Take a couple of minutes off and bury our crazy world with a laugh. With big thanks to Dan Gomez for forwarding on what had been sent to him by Greg H.
Some of life’s lessons are easy to learn – once we have been taught!
Readers be warned! This is one of my more subjective posts written in the hope that many will ‘connect’ with the emotions expressed.
Learning touch from Casey
I want to explore the power of touch.
Not just in a direct manner such as a hug or an arm around the shoulder but also the way that love can reach out and ‘touch’ us from afar. I’m going to do that by recounting something that Jean and I have experienced over the last couple of weeks. Here we go!
A while after we had moved to Payson in February, 2010 both Jean and I noticed that I was getting forgetful. Initially we thought it was just a characteristic of the vestibular migraine that I was diagnosed with in 2009 but eventually it seemed a good idea to have a local doctor here in Payson check me out. That examination took place last April 24th., a little over two weeks ago. The doctor dropped a huge bombshell in our laps by saying that she thought that I was exhibiting signs of early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease!
To say that I was shocked was an understatement. Jean was beside herself with worry as her late American husband, who had died in 2005, had suffered badly from Alzheimer’s Disease for his last two years. We had 48-hours of wall-to-wall worry!
A few days later, I was getting very angry at the lack of gentleness in the way that the doctor had spoken to me. Jean had the brilliant idea of contacting a retired doctor friend. His response was loud and clear; he advised me to get a second opinion and continued by recommending a neurologist that he knew well. That appointment was held this last Tuesday, May 8th, down in Phoenix.
The neurologist asked me many questions, including such verbal tests as how many animals can you name in a minute, spell the word ‘world’ backwards, deduct 7 from 95 (and then keep deducting 7 from the resultant answer!!), and then undertook a physical examination including co-ordination skills, blood flow in the neck and other relevant aspects.
All of which lead him to the conclusion that I was not showing any signs of dementia. My forgetfulness was normal for someone of my age (67 last birthday) especially taking into account all the life changes of the past few years.
Then the neurologist went on to warn me about anxiety. He said it was a ‘killer’ of healthy bodies and healthy minds, especially as we got older. So my anxiety over my sister’s dementia, my half-sister living in Devon, England, whom I am very close to, is now badly affected by vascular dementia and got me thinking I might be following in her path, and my anxiety over thinking my life now was ‘too good to be true’, was getting in the way of me being a relaxed, ‘go with the flow’ individual.
Thus a couple of extremely stressful and worrying weeks came to a most wonderful conclusion; an outcome that couldn’t have been better. The degree of emotional and psychological disruption that Jean and I have been through was not however without some major lessons being learnt.
Being scared – I’ve always taken for granted that I would have good health throughout my life, aided and abetted by the fact that I have never been admitted to hospital and have avoided serious illnesses. The first doctor’s so-called diagnosis was one giant slap-in-the-face especially realising that the future in store could be a steady decline in my cognitive skills.
For the first time in my life I was truly scared and last Monday, the day before the visit to the neurologist, I broke down in Jean’s arms saying how scared I was. Revealing such vulnerability was not easy for me but being held by Jean under those circumstances was deep and pure bliss. As the saying goes, ‘If one doesn’t run the risk of being lost, then one can never be found.’
Love and friendship – The number of people that came up to Jean and me, gave us big hugs and said that they would be thinking of us during our trip down to Phoenix last Tuesday was indescribably beautiful. So many showed such a depth of feeling for what Jean and I were going through. Many others from distant places sent encouraging emails or telephoned. It all amounted to preventing us from feeling alone and reinforced our determination that whatever the medical outcome, we would find a way of handling it.
The power of the mind – my brother-in-law, in a recent telephone call, said that once the mind latches on to an idea, it does everything it can to reinforce that idea, however illogical it may be. Thus over the last couple of weeks, every time I dropped something, or forgot where I had put my glasses, or wasn’t clear which day of the week it was, and on and on, I used that as ‘proof’ that I was rapidly losing my mind. It should serve as a strong warning that we can literally think ourselves into a crisis!
The love between a dog and a human – hugging a dog when one is feeling emotionally vulnerable is beyond measure. Dogs always sense when we humans are feeling fragile and they offer their uncomplicated hearts to us without any condition or need for return. That selfless love is an inspiring example of what we all need to learn to give one another.
Touch and social intimacy – we have so much to learn from dogs when it comes to touch and social intimacy. We are all needy for touch.
Which leads me providentially to a recent item from Terry Hershey. Terry came to Payson in March, 2011 and he was a most inspirational speaker. I have followed him ever since.
Last Monday’s Sabbath Moment included the following story, republished with Terry’s kind permission – the story is all about touch!
Caroline was very sad. Caroline was only six years old and her father had just died. In fact, her father had been assassinated.
Sitting in the back of big black limousine, Caroline Kennedy didn’t quite know what to do with her sadness. On the seat next to her sat her nanny, Maud Shaw, and next to Maud, Caroline’s younger brother John.
Through the windshield Caroline could see her mother, Jackie, and her uncles, Robert and Ted, walking in front of the limousine as it slowly made it’s way down the Boulevard to St. Matthew’s Cathedral. Looking out of her side of the car, Caroline recognized the friendly face of Secret Service agent, Robert Foster. She liked and trusted Robert Foster.
