AOC in Basel, Ursache Zukunft, 2007

Reflections from the agents
…. ‘I had this silent sensation of we are one, it is Our world, Our future, Our challenge, we belong together, lets think about the world together for a moment. What can we do? What can I do?
I could literally see when people started thinking, making an effort, doing work, we were even thinking together for a moment, nobody knew the right question, a space opened up between us, around us, there was a strong tension, I could nearly feel the ideas flying around us in circles waiting for us to get cached….. And then, only a few seconds, maybe milliseconds… it was over. The person said something. Maybe a good question, maybe not. Was this person able, were we able to really think something out, or hadn’t we been patient enough?’....

…’this experience has made me feel, think, and ask myself a whole lot of different things. I’ve seen some really wonderful reactions to what we are doing. But also, how sceptical people can be! I think that most people feel that they know a lot but still feel frustrated and confused. I personally have been feeling hurt and scared about the next generation and how my own children will be affected!’...

…’I think I’ve learned a lot from it, about myself, about other people and how they think, I find it hard to confront people at home, friends, family, with this project and, its a lot more difficult to talk with them about their concern, I think partly because I know them better and they find it weird to talk to me about it! I think this project should go all over the world’…

…’the day in Basel changed me completely, brought me out of myself to a level I hadn’t thought possible. I felt very proud to be an Agent of change, someone who was showing people the bigger picture, that’s what a lot of it was about for me. The workshop opened my eyes to the bigger picture in my life, the fact that the planet I live on is being ruined, a lot of problems I had thought important pale in comparison. Of course I had always known about the bigger picture but I was too absorbed in my own problems to give it too much thought. I think a lot of people are like this, thinking about our fears and concerns and the state of the planet is not a lot of fun, its easier to think about what kind of coffee you’ll have or where you’ll go at the weekend. ..the young people on the street in Basel as not one of them ventured up to ask us what we were doing, maybe its just teenage shyness or maybe they don’t care. That was something I found really frightening that day, the lack of interest from the people that I believe matter an awful lot in solving the problem. ..At home I find I slip easily back into the habit of putting all the really important “big picture” concerns to the back of my mind and concentrating on myself and my life. I try not to. I have more of an interest, more of a desire to make a difference and more of a

belief that I can now’…

…’I think the ‘cheques’ do work on so many levels. I understand what people were saying about using money being negative but I feel change happens in context, and you need to work with what there already is to recognize the value of the change and why it was necessary. I think that ‘cheques’ in a money context are evidence of an exchange, an agreement between two people, which works as a metaphor for the exchanges between the agents and the public (substituting money for human values) To continue that metaphor, the piece of paper actually has no value, you could carry that paper round in your pocket for a year and still have no money. The true value is when you take that paper to the bank- the point is you have do something with that sentence that you receive, something internal, and maybe this is why it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of the piece on the individual consciousness, because some people will put that paper in their wallets and cash it the next day and others might not internally cash it for 20 years! I read something recently about housing projects in china, particularly in the poorer, over populated farming areas, where they're teaching people to build straw bale housing, and training as many people as possible because it builds communities, in a human sense rather than geographically, and places emphasis on neighbourly values , teaching and learning. I thought about this during the discussion’….

…’the experience affected me deeply. I felt so light and open after and though certain things happened to me after (like my car breaking down) I had a feeling like everything that was happening was perfect and so myresponses were calm and reasonable. I have felt this in me since also, which is amazing, it was almost like the experience unlocked part of my perception, I think we talked about growing our perception organ, I have felt this before after walking for hours or camping outside, however, the pulls and indulgences of our modern society had defiantly played it's part. So I wanted to say thank you again. I have been at a conference by the IPCC on climate change this week.
It is all the leading scientists putting forward the latest ideas about climate change. There seems to be overwhelming evidence, what is screaming out in my head is 'why do we need thousands of scientists all over the world proving to us that we need to care about our environment’ and I wonder whether part of this problem is because we have stopped using our perception organ and whether that is part of the answer to combat the problems we are facing’...