Episode Details

The Gravity Well podcast delves into complex ideas, making them accessible to all. In this episode, you hear Jenny and Alex dive into round two of their discussions, focusing on key players and relationships in Alberta, particularly in the context of environmental preservation and community engagement. They reflect on a recent meeting with the Big Hill Creek Preservation Society, highlighting the challenges of gravel pit extraction and the lack of regulatory hearings. The conversation then shifts to guest Mark McCormick, who introduces his Ever Living Meetings, a platform for deep, philosophical discussions aimed at resolving societal contradictions through speculative thought. Mark emphasizes the importance of coherence in beliefs and the need for a universal logic to address global crises. The episode explores the intersections of science, religion, and art, and the necessity of conflict acceptance for meaningful dialogue and collaboration.

Welcome and Recap

Alex:

Welcome to The Gravity Well, where we break down heavy ideas into small buckets anyone can handle. In the spirit of Reconcili-action, we seek the wisdom of elders, individuals, and communities that share their knowledge to care for our water, air, land, life and resource needs. A healthy relationship with our homeland and each other is our guide.

Jenny:

Amazing. We have a document pinned at the top of this discussion outlining the beginning of round two. We are here starting round two of the Gravity Well Conversations. Today we are joined by Mark McCormick and I’ll do a good job of introducing you in a minute, Mark. But quickly, I’m just going to go over what we discussed last week. In this round of the conversations, we’re talking about who’s who in the zoo. We want to talk about who are the players that matter in our home in Alberta, the key relationships, what are the goals that each of us has. What are the gaps in our understanding of the goals and what are some alternatives to what we’re trying to do? Last week we met with actually a specific group, the Big Hill Creek Preservation Society concerning some gravel pit extraction that is happening despite much pushback from the neighbours and the preservation society itself in that area.

And it’s a really good example of the powers in play and the decision-making that’s happening in real life. They discussed the regulators not providing hearings necessarily for people to be heard. If there isn’t a hearing, then there isn’t a court case and there isn’t an opportunity for stakeholders to express their concerns. The model that we have is this rock bridge model, and, of course, it’s a 3D model as well, but on one side of it, we’ve put the government and regulator on the other side of it. We’ve put stakeholders and the laws of the land. And we’re also trying to look at, like I said, the relationships and the structure around it. Where we started, we learned a bit last week about who are the players? Stakeholders, government regulators and institutions. And hopefully, we can get some more ideas from Mark on this as well if we have time in this conversation.

And then those relationships, again, are they aligned or are they opposed? And how do we try to find some overarching goals that are shared between us and understand the competing objectives that we’re trying to satisfy in meeting those goals? And then we did talk a lot afterwards with the Polluter Pay Federation about expanding on these key relationships. We were talking about how beliefs come into play. We spoke a lot about religion and how it is playing out in places that are deeply impacted by decisions that are being made in the province, meaning that religion plays a big role in Alberta and that our belief system is being challenged by the changes that we’re seeing. And that is key to understanding in making sure that we can come together in conversation with people, the alternatives while we’re tryi