Metaphors

New metaphors for sustainability: a stranger’s compass

December 18, 2011Ashden DirectoryCo Editor, Compass, Coordinates, Cumbrian, Decisions, Geology, Granite Face, Guidance System, Improvisation, Landscape, Left Behind, Magnetic North, Metaphor, Metaphors, Mud, Orientations, Safe Passage, sustainability, Walking With A Stranger, Wit

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Our co-editor Wallace Heim continues our series of new metaphors for sustainability with a guidance system that changes hands.Â

Walking an unfamiliar Cumbrian fell with a compass, often without a map, links me to the land in a special way. The invisible, magnetic north that spins into place on the device is often perplexing and counter-intuitive. However reassuring it is to know there are vast forces of geology beyond any I can see, forces that co-ordinate my safe passage, I still have to negotiate the land right in front of me: that granite face, that swamped mire, that fast river. There is no picture in which to find myself, only wit, the land and the pull of a distant polar force.

A few times, I’ve come across a dropped compass. There’s a moment when clearing the mud from its face when I wonder whether it was left behind because it was broken, or not believed. Is the north that was found in a stranger’s hand the same as in mine?

I don’t think sustainability can be likened directly to a compass, as if there was a pole of certainty to it. There are orientations that guide, but they fluctuate with a landscape that is continually shifting. The incremental decisions made in response to immediate conditions themselves change the situation, alter what is possible to do. I see sustainability as a response to change, one that keeps alive the capacity to respond to further change. What kind of compass would show this light-footed improvisation that makes sure those in the future can navigate their own way?

Walking with a stranger’s compass comes closer as a metaphor. The compass is given, handed over, and it connects me to those I will never know, while helping me cross the land that I am in. The instruction is not reliable; maybe not safe. Or maybe it is, and the coordinates are sharper than on my own compass,Â signalling a clearer route. Is it pulling me in a direction I couldn’t have imagined? This uncertain magnetism invigorates the walk.Â One day, I’ll leave my compass behind.

New metaphors for sustainability: why we started

November 18, 2011Ashden DirectoryAnomaly, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Definitions, Dissent, Everyday Life, Expression, Features Interviews, Flowers, Interviews News, Metaphor, Metaphorically, Metaphors, Paradoxes, People, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter

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Wallace Heim writes:

We began thinking about metaphor and sustainability when we noticed that there weren’t any strong or imaginative metaphors for the concept, or ones that we could easily use in conversation. Metaphors are pervasive in human thought and communication. ‘Sustainability’ stood out as an anomaly, a common concept with many definitions, but no metaphors.

So in April, we asked four people to suggest a metaphor and we filmed their responses. We weren’t looking for ‘the’ metaphor. We were experimenting to see whether it was possible to think metaphorically about sustainability, in all its promise, its limitations and paradoxes.

Since then, we’ve added 14 more metaphors, (18 if you count everyone in the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home), and will add another 6 through November and December, here on Ashdenizen and collected on the Directory.

Too, we’ll be posting comments on the project itself, which for some contributors was challenging; for others, playful; and for others, a delicate expression of meaning taken from their everyday life.

New metaphors for sustainability: the yew tree

November 15, 2011Ashden DirectoryAware That Everything, Canopy, Co Founder, Conwy Wales, Definition Of Sustainability, Early Bronze Age, Growth Trees, Immortality, Land Of Shadows, Llangernyw, Metaphors, Natural Sanctuaries, Occurrence, Organic Aspects, Peter Harrison, Solace, Timeless Quality, Yew Tree, Yew Trees, Yews

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the Llangernyw Yew, Conwy, Wales

Our series of new metaphors for sustainability will continue through November. Today, Peter Harrison, writer, artist and co-founder of Propeller Arts CollectiveÂ findsÂ solace in the shade of the yew tree.

A simple definition of sustainability is the capacity to sustain. For me, this immediately poses a problem. Iâ€™m aware that everything comes to an end, nothing can go on forever. Thereâ€™s something not quite real about the word, implying the possibility of being liberated from death. But also there are nurturing, practical, organic aspects to the word, implying maintenance and growth.

Trees are living processes. Yew trees live for centuries. Although it is difficult to accurately date yew trees, it is estimated that the Llangernyw Yew, in Conwy, Wales, is over four thousand years old. Yews are associated with immortality, renewal and transformation. Yews are living entities that sustain while the world around them changes. The yew in Conwy sheltered people from the early Bronze age. It is tempting to think that one of those people stood under the tree imagining life four thousand years in the future. As generations came and went, the tree continued. Yews represent the passage from life to death, and beyond, into the land of shadows.

The timeless quality of yew trees can also be personally experienced. Stepping into the low-hanging canopy of a yew, there is a marked change in temperature and volume. The air is cool and still. The world is quieter. A space under branches. Natural sanctuaries in which to reflect, to slow down and contemplate life beyond the moment.

This is an uncertain world. In past centuries, when death was a more present, daily occurrence than it is now, maybe yews gave people hope that the world will continue. Hope that although one day we will die, part of the world we knew and loved will sustain.

