I have received quite a few emails in response to a mailing sent out by me yesterday promoting the fabulous work being done by a dog rescue centre near Payson, here in Arizona. Thank you for letting me know you are adding your support to this great effort by Tara’s Babies to win $250,000 from Pepsi!
c. Have a Facebook page?
1. Click here
2. Click on “Vote for this Idea”
3. Click on “Login with Facebook account”
4. Click on “Vote for this Idea” again!
Some thought-provoking articles on the need, or otherwise, of continued growth.
Intellectually, most people, if they stopped and thought about it, would not challenge the absurdity of the notion that a finite rock in space, Planet Earth, can handle an infinite increase in the demands and resources of that finite planetary body, our home in space!
Yet the reality is very different. For many complex reasons, way beyond the competencies of this writer to fully explain, we, as in the peoples of Planet Earth, continue to behave as though there are no limits to the resources of this beautiful planet that is home for all of us.
Here are some extracts from some recent items that have passed across my ‘in-box’.
What If We Stopped Fighting for Preservation and Fought Economic Growth Instead?
by Tim Murray
Seriously.
Each time environmentalists rally to defend an endangered habitat, and finally win the battle to designate it as a park “forever,” as Nature Conservancy puts it, the economic growth machine turns to surrounding lands and exploits them ever more intensively, causing more species loss than ever before, putting even more lands under threat. For each acre of land that comes under protection, two acres are developed, and 40% of all species lie outside of parks. Nature Conservancy Canada may indeed have “saved” – at least for now – two million acres, but many more millions have been ruined. And the ruin continues, until, once more, on a dozen other fronts, development comes knocking at the door of a forest, or a marsh or a valley that many hold sacred. Once again, environmentalists, fresh from an earlier conflict, drop everything to rally its defense, and once again, if they are lucky, yet another section of land is declared off-limits to logging, mining and exploration. They are like a fire brigade that never rests, running about, exhausted, trying to extinguish one brush fire after another, year after year, decade after decade, winning battles but losing the war.
Just read again the sentence, “For each acre of land that comes under protection, two acres are developed, and 40% of all species lie outside of parks.” Powerful ideas.
Anyway, do read the article in full and see if it changes your attitude. Here’s how it ends.
Sir Peter Scott once commented that the World Wildlife Fund would have saved more wildlife it they had dispensed free condoms rather invested in nature reserves. Biodiversity is primarily threatened by human expansion, which may be defined as the potent combination of a growing human population and its growing appetite for resources. Economic growth is the root cause of environmental degradation, and fighting its symptoms is the Labor of Sisyphus.
The next article is from The Christian Science Monitor writing about how scientists are getting a new idea about the rate of loss of polar ice.
The seasonal cooling effect of light-reflecting snow and ice in the Northern Hemisphere may be weakening at twice the rate predicted by climate models, a new study shows, accelerating the impact of global warming.
A long-term retreat in snow and ice cover in the Northern Hemisphere is weakening the ability of these seasonal cloaks of white to reflect sunlight back into space and cool global climate, according to a study published this week.
Indeed, over the past 30 years, the cooling effect from this so-called cryosphere – essentially areas covered by snow and ice at least part of the year – appears to have weakened at more than twice the pace projected by global climate models, the research team conducting the work estimates.
This is a well-constructed article, easy to read with obvious conclusions. Towards the end, the author writes:
Snow appears to have its maximum cooling effect – reflecting the most sunlight back into space – in late spring, as the light strengthens but snow cover is still near its maximum extent for the year. Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has its biggest effect in June, before its annual summer melt-back accelerates, explains Don Perovich, a researcher at the US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H., and a member of the team reporting the results.
The final article that I want to include is one from the website Foreign Policy. I’m going to take the liberty of reproducing it in full because it strikes me as an extremely intelligent commentary on where mankind is in terms of our attitudes to growth.
Humanity has made great strides over the past 2,000 years, and we often assume that our path, notwithstanding a few bumps along the way, goes ever upward. But we are wrong: Within this century, environmental and resource constraints will likely bring global economic growth to a halt.
