Category: other

1.
Bruce Springsteen played at the 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on April 30. And he took this opportunity to criticize the government’s response to the disaster, calling it “criminal ineptitude”. He also called labeled the man in the Oval Office as “President Bystander”. Rewriting the lyrics to some of his songs to highlight on the disaster Mr Springsteen brought many in the crowd to tears and causing some to hug nearby strangers.

Yes, Hurricane Katrina was a devestating natural disaster… or perhaps not so “natural”. Some environmentalists have pointed out that such superstorms are forming due to the changing climate. And yes, it all leads back to the President Bystander who refuses to uphold the Kyoto Protocol.

It really baffles me as to how does one get voted in twice on a track record like his. It really must mean something is wrong with the democratic system. While it is the best political system we have so far, it is far from being the best there is. I do not usually get political on this blog but sometimes it is necessary, especially when it is the political powers that are perpetuating environmental problems.

So Mr Springsteen is right and couragous to speak out. As an American icon (one perhaps greater than President Bystander) he will hopefully wake up the slumbering masses to the nightmare that is America today.

2.
With that said, let me return to a more sane message. The fact is that superstorms are related to human action. Our numbers and expansion has an effect on the tiny globe called Earth. Regardless of politics and business necessities we need to lessen the effect we have on the planet and its diversity. For without diversity the lifespan of our species (if we so choose to see only our future) is most definitely shortened.

The saying “no man is an island” could be (re)read as “no humankind is an island”. Even the loss of one species could mean the end of ours, and that is not an exaggeration. And whether we can verify this directly or not is inconsequential. Only humankind would want to verify this in the first place. No other animal does this except us.

But in the same vein, we have the ability to see this and do something about it. Our ability to see things on the macro-level is remarkable, if not god-like. But when we wake to this fact it may be too late to do something about it.

The recent main news in Japan was that of a high-speed ferry accident in which 102 people were injured. It was likely that the ferry, named Toppy, had struck a whale in an Kagoshima inlet (southern most part of the four main islands of Japan).

While I feel truly sorry about the injuries I feel more sorry for one particular victim – the whale. It is typical of the human-centred thinking of our society not to think of the pain inflicted on this whale. Take this quote from the Daily Yomiuri:

Koichi Akase, the ferry’s captain, who was hospitalized, told JCG [Japan Coast Guard] officials that the vessel probably was hit by a whale or some other marine animal.

According to a spokesman at Kagoshima Shosen, which operates the ferry, Toppy was cruising near its maximum speed of 80 kph at the time of the accident.

So who struck who? I seriously doubt the whale was going faster than 80 kph (50 mph).

This could simply be bad reporting or it could be something akin to a Freudian slip on the captain’s part. In an anthropocentric world the lives of other animals are not even seen as valuable as our own. Where we draw the line for consideration is ultimately a choice. That it has now become instilled in all of us to be cold-hearted lifeforms is truly sad. While I doubt the whales care for us, that is not an excuse. For humankind and whales are different creatures with a different capacity for compassion. Humankind definitely can act out of compassion. But equally we can act out of cruelty. And so often we have chosen the latter. It is what it means to be human today – to be cruel and uncaring.

I feel all people have a capacity to be good, but whether they choose to be good within a lifetime is something only each individual can prove by their actions.

The facts about glaciers are these:1) since 1850 we have lost 50 percent of our glaciers to warmer climate, 2) from 1850–1970 we have lost an average of 2.9 percent per decade, 3) from 1970-2000 we have lost an average of 8.2 percent per decade.

The predictions is that before the end of this century global temperatures will rise by 3 degrees. This translates into a 75% glacial area loss, the glacial line will be 340m higher than what it is now and precipitation will rise by 10% in summers.

Those hit hardest will be those who rely on the glaciers for drinking water and agriculture. And the water from glaciers will be released quickly early in spring when it is needed most for irrigation.

The need for drinking water and irrigation I can understand. Hydro-power too. But tourism I cannot. In today’s world there is an unhealthy and heavy reliance on the economy. This is something I feel that businesses and politicians want you to have in order to maintain a artificial and human system all the while ignoring larger factors which contribute to its sustainability.

The progress-driven philosophy of humankind simply cannot be kept up indefinitely. But I am not against our way of life, rather, if logic dictates, that if we continue to heat the room we call Earth temperatures will rise to uncomfortable levels.

