Scarcity, Energy, Climate Solutions, and a New Civilisation

Andrew Nikiforuk of The Tyee, writes, “So, if our current civilization is to survive in any shape or form it needs to fundamentally rethink all energy spending, from how we harness it to what we use it for. As Michaux concludes in his number-crunching report, “replacing the existing fossil fuel powered system (oil, gas and coal), using renewable technologies, such as solar panels or wind turbines, will not be possible for the entire global human population. There is simply just not enough time, nor resources to do this by the current target set by the world’s most influential nations. What may be required, therefore, is a significant reduction of societal demand for all resources, of all kinds.”

Erin Remblance responds, “How we make that transition to lowered demand should be the most prominent discussion in our media, classrooms and households. Why is it nearly invisible?”

She goes on to note, “Years ago the great psychologist Bruno Bettelheim wrote a book about what happens to people in dehumanizing environments. Having survived two Nazi concentration camps, Bettelheim knew the subject well. Near the end of The Informed Heart, he offered this prescient observation. Jews who accepted the status quo and believed in business as usual perished. Those who did not believe in business as usual left before the Germans arrived, sailed to Russia or America or joined the resistance. Many survived. “Thus in the deepest sense the walk to the gas chamber was only the last consequence of a philosophy of business as usual,” wrote Bettelheim. It was “a last step in no longer defying the death instinct, which might also be called the principle of inertia.”

Now a widespread inertia prevents us from seizing control of our fate. We must do all we can to overcome that torpor. The implications are plain. Those communities that reject business as usual and cut their energy spending and all the materialist values that go with it, just might survive the long emergency and write a different ending to this story.

I have two responses to Erin’s points. They are my elaboration on the two key notions in her comments: Business as usual, and scarcity of energy.

I open talking about business as usual because seeing this clearly is the foundation of any transformation of civilisation, and technological and energy paradigm shift is pivotal in sweeping civilisation transformation along. (See particularly the copious and optimistic works of Jeremy Rifkin). What some have called ‘spiritual malaise’ and others “tranquilised obviousness”, business rarely is as usual, and if, like the history of European Jews, you punish a group regularly in small to harsh ways, I reckon they might just think the next bit of noise is just more of the same.

It does take quite a bit of training to be able to get up in the morning and take a fresh look at what’s happening, and that requires even putting yesterday in the past. It also requires being fully cognizant of our biases and mindsets. Anyone who says they don’t have any are doomed to play them out. What then do we hold to that gives us some predictive viability? First is cultivating an independence of thought, a detachment from the tribe whether professional, national, sub-cultural, or party as usual. And that is not antipathy, even the opposite, what others have called “indifferent love”. This stance supports an ability to: follow the evidence from several fields of science; hold doubt without discarding anything until resolved in evidence; and reviewing fully any arguments against. This ability for independent thought supports the interdependence of all independent thinkers for it is only in the recognition of true independent inquiry (search for truth) that a collective of thinkers can divine a greater magic.

This situation we find ourselves is a call to be so much more than we have ever been, so much more than we wound up being, individually and collectively. We will either rise to the call or we will fall. And whatever happens will be what happens. As the WWII holocaust found traction, Lydia Zamenhoff chose to go back to Poland from the USA in the face of immanent danger, she chose to support the last moments of her community and die with them. We don’t know how many hands she held but we do know she died with them. Those of us in the frontline of transforming this civilisation may well find ourselves in a future of ‘holding hands’. We must accept that this is one possible future.

In terms of policy, economics, and human behaviour, the basic economic reality of scarcity does work. Many people living in rural Australia grew up looking after water usage. If you have to make a meagre annual rainfall and a watertank last a year, you have watch usage like a hawk. On the other hand, if old people can’t afford heating in winter, they could die. Well, that’s a time honoured tradition. Australia has ineptly allowed gas companies to sell much of its gas, internationally, leading to scarcity and high prices for energy as we enter winter. I’m expecting an unusual winter death rate among the elderly this year. Feeding into an inflationary boom, those on more basic incomes can be expected to suffer housing dislocation. This in, perhaps, the wealthiest per capita nation on the planet.

