Friction creates heat.

Heat=Climate change. Here’s the latest in the state of affairs.

After my last post which was somewhat hopeful about climate change, the news has been less so, with a lot of equivocating. Not all is lost, yet, but certainly the big commitments that are needed from governments and businesses aren’t materializing.

The New York Times reported on Oct 20 that, “With the clock running out and deep differences unresolved, it now appears that there is little chance that international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December will produce a comprehensive and binding new treaty on global warming.”

There’s a sense of overwhelm because as usual we started too late in taking measures to mitigate climate change. Vested interests want to only do the minimum, which is how we got here in the first place. According to NPR, “President Barack Obama’s visit to China next month is not likely to yield a separate accord on countering global warming…”

There’s quite a bit of talk about investing in clean energy, its technology and potential for job creation and revenue. Where this talk leads is up in the air. Bloomberg reported recently that, “Billionaire George Soros, looking to address the “political problem” of climate change, said he will invest $1 billion in clean-energy technology and donate $100 million to an environmental advisory group to aid policymakers.”

Developed and developing nations are squabbling over who must pay for measures to mitigate this threat we’re all facing. The New York Times is posting such headlines as Biggest Obstacle to Global Climate Deal May Be How to Pay for It, and NPR reports EU can’t agree on how much climate aid to give.

Fortunately, this isn’t the only news in climate change. Blog Action Day which took place on Oct 15 generated 31,000 trackable blog posts in 155 countries. The Reiki Help Blog was one of 13,000 participating blogs, and news of the event even made CNN.

There’s also similar people-based action on climate change featured below. Why is this important?

Two reasons:

1) There has to be a groundswell of citizen voices, demands and actions, for leaders aren’t stepping up.

2) Behavior, psychology and the mindset can only be changed by massive commitments to mitigating this monster.

A disturbing story on NPR had this to say: “…a new poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press shows a big jump in the number of people who doubt the reality, the cause and the risks of global warming. Last year, for example, 71 percent of those polled believed the Earth was getting warmer, regardless of the cause. This year, 57 percent believe that – still a sizable majority but a 14 percent drop over the course of one year.”

This, despite a recent study linking climate change to worsening of diseases.

Adam Corner has an insightful reason why this is so. In an astute piece he writes, “But until now, a key piece has been missing from the puzzle – psychology. The study of human behaviour has been conspicuous by its absence from the climate change debate.”

Apparently even in the good old United Kingdom people “don’t feel personally threatened by climate change because it is vague, abstract and difficult to visualise.”

That’s why an organization I’m recently enamored of, 350.org, is one with which I strongly encourage you to become involved.

350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis–the solutions that science and justice demand. Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet.

Our focus is on the number 350–as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. But 350 is more than a number–it’s a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.

To tackle climate change we need to move quickly, and we need to act in unison—and 2009 will be an absolutely crucial year.  This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions. The problem is, the treaty currently on the table doesn’t meet the severity of the climate crisis—it doesn’t pass the 350 test.

In order to unite the public, media, and our political leaders behind the 350 goal, we’re harnessing the power of the internet to coordinate a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009.  We hope to have actions at hundreds of iconic places around the world – from the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef to your community – and clear message to world leaders: the solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must be grounded in science, and they must meet the scale of the crisis.

If an international grassroots movement holds our leaders accountable to the latest climate science, we can start the global transformation we so desperately need.

Here’s a video of that Oct 24 global event The 350 Movement: October 24, 2009 – The Day the World Came Together (for email subscribers.)

COP15 starts on December 7, 2009. That’s my son’s birthday. He will be eleven.

He has always wanted to be a scientist. Climate change will have to have been long handled by the time he gets to be one, but I know his contributions will be great, wherever they are.

Lately he’s been into mystery novels and told a career person at school he wants to be a PI. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear! Maybe he can out climate-deniers’ real agenda or out dirty energy users (hopefully neither will exist by then).

COP stands for Conference of Parties, and it will be occurring for the 15th time. To put it into context, COP8 took place in Kyoto, Japan in 1992.

COP15 will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. It’s in fact the United Nations Climate Change Conference to renegotiate Kyoto’s replacement, as it expires  in 2012 and has always been too lenient.

Back to my son for a minute. In 2050 he will be 52.