I remember someone once telling me about how each person generates 200 watts of heat. Simple math will tell us that 6 billion people together generate 1.2 trillion watts of heat. So by being alive we are heating the planet. And just how much electricity is needed to run all those air-conditioners to cool us down, that is, if we each person utilizes air-conditioners. Which means we are generating the heat not once but twice just to keep us cool (inside our houses and workplace) but not the rest of the planet.

Our lifestyles need to change in order to survive. We have adapted the planet to our needs but that is coming at a cost. Maybe it is time for us to adapt to the planet like we used to. Wouldn’t that be a novel idea.

“Governments, not private firms, must take responsibility for getting water to their people, a new report argues.”

Why is it today we need a new report to tell us the obvious. When I was a secondary student our Economics teacher taught us that basic utilities like water, electicity, gas and telephone are the responsibility of the government. And that was the way it was and should be.

When utilities like water move from service to business profit becomes the bottom-line. But what about the farm a little out of the way who is not getting water and will not get water because the water business decided it was not profitable or not in its interest? Would this farm not get the benefits if it had been a tax payer?

A service would not think twice in making subsistance possible for this farmer. A business will see profit first over viability. But what the government does not realize is that we need people like this farmer, for diversity is a key ingredient to survival.

Diversity within any system is essential whether in nature or human constructed ones like the economy. Somehow we have come to a point where we simply have forgotten that we are part of a larger system that follow the physical and biophysical laws of the universe and that even our system must follow this.

It is a like a “good” Hollywood movie: it is so real we think the movie is the reality. How many people have you known literally bend over backwards to avoid bullets? It can only happen on film. And even if it can happen in reality the effort involved is much. So we need a reality-check. In short, we, humankind, are so good at deception that we even deceive ourselves.

So when are we going to wake up to the fact that we have been deceived by the economic discourse?

Today is David Suzuki‘s seventieth birthday.

The first time I became aware of this Canadian geneticist was in a children’s science program. But it was years later before I saw him again on television. This time he was talking at the Foreign Press Club in Australia. It was then I realized that he was an environmentalist. He was a passionate and articulate speaker much like David Bellamy (British botanist) or David Attenborough (British naturalist).

It was this televised speech that got me curious about environmentalism. Back then I associated this term with radical thinking, protests and trouble makers. A nuisance was what I thought of them. For this humble and concerned man talked about problems I was scarcely aware of, or worse, I dismissed as alarmist. But he made some sense and it shattered the image I had of environmentalism and environmentalists.

Then a couple of years later I came across one of Dr Suzuki’s books – Good News for a Change – when I was stuck in Calary Airport due the Big North American Black Out of 2003 . Remembering how impressed I was with his talk I bought it and read at the airport. And this is not an exaggeration: every page shocked me. The things I didn’t like about politicians, big businesses, society and culture suddenly began to make sense, as did the big outage I was sitting in just then.

Sometimes we have to be pushed over the edge before we see things that are plainly in front of us, because we choose to blind ourselves of the truth as it is simpler. It is a kind of laziness. It is a human trait to be lazy and therefore senseless. I noticed this in Buddhism about ten years ago. And I noticed how everything – like theory – seemed to point towards laziness as the cause of most of our problems.

So this very page – I guess you could say it is on our problems – wouldn’t be here if it was not for Dr Suzuki. So I thank him and I pay homage to him. And I pay homage to all human beings out there who are trying to make this world a better place, whether it is through environmentalism, Buddhism, theory or any other honest means. But remember it is possible to get lazy in any of these things also, just like any human endeavour. It is possible to be misguided no matter how good our intentions are. It is possible to be not honest even in environmentalism, Buddhism or theory. That is something I learned from this great man. You need to be rigourous and with scrutiny, always.

Happy 70th Birthday, Dr Suzuki.

Woking, England… remember this name. Because this town of 90,000 is showing us that it is possible to cut carbon emissions by 77 percent.

Related Posts:
Micro-generation

A new study has shown that exposure to nature at a young age may lead to environmental awareness. But it stresses that freeplay with nature, rather than controlled or organized exposure, to be the key. One of the authors of the study, Nancy Wells, wrote:

“Participating in nature-related activities that are mandatory [like the scouts or other forms of environmental education programs] evidently do not have the same effects as free play in nature, which don’t have demands or distractions posed by others and may be particularly critical in influencing long-term environmentalism.”