Meanwhile the environmental impact of windfarms is already been felt and the next phase of renewable energy farms will not be given such an easy ride. The real difficulty is that we aren’t learning fast enough because, here in Australia, for the last 20 years 80% of our intellectual energy has been spent on arguing climate change denialism with our government. In the end, the example of the holocaust goes to one characteristic of modern politics so far – we are often very slow to the table. Timing being the essence, and we can’t escape the clear timing the IPCC have provided, we will damage our way out of this catastrophe. The question is, which is the lesser poison or the better trade off? Presumably the one that improves the chances of the ecosystem and human civilisation. There’s not much chop in voting for the view that 1 or 2 or 3 billion people can just suffer and die. There’s not much chop in loosing much more of the world’s ecosystems and species than we already have, because that will inevitably lead to the billions of people suffering and dying. The inextricableness of human development and a narrow range of climate and a particular variety of ecosystems, is conclusive. I support the work of the Foundation for Climate Restoration, the third and often overlooked leg of climate solutions. The scalability of technologies of removing CO2 from the atmosphere over the next decade is likely to have less impact and perhaps even a very positive total impact on ecosystems, than any other climate change solution, namely renewable energy development and population adaptation. To solve this crisis, to transform global civilisation so the next phase of human development is of a higher order of workability for people and ecosystems, we’ve got to work urgently together on all fronts, even if it means government ordered rationing.

The UK in WWII proved that a people faced by a single existential threat can adhere to austere rationing policies for several years. Even in the 1930’s the mathematical and nutritional knowledge was ample so that there were no cases on malnutrition in the UK during WWII. Today, we certainly have the capacity to design sophisticated systems for the allocation of energy, the development of renewables, the weaning from fossil fuels, and the equitable establishment of systems worldwide, together with an food security systems. What is still required is for nationalistic governments to get to the table put aside their extreme patriotisms for the future of humanity and the planetary ecosystems that support us.

We have a political choice: the easy choice or the hard choice. The easy choice is for all national governments to come to the table with good will to design global systems that will create both equity in resource access and as rapid a transition from fossil fuel energy as possible. The hard choice is to continue to bicker and terrorize each other.

Either choice will lead to the new civilisation, will lead to the transition off fossil fuels and to equitable distributions of resources. Even if making the hard choice, once a billion people have died and billions of others have suffered through the defensive and aggressive attitudes of extreme patriots, the billions of people of good will remaining,will see those extremists off. Such has been the way of history to date. Will this be the moment we will be able to put our past in the past and take the easy way, or will we insist that the past dictates our actions and only massive numbers of deaths will convince us that another model of governance and social organization is viable.?

COVID lessons: Nothing we did will deal with Climate Change.

It is increasingly clear to me that it is not our conspiracy that hurts us, but that when we are smart at something we are equally, if not more, stupid. And by stupid I mean that we have a very blinkered selfish view of life that prevents our considering the impact of our demands on each other, and our descendants. We can consider these few examples that have been defined by this last 18 months of worldwide COVID pandemic and the socio-political problems that have sharpened against that force of corporate scientific ineptitude (COVID 19). Firstly, medicine is one of our smartest tools, but societies are a system that cannot be solved by pathologising it and using medical science alone. Secondly, the smarts that gave us the nation and a partisan political democratic model and made a deal with corporate capitalism, has also disenfranchised societies and communities across the world from a role in governance and an opportunity to develop a capacity for community consultative processes. Thirdly, the smarts that gave us fossil fuels and the enormous amount of energy to kickstart the possibility of a new global civilisation, has also been supporting the corporate control of democracies and non-democratic nations alike, while killing hundreds thousands people each year, globally, for 200 years. This latter, as the key driver in climate change, will make refugees out of 1 billion people in 30 years.