The group [Climate Action Initiative] took the upper-range targets of nearly 200 nations’ climate policies–including U.S. cuts that would reduce domestic emissions 73 percent from 2005 levels by 2050, along with the European Union’s pledge to reduce its emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 — and found that even under that optimistic scenario, the average global temperature is likely to warm by 6.3 degrees. (Washington Post.)

Recently I watched a 60 Minutes piece on the last great migration of large animals, the wildebeest. I don’t know that my son is going to be able to live in a world where he can witness such a natural phenomenon. My first feeling was to put us on plane to Africa to see it for ourselves.

Today, October 15, 2009 is Blog Action Day once again. The Reiki Help Blog is participating for the third year. Previous themes were Poverty and the Environment. This year the focus is Climate Change, a subject that’s very much part of the past content of this blog.

There has never been any really good arguments or evidence disproving global warming which is now already happening and heading toward critical levels.

When the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, the report it issued really silenced all other voices. Well, there are a few still. Leo Hickman of the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper recently reported about a TV ad paid for by an oil industry lobbyist telling Americans “more CO2 results in a greener earth.” Video of ad (for email subscribers).

This kind of unconscionable lobbying is part of the fray, as infuriating and puzzling as it may be. The fact of the matter is, “…recent scientific assessments have outstripped the predictions issued by the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007″ as reported in the Washington Post article linked above.

These figures can be seen on ClimateInteractive.org.

We have yet to appreciably mitigate climate change, but the bogeyman has morphed. What’s different is that it’s now topical in a highlighted, urgent manner, with focused international attention on it. If that will be enough is anyone’s guess. Is it too late to take action? Perhaps. One thing is for sure. We can’t not take action. That would be collective suicide, and we’ll have grossly failed in the substantial stewardship that has been bestowed on us as the most “evolved” species.

In September, secretary general Ban Ki-moon organized the UN climate summit meeting at which Obama spoke clearly and assertively “to make the United States a leader in the global arena on global warming” (New York Times). It’s well worth reading his entire presentation, even just to see how much has happened in the U.S. response to this challenge (finally). There’s movement, much more precise, frequent and targeted movement than before.

Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it – boldly, swiftly and together – we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe. No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change. Rising sea levels threaten every coastline. More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent. More frequent drought and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive. On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees. The security and stability of each nation and all peoples – our prosperity, our health, our safety – are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out. -President Obama, New York, Sept. 22, 2009

And with December’s COP15 summit in Copenhagen occurring around the same time and region as the Dec. 10 Nobel festivities in Oslo, environmentalists have even greater hope: “Now that we know President Obama will be in Scandinavia in December,” says the WWF’s U.S. climate-change director, “expectations are even higher that he will attend the Copenhagen climate summit in person to usher in a fair, ambitious and binding climate agreement.”

Following his speech, Obama also greenlighted the EPA’s “new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial facilities” (New York Times).

September’s New York summit also gave “a strong boost to the negotiations over a major international treaty” (The Guardian). According to The Guardian’s online reporting:

Although the political leaders must devise and implement the right policies to guide national and global emissions trajectories, it is the private sector that will be the main engine in the transition to a low-carbon global economy.

In that respect it was very encouraging that 181 investors, collectively responsible for the management of more than $13 trillion in assets globally, launched a statement in New York last week to support a global agreement on climate change. The Leadership Forum for business leaders, which ran alongside the summit, also highlighted a tremendous variety of innovative ideas from within the private sector for the low-carbon transition.

Also in the private sector, Apple became “the latest company to resign from the United States Chamber of Commerce over climate policy” (New York Times), precisely because the chamber opposes EPA rules above. Encouragingly, three large utilities have also resigned from the chamber — Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources and Exelon.

And one of the most encouraging displays of political will has come from Norway, which “said it may reduce greenhouse- gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, the most ambitious target proposed by a developed nation” according to Bloomberg.

The pledge puts Norway ahead of the 27-nation European Union and Switzerland, which have said they’ll cut emissions by as much as 30 percent by 2020 if a new United Nations treaty to fight global warming is brokered in Copenhagen in December. -Bloomberg

Everything is looking toward Copenhagen in December, which is fraught with considerable challenges. To list all of them would require a scholarly work. Being informed is critical and vital, especially about climate change.