Not knowing what to do with her sadness, and on impulse, she rolled down the window and stuck out her six-year old hand. Agent Foster had a choice to make. Secret Service agents are not allowed to have their hands occupied, needing to be ready for any emergency. But Robert Foster didn’t even think twice. He held Caroline’s hand tightly the entire way to the cathedral.
Later, Agent Foster said it was all he could do to “fight back his own tears of sadness, for little Caroline Kennedy.” When asked about his kindness, he seemed surprised, “All I did was hold a hand,” he answered.
Terry then goes on to say,
We all know sadness. Life breaks for each one of us in different ways and in different places. And sometimes the sadness seems too much to carry.
It requires courage to roll down the window, to connect or ask or invite. For whatever reason, there is a knee-jerk need to deny any sadness, or dismiss it, or apologize for it. “I’m sorry,” people will say, wiping away their tears, as if their sadness is a violation of some tenet of propriety. Heaven forbid if any humanity is exposed.
So sometimes I am afraid to ask. Not sometimes; most times. I don’t want to appear weak. Asking for help is a hard pill to swallow.
I spent Saturday in Clearwater, Florida, with a group talking about intimacy and communication. (Yes, it is easier to talk about than to practice.) Here’s what I told the group.
If we don’t bring it with us, we’re not going to find it there. Which means intimacy–trust, vulnerability, authenticity, honesty–begins here.
With me. With this me.
I was raised in a religious environment that taught me to eradicate my messiness (to quash my sadness or grief or untidiness).
I now believe differently. I now know that we find and express acceptance, love and grace (the place where we can be fully human), in our messy, imperfect, and fully thorny selves. In other words: We can embrace this life–without any need to photoshop it.
To be human is to be vulnerable. I am capable of being wounded and cut and sad… which also means that I am capable of being kind and generous and present.
In such moments of heartache, I can have the courage to ask for a hand to hold.
In such moments of heartache, I can have the courage to hold a hand the needs to be held.
Robert Foster didn’t think twice about holding a hand that needed to be held. And he wasn’t posturing or amassing heavenly brownie points. He was doing what needed to be done.
Here’s the deal: we don’t need more remedies or advice. We need more touch. We become more human when we touch. Why? Because when we touch, we are seen. And when we are seen, we recognize that our value is not tied solely to our sorrow.
And we, you and I, will find no better lesson to learn from our beautiful canine friends, than this lesson of touch.
Well nothing complicated about the definition, is there! If only society was equally motivated by getting to the truth of climate change. Yes, I know I’m being naive!
Why my mini-rant?
I’m well in to James Hansen’s book Storms of my Grandchildren and it’s confirming my fears about the issues that are facing mankind now! But more of that later.
More than two decades after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began publishing the latest scientific consensus on the globe’s changing climate, widespread doubts persist in the U.S. over whether there really is widespread agreement among scientists. It’s the primary argument of those who deny basic scientific foundations of warming.
But new and innovative survey results suggest the consensus among scientists might actually be stronger than the scientists themselves had thought.
The battles to define and debunk scientific consensus over climate change science have been fought for years. In 2004, University of California San Diego science historian Naomi Oreskes wrote about a broad consensus she found after studying 928 scientific papers published between 1993 and 2003.
But what I found deeply fascinating was that later on Bruce Lieberman, the report’s author, lists in detail the actual levels of agreement compared to the perceived levels. To make it easier to take in, I have amended the telling differences to italic.
In sum, the newly released poll results identified surprisingly common points of agreement among climate scientists; and yet for each point, those scientists underestimated the amount of agreement among their colleagues. The results:
Human activity has been the primary cause of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures in the last 250 years. (About 90 percent of respondents agreed with this characterization, but those respondents estimated that less than 80 percent of their scientist colleagues held that view.)
If governmental policies do not change, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will exceed 550 parts per million between 2050 and 2059. (More than 30 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that just over 20 percent of their peers held that view.)
If and when atmospheric CO2 concentrations reach 550 ppm, the increase in global average surface temperature relative to the year 2000 will be 2-3 degrees Celsius, or 3.2-4.8 F. (More than 40 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that less than 30 percent held that view.)
If governmental policies do not change, in the year 2050, the increase in global average surface temperature relative to the year 2000 will be 1.5-2 degrees Celsius, or 2.4-3.2 F). (More than 35 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that just over 30 percent held that view.)
The likelihood that global average sea level will rise more during this century than the highest level given in the 2007 assessment of the IPCC (0.59 meters, 23.2 inches) is more than 90 percent. (More than 30 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that less than 20 percent held that view.)
Since 1851, the U.S. has experienced an average of six major hurricane landfalls (> 111 mph) per decade. The total number of major hurricane landfalls in the U.S. from 2011-2020 will be seven to eight. (Nearly 60 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that just over 30 percent held that view.)
The total number of major hurricane landfalls in the U.S. from 2041 to 2050 will be seven to eight. (About 35 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that less than 30 percent held that view.)
Given increasing levels of human activity, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere can be kept below 550 ppm with current technology — but only with changes in government policy. (Nearly 70 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that just over 50 percent held that view.)
