flooding

Aaand now we're at the end of the second week after spring break. Have I managed to get back to posting here? I have not. But today's the day! I am at the library and I will park my butt here until I hit publish! Is the plan.

And speaking of plans, I have a new one for The Paper.  It is to smash together my various lenten blog posts about climate-crisis-education things* (Climate Fresk, World Without End, Eco Summer Camp, etc.) and then examine them "through the lens of" See-Judge-Act. In each case, what story is presented (see)? What actions were encouraged (act)? What ethical principles motivated those actions (judge)? And what do I notice from my reactions to each that could point to my own personal story / ethical principles / next steps?

This could work, right?? Please say this could work. Officially this is attempt 10 so...cross your fingers but don't hold your breath. 

So anyway there are two things* missing from the list, and Missing Thing One is a cool immersive, interactive performance I attended with a friend** during spring break: Die Jahrtausendflut (The Thousand-year Flood).

The premise: the year is 2037. The climate crisis has taken its predicted, increasingly disastrous course, and as we speak large swaths of Switzerland are flooded. Millions are affected: stranded, displaced, or without access to clean drinking water. People are dying. In the crisis, the government wants to join an international mutual-aid organization, the Green Helmets, who provide on-the-ground support to countries before, during, and after natural disasters at a price determined by a country's carbon emissions since 1850. For Switzerland, this would mean a hefty yearly bill and the provision of manpower equalling that of the Swiss Army. The option of joining the Green Helmets was rejected some years earlier - Swiss neutrality, ya know - but now there seems to be no other choice. The country is drowning and we need help.

But! In reaction to the government's past use of emergency orders to make changes with far-reaching consequences to Swiss law out of the reach of our treasured direct democratic systems (see: pandemic, bank rescue), the Swiss have passed a law requiring such orders to be reviewed by a council of randomly selected citizens. At 7 pm, these citizens (aka Jahrtausendflut ticket holders) have gathered in the city council chambers in Bern to debate the measure. A yes/no vote has to be taken by 9...

Cue dramatic music.

This was very well done. We filed into the city council chambers and took our seats, and actors playing the roles of government officials, experts, and citizens in the crowd presented their arguments and debated the measure. Some of the actors were in-real-life politicians, which lent a certain credibility to the proceedings. At one point the lights went out dramatically and "emergency floodlights" lit the room for some minutes. A test vote was concocted so we could see how the voting system worked, and at the end we voted (no great surprise) to support the government's move to join the Green Helmets. 

Neither my friend nor I had any idea what to expect from this and we both came away very impressed. It's powerful to move - using exactly the same climate models - from "look at the bad things that we think are very likely to happen in the future" to "imagine this is happening now." And the setting encouraged a focus on collective action - on policy and participation rather than individual lifestyle changes. In light of this probable future, what could we be doing now that we will regret not doing later?

Trust was an implicit theme of the evening - to what extent do we trust the government to take action in an emergency? Would we trust a council of randomly-selected citizens to provide an additional check? Could we trust an international organization with helping us respond to a disaster; would we trust it to protect our citizens as they went abroad to help in other countries? Is not-trusting even a realistic option in our hyperconnected world? Midway through we got to watch a cringeworthy video message from the CEO of an American firm selling insurance against major disasters - would we trust capitalism to address this crisis instead? (A: No.) 

Theoretically the citizens / participants / ticket holders could also ask questions and take part in the debate, but of course the whole thing more or less scripted, so questions that fell outside of the script got unsatisfactory answers. I wonder if a determined participant could have pushed things far enough that the group lost confidence in the experts and voted the other way? 

I also wonder how much different things would have been if the audience had in fact been randomly selected Swiss citizens (or Swiss residents?), above and beyond the fact that they couldn't have gotten away with doing the whole thing in German. I was bothered by the fact that the irritated interjections of the man playing a grumpy conservative Swiss farmer were generally met with laughter. He was playing to a stereotype and he was quite funny but...in real life his opinions would be shared by a solid segment of the population, and not a segment likely to buy tickets to an event like this. This bothered me, and though part of that is certainly my American self projecting deep societal divisions onto a country that doesn't have them [in the same way], I am convinced: we*** must. practice. talking. across. difference. Do we trust each other enough to take the other side seriously, to include them in our "we"? Or is the temptation to be snarky about those who aren't in the room just too strong? 

As my butt is parked and I thankfully don't have any flood pictures, you get a picture of the informational handout for the "citizens' council", lovingly modeled after a Swiss voting pamphlet.  

*I need to come up with a better word than things, so far it's experiences, which I don't like at all. Suggestions please.

**YAY FRIENDS!

***starting with me, obviously.