I strongly encourage you to spend concentrated time with the following resources:

1. Keep track of the COP15 treaty at 350.org.
2. Find out who’s representing your country at COP15 and what they think at AdoptANegotiator.org.
3. Petition your representative to support a climate treaty that will reduce carbon emissions at WeCanSolveIt.org.

On the same 60 Minutes broadcast that brought the story of the threatened migration of the wildebeest, another eye-opening story was exposed about coal ash. You probably have never heard of coal ash and may believe electricity is clean. Well, watch the segment.

I physically became depressed after watching those two segments. It was a whole-body sinking. I was depressed for my son, the Earth and humanity.

In matters of such scale we can no longer expect leaders of any stripe to do all the work or even do the right thing. Truth has been concealed, spun and ignored again and again.

We must be personally involved!

In the weeks leading up to December, climate change will be regularly featured on this blog and starting with this post I urge all of you to become engaged in this call to action here with your comments and ideas, in your own lives, and by becoming educated, clicking through to the many resources that will be linked.

If you are new here or haven’t subscribed yet, please subscribe via email. You can also friend me on Twitter.

You can call in or listen online. You can even listen via iTunes. Visit this page to learn more:

Here’s the description of this particular show:

Weekly show on Natural Medicine, Hypnotherapy, NLP, Nutrition, Fitness with Dr. Michael Holt the founder of the Magi Institute of Natural Medicine and his special guests Pamir Kiciman to discuss Reiki.

Pamir Kiciman is a Soul Whisperer and Life Enrichment educator, and founder of Oasis Reiki. He specializes in Original/Classical Japanese Usui Reiki Training. He has worked in a variety of environments in 15 years of teaching, including time spent at Imperial Point Medical Center in South Florida. Pamir has also conducted Reiki Training at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Nursing. Recently, he was selected as a Featured Voice on Intent.com. Pamir has spent the last 15 years training himself and others in subtle energy, intentional healing, holistic health, meditation, spiritual psychology, nonduality, and world wisdom traditions.

Above all else, Pamir is dedicated to being a catalyst for a transformation by bringing soul and the teachings of Oneness to the forefront in individuals and in society at large. Pamir educates people through various channels, including his own Reiki Help Blog.

Reiki is most popularly known as a hands-on healing art, which it is in one of its applications. Hands-on Reiki is in fact rooted in spiritual discipline, the basis of which is meditation. Usui Sensei taught specific meditations. Similarly, Reiki is known as energy healing, which it does facilitate. What’s often missed, however, is that before energy can exist there first has to be consciousness. It is by participating in this primordial consciousness that Reiki fulfills its true purpose for practitioner and recipient alike.

And, October 15, 2009 is Blog Action Day once again: An annual nonprofit event, it aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

This year’s topic is focused on Climate Change, by unanimous voting.

The Reiki Help Blog has participated for the last two years. In 2008 the topic was poverty and I posted about the availability of clean, potable water to all populations of the world.

In 2007 the topic was the environment and as one of the earlier posts on this blog, I’m quite proud of this entry.

Climate change is not new to this blog. As stewards of our environment and spiritual practitioners, we are the only ones who can really do something about it!

I posted about Earth Hour in 2008. This year it’s even better and more impactful:

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote. Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from. VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday.

We all have a vote, and every single vote counts. Together we can take control of the future of our planet, for future generations.

VOTE EARTH by simply switching off your lights for one hour, and join the world for Earth Hour.

Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30pm.

In December 2009 world leaders meet in Copenhagen to agree on a post-Kyoto policy for tackling climate change. One billion people voting with their light switch during Earth Hour will create a powerful mandate for our leaders to take strong and decisive action on climate change in Copenhagen.

Earth Hour is also on Twitter. When you participate update your status with #earthhour or #voteearth hashtags.

1,760 cities, towns and municipalities in 80 countries have already committed to VOTE EARTH for Earth Hour 2009, as part of the worlds first global election between Earth and global warming.

Will you?!

Vote Earth Video (30 sec) [Link for email subscribers]

]]> http://reikihelp.com/blog/2009/03/earth-hour-09/feed/ 2 http://reikihelp.com/blog/2008/07/unleash-the-future/ http://reikihelp.com/blog/2008/07/unleash-the-future/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:18:18 +0000 Pamir http://reikihelp.com/blog/2008/07/unleash-the-future/ A video series with journalist and storyteller Miriam Horn who shares the story of some of the leading innovators and entrepreneurs on the cutting edge of the clean energy vanguard. Horn—co-author with Fred Krupp of Earth: The Sequel—explores how inventors are changing the way we think about energy—from wave, to geothermal, from biofuels to solar.