Now back to Hansen’s book. Here’s what Hansen writes starting on p.144,
Getting to the truth!
Sea level rise is one of the two climate impacts that I believe should be at the top of the list that defines what is “dangerous,” on any time scale that humanity can imagine. Ice sheets take thousands of years to build up from snowfall. Reasonable “adaptation” to a large sea level rise is nearly impossible, because once ice sheets begin to rapidly disintegrate, sea level would be continually changing for centuries. Coastal cities would become impractical to maintain.
The other climate change impact at the top of my “dangerous” list is extermination of species. Human activities already have increased the rate of species extinctions far above the natural level. Extinctions are occurring as humans take over more and more of the habitat of animal and plant species. We deforest large regions, replace biologically diverse grasslands and forests with monoculture crops, and introduce foreign, invasive animal and plant species that sometimes wipe out the native ones.
Hansen points out that about a billion people live at elevations less than 25 metres (81 feet).
I included a short video of James Hansen in a Learning from Dogs Post just a few days ago. You’ll find it here – go and watch it – and think about the truth!
Photo: Winston Churchill, photographed by Cecil Beaton, at 10 Downing Street, London, in 1940.
Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.– Winston Churchill
Just because it’s non-verbal doesn’t mean it isn’t clear!
This is another full republication of a recent Tomgram from Tom Engelhardt. As I have said previously, I count myself as very lucky to have had Tom give me blanket permission to reproduce his excellent essays. This one is no exception to the others that I have presented on Learning from Dogs.
But before I go to the Tomgram that was published on Tom Dispatch last Thursday, let me gently expand on what was on my mind when I wrote the sub-heading: Just because it’s non-verbal doesn’t mean it isn’t clear!
The animals that man forms close relationships with are able to ‘read’ us in many exquisite ways. Dogs, in particular, seem to sense the mood and temperament of humans especially well. Indeed, I am frequently open-mouthed at the way that Pharaoh senses, almost before I am conscious of it, that I am a little mentally ‘pre-occupied’. Most of the dogs that live around me and Jean show very clearly that they know when life isn’t running normally.
The reason I have strayed into this rather subjective place is that it doesn’t take too much to drift away and imagine that our beautiful planet is ‘speaking’ to us that she is hurting. OK, better stop there and let Tom and Bill McKibben speak better sense!
Oh, and because this was written ahead of the global day of action last Saturday, you will need to take that into account about two-thirds of the way through.
oooOOOooo
Tomgram: Bill McKibben, The Most Important Story of Our Lives
By now, it’s already deep election season, the beginning of the culmination of a cycle that commenced the day after (or even the day before) the previous presidential election. In the meantime, the endless polls appear — you can check Obama’s approval rating or the state of the presidential horserace any time, night or day — and the media goes ballistic handicapping the odds or discussing the presidential cat fight. Each side’s handlers take out after the other’s, and increasingly, the corporate dollars pour in (another form of handicapping, or maybe just plain old knee-capping). You know the routine. These days, with the election a mere six months away, Romney/Obama “analysis” and prediction is already in the stratosphere and no issue, from war to a blind self-taught Chinese lawyer escaping to the American embassy in Beijing, is election-proof.
It’s all grist for the mill and who in Washington isn’t reading the polls the way a New Ager might read Tarot cards? So when President Obama suddenly starts talking — quite voluntarily — about global warming as a campaign issue, you know something’s up. What’s up, it turns out, is public concern over climate change after years of polling in which Americans claimed to be ever less worried about the phenomenon.
No one should be surprised, given this overheated year in North America, as Bill McKibben points out in today’s post. In fact, in the latest climate-change polling, 63% of respondents believe “the United States should move forward to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, regardless of what other countries do.” In another recent poll, 65% of Americans backed the idea of “imposing mandatory controls on carbon dioxide emissions/other greenhouse gases” (as 75% now support regulating carbon dioxide as a “pollutant”).
This is something new in America. Times, like the weather, are evidently a-changin’. And the president has noticed this, especially since he’s facing an opponent who, last fall, went on the record this way: “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”
So this may be a bullish campaign season for climate change. “I suspect,” said the president, “that over the next six months, this is going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will be very clear in voicing my belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way.” It could even help win him the election, if this summer and fall prove just as weather-freaky as our North American winter and spring have been, leaving Republican climate-change deniers and prevaricators in the dust.
If, in a far less propitious political moment, one person put climate change back on the White House agenda and made the president attend to it, that would be TomDispatch regular Bill McKibben. The campaign of mass action he launched against the Keystone XL Pipeline and the particularly “dirty” form of energy it was slated to bring from Canada to the U.S. Gulf coast proved crucial. Let’s hope, like the cavalry, that he arrived in the nick of time. Tom
Too Hot Not to Notice?
A Planet Connected by Wild Weather
By Bill McKibben
The Williams River was so languid and lovely last Saturday morning that it was almost impossible to imagine the violence with which it must have been running on August 28, 2011. And yet the evidence was all around: sand piled high on its banks, trees still scattered as if by a giant’s fist, and most obvious of all, a utilitarian temporary bridge where for 140 years a graceful covered bridge had spanned the water.