Our future determines whether we can grow into wisdom, and, in case you hadn’t noticed your exam has started and you have 10 years to pass it. The COVID pandemic has been a huge learning curve for all nations . However most of how nations responded, even when successful in slowing COVID spread, point to our weaknesses in solving global complex problems. There are few things that we have applied to COVID that we will be able to apply to the destructive forces of climate change. It is unlikely that ‘lockdowns’ and ‘distancing’ will operate as effectively when dislocations of populations move en mass to new locations. We have not in the least worked out how to plan as communities let alone communities that are under stress of large new populations. People align and try to be right rather than listen and consult. That won’t work over the next 10 years. The development of wisdom among the people as a whole warrants an enormous transformation in the time period. Partisan politics is our weak point as political animals leverage for power regardless of the fallout for people and communities. Authoritarian mandates such as public health legislations policed by armed forces type tools and methods are an anti-social sledge hammer which in future scenarios may aggravate rather than domesticate the chaos that is looming.

We are unlikely to be able to deal with the human fallout of climate change with equinimity, without coming to terms with death. There is a desire by health professionals around the world to stop death whenever they can. They have a deep empathy for the grief that comes when families loose a loved one. They believe that grief and the impact it has on them is something to be done away with. They believe loss itself is something deplorable. Politicians for power reasons also desire to be rid of death, and support the medicalisation of legislation when it suits their prospects at the ballot box, and don’t support such medicalisation when it doesn’t. Yet, whether authentic or not, the selfishness behind this motivation to deny death has had its largest political impact in the western democracies during COVID, because it is the largest voting population, the ‘baby boomer’ voter who fears death most. That older group of people, faced so strongly their own mortality, clamour for the support of the nation, not to die, while they are also happy to support Australian youth being killed in war, and even more so, to cast any refugee to our shores, even children, in permanent imprisonment and torture.

The cowardice of the ‘baby boomers’ at large, to put their own lives on line for the stability and future of the nation is further enacted at the ballot box, as they vote for politicians to continue supporting their embellished lifestyles by ignoring climate change. Even though this will likely kill more children globally each year from here in, than the total of the COVID pandemic deaths, the baby boomers offer the historical murmur of ‘not my problem’, and, when they are passed, what recourse does that generation of loss, have?. For more elaboration what we are faced go to this summary of the scientific predictions of a global temperature rise of 1.5 and 2 degrees celsius.

So to you who are afraid of your own death, and clamour that you only want to save people dying earlier than they need, prove it. If you are a coal or oil or gas mine worker, vote for climate solutions, a new type of job, and an education for your children. If you are a capitalist, vote for climate solutions and move your investments there. If you are a farmer, you already have access to the best climate and soils and production science – just start doing it. If you are an office worker, vote for sustainable systems because in 10 years your current job is most likely to fail along with the economic failure following the collapse of agriculture, food security, etc etc. If you are a politician, put everything on the line for our grandchildren. I’ll only vote for a person who can lead me to putting everything on the line for a flourishing future, passed my time, for my grandchildren.

Image Courtesy of Adrienne Surprenant/NRC

Why be generous towards rule breakers

where governments have been clear what those rules are and why, around the COVID 19 pandemic?

The short answer to this question is that open, free society requires it.

The long answer is a whole lot trickier for most people to get, especially those of us who tend to be obedient.

The problem lies in our primal nature in regards to authority.

Most people are obedient to authority and always have been across a million years.

Simultaneously, people have always exploit loopholes and bent the rules. And creative and imaginative people are better at it than others.

