Today was just the beginning... now to amplify awareness and mobilise collective action

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Today was just the beginning

“Three words capture the intent of the day: awareness, action and collectiveness.

First and foremost, today was about awareness. To have even felt the need to be part of this event meant that each one of you has awareness. But I hope that by being here, listening to these speakers and having these discussions has both deepened your awareness and strengthened your confidence to head back out into the world and amplify this awareness. In this way, each one of you are Emissaries of Awareness – of the polycrisis, of its component parts, of what steps we must take – collectively – to respond.

Which brings me to the second word: action. The rationale behind this symposium was that action must be based on awareness - a full awareness of the interconnected and complex nature of the polycrisis. Without this, any actions taken to “fix” isolated problems will be ineffective – or worse – will make the predicament worse, as we clearly heard from Dr Mike Joy’s talk.

And finally, today was about the collective. For too long we have been urged to take action as individuals, to be “responsible consumers”: to reduce our carbon footprint, to recycle, to compost – this has individualised our predicament, absolving industry and government from their responsibility – their responsibility to use the power they have to change the system, but choose not to use.

By allowing ourselves to be siloed into this role as individual consumers rather than a collective of citizens, we have severely constrained our ability to influence the system. Now is the time to break out of our siloed existence as individuals – and create connection and alliances with others to amplify our power as citizens.

In the last session you explored ways you might turn the reality we heard about today into action. Many of you are already doing this in your communities right now. But there is one action that is potentially more powerful than all the others. And that is, talking.

Talk to your friends, family, neighbours, colleagues, maybe the person next to you watching the kids’ football. Talk to them about the polycrisis. Perhaps one small strand of it – something that you think will resonate with them. Perhaps it is food, perhaps it is insurance. We have been led to believe that only we care or are aware. That others don’t share these deep concerns for the future. But by talking about it we may soon find out that your neighbour, your aunty, the person next to you in the supermarket queue also cares as deeply as you do. And even if they don’t – yet - what you say may plant a seed for future germination.

And soon we will have videos of each of the expert talks you heard today. These will be available on the Reality of Everything website and on Youtube. Share these videos, Send them to your local MP, or local councillors, share with work colleagues, with friends and family.

And as you heard from Cathrine Dyer and Dr Anne Bardsley, there will be a Polis survey that you will all be invited to participate and share in the weeks ahead. This will be a fantastic way to spread awareness and create more opportunities for conversation.

And finally, we have elections coming up. We need to up the ante on what is at stake. We know it is not just the cost of living, or the cost of fuel at the fuel pump, or whether saving for retirement should be compulsory or not. We know that so much more is at stake. Let’s work together to ensure that other New Zealanders understand this too. That tipping point of awareness may be much much closer than we think. Let’s tip it.

So this is the end of today but it has the potential to be the start of a new, amplified awareness – of the Reality of Everything. Let’s make it happen.”

Last night I spoke with RNZ’s Susana Lei’ataua about the planetary polycrisis and the upcoming Reality of Everything Symposium on 26 June. Follow this link to take a listen. Thanks for reading An Uncommon Land! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.