The YouTube video of that bridge crashing into the raging river was Vermont’s iconic image from its worst disaster in memory, the record flooding that followed Hurricane Irene’s rampage through the state in August 2011. It claimed dozens of lives, as it cut more than a billion-dollar swath of destruction across the eastern United States.
I watched it on TV in Washington just after emerging from jail, having been arrested at the White House during mass protests of the Keystone XL pipeline. Since Vermont’s my home, it took the theoretical — the ever more turbulent, erratic, and dangerous weather that the tar sands pipeline from Canada would help ensure — and made it all too concrete. It shook me bad.
And I’m not the only one.
New data released last month by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities show that a lot of Americans are growing far more concerned about climate change, precisely because they’re drawing the links between freaky weather, a climate kicked off-kilter by a fossil-fuel guzzling civilization, and their own lives. After a year with a record number of multi-billion dollar weather disasters, seven in ten Americans now believe that “global warming is affecting the weather.” No less striking, 35% of the respondents reported that extreme weather had affected them personally in 2011. As Yale’s Anthony Laiserowitz told theNew York Times, “People are starting to connect the dots.”
Which is what we must do. As long as this remains one abstract problem in the long list of problems, we’ll never get to it. There will always be something going on each day that’s more important, including, if you’re facing flood or drought, the immediate danger.
But in reality, climate change is actually the biggest thing that’s going on every single day. If we could only see that pattern we’d have a fighting chance. It’s like one of those trompe l’oeil puzzles where you can only catch sight of the real picture by holding it a certain way. So this weekend we’ll be doing our best to hold our planet a certain way so that the most essential pattern is evident. At 350.org, we’re organizing a global day of action that’s all about dot-connecting; in fact, you can follow the action at climatedots.org.
The day will begin in the Marshall Islands of the far Pacific, where the sun first rises on our planet, and where locals will hold a daybreak underwater demonstration on their coral reef already threatened by rising seas. They’ll hold, in essence, a giant dot — and so will our friends in Bujumbura, Burundi, where March flooding destroyed 500 homes. In Dakar, Senegal, they’ll mark the tidal margins of recent storm surges. In Adelaide, Australia, activists will host a “dry creek regatta” to highlight the spreading drought down under.
Pakistani farmers — some of the millions driven from their homes by unprecedented flooding over the last two years — will mark the day on the banks of the Indus; in Ayuthaya, Thailand, Buddhist monks will protest next to a temple destroyed by December’s epic deluges that also left the capital, Bangkok, awash.
Activists in Ulanbataar will focus on the ongoing effects of drought in Mongolia. In Daegu, South Korea, students will gather with bags of rice and umbrellas to connect the dots between climate change, heavy rains, and the damage caused to South Korea’s rice crop in recent years. In Amman, Jordan, Friends of the Earth Middle East will be forming a climate dot on the shores of the Dead Sea to draw attention to how climate-change-induced drought has been shrinking that sea.
In Herzliya, Israel, people will form a dot on the beach to stand in solidarity with island nations and coastal communities around the world that are feeling the impact of climate change. In newly freed Libya, students will hold a teach-in. In Oman, elders will explain how the weather along the Persian Gulf has shifted in their lifetimes. There will be actions in the cloud forests of Costa Rica, and in the highlands of Peru where drought has wrecked the lives of local farmers. In Monterrey, Mexico, they’ll recall last year’s floods that did nearly $2 billion in damage. In Chamonix, France, climbers will put a giant red dot on the melting glaciers of the Alps.
And across North America, as the sun moves westward, activists in Halifax, Canada, will “swim for survival” across its bay to highlight rising sea levels, while high-school students in Nashville, Tennessee, will gather on a football field inundated by 2011’s historic killer floods.
In Portland, Oregon, city dwellers will hold an umbrella-decorating party to commemorate March’s record rains. In Bandelier, New Mexico, firefighters in full uniform will remember last year’s record forest fires and unveil the new solar panels on their fire station. In Miami, Manhattan, and Maui, citizens will line streets that scientists say will eventually be underwater. In the high Sierra, on one of the glaciers steadily melting away, protesters will unveil a giant banner with just two words, a quote from that classic of western children’s literature, The Wizard of Oz. “I’m Melting” it will say, in letters three-stories high.
This is a full-on fight between information and disinformation, between the urge to witness and the urge to cover-up. The fossil-fuel industry has funded endless efforts to confuse people, to leave an impression that nothing much is going on. But — as with the tobacco industry before them — the evidence has simply gotten too strong.
Once you saw enough people die of lung cancer, you made the connection. The situation is the same today. Now, it’s not just the scientists and the insurance industry; it’s your neighbors. Even pleasant weather starts to seem weird. Fifteen thousand U.S. temperature records were broken, mainly in the East and Midwest,in the month of March alone, as a completely unprecedented heat wave moved across the continent. Most people I met enjoyed the rare experience of wearing shorts in winter, but they were still shaking their heads. Something was clearly wrong and they knew it.