To understand these characteristics we must understand the evolutionary success of human clans and the advancement of human civilisation over the past 10,000 years.
The evolutionary success of human clans are based on primate hierarchical and social support behaviour. This behaviour hinges on an alpha male, a female harem, and progeny. The human alpha male is to a large extent what we now call psychopathic. Their (our) success, as against other primates that haven’t socially changed for millions of years, developed around the opening up of clan society to sycophant males who were allowed female relationships as reward for that submissive support. Their female harem also had a hierarchy. Kinship and successorship to the alpha (chief, king) developed according to the male children of the female hierarchy, although subordinated by the most psychopathic natures in the system.

The political tensions within clans were terrible, with death waiting around every corner, harnessing two types of proclivity: intelligent rebellion for domination; and shame provoked submissiveness. Intelligent rebellion for domination not only lead to successorship of the chief or king but also to the development of hierarchies of sycophancy. In other words, a way to dominate is not to hold the throne but to hold the highest positions in the hierarchy serving the throne. Shame-provoked submissiveness created a safety ‘red-flag’ in all social circumstances from the earliest ages. Children with shame would survive by immediate submissive responses in the face of any authority: parental, older sibling. This is very important in a social environment in which death by an irritated chief was immanent and uncurbed, even for a child.

If we see that the degree of intelligent rebellion and shame wove (and weaves) a composite individual nature, then we can see how political hierarchies eventually developed, as powerful sycophants worked to increase the territories and subjection for their chief. We can also see, as a parallel process, the development of religious hierarchies both as alternative ways to dominate the society and the chief himself. I caution, here, to let go of any impression this is giving that these are simple transactional behaviours. From the earliest human times, dealing with the issues of death and our awareness of our relationship with others and other species, and our killing them for food and resources, has been an existential challenge that required a intelligently deft vision, a meta-story to comfort our burgeoning moral consciousness in the face of requirement for survival. Spiritual and religious visionaries command a space that submits to the right of kingship, while offering comfort to all subjects of their ‘rightness’ in subordinate life and death.

Spiritual and religious visionaries also set up their own hierarchies. Within those hierarchies, additional allowance was made for the freedom for a certain type of intelligence to become immersed in the metaphysical landscape through practices of the mind, language and reflection. As societies advanced, artisans (product makers) became artists. Some artists and religious visionaries shared the proclivities to divine the metaphysical and theological.

A particular form of intelligent rebellion was able to be fostered in larger societies. This took place in the form of a youthfulness that no longer needed deep shame to survive, and an artfulness, a creativity, to formulate new social constructs and ways to promote them. The promotion of new social constructs that mostly challenged the authority of the king, while developing a following in times of general social tribulation, tended to be visited by programs by the political and religious leadership. It is worthwhile pondering the ebb and flow of these tides, as, finally, every civilisation that enters a certain internal tribulation, falters, collapses, and then finds that once youthful vision rise in the populace with a more loos, open (not entirely new) social construct.

Fast-forward to the modern society. Dr Barth Hoogstraten who was a medical student in the Dutch resistance in WWII wrote in the foreword to his 2008 book, “Resistance Fighters: The Immense Struggle of Holland”, that throughout history, students and artists have been in the forefront of struggles against tyranny. In Nazi-occupied Holland, 1,671 Dutch men and women paid the ultimate price for their heroism. Hardship, terrifying suspense, and sacrifice that characterized their life were interspersed with the moments of humor, simple beauty, and love that persevered even in the darkest of days.

In their research on the behaviour of french resistance fighters of WWII, Andre and Alex L. Juliard noted that they found a new insight into the nature of human motivation and into our own psychological makeup may sometimes result from the observation of individuals living in unusual conditions such as people who joined the French “resistance” during World War Il. They had been participants with other young and middle-aged persons who belonged to a “maquis”’ in Southeast France. Their observations induced them to discern in human beings a larger variety of innate aptitudes, or inclinations, than those currently recognized in normal daily existence. Some of these overlooked inclinations, nevertheless, play an important part in the behavior of dedicated people.

