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"An Inconvienent Truth"
Anyone seen this yet? I rented it and hope to watch it this week sometime. My review will be posted as soon as I see it.
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Palzang
Palzang
Palzang
But Palzang is right, Knight....Take note now, of what legacy our generation is leaving yours - and weep in despair.
Palzang
Palzang
Palzang...I do love winter, but not that much!
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Did anyone live in the Midwest as a child? We had such HUGE snowstorms when I was growing up. We could actually build snow tunnels through all the neighbors yards and travel around in them. It was great fun! Now we hardly get any snow or cold weather. Other than the 15" of snow we got last week. That was fun.
The Stern Review
This is the document currently being accepted by our government. We shall have to see if they do anything and whether the eanything that they do makes any difference. The changes in climate are becoming obvious to anyone who has to go outside an air-conditioned world.
We can't take care of ourselves or each other and we think that we can save the planet. The Earth is gunna be here for a very...very long time. We probably won't unless we colonize other planets and make them habitable. The Earth will keep going and spinning until the death of our star. We...well we will probably be long gone. We will either kill ourselves or the planet will do that for us. If anything, we humans are just another surface pest.
My point is, I don't see how worrying about what might happen to the planet is going to solve anything. Do I honestly think a few plastic bottles and recycled paper is gunna change the course of our planet? Doubt it...
Me...I am going to enjoy what is left of it. Ride the bike until the wheels fall off I say. And about my children or grandchildren...well that's too bad because I don't plan on having any. Selfish I know but how can we accurately predict the weather in 50 years when my idiot news stations can't say whether it will snow or not tomorrow?
And about the depleting snow falls, that's silly as well. In Ohio last year, we had the most mild winter in years. But the year before, we had the highest snow fall on record. The year before that, it was mild I believe.
The planet goes through cycles; hot and cold. It will keep doing it's thing. For millions of years, the planet has endured mass extinctions and dozens of ice ages. We didn't cause all of these.
I know that global warming is affecting us, and maybe an ice age is coming, but a teenager sitting here senselessly worrying about what might happen, is a waste of precious time.
Source: Common Misconceptions about Abrupt Climate Change
I'm not sure what conclusion you are drawing from the site above. Their conclusion is:
Most of the time, KoB, your comments show maturity but this attitude of "I'm OK, Jack" is precisely the opposite of what the Buddha teaches about our interdependence. I can find nothing written anywhere that suggests that you should be "sitting here senselessly worrying about what might happen". On the contrary, you need to be getting up and doing something!
No one is asking you to sit around worrying about it, KOB. You're being asked to DO something about it. We CAN prevent total catastrophe, but not if everyone thinks like you do. I very seriously urge you to change your perspective, KOB. Apathy and silence are the voices of complicity.
Then you are sadly mistaken. If we all had that attitude, our planet would be in much worse shape than it is now. If we all do little things together, that amounts to doing HUGE things for the planet. Attitudes like this really worry me.
Palzang
First, I think that we need to understand the feeling of powerlessness in the face of a problem that seems so vast. It is similar to the powerlessness that is experienced by the individual elector in our enormous 'democracies'.
The result is, very often, a 'switching off', a disengagement, am alienation.
I am reminded of a conversation that I had, as an undergraduate, with Maurice Bowra. He had been a tutor at Wadham College during the Suez Crisis (eight years ealier in 1956) and had been horrified to find the students taking the attitude that "the government knows best". He celebrated the fact that my generation was becoming politicised again. We believed - as I still do - that the individual can make a difference and that individuals must organise, with other individuals, to ensure it.
One of the strong objections that many of my activist friends have against Buddhism as they perceive it is a certain 'resignation', an acceptance that, as we are all in samsara, things may be sh*t but that's the way they are and we 'escape' through the Noble Eighfold Path rather than working for change. Whilst I, among others, know this to be a distortion, it has a worrying grain of truth to it.
It is also worrying because helplessness has so often resulted in random acts of violence by which the young in particular try to inject some meaning into a senseless world.
Palzang
I agree entirely, P. It is why we need to be visible. Fortunately, over there in the US, the Buddhist community's early commitment to working with people with AIDS and the wonderful Shanti project has done just that. Over here, Buddhism is still seen as a 'sitting practice' rather than an active engagement.
Palzang
Well I am pleased to hear my comments ring of maturity most of the times. I don't intend them as such, rather I do consider myself a very immature person. What I do stress in what I say is honesty. And whether it comes across as mature or not is always debatable.
I am obviously overwhelmingly outnumbered in my stance here and I would rather not pursue this arguement in much detail or much longer for that matter. But someone please do tell me what I as a penniless teenager can do to stop global warming? And I think awareness of the problem would be a rather weak answer. I mean awareness of my death is not going to stop it from happening nor global warming for that matter.
The problem with trying to fix global warming is that there just isn't enough motivation. If people can't see the results quickly, they are not willing to invest their time or money into it. This is just a result of our consumer culture.
Now I am all for a clean environment. But somehow convincing people of the urgency of a problem like this is not going to happen in regards to global warming. So I feel that if global warming is a fact and our time of tribulation is at hand, it is inevitable because not enough people care.
So I feel it would only be reasonable to enjoy what time I do have left, make the most of my situation, and have fun. We humans very well may be next on the Extinction List. If so, let's at least enjoy ourselves before that time comes.
drive less and drive more fuel-efficient and less-polluting cars, use energy-efficient appliances and use less electricity in general. And recycle! That doesn't cost you anything.