The one institution in our society that isn’t likely to be much help in spreading the news is… the news. Studies show our papers and TV channels paying ever less attention to our shifting climate. In fact, in 2011 ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox spent twice as much time discussing Donald Trump as global warming. Don’t expect representatives from Saturday’s Connect the Dots day to show up on Sunday’s talk shows. Over the last three years, those inside-the-Beltway extravaganzas have devoted 98 minutes total to the planet’s biggest challenge. Last year, in fact, all the Sunday talk shows spent exactly nine minutes of Sunday talking time on climate change — and here’s a shock: all of it was given over to Republican politicians in the great denial sweepstakes.
So here’s a prediction: next Sunday, no matter how big and beautiful the demonstrations may be that we’re mounting across the world, “Face the Nation” and “Meet the Press” won’t be connecting the dots. They’ll be gassing along about Newt Gingrich’s retirement from the presidential race or Mitt Romney’s coming nomination, and many of the commercials will come from oil companies lying about their environmental efforts. If we’re going to tell this story — and it’s the most important story of our time — we’re going to have to tell it ourselves.
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Copyright 2012 Bill McKibben
Couple of footnotes from yours truly.
Here’s that video that Bill mentions earlier,
This is an email that came from Bill McKibben earlier on Sunday morning (Arizona time).
Dear Friends,
This is a thank you note, a thank you note to the whole planet.
Except for the hours when I went out to the events nearest my home in Vermont, I’ve been by the computer, transfixed by the images streaming in.
From every corner of the earth people have been doing their best to Connect the Dots on climate change. And their best has been pretty amazing — we have photos from beneath the ocean waves and from high-altitude glaciers, from the middle of big cities fighting sea level rise and remote deserts battling drought.
Here’s one of the most vivid photos of the bunch — just a taste of what it feels like to have the water rising around you, and the tip of the iceberg of the creative masterworks of the past 24 hours:
We’re going to need you soon to fight the political battles that will make use of these images, but for the next day or two just relax, and enjoy the feeling of solidarity that comes from knowing there are millions of people thinking the same way, harboring the same fears and, more importantly, the same hopes.
On we go together.
With such gratitude,
Bill McKibben
P.S. There’s still time to submit photos for our slideshow and compilation video — just send your best photo as an email attachment to photos@350.org. Make your city and country the subject line of the email, and put your story and description in the body. So many thanks in advance!
There are a number of news stories about this extra-special full moon but I’ve chosen to republish some of what appeared on the Mother Nature Network website.
In terms of the timing of this full moon, rather than give you times for various places around the world, as this website does, I will simply offer the UTC/GMT time:
Sunday 6th May 2012 at 03:35:06 am
If you want to covert that to your local time wherever you are on this beautiful planet The World Time Server is as good a website as any.
BIGGER THAN YOUR AVERAGE MOON: Skywatcher Tim McCord of Entiat, Washington caught this amazing view of the March 19, 2011 supermoon. (Photo: Tim McCord)
Skywatchers take note: The biggest full moon of the year is due to arrive this weekend. And because this month’s full moon coincides with the moon’s perigee — its closest approach to Earth — it will also be the year’s biggest.
The moon will swing in 221,802 miles (356,955 kilometers) from our planet, offering skywatchers a spectacular view of an extra-big, extra-bright moon, nicknamed a supermoon.
And not only does the moon’s perigee coincide with full moon this month, but this perigee will be the nearest to Earth of any this year, as the distance of the moon’s close approach varies by about 3 percent, according to meteorologist Joe Rao, SPACE.com’s skywatching columnist. This happens because the moon’s orbit is not perfectly circular.
The full Moon will be up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than others during the year. The reason for this phenomenon is that the Moon becomes full on its closest approach to Earth on May 5, 2012, also known as the perigee full Moon.
So enjoy this most beautiful sight if you are somewhere on this planet where the moon will be visible at night. And double-check the time and the day so you don’t miss it! Finally, let me close by ‘spoiling’ my many readers in Arizona, and to serve as a good reminder for yours truly by saying that anyone on US Mountain Standard Time will see this moon at:
Saturday, 5th May 2012 at 20:35:06
“Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.” W. Clement Stone.
Sometimes one wonders what happened to common sense!
Today’s Post is motivated by a number of items that have crossed my screen over the last few days which when looked at collectively might remind one of the old saw, “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it does help!”
Sit with me, metaphorically, and allow me to muse.
First was a recent Post on 350 or bust that included the March 2012 TED Conference in Long Beach, California where NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen explains why he must speak out about climate change. (See the video later on.) That Post refers to an item on Martin Lack’s Blog, Lack of Environment, where Martin as well as including the video below also lists the challenges that we on this single, finite planet face. Here is that list,
The Earth’s current energy imbalance is 0.6 Watts per sq.m.; a rate of energy input 20 times greater than the energy output of all human activity; and equivalent to the detonation of 400,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs every day.
Since measurements began in 2003, there has been a noticeable acceleration in the annual rate of mass loss from both the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps.
The last time atmospheric CO2 was 390 ppm, sea levels were 15 m higher than they are today, which implies even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels tomorrow, this is where they would end up several centuries from now because the warming “is already in the pipeline” (i.e. because the Earth must warm-up in order to restore its energy balance).