And what of the masses of people who committed the atrocious acts of WWII, Stalin’s rule over the USSR, Pol Pot’s revolution in Cambodia, etc? “We may be genuinely puzzled as to how people could obey commands that seem both bloodthirsty and stupid. Puzzlement can vanish when we realize that in the eyes of their perpetrators the hideous crimes of history are not hideous crimes at all, but acts of loyalty, patriotism and duty. From the vantage point of the present we can see them as hideous crimes, but ordinarily from that same vantage point we cannot see the crimes of our own governments as hideous or even as crimes.” (Don Mixon, Obedience and Civilization)

Rebellious domination and religious vision has slowly and surely brought us to a place in the development of human society, when we no longer need a chief or a king. Yet we stand at a cross-road, and ebb in the tide of a kingless society. To a large extent, in times of difficulty, our behavioural responses are not so different from 10,000 or 100,000 years ago. Mostly we are looking for who to be submissive toward, who to be supportive of, who will give us security in return, even if with a sense of dread around each corner. And in turbulent times, alpha males will tend to come to the fore to provide that direction through their political hierarchies. Yet there are those, mostly young, mostly creative, mostly intelligent, who will take all kinds of risks in rebellion against the domination of authority and their sycophants. Theirs is not to have a far-reaching knowledge of all things worldly. That is for other, older heads. Theirs is to be the ‘resistance’ to the tendency for most of us to find a haven under an authoritarian rule.

“Man has continued to evolve by acts of disobedience. Not only was his spiritual development possible only because there were men who dared to say no to the powers that be in the name of their conscience or their faith, but also his intellectual development was dependent on the capacity for being disobedient, disobedient to authorities who tried to muzzle new thoughts and to the authority of long-established opinions which declared a change to be nonsense.” (Erich Fromm, On Disobedience and Other Essays)

A society is neither for the young or the old, the rich or the poor, the dominant or the non-dominant. It is for all of us, and, therefore, all of these. At this point in time, the advancement of civilisation requires that there are a number of primary agreements in place that support the strengthening of the collaborative and cooperative sovereignty. Under this form of sovereignty, the mass of us who are given to obedience, will avail ourselves of the servitude to the collaborative and the cooperative project. The psychopaths will become the true rebels, tending to strive to be dominant over everyone else in their sphere of influence, yet being held in check by their own drive towards self-interest that is held in the collaborative space. The youth, artists, activists, visionaries, disenfranchised, and children will enjoy the rewards of being in collaboration. The agreements include: we all hold equitable ownership of the land of our citizenship; we all hold equity in participation and servitude to the community; policing is in community servitude – violence physical force or coercion is forbidden except where an immanent threat to another is evident, and then only to mitigate that threat. While policing is sycophant to an authoritarian domination, while police officers are trained to hurt the common politic and those who rebel against that domination, so the rebellion will continue and broaden. It is not to say, the turbulent times are not the time for rebellion. The turbulent times are exactly the point when gains in equity and participation in the democratic advancement are being handed over by the submissive to the authoritarians. Turbulent times are exactly the the times of sacrifice for the next phase of freedom, peace, and the advancement of human society.

We, who would have this society, must stand for the agreement forbidding police force on peaceful citizens, regardless of the rules they have broken. We will then prevent police for using force on citizens of whom there may be a suspicion of but, in reality, haven’t broken rules. Police forces will be primarily negotiators of community upset, on rare occasions to prevent immanent violence against another, effecting physical intervention. On all but this very rare event, having accessible and cordial relation with community wherever they go.
We, who would have this society, must be generous in our attitude about youthful, creative, rebellion against authority. We must avoid our tendency to effect shame and submission, the bringing into line under authority just so we can have a sense of security as being a little higher on the hierarchy. We must recognise that in our own need for the advancement of civilisation lies a need for those who are devoted to working around authority and even sacrificing themselves against the true nature of authoritarianism.

When policing stops working for community.