Limits on available resources already restrict economic activity in many sectors, though their impact usually goes unacknowledged. Take rare-earth elements — minerals and oxides essential to the manufacture of many technologies. When China recently stopped exporting them, sudden shortages threatened to crimp a wide range of industries. Most commentators believed that the supply crunch would ease once new (or mothballed) rare-earth mines are opened. But such optimism overlooks a fundamental physical reality. As the best bodies of ore are exhausted, miners move on to less concentrated deposits in more difficult natural circumstances. These mines cause more pollution and require more energy. In other words, opening new rare-earth mines outside China will result in staggering environmental impact.
Or consider petroleum, which provides about 40 percent of the world’s commercial energy and more than 95 percent of its transportation energy. Oil companies generally have to work harder to get each new barrel of oil. The amount of energy they receive for each unit of energy they invest in drilling has dropped from 100 to 1 in Texas in the 1930s to about 15 to 1 in the continental United States today. The oil sands in Alberta, Canada, yield a return of only 4 to 1.
Coal and natural gas still have high energy yields. So, as oil becomes harder to get in coming decades, these energy sources will become increasingly vital to the global economy. But they’re fossil fuels, and burning them generates climate-changing carbon dioxide. If the World Bank’s projected rates for global economic growth hold steady, global output will have risen almost tenfold by 2100, to more than $600 trillion in today’s dollars. So even if countries make dramatic reductions in carbon emissions per dollar of GDP, global carbon dioxide emissions will triple from today’s level to more than 90 billion metric tons a year. Scientists tell us that tripling carbon emissions would cause such extreme heat waves, droughts, and storms that farmers would likely find they couldn’t produce the food needed for the world’s projected population of 9 billion people. Indeed, the economic damage caused by such climate change would probably, by itself, halt growth.
Humankind is in a box. For the 2.7 billion people now living on less than $2 a day, economic growth is essential to satisfying the most basic requirements of human dignity. And in much wealthier societies, people need growth to pay off their debts, support liberty, and maintain civil peace. To produce and sustain this growth, they must expend vast amounts of energy. Yet our best energy source — fossil fuel — is the main thing contributing to climate change, and climate change, if unchecked, will halt growth.
We can’t live with growth, and we can’t live without it. This contradiction is humankind’s biggest challenge this century, but as long as conventional wisdom holds that growth can continue forever, it’s a challenge we can’t possibly address.
Thomas Homer-Dixon is the CIGI chair of global systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada.
As Rob Dietz of CASSE wrote in a recent email to me, “I’m a big Thomas Homer-Dixon fan. His book, The Upside of Down, is outstanding.”
“Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead into freedom or constitute a proof for its existence” Hannah Arendt (1906-1975).
A rare request from Learning from Dogs asking if you will vote on behalf of a dog rescue centre.
Many who follow this Blog will know that my beautiful wife, Jean, is totally devoted to dogs, especially rescue dogs. Over the years that she and her previous husband Ben, who died in 2005, lived in Mexico, Jean must have rescued at least 70 dogs. Even today, we have 11 ex-rescue dogs enjoying a fabulous life in our mountain home here in Payson, Arizona.
So it was a big surprise to come across a dog rescue organisation called Tara’s Babies and find that their sanctuary is in our neighbourhood.
Photo by Wib Middleton
Here’s a description of the organisation taken from the local newspaper from September 9th, 2009.
By Alan R. Hudson
Gazette/Connection Correspondent
It has been nearly five years since Tara’s Babies Animal Welfare began rescuing animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Tara’s Babies operates a no-kill animal rescue and sanctuary “off the grid” at the Ellinwood Ranch, near Young.
A few dogs from the dark days of Katrina still remain and many more have been added since. This is no normal animal rescue however: It is operated by three very dedicated and compassionate ordained Buddhists.
Kunzang Drolma, a Buddhist Nun and the director of Tara’s Babies, graciously invited the Connection to spend the afternoon at the facility. When we arrived, she was (as we had anticipated) wearing her Shamtab—the traditional Buddhist robe—as she fed her canine adoptees.