Unless we stop burning fossil fuels soon, sea level rise will continue to accelerate, which is likely to cause between 1 and 5 metre rise by 2100AD (depending on how quickly we now decide to stop burning them).
Palaeoclimatology tells us that 350 ppm is the safe limit for avoiding significant disruption to the planet’s ecological carrying capacity (i.e. in terms of both populations of individual species and overall biodivesity); and it now seems likely that between 20%-50% of all species will be “ticketed for extinction” by the end of the century.
If we had started to get off fossil fuels in 2005, it would have required 3% reduction per year in order to restore energy imbalance by 2100AD. If we start next year, it will require 6% p.a. If we wait 10 years it will require 15% p.a.
Recent droughts in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico were 3 Standard Deviations outside the norm. Events such as these cannot therefore be ascribed to natural variability; anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is happening just as Hansen said it would 24 years ago (if we did not change course – which we haven’t).
Pursuing emissions limits (i.e. Cap and Trade) will not work because there is no actual incentive to reduce emissions without any self-imposed restraint being to the advantage of others who do not do the same (i.e. the Tragedy of the Commons problem).
Hansen uses the analogy of an approaching asteroid – the longer we wait to prevent it hitting us the harder it becomes to do so.
Do watch that Hansen video,
Second is that yesterday Martin Lack published an item that really does seem to endorse the view that there is no sign of intelligent life living on Planet Earth (not counting dogs!).
Think about it. The planet is warming up. The use of carbon-based fuels is a strong suspect, putting it mildly, of the rising levels of CO2 in our atmosphere, 394.45 on April 5th, so rather than change the incentives for using such fuels, we are taking advantage of this warming planet causing the melt of the Arctic ice cap by allowing Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic. But even crazier than that, Shell have contracted for a Finnish icebreaker to assist them in breaking up the ice! (I really do feel a headache coming on!)
The pristine and beautiful Arctic: Shell wants to exploit it for oil. We want it protected.
Dozens of Greenpeace Nordic activists have boarded and occupied a Shell-contracted icebreaker in Helsinki harbour as it prepares to leave for the Alaskan Arctic.
Drilling in this fragile ecosystem – home to the polar bear, narwhal, Arctic fox and other iconic species – is unacceptable. A spill or accident in these waters would be disastrous and the harsh conditions would make responding to such a disaster almost impossible.
Demand Shell stop their plans to put the fragile Arctic and its biodiversity at risk. We’ll keep you updated on our campaigns.
Write to Mr. Peter Voser.
Mr Peter Voser, Shell
The Arctic isn’t a place you can exploit, it’s a place we have to protect. Time and time again, experts have expressed serious doubts about the possibility of cleaning up an oil spill in the Arctic. The technical challenges posed by drilling there are obvious and no matter how much you try to convince people that your company can operate safely in such a harsh environment, we know the truth.
Because of this, I demand that you scrap your Arctic plans immediately.
Yours sincerely,
————–
By the end of this week we want 500,000 people shouting at Shell that it must end its campaign of Arctic destruction. Click here now. [N.B. This is a time-sensitive campaign response – please visit Greenpeace website and enter your name and email address and they will email Shell on your behalf.]
We can change things! Together we can stop Shell and other oil companies from destroying the Arctic. Not everyone can board a ship to demand that change. But today, you can email Shell and ask them to stop drilling for oil and ask 10 of your friends to do the same. Together, we can save the Arctic!
Rosa Gierens
Greenpeace Nordic activist from Finland.
In closing, luckily there are many voices being raised about putting an end to this madness; see the recent item from Patrice Ayme. Hopefully, all these voices will bring about the changes to the way so many of us are governed. As Patrice commented recently on Learning from Dogs, “Hope is the breathing of the planet“. Maybe, just maybe, hope will win through. No better put than by James Hansen,
Most impressive is the work of the Citizens Climate Lobby, a relatively new, fastgrowing, nonpartisan, nonprofit group with 46 chapters across the United States and Canada. If you want to join the fight to save the planet, to save creation for your grandchildren, there is no more effective step you could take than becoming an active member of this group.”
– Dr. James Hansen, head of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA
Oh, and before I forget, a tornado touched down in Southern France! Not common and not making sense!
Modern medical practices raise questions about healing.
I am motivated to write today’s Post because a week ago, last Tuesday 24th April, I went to see my local doctor here in Payson. I don’t want to rabbit on too much about that doctor’s appointment because that isn’t the thrust of this ‘essay’. But let me just say this about that experience on the 24th, because it’s relevant to what I’m trying to convey.
A few years back, I was diagnosed with vestibular migraine but the reason for going to see the doctor was motivated by the realisation that over the last few months my memory was getting a little sporadic, for want of a more technical description! But I felt that the vestibular migraine, that I still suffer from, was relevant to my assessment. I should further add that the health clinic where this doctor is based have only seen me once before, for something minor. In other words, they do not have a good understanding of me from a medical perspective.
So I enter the doctor’s room and in comes the medical assistant with her wireless-connected laptop. Her fingers are poised to enter details.
I said, “Before we get going on my memory, can I talk about my vestibular migraine?”
The assistant replied, “Well I’m on the memory page, not the migraine page. Which do you want to talk about?”
I sighed and indicated that she should ask me questions about my memory!