Punishment Doesn’t Work

On 8th March 2018, the Australian national broadcaster (ABC) ran this story of a father punishing his son for bullying by making him run to school. I am actually appreciative that this dad took a video of him driving behind the child and posting it, so that we can learn from it.
It and the supportive responses for it, does show the failure of most of society to understand the idea of consequence. This failure is not only why our child raising has created bullies and addicts but why prisons are overflowing with recidivists. Below is my take on it.

In the ABC article, bully experts like Dr Hannah Thomas, a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Queensland, said “punitive strategies like making the boy run were an attempt to teach the child to be accountable for their actions, but they didn’t always work.”They use shame, humiliation and guilt to try to motivate change in future behaviour,” she said.”This generally never changes behaviour in the long-term. It gives the child very limited opportunity to learn and acquire new skills — i.e. ways to interact in more positive and social ways with their peers.”Dr Thomas said these kinds of strategies can also have flow-on effects.”Children who are humiliated or shamed can internalise negative feelings about themselves that hinder their healthy development,” she said.”Children misbehave as they learn and develop. They need parents to be supportive when they make mistakes and to take a practical role in teaching their children how to behave more respectfully.”
What I see is that it gets down to consequences. There are two things to know about consequences: Punishment is not a consequence of someone’s action; and all actions come with unintended consequences.
Punishment is an indirect consequence of an action, and in many cases, that ‘indirectness’ is confounded by a complexity of agendas and motivations, often to the extent that it is of no consequence at all. If anything, punishment is often a pathway to a whole complexity of unintended consequences, the least of which is that the punished get that they are responsible for other’s distress and that they can be a different type of person in the world.
In this case there was a direct consequence to the boy’s bullying, he was put off the bus. The boy would have understood the relationship.
A consequence of the complaint to the parent was that the parent went into bullying mode. It seems Dad doesn’t have a conversational relationship with his son, probably an authoritarian one. His son is learning that authoritarian method, the being a three year old for the whole of your life, that is, of course, it is signified by bullying anyone as a control mechanism, a fabulous way to teach the next generation how to be a bully.
The consequence of the bullying mode by this parent is the boy being forced to run to school.
I have no problem the boy running to school. Great thing!
However, attached to that running to school is a punishment, is a bad idea!
This is where we have to get better at thinking through about unintended consequences. If we have learnt anything by listening to each other about why we find ourselves poorly motivated around some things as adults, it gets back to the unintended consequences of, sometimes, the most trivial thing a parent has done that has been completely misunderstood by the child. The consequence of establishing for your 10 year old son that running is what you do for punishment, when you do something wrong, can be that, later on in life, you run a lot and you do nothing wrong (even though you are really an A-1 tyrant), OR you do nothing wrong (you’re a nice guy) and you don’t run (you are fat, have a chronic disease by your 40s). Ultimately this boy is on a path to being either a bully for life or a failure to take-off.

The real issue though is of parenting. Parents who are in conversation with children from the time they are in the womb, parents who are self reflective in that conversation and can acknowledge with children where they messed up as well as taking a firm and clear stand with their children, parents who are up to something bigger than themselves and their family, in life, have children who aren’t bullies and grow up to be contributors to society.

How to prevent violence against women

Domestic violence in Australia is on the rise. Women’s rights advocates are calling for a cultural shift away from the acceptance of domestic violence. Because, believe it or not: According to some surveys, one in five young men believed it was a right to hit a woman if they were drunk.

Support services for family and domestic violence:

• 1800 Respect national helpline 1800 737 732
• Women’s Crisis Line 1800 811 811
• Men’s Referral Service 1300 766 491
• Lifeline (24 hour crisis line) 131 114
• Relationships Australia 1300 364 277

Fiona McCormack, the CEO of Domestic Violence Victoria says we need to frame the deepening crisis in terms of power and justice.

The national average is a woman murdered every week by someone known to them.