From that article Drolma explains:
“Katrina was a catastrophe that threw it in everyone’s faces but ultimately, every day, hundreds of dogs and cats are being euthanized in shelters because there’s not enough space for them—just because they were abused, homeless, old or sick. And so that’s when we just moved straight into this process of being a no-kill rescue and sanctuary. We will never euthanize.”
What’s needed, explained Drolma, is a paradigm shift. One that is so profound that shelters will become a thing of the past. While euthanasia is something that Tara’s Babies does not agree with, the solution lies at a higher cultural level.
Frankly, my view is that we need solutions to so many of life’s problems to come from a ‘higher cultural level’ but this Post is about helping Tara’s Babies raise more funds to help their mission. It’s easy for any of you to help. You can do it now from your computer.
Go here – http://www.tarasbabies.org/pepsi_refresh.html and read. If you need convincing of the purpose watch this video (the one at that last web page or direct from YouTube as below).
And from that web-link you can read:
Feel free to copy and personalize the following paragraph to send to your friends:
“Have you heard about Tara’s Babies Animal Welfare, a No-Kill Dog Rescue and Sanctuary in Arizona? They started rescuing dogs left homeless and injured by Hurricane Katrina, after their founder, Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, felt compelled to act on seeing the devastation and suffering in the Gulf. They have continued rescuing dogs on death row in overcrowded shelters ever since.
Tara’s Babies Animal Welfare is working to win a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant by receiving the most votes for their project in the month of January. The grant will allow them to improve the care they provide to dogs at their beautiful, off-the-grid Sanctuary.
I am going to help Tara’s Babies Animal Welfare by voting for them daily in the Pepsi Refresh grant program and hope that you will too. Please visit www.tarasbabies.org to check them out. You will be able to sign up from their website to support their application to Pepsi Refresh.
The dogs need your vote!”
Here, here! It’s very quick to initiate and then each day all you need to do is to add your daily vote – a few seconds of your life exchanged for the rest of the life of a dog that, otherwise, would have nowhere to go!
This originally came in as a comment to the recent Post published on the 16th Postscript on dear Corrie. I decided that it deserved a more prominent position than as a comment to a previous article. This is what Suzann wrote:
My husband and I and our 3 rescue dogs were living at the time in an RV park in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico, while waiting for our newly purchased lot to become available where we were going to base the ‘bus’.
I had just walked my dogs and saw a pack of dogs running down the side of the main road into town toward me. After quickly returning my dogs to our RV across the road, I gathered some food together and hurried back to the road to feed this pack of street dogs.
I noticed one of the dogs had such a distinctive coat; the coloring and configuration was unique.
I put several food dishes down and stepped back to let the dogs eat. As I was standing there, the dog with the distinctive, white with brown markings all over her, came up to me.
Unusual for most street dogs, her manner was quite friendly. I led her back to the food and waited whilst she ate. I gradually turned and walked back across the street to the RV park. I got to the middle of the road and felt something bump my leg. I looked down and there was this lovely dog, gazing at me with friendly, caring eyes; I was amazed! She had practically glued herself to my leg!
I turned and walked back to the food and she followed me. But when I tried to cross the street again, she was right there, walking right next to me, leaning against my leg! My goodness I thought to myself…now what do I do?
I was instantly drawn to her….she was so friendly and had a very caring look in her eyes as she looked up at my face. Now what was I going to do? It’s 5-ish in the evening, I can’t take her to my coach as I have 3 dogs sitting there, and I did not know what to do.
I called to my husband to bring my cell phone to me, and dialed my best bud, Jeannie, and told her the story…..she had a packet of dogs herself, and we talked about it for several minutes about what the options were.
I asked, nay begged her, to drive over and see if we could take the dog somewhere and perhaps find a place to house her for the night….
The long and short of it was we drove around for a half hour, finding no one who could take her, and Jeannie finally said….”Oh heck, I will take her home!”
