tell people the icecaps are melting, the glaciers are disappearing, species are dying at an unprecedented rate, what do people do with that information? In the case of oil and energy consumption patterns, I think we have to go back a lot deeper, and really understand what this issue means to people. That will be a wide range, and then communicate from that. That’s just good psychology, its good PR, its good salesmanship. You really have to know what are the needs of the person you’re trying to communicate to, and I think that’s been one of the major problems in all issues, not just environmental ones.

What would most help you in your work to achieve this vision?

More opportunity to talk with more people who are interested in talking. It’s just that simple for me. Opening more and more channels of communication among disparate and diverse peoples.

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You can read Meg Wheatley’s biography here.