New metaphors for sustainability: song

November 14, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssocia, Bob Dylan Chronicles, Bob Dylan Chronicles Volume One, Climate Change, Complete Verse, Friend John, Grimaldi, John Cartwright, Key Change, Losing Things, Metaphors, Musician Friend, Night Songs, Particularity, Peoples Minds, Rhythm Rhyme, Robert Butler, Sue Palmer, Twitter, Two Kinds Of Sounds, Verse Chorus Verse

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Sue Palmer, an artist making live and digital work with people and place, and author of inquiline, a blog on botany and art, suggests song as a metaphor for sustainability.

the extraordinary song:often straightforward, yet infinitely complex

the diversity (how many millions have been created)

the particularity (each one individual)

a structure enabling brilliant inventiveness

often a voice and an instrument

two kinds of sounds, working

my musician friend John talks about chords as metaphors

about how two â€˜discordantâ€™ tones are shifted

through the addition of a third note, bringing resolve

songs are free, and they can make someone a living

they help people make it through the day, and night

songs have changed peoplesâ€™ minds

a song can contain a lot of information, honed,

ideas packed in language,

rhythm, rhyme

thereâ€™s craft in it, and anyone can do it

thereâ€™s multiple ways to begin, and a sense when itâ€™s complete

verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, chorus,

bridge

and key change, â€˜ad lib to fadeâ€™

the pleasure of the repetition, letting the song free up, go

When I think of sustainability, I usually think of losing things, resources, capacity, and I find my materially-centred thought frustrating.

‘If anything, I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. I needed to learn how to telescope things, ideas. Things were too big to see all at once, like all the books in the library – everything laying around on all the tables. You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right’, Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, 2004.

photo: by Orelie Grimaldi of John Cartwright playing C#m7

Margaret Atwood is with the bears

November 10, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Bbc, Bbc Radio 4, Climate Change, Directory, Element, Features Interviews, Flowers, Helen Simpson, Interviews News, Margaret Atwood, Mariella Frostrup, Metaphors, Reflection, Robert Butler, Short Stories, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter

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Margaret Atwood and Helen Simpson discuss I’m With The Bears, a new collection of short stories about climate change, with Mariella Frostrup on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book.

Helen Simpson says one problem of writing about climate change is the moralizing:

“That’s about as popular as telling someone they need to lose weight. It’s the nagging and being preached at element that is very hard to avoid around this subjectâ€.

New metaphors for sustainability: the Kelo

October 29, 2011Ashden DirectoryCavities, Dead Trees, Different Stages, Earlier Times, Far North West, Finnish Word, Havens, Invertebrates, Kelo, Lichens Fungi, Liverworts, Living Forest, Metaphors, Moorlands, Pine Forests, Pinewood, Scots Pines, Single Tree, Spectres, Stages Of Decomposition

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We resume our series finding new metaphors for sustainability with the Kelo suggested by artist and researcher Amanda Thomson.Â

For a few years now I have been spending a lot of time in some of the remnant Caledonia pine forests of Scotland, learning about their ecology, and making an ongoing piece of work called Dead Amongst the Living, which is ostensibly about the dead trees of these woodlands. Scots pines can live to be up to 300 years old, and even after they die, can stand for years before falling. In the middle of these woods, they sometimes stand pale like spectres amongst the greens, reds and browns of the living forest, and sometimes on the hills and moorlands of the north an occasional single tree reminds us of forests now long gone or the tenaciousness it has often taken to have survived.

Thereâ€™s a Finnish word a ranger told me, Kelo, which describes a standing tree which has died, dried out in the wind and yet remains standing, often for decades, only quietly and imperceptibly decaying. Like the shells of old croft houses in the far north west and on the islands, such trees stand to remind us of a different past, and are testament to earlier times.

Dead wood supports a huge amount of biodiversity when still standing, and once they have fallen they continue to form a crucial part of the living ecosystems of a pinewood; indeed, it is said they support more species when dead than they do when alive. These dead trees contain microhabitats for species which are not found elsewhere but which are vital to the ongoing health of the forest. They are havens for invertebrates, hold rare mosses, provide nutrients for lichens, fungi and liverworts. At each stage of their decay, they give something back to their surroundings and support different species at different stages of decomposition. When standing, they provide viewpoints for raptors and their holes and cavities provide nest sites for a range of woodland birds, including crested tits. Their rot holes are used by the larvae of rare hoverflies, green shield-moss grows on old stumps and capercaillie use the upturned root plates of the fallen for cover and for dust baths. Eventually, over a period of years, and by being broken down in a variety of ways, all of the nutrients which have been stored in the tree will make their way back in to the earth and replenish it.

For me, these dead trees contain an essential reminder about how in both physical and in psychic terms, things that seem no longer with us, things that might appear to be useless and redundant, and things that becomes invisible can continue to influence, support and nourish the present, and the living, in ways that we might not yet know, but will perhaps, in time, come to realise.

