Unsinkable ships
By Bronwyn Wolfgang
On one of the last warm summer evenings here in Maine, our family went to see an outdoor film festival. Summer seemed to be fading quickly and we wanted to get some ideas about what to do outside through the colder months. We set up our camp chairs in the outdoor amphitheater and opened our thermos of cocoa, ready for an evening of entertainment and inspiration.
The festival included funny and thought-provoking independent films about adventures. They were all good films, but there was one my thoughts kept circling back to:
“Unsinkable Ships”. It’s an animated film that explores the ideas of Buckminster Fuller through the voices and stories of Maine Islanders. The film begins with the narrator writing a letter to Guinea Pig B (Buckminster Fuller), “I am writing to you from a spaceship. I am pleased to report to you that your work has sent me on an exploration. Here are my findings…” As film progresses, the voices of the Islanders are heard. They talk about what is it like to be part of an isolated community, how the community comes together during times of need and how those moments provide a glimpse into how beautiful humanity can be. The Islanders describe a sturdiness in the relationships between people that seems to transcend superficial disagreements. Being on an island, they are reliant on one another to get through the difficult times that the storms of the North Atlantic or life in general throw at them. They equate living on an island to living on a ship, “If you’re on a ship with someone, you need to be able to count on people.”
I loved hearing the stories and I was intrigued by Buckminster Fuller. Not only did he have an outlandish name, but I wanted to know more about the person who had inspired this whimsical film I couldn’t stop thinking about for some reason.
I looked him up and found out that he was quite a character. He spent his early adulthood between elite education (he was kicked out of Harvard Collage twice) and manual labor jobs (working both as a mechanic in a textile mill and in a meat-packing plant). Following the death of his daughter at age four, Buckminster Fuller had an epiphany that set him on a course to become an important figure in the areas of architecture, systems theory, and futurism. He popularized the geodesic dome and was awarded over 28 US patents and many honors including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That was all very impressive but I wanted to know more about the ideas behind the film. What were unsinkable ships, I wanted to know.
I dug deeper and found a reference to unsinkable ships his work “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth”, which was first published in 1969. His book treats the Earth as a spaceship with limited resources. The work centers around creating and understanding of the limited resources Earth has and inspiring people to better preserve these resources and thereby the sustainment of Earth. In the book, The unsinkable ships Fuller refers to are the British Isles lying off the coast of Europe. These images — spacecraft, island — help us think about the Earth and its resources with a more realistic lens. Looking at it this way, the Earth is an island; an unsinkable ship in the vast sea of the Milky Way.
One of the things the pandemic did was remind us of just how small an island earth is, and what life feels like when we’re confined to an island-sized portion of it. Our family certainly felt like it was part of an island community during the height of the pandemic. We were in Melbourne, Australia at the time. Our city was under lockdown for over 200 days. This meant we couldn’t venture further than three miles from our homes unless we were seeking medical care, caring for someone or visiting a doctor. This kept things pretty local. Our community drew closer in part to complain, of course, but there was also a sense of coming together as a community during a difficult time. As borders were closed, airplanes grounded and global supply chains disrupted, we all began to realize that we were more attached to and dependent on our local environment than we believed before the pandemic.
As we slowly emerge from the pandemic, I hope we can hold onto the feeling of being on the island we found ourselves on during lockdowns. It is a good reminder that we are reliant on each other and our limited resources. A popular environmental slogan says, “There is no planet B”. It’s true. We are on an island, an unsinkable ship, hurtling through space on our own. Just like the islanders in Maine, we need to be able to count on each other to take care of one another. We need to take care not to sink the small ship we share.
If you’re curious about what to do next to take care of your community and planet, here are some resources to start with:
Locally:
Find out what your town or region is doing to take care of your community and the planet. Pick a cause you feel strongly about and get behind it with the resources and skills you have.
Globally:
Become a part of a leadership movement that focuses on care for people, care for planet and fair share.
https://www.permaleadership.com/
https://www.bio-leadership.org/
