Many of us have heard arguments from those who believe that the planet is not warming much, or that we don't have much influence over the warming even if it is happening (while even the Bush Administration has recently admitted that global warming and climate change are serious, human-induced phenomena).
Courtesy of Peter Sinclair, an expert presenter of the Al Gore slide show as well as his carefully gathered information relating to climate change deniers, above are two links full of information that may come in handy when your uncle (or niece) wants to fight with you over environment science. These contain sometime detailed, challenging reading, but then, that is the point of this blog entry in PlanetThoughts.org.
Please let me know if the above multiple articles-within-articles inspire some new insights for you.
Best wishes to all of you trying to decipher the truth of our path as a planet. May the truth prevail.
Comment by: PT (David Alexander) (Aug-26-2008) Web site
Hello again, auntiegrav. I do not follow all your points - it sounds like the main idea you are suggesting is to live in a local-based way, at least when we can. Are you also saying something about the difficulty our species has basing actions on invisible results?
Comment by: auntiegrav (auntiegrav) (Aug-26-2008)
I've been having a conversation with a friend who has a form of palsy called 'intentional tremors'. His views are colored by the limits that nature has placed upon his goals. He cannot choose to directly act on his wants. Humans in general need to learn more about what we can and cannot do intentionally in nature. Our logical reactions and plans are based on controlling our environment, but we only have influence locally, and our global influence is not something we have the ability to change intentionally. We need to find our natural flow and see what nature will allow us to do in her randomness. This sounds new-agey, I know, but it is the part about intentions and results that we need to get a grip on. We may prove to ourselves that we have changed the climate, but we cannot predict the results, and therefore, cannot take any direct action which we can take credit for. Living as though we are going to 'profit' somehow is the root of the problem to begin with. We need to learn to live well, within our locale and it's limitations, contributing something above what we consume. Nature will either allow us or end us after that. We have been conditioned to accept leadership from 'On High', but our basic lives are always local. Would we have cars if we had to build them ourselves? Some of us might, but they would be made from local materials. All of our systems are designed to consume more than they provide in order to 'profit' from our desires beyond the local. Would we have all of our electric conveniences if the power source dumped its exhaust into our bedroom? Sure, it would be much smaller, but not THAT small.
My lifelong pursuit, since age 18, has been to live more fully and find wisdom. This has involved studies with Zen masters, Tai Chi masters, and great psychotherapists while achieving my license as a gestalt therapist and psychoanalyst.
Along the way, I became aware of how the planet is under great stress due to the driven nature of human activity on this planet.
I believe that the advancement of human well-being will reduce societies addictive behaviors, and will thus also help preserve the environment and perhaps slow down the effects of global warming and other major threats to the health of human societies.
Fossil Fuel
PT
Many of us have heard arguments from those who believe that the planet is not warming much, or that we don't have much influence over the warming even if it is happening (while even the Bush Administration has recently admitted that global warming and climate change are serious, human-induced phenomena).