These clean energy technologies can cure our addiction to oil, stop the devastating effects of global warming, and bolster our economy—but only if America puts a cap on carbon pollution to unleash this future.

Solar:

Biofuels:

Wave:

Geothermal:

• Safety, recovery & healing for all affected by the Myanmar cyclone, China earthquake, USA tornadoes.
• Committing to a serious personal responsibility on environmental concerns & climate change & holding those in power accountable with our voices, demanding action.
• World food prices to normalize & shortages to correct.
• Oil prices to normalize & correct.

Here’s how we’re all a part of the challenge and the solution.

The sudden cataclysms that occur in nature, creating havoc and mass injury, are not ‘acts of God.’ Such disasters result from the thoughts and actions of man. Wherever the world’s vibratory balance of good and evil is disturbed by an accumulation of harmful vibrations, the result of man’s wrong thinking and wrong doing, you will see devastation….

Wars are brought about not by fateful divine action but by widespread material selfishness….When materiality predominates in man’s consciousness, there is an emission of subtle negative rays; their cumulative power disturbs the electrical balance of nature, and that is when earthquakes, floods, and other disasters happen.

–Paramahansa Yogananda

My good friend Bonnee over at Greening of Me blog has some beautiful ideas to share regarding all of this and I hope this will prompt her to share about working with the Elementals too:

The more practitioners that join together doing Reiki for change (for the greatest good of all sentient beings) the more intense the results.

Winds and fires are angels at work, waters purify and cleanse. Angels of destruction help us understand our errant thoughts, words, deeds.

This is ultimately the result of wrong focus. Self absorbtion. Too much focus on money, greed/lack causing imbalance. Nothing seen as sacred.

All is Love and we are in Grace. So ultimately all we need do is be that…Love. Love earth, each other, ourselves and all unconditionally.

We call on our nation’s leaders to swiftly establish and implement policies to bring about deep reductions in heat-trapping emissions. The strength of the science on climate change compels us to warn the nation about the growing risk of irreversible consequences as global average temperatures continue to increase over pre-industrial levels (i.e., prior to 1860). As temperatures rise further, the scope and severity of global warming impacts will continue to accelerate.

The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming, stating with at least 90 percent certainty that the warming of the last several decades is primarily due to human activities. Global average temperatures have already risen ~ 0.7°C (1.3°F) over the last 100 years, and impacts are now being observed worldwide. Human-caused emissions to date have locked in further changes including sea-level rise that will intensify coastal flooding, and dramatic reductions in snowpack that will disrupt water supplies in the western United States. If emissions continue unabated, our nation and the world will face more sea level rise, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, snowmelt, flood risk, and public health threats, as well as increased rates of plant and animal species extinctions.

The longer we wait, the harder and more costly it will be to limit climate change and to adapt to those impacts that will not be avoided. Many emissions reduction strategies can be adopted today that would save consumers and industry money while providing benefits for air quality, energy security, public health, balance of trade, and employment.

All nations must commit to a goal designed to limit further harm. The European Union and a number of other countries have adopted a goal for limiting global warming to no more than 2ºC (3.6°F) above preindustrial levels. Emerging science must be regularly evaluated to assess whether this goal is sufficient.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change recognizes that all nations have a responsibility to curb global warming, consistent with their respective contribution to emissions and capacity to act. Recent analyses indicate the United States—even with aggressive action by other nations—would need to reduce its emissions on the order of 80 percent below 2000 levels by 2050 to have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 2ºC.

A strong U.S. commitment to reduce emissions is essential to drive international climate progress. Voluntary initiatives to date have proven insufficient. We urge U.S. policy makers to put our nation onto a path today to reduce emissions on the order of 80 percent below 2000 levels by 2050. The first step on this path should be reductions on the order of 15-20 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, which is achievable and consistent with sound economic policy.

There is no time to waste. The most risky thing we can do is nothing.

Learn more…

Today I purchased gas at $3.79 & 9/10ths (what’s that all about?!) using a website that helps you locate the best prices in your area.

