OK February 17, 2011
Coalition of the Willing is moving forward - current energy is going towards a project matching initiative http://cotw.cc/wiki/Project_Matching
I wrote the email below as part of a discussion about the proposed project matching.
From: Pamela McLean <pamela.mclean@dadamac.net>
Date: 17 February 2011 00:33
Subject: Re: [OK] Re: Launching the CC-PMS Working Group
To: openkollab@googlegroups.com
Hi Vanessa
I'm one of the people looking forward to meeting up with other people / organisations. Maybe if I just explain how it looks to me with my hopes and connections it might be useful to you.
I see the group gathering around the CotW initiative as having the potential to do something really valuable on a large scale and for many people in a way that can bring benefits on a local and global scale. I see this happening through the collaboration of many small-scale (and perhaps large scale) initiatives, thanks to the really effective and imaginative use of digital technologies applied to a genuine human problem. Too often either digital tech develops in a vacuum (solutions looking for a problem, or genuine problems are tackled clumsily (without the right digital tech to help solve them).
With Cotw I believe there is a unique combination of digital tech development and genuine human networks with a shared problem to solve. If people who have problems they are trying to solve, and people with digital tech they are trying to develop, can work in harmony from an early stage then wonderful things can happen as a result.
I have a very clear picture of what can emerge through CotW (although I am not yet good at explaining it clearly) because for many years I have been involved in similar things but on a much smaller scale, and without the powerful and talented team that CotW has. I know what can, and cannot, be done on a small scale, and so I am very excited at how much this talented and visionary group will be able to do and what can emerge as a result.
On a personal level I didn't come to CotW primarily because of a great personal interest in climate change, I came because of many inter-connected interests and concerns - such as peak-oil, low carbon futures, sustainable living and inequalities between UK (and similar places) and rural Nigeria (and similar places).
I came not just for my personal interests and local concern, but also with a wider interest as the "eyes and ears' of many friends and contacts that I connect with in non-elite Africa. ( I havent' brought them into the discussions yet as the focus here is still on setting up systems to help people meet each other, rather than already helping people to meet and exchange information)
Regarding the wider issues and inequalities (that I see as part of the climate change problem we need to solve), I recognise the huge material inequalities between my life and the lives of friends living in non-elite Africa. I live in UK - with clean water, 24 hr electricity, effective plumbing, roads, railways, enough to eat, easy access to the Internet, making the effort to take exercise because I do so little physical work, etc, Meanwhile many of my friends is Africa are having to boil and filter water before drinking, needing kerosene lamps, repeatedly catching malaria, suffering terrible accidents on the un-lit potholed roads etc (and for many, living a life where, as one of my farming friends put it me - "we labour like animals').
I don't think that's fair. I don't think my friends(and others) in non-elite Africa should have less than I do materially (NB I recognise that material things are not the only measure of good living, my friends in Africa often have better non-tangible riches than i do related to community and family, but that is a separate discussion).
However I don't think that the way forward is for them to copy the high-carbon living that has gone before. I believe that together we all need to work out better models. I think we need to learn from each other - share problems, share learning experiences, and ( as we find them) share solutions. (see Pam - we want street lights http://www.dadamac.net/blog/20091015/pam-we-want-street-lights)
I believe that the way forward is to network more effectively, and share what we are experiencing and learning. That is why I am attracted to CotW - I see "CotW" as a focal point tor people with a wonderful mixture of a skills, which will be relevant to climate chnage and wider related initiatives. The CotW group already has:
- media skills and vision to share knowledge and ideas - as with the film
- socio-tech skills way beyond the usual social networking of Face Book etc - skills enabling them to collaborate, exchange and create new knowledge - as with the Movement Camps and all the work on various digital information channels like skype,wikis, etherpads, Better Means
- "serious techie" tech skills - writing new code and developing new applications - as with Suresh's matching programme.
- knowledge and skills related to content - people doing things - sometimes things to do with collecting and presenting information (like Appropedia) sometimes doing things that involve practical problem solving in specific locations and communities (like some of my friends in Africa, and new contacts I am starting to come across here in other parts of the globe - such as semi-arid lands in Australia.)
Ref climate change and tying things into what is going on on the ground:
I was in a skype chat earlier today - it was our regular Wednesday one hour meeting between UK and Nigeria - UK-Nigeria Dadamac team and meetings http://www.dadamac.net/network/uk-nigeria-dadamac-team)
We touched on weather (trying to fix something up for later this year - and during the dry season). During the chat John Dada happened to mention changes in weather - (John Dada http://www.dadamac.net/about/john) The convesation went like this:
Pamela: I am thinking it may be best to wait until late September or Oct instead of May
Frances: i think that's a good idea ... as it is much more difficult to get around in the rainy season.
Pamela: yes F - dry season is best - when exactly does that start?
Frances: Not till October I think
John: Yes, dry season. You will be looking at middle Nov. Frances, the rains have been coming later and lasting longer
Nikki: what are the local implications of this John
John: N, local implications are that crops are failing, grain prices are rising, and there will be knock-on effect on nutrition
This is a topic that is increasingly coming up in conversation now - most people locally are not thinking "climate change' the way we do in the information rich world - but they are noticing problems with the weather.
A couple of weeks back John specifically mentioned the failure of the black eyed beans crop because of changes in the rains.
He is involved in various integrated education and development programmes - one of his visionary projects is Attachab eco-village - http://www.dadamac.net/projects/ecology-and-appropriate-technology/attachab
My personal complementary passion is the effective use of the internet to help people learn. I am also passionate about us learning in mutually respectful ways - not "top down" provision of information, and not even "top down and bottom up" but a whole shift that involves twto way flows of information. That is what I believe Suresh's matching up system is going to help make happen. People on the ground sharing knowledge and helping each other, and also providing information to those who are positions of power who need to make informed policy decisions, people with problems and people with possible solutions collaborating, less duplications of effort, resources being targetted effectively.
It's just one view of what this is about, and a very personal one, but then CotW is strong in attracting people for many different reasons,and then helping us t fund each other to collaborate, so I hope my view is helpful for you.
Pamela McLean ( http://www.dadamac.net/about/pam )