And all the more reason we should worry when The Economist warns us with an article on rural and urban population in its The World in 2006 magazine. It said for the first time in the history of humankind there will be more people living in the city than the country. Put another way it means more children are seeing and interacting less with nature, and they have no choice.

This reminds me of one of my favourite sustainability jokes, Most people in the city have come up from the country to make enough money to leave the city and live in the country. Joke aside, the above humour has two flaws to its attitude. Firstly, it suggests that that it is hard to make a living in the country. But that really it all depends on how much you make and spend. Quoting my father, who is a fountain of wisdom, he said, “it doesn’t matter how much you make, three-thousand dollars or three-million, if you spend one-dollar more than you earn you are in the red”.

So in this case, country living does not necessarily equate to poverty – country life can be comfortable but not extravagant. It is only when the city glitter blinds you that you are made to feel inadequate. Which brings me to the second flaw: after being blinded by the city glitter and you return to country living you are all but unprepared for its frugal, but sustainable, lifestyle. And this is why you need that money – to bring with you the luxuries and convenience of the city that you are now so used to.

So why not just not get blinded by the city glitter? Why not feel adequate and proud of your frugally sustainable country life? City people are really just deluded and insecure. Someday they will realize their iPods don’t make them a better person, but hearing the music in nature will. It seems that people like Ms Wells and the guy who wrote The Economist article (and the thousands of other people who write on environmentalism) are saying most of us need to get to know nature before we forget how to live within it.

This is the first in a series of main articles relating to sustainability. A new article on either sustainability, the buddha or theory will be posted fortnightly.

The idea of sustainable development – or sustainability – was first given prominence in the 1987 United Nations report, Our Common Future. Also called the Brundtland Report (named in honour of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who was the leading spokesperson for the report) it puts forward the idea that the current level of natural resource consumption by the industrialized world and the growing economies of developing nations (together with a rapidly increasing population) is unsustainable. In pragmatic terms sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Weak and strong sustainability

Sustainability is sometimes described as either being weak or strong. Weak sustainability does not differentiate between human-made capital and natural capital, while strong sustainability makes that distinction. In weak sustainability, the measure of natural capital as profit loss – or gain – is seen to be sufficient in defining the problems of sustainability. But strong sustainability contends that this is too human-centred – from the perspective of human interests only – and is insufficient in tackling the problem of our unsustainable practices. Furthermore, strong sustainability sees discussion of sustainability from within economic jargon or terminology as problematic. In other words, it keeps the agenda wholly within economic defining boundaries.

In strong sustainability the present value system of human-based structures are seen as working against the values of nature-based mechanism or biosystem. In short, present human discourse ignores and suppresses (oppresses) nature, seeing only a binary opposition between humankind and nature with the former on top.

Case against sustainability

There is also the extreme view that the sustainability discourse is simply untrue – that it is possible to continue our present pattern of consumption indefinitely. The argument goes like this: through our ingenuity and technology we will create new and alternative ways to sustain (or even increase) our present levels of consumption.

But such an argument often ignores the fact that 1) it is the very same science and technology they are putting their faith in that is the cause of current environment environmental problems, and 2) resources are finite. It is with this kind of cultural logic and wishful thinking that Western culture has driven humankind toward ecological collapse “taking with them to their graves” other life forms along the way. There is no doubt the ecological system can and will recover from such a collapse but it is unlikely to include humankind in its picture.

Brundtland report revisited

If one had to say whether the Brundtland Report is of the weak or strong sustainability variety, one would have to say it is of the weak kind. Because human needs are given priority over those of other life forms that we share this planet (…meeting human needs… , etc). This kind of thinking can also be called anthropocentric where little or no consideration is given to the larger picture that is the environment. It ignores the systems that govern life-giving interaction.

The anthropocentric binary (though not really its opposite) is the biocentric view, which takes in account all life forms and resources within the system in which humankind is a part. Thus in the biocentric view we are neither the only life form, nor the better one (due to our uncanny ability to manipulate or alter the environment). In fact, the ability of radical manipulation should be seen as a weakness, not as a strength.

I say this because as intelligent as we are we have lost the ability to adapt to the environment. And by adapting the environment to suit us – instead of adapting to the environment – we may someday lose all ability to survive in the less habitable world of the future that we are creating for ourselves this very moment.