All forms of violence against women are caused by the same factors, whether it occurs on the street or in the home and whether it’s perpetrated by a stranger or someone known.

• One in three Australian women will experience physical violence.
• Family violence is a key driver of 23 per cent of national homelessness in Australia.
• It comprises 40 per cent of police time.
• It’s a factor in over 50 per cent of substantiated child protection cases.
• Violence against women costs the Australian economy $13.6 billion every year.

The common denominator in most of these cases is gender.

This is something deeply cultural—a part of our history deeply ingrained in our collective psyche. It’s like we’re fish but we don’t see the water.

International research shows that violence against women occurs in countries across the world to a greater or lesser extent depending upon some key factors:

• Rigid adherence to gender stereotypes
• The status of women compared to men
• Our violence-supportive attitudes

Academically gender refers to social norms, the social expectations about the roles and rights of men and women in our society. Our expectations about men and women stem from a long cultural history and are essentially sexist.

Men who choose to use violence have hyper-masculine attitudes about their rights as men and the role and rights of women. They believe they have a right as men to behave this way and that it’s women who are to blame. Importantly, they see their partners and children as their possessions. That’s why we see so many women and children murdered as payback when women try to end a relationship.

A cultural aspect of how we define masculinity is that it is seen by many as something that has to be proved over and over. Men with hyper-masculine attitudes see it as critical that their masculinity isn’t doubted or challenged, which is why these attitudes are so problematic in the context of family violence. This is particularly so when women try to end a relationship and are made to pay. We would assess that about 50 per cent of the family violence the system deals with is post-separation violence, and it can go on for years.

This (the solution) isn’t about men being less than men. It’s about reshaping expectations of what it is to be a man, about shedding concepts of masculinity that have such a negative impact on us as a society, particularly when ‘being a bloke’ involves derogatory attitudes towards women. I think that can be another way in which masculinity can be reasserted or affirmed by some men—by engaging in disrespectful comments about or behaviours toward women when they are together. With the development of healthier interpretations of masculinity we’d see a range of benefits in terms of reducing street violence, rates of violence against young men and bullying.

There are many women who experience far higher rates of violence, and more extensive violence, than others: women with disabilities, Aboriginal women and women newly arrived to Australia. There’s a common myth that certain women seek out abusers as partners when the reality is that there are men who recognise there are few options for redress for certain women and take advantage of that fact.

So what would it take to deliver a just society?

At an individual level:

1. We need zero tolerance of violence against women.

2. We must understand violence against women as a choice.

This is not a sudden loss of temper or control. Many times it doesn’t even involve physical abuse. It’s usually experienced by women as a range of behaviours meant to intimidate and control. It’s a deliberate choice.

3. We must understand these are everyday men.

So many women don’t recognise they’re in an abusive relationship until it’s reached crisis, especially if they’re not experiencing physical violence.

If we’re going to prevent murders, really it’s critical we start saying: ‘No matter how disaffected a man feels, no matter how hard done by the system he is, it’s never okay to harm or take the life of your partner or your child.’

4. We need to challenge sexist or derogatory attitudes towards women.

Sometimes people can think they have to wait until they see a violent altercation before they can do something, but the reality is men particularly can play a major role in challenging the conditions that allow violence against women to flourish by challenging derogatory comments, sexist jokes, et cetera.

If we’re going to start preventing men from being violent in the first place, we need to challenge sexist attitudes and behaviours.

Violence is the ultimate expression of sexism

At a societal level:

We need to be intervening earlier. Providing women with information on the early warning signs is crucial because it also provides us with information on the patterns of control.

Some of those warning signs are:

• Is he resistant to you living an independent life?
• Is he resistant to you having your own bank account?
• Is he resistant to you socialising with friends independently?
• Is he overtly jealous? Does he monitor where you are and what you do?
• Is he respectful to you? He may be in the early stages but is he respectful to other women? Ex-girlfriends?