My Last Car – final showings

October 15, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Climate Change, Component Parts, Features Interviews, First Car, Imove, Interviews News, Last Car, Metaphors, Nbsp, Reflection, Robert Butler, Rover 216, Showings, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Tipping Point, Twitter, Warwick Arts Centre, Wheel

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My Last Car, commissioned by Tipping Point, I Move, and the Warwick Arts Centre, has its final performances today through Saturday at the Warwick Arts Centre. Â Everyone remembers their first car; what if their present car were their last car? Â The show looks at the influences the motor car has had on people’s lives, and issues of sustainability.

The star is a soft-top Rover 216 broken down to its component parts. Â My Last Car is both a gallery installation and a performance. Â Information and ticketsÂ here.

My Last Car – Alan Dix, the man behind the wheel from imove on Vimeo.

Ecocide’s day in court

October 7, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Barrister, Climate Change, Crimes, Ecocide, Expert Witnesses, Extraction Of Oil, Features Interviews, Gulf Of Mexico, Interviews News, Metaphors, Michael Mansfield Qc, Mock Trial, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Sky News, sustainability, Tar Sands, Timeline, Twitter

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Wallace Heim writes:

Today, the theatre of a mock trial plays out in the UK Supreme Court, live onlineÂ (download the software at the top left of the panel).

The Ecocide Trial has Michael Mansfield QC as prosecuting barrister and Nigel Lickley QC as defence barrister leading a case for and against two fictional CEOâ€™s, and is complete with expert witnesses, jury andÂ judge.

The crimes chosen by the court this morning are the extraction of oil from Canadaâ€™s Tar Sands and the Deepwater disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

There is no script. It is up to a jury to decide whether the case for Ecocide crime is made.

Follow the case on twitterÂ and on Sky News/home/supreme-court.

Culture and Climate Change: Recordings

October 5, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, blog, Climate Change, Culture Change, Directory, Environment, Features Interviews, Flowers, Interviews News, Metaphors, Pdf, Podcasts, Reflection, Robert Butler, Robert Wallace, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter, United Kingdom

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A pdf of Culture and Climate Change: Recordings is now available.

See four podcasts on culture and climate change

Download the podcasts

New metaphors for sustainability: Le Tour

August 18, 2011Ashden DirectoryClimate Change, Culture Media, Geography Department, Headwinds, Hundred Thousand, Intense Competition, Le Tour De France, Metaphors, Mountain Roads, Open University, Peloton, Personal Rivalries, Physical Effort, Professional Cycling, Research Associate, Research Fellow, Setting The Pace, Spectator Sport, Sprinter, Tour De France

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Le Tour de France is the metaphor Bradon Smith offers in our series of New metaphors for sustainability. Bradon is Â a research associate in the Geography department at the Open University, and is also the AHRC research fellow on climate change for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.Â

The bicycle is a wonderfully efficient and ecological mode of transport; and the dynamics of professional cycling are a model for the cooperation that real sustainability will require.

This week saw the climax of the Tour de France. Four hundred thousand people gathered on the mountain roads leading up to Alpe d’Huez to watch that one stage alone. Cycling works as a spectator sport partly because of the intense physical effort, but also because of the layers of tactics and teamwork: strength and stamina aren’t enough to win the Tour.

No rider could win the Tour without their team. Teamwork, co-operation and the team’s different skills are required to win even a stage. Many of the members of a team (the domestiques) ride not for their own chances of glory, but for the benefit of another member of their team: setting the pace for their leading rider, carrying water for them, sheltering them from headwinds, and so on. These sacrifices are central to a team’s success.

Nor can any rider win any stage – some are more suited to mountains, others to flat stages. The rider who can achieve the fastest speeds (a sprinter) is unlikely to win the Tour, which requires a better all-round rider. Some teams are dedicated to the success of a single rider, others spread their efforts more widely. A team has to play to the strengths of its members.

Despite the intense competition, and personal rivalries, there is a fundamental trust within the peloton. Hurtling along the road at 40mph, wheels within inches of one another, each rider must trust that the others will hold their line.

And this trust has built a unique ethic: the peloton follows a set of unwritten rules. It is not done, for example, to profit from other riders’ crashes – the peloton will wait instead. And the team of the leading rider is expected to do the most work, setting the pace for the whole peloton.

Technological developments have dramatically affected cycling: bikes are lighter and more aerodynamic, and the riders are all equipped with radios for constant communication with their teams. Fans are divided over whether these changes are detrimental. But these developments have not drastically altered the basic ethic of the peloton.

But there is another side to cycling. Teams are reliant on their corporate sponsors, and team tactics are also built around giving the most TV exposure to their sponsors’ logos. Deals are done between riders of competing teams: ‘you can have this win, if you help me tomorrow’. And – the big ones – doping blights the sport and fans speculate about deals and corruption at a high level. It isn’t really clear how these problems will be eradicated; but in a sport shot through with the ethos of teamwork and cooperation, they strike right at its heart.

There is a temptation to ‘cheat’ with sustainability too: to greenwash and make tokenistic changes, but never integrate it fully into our lives and societies. But the cooperation that is central to professional cycling is also central to sustainability; as in a cycling team, one specialism will not be enough; and like in the peloton, we need to trust that others will also make the effort.