More to the point, I’ve increased my gas mileage from 23 mpg to 24.2 mpg using Reiki. OK now I’ll be harassed by big oil & Detroit (NOT! Only a joke, that’s not my reality.)

Here’s how:

• When pumping keep your Reiki hand on the pump & intend better gas economy.
• Use Jakikiri Joka-ho (method for cleansing objects) on your car, intending that it burns fuel efficiently, that all car parts related to fuel are clean, work well & efficiently.
• When driving direct Reiki ahead of you so traffic flows, you get all green lights and there’s no stop & start.

It also helps to practice these commonsense steps:

• Consolidate your trips.
• Make sure your tires are inflated to the right pressure.
• Don’t carry excess & unneeded weight in your car.
• Drive below the speed limit.
• Accelerate slowly & evenly.
• Accelerate going downhill.
• Don’t weave in & out.

Also check out the informational & inspirational video below…

Cold water has its uses, as does hot water. Earth Ki is specific in its qualities, as is Celestial Ki. In Reiki we work with each specialty for our betterment. We also have the significant opportunity to blend the two, to become One. The perfect balance between the polar energies of Reiki leads to unity consciousness.

And this is where healing really occurs. Whether you’re practicing on yourself (hands-on or Reiki meditations) or another, that practice is not symptomatic relief, but the essential change of consciousness. Symptomatic relief is part of the package, but it’s a surface effect. Reiki often surprises people with its power. Knowing Reiki is spiritual healing in its purest sense brings its power into perspective.

Yet in the everyday practice of Reiki this high-minded underpinning is just that, operating subtly, not asking you to have assimilated any of the above.

Reiki is so very user-friendly. Its effects are palpable, it’s warm and compassionate, noninvasive and supportive, portable (consciousness and hands go with us everywhere!), widely applicable, carrying and bringing out wisdom, having no known contraindications, and always improving quality of life.

Reiki isn’t only a healing art, but a total enlightenment program. The previous material deals with this, and it will be addressed again.

Let’s now look at some of the more everyday applications of enlightenment in a Reiki context. These are just as important as satori or self-realization, because we have a world and populations to care for and be in relationship with.

Properly understood and practiced Reiki is an agent of social change. At one point I was relentlessly solicited by environmental organizations. Each day I would get 3-4 pieces of mail. This was before the advent of the Internet. After a while, I took all that mail and practiced nonlocal Reiki on it.

It developed a deep connection for me between all the troubled areas of the Earth, endangered species, and all environmental concerns. I was able to observe the whole planet as a living being; noticed the Earth’s ley lines; and the accumulated negativity in the Earth’s energy field.

Most remarkably, after a few weeks of nonlocal Reiki for the Earth, the solicitations, which had continued throughout, entirely stopped. Entirely!

I then knew that I had fulfilled my part. (Our part is constantly renewed–I still work with/for the Earth.)

Nonlocal Reiki is commonly practiced for individuals. It can be practiced also for the promotion of values, progressive ideas, ideals and visions, the empowerment of citizenry, social projects and cultural progress.

In all these areas, the groundwork obviously has to be done too, the activism, all the tangible components need to be in place. But at a meta level, through Reiki, there’s access to this power that heals burnout, opens minds and hearts, removes obstacles, stimulates and encourages, and deepens the good.

Reiki practice is born and honed in its meditation methods or hands-on application, but it doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t stop at all.

Related:
Reiki as consciousness Part I

Reiki as consciousness Part III

“Texas emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other state. And if Texas were a country, it would be the seventh-largest carbon dioxide polluter in the world. Texas’s high carbon dioxide output and large energy consumption is primarily a result of large coal-burning power plants and gas-guzzling vehicles, both of which contribute to the pollution problem. But while many Texans think bigger is better, there are signs of an attitude change on energy consumption.”

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Published: November 18, 2007

In releasing a report on climate change, the U.N. secretary general called on the U.S. and China to play “a more constructive role.”

No matter the circumstances, acknowledgment is a powerful form of love. Be generous in your big or small acknowledgment of family, partners, friends, neighbors, colleagues, coworkers, and even when interacting with strangers.

Sometimes acknowledgment is an act of bravery. It requires one to go against the tide, to stand up for or admit something. Unless there are people willing to take such a risk, individuals, families, nations and the world continues to suffer. Acknowledgment is a powerful change agent.

