Posts tagged "environment":

Journal

I've booked a ticket to Istanbul for August 1. I want to get away for August, and wasn't sure whether to go east or west. But, from a journey I made almost forty years ago, I know that I like the city, and it serves as a hub, so I will decide what to do when I'm there; either spend a couple of weeks and come home, or, indeed to extend my journey. If D decides she wants to join me, it will probably be to Europe; otherwise I may decide to go to India.

Journal

Happy with the photos I took yesterday around the village, and that more of them came out well than did not; a sign that I'm getting a hang of the X10. Just one or two of them were out of focus or poorly exposed.

Practice day / book launch, a film

This morning I took part in a practice day / book launch for the translation of Zen and the Art of Climate Change (the same theme as the book launch that I previously described in Tel Aviv. Here there was maybe a greater effort to describe the common ground between the spiritual approach and the phenomenon of climate change, which Avner Gross managed to describe very well. the event was much smaller (about 40 people) so there was a chance for the audience to express themselves - their remarks were interesting.

Journal

I'm still suffering from my by cold. We had a couple of guests over the weekend. C H, a Canadian citizen, who is associated with the Thich Nhat Hanh sanghas - a former "boat person" who escaped from Vietnam just after the war. She is a member of a Buddhist practice centre in Ontario, and on her way back to Canada, was about to visit another practice centre in Italy.

Culpability

There are a couple at climate sites where one can take a quiz to calculate the quantity of CO2 each of us produce. According to the parameters of the test, it turns that I'm pretty much a climate criminal. My wife and I share a free standing house of about 150 square meters and travel everywhere by car or by plane. That's enough, apparently, to tilt the scale towards 11 - 13 tons of CO2 per person, regardless of diet or other factors.

Kfar Hittim

Went up to the Sea of Galilee with the family, staying in Kfar Hittim, in the large house of an Israeli-Indian couple who seem to spend most of their time in India. We were 12; 8 adults and four kids. Kfar Hittim is near the place where Salah ad-Din's forces won a decisive battle against the crusadors towards the end of the 12th century. It's said that they won by cutting the crusadors off from the lake and then starting a wildfire where they were encamped. The battle decimated the crusador forces. Afterwards, more than 200 knights were beheaded, and the ordinary soldiers were enslaved. The king and some of the barons were shown mercy.

Optimism vs pessimism vis à vis the climate emergency

In his recent interviews, Kim Stanley Robinson has been saying that the 3 or 4 years that have passed since he wrote Ministry of the Future have given him more room for optimism that we will successfully address climate change. On the other hand, Amitav Ghosh another novelist who has been doing some non-fiction writing on climate change, looks at the same period and finds reason to be pessimistic. Probably both writers would qualify such categorical statements, but that's the drift. Others like Yanis Varafoukis, Noam Chomsky, Miguel Fuentes and (ultimate pessimist) Guy McPherson have been weighing in on the subject.

Alchemy

Yesterday evening I finished watching the first season of "The Bear", which somehow lives up to all the rave reviews of the critics. It does so more on account of its presenting a situation than for its storyline - the plot for all of the first season could be summarized in two or three lines.

World Wide Waste

There's a website called "World Wide Waste" that is dedicated to the subject of digital waste and its costs to the environment. It seems to me that it is less of a subject for the individual than for the corporations, although we are all guilty of over-streaming. I wonder whether the environmental costs of internet streaming is greater than reliance upon satelites? It may be that since both exist, it makes little difference. It must be better to use videoconferencing than traveling and commuting. Harari makes the point that we don't really have an energy problem - there is infinite energy that we could obtain. It's just a technological and an environmental problem. If we can only solve the 21st century technological problems of polluting industries, we will be able to enjoy the tech advantages, but, along the way, we are making terrible misjudgments. Humans are inherently wasteful. We need to cut down on packaging and processed foods, products that are wasteful.

Planet of the Humans (again)

Reading George Monbiot’s critique of “Planet of the Humans” I appreciated his ability to sift through the many details, see where the errors lie and then state the ways in which the film is inaccurate, dangerous and damaging to the cause that it is supposedly trying to support. Environmentalists face so many challenges from the political right and those with vested interests who wish to undermine challenges to the continued degradation of the biosphere.

"Planet of the Humans"

I watched this movie, (it’s available free on YouTube) by Jeff Gibbs and produced by Michael Moore, as there have been appeals from the Green movement to take it down and, who knows, maybe they’ll succeed. While the film is, as critics say, no doubt hurtful to efforts to lobby for greener solutions, I think the central thesis of the film is correct, that without addressing the root causes of our environmental problems – overpopulation and unrestrained economic growth – any technological fixes we try to find will not work. (Update: See George Monbiot’s critique of the film.)

Creating a buzz: Turkish beekeepers risk life and limb to make mad honey

"History is littered with stories of the psychoactive properties of deli bal, still produced today in the Kaçkar mountains"

Dharma as a spiritual practice that can maybe save the planet

The world, the universe, reality, can be said to exist both in diversity and in unity. In diversity it exists as a conglomeration of separate semi-autonomous parts. These semi-autonomous parts are governed by laws of self-preservation. But ultimately they depend upon and are absorbed back into the underlying unity from which they have arisen. The universe of things is intimately connected – no thing exists independently. It is joined not only by what we think of as physical “laws” that govern the way in which the parts interact with each other (gravity, magnetism, etc.) but also at a deeper level, in that all of these “things” are manifestations of the same underlying field of existence/consciousness. Each “thing” is not a partial but, in its essence, a full expression of the underlying field.

Making clothes last longer

The Guardian has a very informative article on making clothes last longer, with many links to related matters, such as buying second-hand, preferred methods for laundering, which fabrics to buy, how to fix clothes, etc. If we think of our three essential needs – food, clothing, shelter – obviously looking after clothes is one of the most important subjects to learn about, as we go further into the climate emergency. Last week they had a related article about an organization that is working with clothing companies to improve the manufacture of jeans.