Ergo, this human that wanted to be seen as a human had to conform to the relevant medical label!
So with this still reverberating inside me, I was positively tuned to something recently published by Michele of Dogkisses Blog. It was a very recent post called Green Healing – Horticultural Notes. Let me ‘borrow’ a few words from that Post.
We always begin Horticulture Therapy by gathering in a circle to share plant news. This time together is good, interesting and takes us in many directions. We often visit our past of garden or plant memories and look to the future with hopeful or creative garden dreams and ideas.
Last week I arrived just in time to hear another participant sharing his idea for a creative planting container. The young man was more engaged than usual and when he smiled and became excited about what plants to choose and where he would put his new container, I felt like I saw the heart of horticulture therapy.
I like to call these times Healing Happenings, which are moments in time when hope or happiness fills my heart and mind. I’m not talking about everything being right or all problems being fixed. I’m talking about a little piece of time when worry and stress take a back seat and the beauty of life emerges.
This got me thinking. Is there a schism these days in modern medicine between curing and healing? Have we created a situation where we rely on chemical and pharmaceutical technology to find a whole range of cures but, in parallel, is medicine losing sight of the need for healing? Maybe some would argue that such a distinction is irrelevant; if one is sick then one is very needy for a cure. But, overall, perhaps the evidence of better and better healing in our societies is pretty hard to find. Take this that I read recently,
There is a growing epidemic of obesity, type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and predictions that 15,000,000 people in the United States alone will have Alzheimer’s Disease by the year 2050.
Back to Dogkisses blog,
Personally, ‘healing happenings’ include moments when I enjoy what I imagine most Mothers do, which is seeing our children, no matter what age they are, smile and be happy. They’re also moments when I feel that my family will be okay.
There is always hope in a garden. We hope it grows. We hope it rains. We hope to have a good harvest of food or lively blooming flowers that paint our world pretty. I’m sure hope is part of why it feels good to work in a garden, whether you have a large field or a modest arrangement of containers on your porch. Each day you have hope.
“When I’m in my garden, life’s troubles crumble away with the rich black soil between my fingers. I’m fully in my body, out of my head, my worries banished. My garden is my church, my time there sacred.” (Garden your troubles away, by Amy Karon, PsycheScoop).
Here’s what I wrote as a comment to DK’s Post,
You using the phrase ‘green healing’ touches on the essence on what we all need to do to ‘survive’ in this crazy world. And, of course, I’m using the word ‘survive’ in a mental rather than physical sense.
It reminds me of the odd moments during the day when I hug one of the dogs and really give in to the feeling; almost as though the dog and I recognise it could be the very last hug in our lives. The emotional intimacy that flows from that private bonding across the two different (very different!) species is truly breath-taking!
So forgive my meanderings today but you may share my fear that by losing touch of the very powerful curative aspects of communing with nature, whether it be a garden, a walk in the woods, a swim in the sea or the warmth of an animal body, we may be missing real healing. As Michele wrote, “Each day you have hope.” Without hope there is nothing left.
Amazing to find that the saying was recorded as far back as 1546 when it is first recorded in John Heywood’s A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue: “An yll wynde that blowth no man to good, men say.”
The reason this comes to mind is that good friend, John H. from here in Payson, recently sent me a piece under the title of Spider’s Web. This is how it started,
An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been
that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood
waters.
An unexpected side effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of Sindh, Pakistan, was that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters; because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water took so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiderwebs. People in the area had never seen this phenomenon before, but they also reported that there were fewer mosquitoes than they would have expected, given the amount of standing water that was left. Not being bitten by mosquitoes was one small blessing for people that had lost everything in the floods.
(This photo and caption were submitted to the 2011 National Geographic Photo Contest.)
John’s email also included more images, that are reproduced below.
So it looks as though we have much to learn from spiders as well as from dogs!
Or maybe, it’s just another example of the beauty, magic and mystery of nature!
Some people seem to have a knack for saying it how it should be!
My sub-heading, above, applies to many people right across the world. But the reason that this was triggered in my mind for today’s post, was a recent item on Christine’s excellent Blog, 350 or bust. Read more about that Blog here. I subscribe to that Blog.
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the amazingly popular Star Trek series, was a man ahead of his time. Here is one of the things he had to say about humanity and our problems (with one editorial comment from me!):
“I believe in humanity. We are an incredible species. We’re still just a child creature, and we’re still being nasty to each other [Stephen Harper: are you listening?]. And all children go through those phases. We’re moving into adolescence now. When we grow up, man, we’re going to be something!”
But what caught my eye were these comments to the Post.
The first one from a Mickey Haist that read,
It’s a nice goal, but would clenching our teeth and willing progress be of any effect? After all, children don’t spontaneously mature – they’re raised.
Have to say that I was left unsure by what Mr. Haist was trying to convey. But not so Christine! This was the first of her two replies,
No teeth clenching allowed! Robert Kennedy once said “Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
It’s not about everyone doing everything, it’s about each of us doing what we can. Not taking action because the problem is too big is not the answer.
And her second reply,
And Mickey – if the challenge of climate change/ocean acidification/biodiversity loss that we are facing as a species (taking the rest of the natural world with us) doesn’t make us mature, then nothing will. But I believe it will – as Paul Gilding says, humans are slow but not stupid!