When we see and hear others, we see and hear ourself. Our stories unite and each becomes enriched. We realize we share humanity and this leads to understanding, which fosters compassion. Acknowledgment is a mirror that eliminates “other.”

Acknowledgment is a way of knowing, not merely a nod or a tip of your hat. It’s connective. It weaves a fabric of knowing which holds and cradles us. It’s a form of selflessness that leaves our individuality intact. Essential life information and meaning are imparted to us when we see and hear others. Our sense of self deepens and expands because acknowledgment jumps over divisions of economic status, race, language, culture, and belief. It even reaches across species.

And there the vacuum fills itself, the isolation ends.

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
–Rainer Maria Rilke, “Selected Poetry“

This is part of Nneka at Balanced Life Center’s 2007′s Season of Gratitude. My first post in the series is here.

Today I’m grateful that:

• The Atlantic Hurricane season has been uneventful in my area. Living in Southern Florida, this is big.
• There aren’t any reports about people taking shelter from fires in Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, as there were at the time of Hurricane Katrina.
• There’s been only one reported death from these fires.
• My home and my son are safe.
• Al Gore has stimulated such widespread awareness of global warming and climate change.
• While the fires in So. Calif. may in part be nature rebalancing itself, we’re also informed and empowered to approach our relationship with nature in an entirely new and sustainable way.
• CNN is airing Planet in Peril, today 10/23 and Wed 10/24 at 9 p.m. ET. Although I’m not a major news outlet consumer, it’s significant that the concerns are being mainstreamed and will reach a huge audience. (There are many resources on CNN’s site so make sure you visit.)
• I have the support of all my readers, clients and students.
• Blogging makes a difference and the Internet has power.

Everything Around Us

Environment. What does it mean? The word itself is derived from Middle English ‘envirounen,’ from Old French ‘environner,’ from ‘environ,’ around, with further connotations of ‘see’ and ‘circle’ (Dictionary.com). Everything we see around us. Furniture (often made from trees), appliances, sky, fields, cars, ocean, mountains, buildings. Environment can be indoors or outdoors. As Gary Synder says, however: “Cities and agricultural lands…are not ‘wild.’ Wild is a valuable word. It is a term for the free and independent process of nature. A wilderness is a place where wild process dominates and human impact is minimal. Wilderness need not be a place that was never touched by humans, but simply a place where wild process has ruled for some decades.”

Why is it so important? Because we live in it. We breathe it, touch and eat it, smell and admire it. We also hugely impact it in every way, in all its aspects. And it gets even more complex: “The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too. So he kept his youth close to its softening influence.” (Standing Bear). We hurt the environment. This ends up hurting us. Does it also foster a wider disrespect? We live here, it’s unavoidable that we have an impact. That’s why it’s called a footprint. Can we make ours smaller and keep it out of each others’ face too?

The environmental concern is multi-faceted and every facet demands attention. To build on the momentum of a major environmental validation, let’s zero in on climate change. On October 12, 2007 Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Wangari Waathai, a former awardee said this: “When it was first announced that I would be receiving the Peace Prize in 2004, many people asked what does the environment have to do with peace? By choosing Al Gore and the IPCC for the award in 2007, the Nobel Committee have rightly brought to our attention that climate change is the single biggest threat to world peace we have ever faced.”

There’s that wider disrespect once more. Standing Bear again: “For him (Lakota), to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly; he can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him….” Something is definitely going on here. Could it be that we’re in symbiosis, human to human, human to Earth, Earth to human?

We actually need greenhouse gases. A natural blanket of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere keeps the planet warm enough for life as we know it at a comfortable 15°C today. Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases have made the blanket thicker, trapping heat and leading to a global warming. Fossil fuels are the single biggest source of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

The IPCC is the top authority on global warming, comprising more than 2,000 leading climate change scientists and experts. It agrees that human activity causes global warming. Here’s some data:

• If no action is taken on greenhouse gases, the Earth’s temperature could rise by 4.50°C (8.1°F) or more.
• The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average.
• Changing weather patterns threaten to exacerbate desertification, drought and food insecurity.
• Floods, sea level rise and extreme weather events.
• Climate change will hit the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest, but it will affect everyone.

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth website has this science (see sources there)

• The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.
• Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.
• The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.
• At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.

If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.

• Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years — to 300,000 people a year.
• Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.
• Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
• Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
• The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.
• More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

Many greenhouse gas-emitting activities are now essential to the global economy and form a fundamental part of modern life. There too many underlying factors behind these findings, a confounding web of driving forces to list here. The one area where we have immediate influence is our own lifestyle, knowledge, willingness and worldview. “It is an extraordinary privilege to be accorded a human life, with self-reflexive consciousness that brings awareness of our own actions and the ability to make choices. It lets us choose to take part in the healing of our world.” (Joanna Macy.) Self-reflexive consciousness doesn’t leave us any wiggle room. Since we are a species that possesses such a consciousness, one that can think for and about itself, reflect, assess and learn, we have to use it and use it keenly.

Our actions and what we invest in must be informed by the highest functions of this self-reflexive thinking. We actually have to use our noggin! Having this capacity puts the burden of responsibility on humans. It’s probably unrealistic to think that everyone in the ‘burbs is going to commute via carpool, public transit, bicycle or walking. Those choices are realistic for many people, and we do have the choice about what we drive and how we drive it. Do you drive an urban assault vehicle or what used to be known as a car? Do you drive at the speed limit, or weave in and out of traffic, speed, and end up at a red light with all the vehicles you just overtook, heart beating, shoulders tense, a scowl on your face, right foot ready to do it all over again?

Proper tire inflation can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. We’re not going to ask our kids to do homework by candlelight. But, we can replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). CFLs use 60% less energy than a regular bulb. This simple switch saves about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. There are lists of painless, practical actions we can take in the resources listed below. The point here is that it starts with one household using its noggin. Let’s not be naive either to think that individual action will be enough to stem current trends of more, bigger, faster, but we can start at home, in our own environment.

The Earth didn’t ask us for compensation as it went through it’s cosmic birthing pains, cooled and life began growing in its perfect environment. It doesn’t ask us today for anything when it generously produces wheat and apples, lets us build on its surface and displays the most incredible colors for our enjoyment. The Earth is still free. Humanity has a cost.

To offset this cost, we are being asked to first admit responsibility, then think responsibly, and finally go out and act in ways that reflect our understanding of the integrity that must be honored between Earth and human. Joanna Macy again: “…graced with self-reflexive consciousness, we are endowed with the capacity for choice–to take stock of what we are doing and change directions…Weaving our ever more complex neural circuits into the miracle of self-awareness, life yearned through us for the ability to know and act and speak on behalf of the larger whole. Now the time has come when by our own choice we can consciously enter the dance.”

The larger whole. Wider respect. Climate change to the degree implicit in irrefutable data now available, or even to a lesser degree simply means that society as we know it may breakdown. The already tapped irreplaceable resources of the Earth will probably be further monopolized by the few for the few, aggressively protected and distributed militarily, to which resistance will arise. Since this has happened throughout human history, even at times when resources were plentiful, it’s not a big jump that it can happen in a global crisis. This is not a doomsayer’s pessimism. Instead, it’s one way to connect the dots between global warming and global peace. Ultimately it doesn’t matter to what temperature we allow global warming to rise. We are already consuming nonrenewable resources at an alarming rate, climate patterns are affecting sustainability and species are disappearing. We need to cool it now, not wait and debate the possible end of civilization.

Traditionally peace is cultivated from the healing of hearts and minds, through forgiveness, understanding, compassion, education and active dialog. The playing field has changed. It’s no longer only the home, neighborhood, a border or region. Of the many things humans share, the planet is our most common ground literally. In bettering it, we better each other. In caring for it we care for each other. In mobilizing on its behalf we mobilize on each others’ behalf. In acting to reduce the causes of climate change we tend our own backyard, and those of total strangers in far off lands. Strangers or kin? Will my backyard stay green if yours is parched? What do we owe the Earth and ourselves, more importantly our children?

This writing ends here, but Standing Bear gives us a worthy model with which to begin: “Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle…This concept of life and its relations was humanizing and gave the Lakota an abiding love. It filled his being with the joy and mystery of living; it gave him reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all…Everything was possessed of personality, only differing with us in form…We learned to do what only the student of nature ever learns, and that was to feel beauty…and the fact was appreciated that life was more then mere human manifestation; that it was expressed in a multitude of forms.”

___________________________________________________________

Resources:
The Alliance for Climate Protection
Sierra Club: Global Warming & Energy
World Wildlife Fund: Climate Change
UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

© Pamir Kiciman 2007