Herein lies the very motivational failure of this whole arguement. I am speaking on behalf of Americans, but many others would be included. People are not going to stop driving and commuting where they have to. Many people can't afford the fuel efficient cars and must resort to 'beaters' which are gas guzzlers as well.
The problem is that people are not going to be willing to change the way they live their lives if they don't see a benefit personally. It is greedy, but it is the truth. Education on this topic will work to an extent, but will never be accepted by the masses unless they have some big reasons for doing so.
If I saw a big problem arising in the future, without speculation that this would happen, then I might put time into recycling. As George Carlin said, we are just another evolutionary failure, the earth has seen worse. The earth has been hit with meteors, had constant lava activity, and seen massive cold and hot spells, this is just another. The earth has warmed up significantly in the past and this is just, as my parents say, a "phase".
I am seventeen, I do not drive (a plus for you people who think that driving fuel-efficient cars make the world cleaner), and I don't go out into the ocean and dump radioactive waste at a fast rate. People just need to liven up and promote the idea of "Dontcareenessness".
* Use as few lights as yoiu can and turn them off when you leave a room empty.
* Turn off your computer, tv, etc. Do not leave them on "standby" when not in use.
* Do not run the tap (faucet) when brushing your teeth.
* Recycle whatever you can and try to use as much recycled material (paper, etc.) as you can find.
* Persuade your parents to change light bulbs to low-energy bulbs.
* Drive less and walk more whenever possible.
These may seem small things but if every 17-year-old in the US did them, the effect would be cumulatively enormous.
Never believe that you can make no difference. Only YOU can change the world.
And really it's not very hard. Just have to turn it into a habit, and it becomes everyday and easy. I recommend starting with one thing, turn it into a habit, then branch out from there. Otherwise it becomes to hard to do everything. I've only recently started turning the heaters off in rooms that aren't in use, that took a while for me to start doing.
And teach your parents well. Your future depends on it.
Not really sure how you can say that about everyone, KOB. Plenty of us are more than willing to make a few small changes in order to help the environment. Plenty of people have figured out different ways to get to work - or have moved closer to their office or school, whatever.
It makes me sad to think that most people (as you say) don't see a "benefit" in making small changes in order to save our planet! I have a hard time believing that most people don't see the benefit in that!
Palzang
http://carbonfund.org/site/
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/scp_v3/viewer/index.php?pid=16598&rn=49750&cl=1414658&ch=334515&src=news
I truly believe that EVERYONE needs to see this film. It was a real eye opener. My husband and I talked a lot after we watched it about all the things we were going to do to make some more changes. We are truly scared for our daughter, and our grandchildren and all the animals, birds and plant life that we are killing. We are completely destroying this planet.
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
I also enjoyed the bit about the huge fresh water lake in Canada (those damn Canadians!) that dumped into the Atlantic and threw us into another Ice Age. I had heard that story/theory years ago and thought it was frightening then. But, I could never find that story/theory again.
Glad I'm not making up EVERYTHING I think about.
It is scary though. When you think of fuel, waste, pollution, ecology - you wonder what our legacy will be. What will our grandchildren have to look forward to?
Do you know that there has been so much garbage dumped off the coast of the eastern side of the US that it has accumulated to actually make a ridge at the bottom of the ocean that is discernable?
Will our grandchildren tell their children that Soylent Green is made out of humans?
-bf
I did not know that there was that much garbage dumped off the eastern coast. That is so sad.
I wonder how long it is going ot be before Polar Bears are extinct.
Palzang
We must raise our children to understand what is going on and that they have to help their planet- our planet. I did not raise my children with as much understanding as I wished I had but as they are both adults now I do intend to continue to educate them on this issue as much as I possibly can and hope that they listen and act.
As written on the inside cover of "an inconvenient truth"
Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light will save 150 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.
Walk,bike,carpool or take metro transit more often. You'll save one lb. of carbon dioxide for every mile you don't drive.
You can save 2,400 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste.
Keeping your tires inflated properly can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 lbs. of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Use less hot water by installing a low-flow showerhead (350 lbs. of CO 2 saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water ( 500 lbs. saved per year) You can save 1,200 lbs. of carbon dioxide if you cut down your garbage by 10%. By avoiding products with a lot of packaging.
Moving your thermostat down just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer could save about 2,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.
Plant a tree. A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.
Turning off your TV,DVD player, stereo and computer when you're not using them will save 1000's of lbs. of carbon dioxde per year.
I would also like to add for ppl who can use solar panels, they also would be helpful.
If just one of us on this site would do these things how can it not help? If everyone on this site did these things.........think how much more it would help. It really does not take that much work to do these things. And most of them are at no extra cost to us. Just a little effort.
If we try and fail, then we at least tried. But I for one would have a hard time forgiving myself if I don't at least try to do my part.
I could go on and on but I will now step down off my soap box.
Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island
Published: 24 December 2006
For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas.
Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean reports:
Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.
As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.
Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.
It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.
Two-thirds of nearby populated island Ghoramara has also been permanently inundated. Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, says "it is only a matter of some years" before it is swallowed up too. Dr Hazra says there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta. The area's 400 tigers are also in danger.
Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.
Human cost of global warming: Rising seas will soon make 70,000 people homeless
Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and the disappearing Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas.
Article
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metta