Paul Gilding’s excellent website is always a great read, by the way.
But do reread those words of Robert Kennedy, they are powerfully inspiring.
Robert Kennedy
Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
Despite the fact that these words were said in response when South Africans suffered the tyranny of apartheid, the words are, perhaps, even more relevant today. Mankind has to combine the many ‘ripples of hope’ and build that current that will sweep away the crazy selfishness that is preventing us from living in harmony with this beautiful planet for hundreds of years ahead.
How lady luck brought joy for a ‘down-and-out’ Londoner and a cat called Bob!
I was chatting with my son yesterday and he happened to mention that perhaps I should write about a cat for a change! Alex mentioned a book recently published in the UK called A Street Cat Named Bob: How One Man and His Cat Found Hope on the Streets.
This is how the book is described on Amazon (UK site),
When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet. Yet James couldn’t resist helping the strikingly intelligent tom cat, whom he quickly christened Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent the cat on his way, imagining he would never see him again. But Bob had other ideas. Soon the two were inseparable and their diverse, comic and occasionally dangerous adventures would transform both their lives, slowly healing the scars of each other’s troubled pasts. A Street Cat Named Bob is a moving and uplifting story that will touch the heart of anyone who reads it.
A quick web search found volumes of material, so let’s start with this video,
The local London newspaper the Islington Tribune wrote this back in 2010,
Two cool cats… the Big Issue seller and a stray called Bob
Inseparable: musician James Bowen with Bob
Down-on-his-luck musician teams up with ‘wonderful loyal friend’ he rescued from streets
Published: 24 September, 2010
by PETER GRUNER
NOT since the legendary Dick Whittington has a man and his cat become such unlikely celebrities on the streets of Islington.
Big Issue seller James Bowen and his docile ginger cat Bob, who go everywhere together, have been attracting comments since they first appeared outside Angel Tube station.
The story of how they met – widely reported in blogs on the internet – is one of such extraordinary pathos that it seems only a matter of time before we get a Hollywood film.
James, 31, who lives off Seven Sisters Road, Holloway, is a musician who has fallen on hard times.
He ekes out a basic living selling the homeless people’s magazine Big Issue at Angel and Covent Garden.
Bob was a stray discovered by James outside his accommodation one day.
The cat was limping after apparently being attacked by another animal, possibly a fox.
After failing to discover the cat’s owner, James took him to the RSPCA hospital at Finsbury Park, which prescribed a course of antibiotics.
“I kept him for two weeks until he was well enough to go on his way,” said James. “But when I opened the front door to let him out Bob wouldn’t move. He seemed to me to be saying: ‘I want to stay with you.’
“Now we go everywhere together. I even have a cat harness when we go out and Bob gets really excited when I show it to him.”
Read the rest of the article here and if you want more information, a web search on Bob the Cat will finds loads more.
It’s a fabulous story with a great message of hope for not just for James and Bob but for all of us that find ourselves ‘up a creek without a paddle’ at points in our lives.
Here’s how the newspaper The Daily Mail wrote about it on their website,
[last half of the story]
But then Bob started following him and it became increasingly difficult to shoo him away, especially as there were dangerous roads to be crossed. One day there was nothing for it but to put Bob on a makeshift lead and take him along. Bob travelled sitting on James’s shoulders.
The trouble was, so many cat-mad passers-by stopped him to stroke the animal that James arrived late at his pitch, secretly cursing Bob for thereby costing him some of his usual £25-a-day takings. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Within minutes, people who would normally have walked by without giving James a second glance were lingering to make a fuss of the cat sitting sedately in his guitar case, and most made a donation. By the end of the day, he’d racked up more than £60.
It was the beginning of a phenomenon as tourists and commuters befriended Bob and James, many bringing titbits for the cat. People were amazed at how placidly Bob would sit all day, quite happily watching the world go by while James earned a living. Not that it was always without a hitch; on a couple of occasions Bob bolted when startled, leading to a frantic chase through the crowded streets.
Bob’s popularity continued when James switched from busking to selling the Big Issue, the magazine produced and sold by homeless people. This change in direction was part of James’s growing sense of a need to get his life in order, which he puts down to the responsibility of looking after Bob, and the example the cat offered of the possibility of a second chance.
It enabled James to make the final push to end his drug dependency, going through the necessary cold turkey to get off heroin substitutes, and to mend broken contacts with his family. The final result of Bob’s influence came when a literary agent who passed the duo every day and had seen them on YouTube suggested James tell their story in a book. The result is this heart-warming tale with a message of hope that will appeal especially to the many cat obsessives out there.
The day will begin in the Marshall Islands of the far Pacific, where the sun first rises on our planet, and where locals will hold a daybreak underwater demonstration on their coral reef already threatened by rising seas. They’ll hold, in essence, a giant dot — and so will our friends in Bujumbura, Burundi, where March flooding destroyed 500 homes. In Dakar, Senegal, they’ll mark the tidal margins of recent storm surges. In Adelaide, Australia, activists will host a “dry creek regatta” to highlight the spreading drought down under.
Learning from Dogs 