What will we call her? Well, that wasn’t too difficult, as she had hearts all over her!! It had to be Corazon as corazón is the Spanish word for heart!
We both fell in love with that dog, and thanks to Jeannie taking her in, Corrie has had good years of love, good food, a loving home and a wonderful life.
I will never forget that dog. She was always bright and cheery, always had a kiss for me, such a sweet heart. I will always love our little Corazon….I miss her so much.
Suzann
Here are three pictures that Suzann sent.
Heart dog, CorrieAnd a larger heart!And yet more hearts!
I had the privilege of being with Corrie from September 2008 until the moment she died last week. Everything that Suzann wrote is true; she was a lovely, gentle and trusting dog.
This demonstrates so powerfully the many things that we can ‘learn from dogs’!
I see LG have recognised that many people the wrong side of 60 now use a mobile phone and have recently launched …..
Cell phone for seniors
and from John L. from Devon, England this lovely story.
Several men are in the changing room of a golf club. A mobile phone on a
bench rings and a man engages the hands-free speaker function and begins to
talk. Everyone else in the room stops to listen.
MAN: “Hello”
WOMAN: “Hi Honey, it’s me. Are you at the club?”
MAN: “Yes.”
WOMAN: “I’m at the shops now and found this beautiful leather coat. It’s
only £2,000. Is it OK if I buy it?”
MAN: “Sure, go ahead if you like it that much.”
WOMAN: “I also stopped by the Lexus dealership and saw the new models.
I saw one I really liked..”
MAN: “How much?”
WOMAN: “£60,000.”
MAN: “OK, but for that price I want it with all the options.”
WOMAN: “Great! Oh, and one more thing. I was just talking to Janie and
found out that the house I wanted last year is back on the market. They’re
asking £980,000 for it.”
MAN: “Well, then go ahead and make an offer of £900,000. They’ll probably
take it. If not, we can go the extra eighty-thousand if it’s what you really
want.”
WOMAN: “OK. I’ll see you later! I love you so much!”
MAN: “Bye! I love you, too.”
The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room are staring at him in
astonishment, mouths wide open.
He turns and asks, “Anyone know whose phone this is?”
A lovely and unexpected result from seeing Dr David R. Hawkins last Saturday.
Jean and I drove across to Cottonwood, just South-West of Sedona in Arizona, last Saturday to attend a Question and Answer meeting hosted by Dr David R. Hawkins. It’s described on the website thus:
Question & Answer Sessions
These Saturday sessions open with a few remarks by Dr. Hawkins. He then receives and answers questions from the audience that relate to information presented in his books and lectures, as well as other spiritual matters and current events.
To my mind, apart from the pleasure of seeing this famous man in the flesh, so to speak, the event was not as inspirational as I might have hoped. Largely, in my view, because so many of the people lining up to sit opposite the great man and ask their question seemed more motivated by hero worship than in a search of their personal truth. In fact, many did not wish to ask a question, just to sit there in silence or shake his hand.
However, that isn’t the point of this piece. The point is that Jean realised, deep in her heart, what really can be achieved through the power of love. Jean had been reflecting, sitting there in the audience, about how quickly our sweet Corrie had died last Tuesday night.
Corrie was a young dog and despite the injuries she received having been fatal, Jean was still surprised that Corrie went from being conscious of her name and responding to touch to dead in about 45 minutes. She was in a great deal of pain during the last 20 minutes or so. Jean’s significant experience is that young, healthy dogs take many more hours to die from the sort of wounds that Corrie had sustained.
The epiphany that came to Jean on Saturday was that the love and comfort that Corrie was receiving from both Jean and me, gave Corrie the permission to stop fighting for her life and just go gracefully and peacefully. It doesn’t in any way lessen the tragedy of losing Corrie but from that has come the revelation that our unconditional love for that small animal made a difference, a real tangible difference during the last few moments of her physical life.
It was an unexpected but very beautiful outcome from the day.
“To understand everything is to forgive everything” Buddhist quote
Compassion community innovation
Learning from Dogs 