The ways of our carbon-consuming past & present cannot be continued into the future.
In many ways that sub-heading above is not controversial for millions of citizens of Planet Earth. The challenge is in changing behaviours, ending old habits of energy use, and working towards a truly sustainable relationship with the only planetary home we have!
Like many others, Jean and I are of the view that the Keystone XL Pipeline is not required. Last week there was an update from EPI about this subject illustrating how the pipeline is not required. That update is published in full, as follows,
Plan B Updates
OCTOBER 06, 2011
U.S. Gasoline Use Declining: Keystone XL Pipeline Not Needed
Lester R. Brown
As the debate unfolds about whether to build a 1,711-mile pipeline to carry crude oil from the tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas, the focus is on the oil spills and carbon emissions that inevitably come with it. But we need to ask a more fundamental question. Do we really need that oil?
The United States currently consumes more gasoline than the next 16 countries combined. Yes, you read that right. Among them are China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and Brazil. (See data.)
But now this is changing. Not only is the affluence that sustained this extravagant gasoline consumption eroding, but the automobile-centered lifestyle that was considered part of the American birthright is fading as well. U.S. gasoline use has dropped 5 percent in four years.
Four key developments are set to further reduce U.S. gasoline use: a shrinking car fleet, a decline in the miles driven per car, dramatic mandated future gains in new car fuel efficiency, and the shift from gasoline to electricity to power our cars.
The U.S. fleet appears to have peaked at 250 million vehicles in 2008. From 1994 through 2007, new-car sales were in the range of 15–17 million per year. Since then they have totaled 10–13 million per year, and they are unlikely to top 14 million again. Retirees likely will exceed sales of new cars throughout this decade.
The contraction that began when the fleet dropped from 250 million in 2008 to 248 million in 2010 is likely to continue. Sales of new cars are not matching those of earlier years in part because the economic prospect has dimmed and in part because we are still urbanizing. Today 82 percent of us live in urban areas where cars are becoming less essential.
On top of urbanization, we also have a change in the manner in which young people socialize. For teenagers in rural communities a half century ago, getting a driver’s license and something to drive—a car, a pickup, or even a farm truck—was a rite of passage. That’s what everyone did.
This too is changing. Today’s teenagers, most of whom grew up in an urban setting, socialize through smartphones and the Internet. For many of them, a car is of little interest. The number of licensed teenage drivers in this country—the car owners of the future—has dropped from a peak of 12 million in 1978 to 10 million today.
Cities are also being redesigned for people. Among other things, this means cities are becoming pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly, with ready access to public transit.
Many cities are building a cycling infrastructure of bicycle trails, dedicated bike lanes, and bike racks for parking. Bike-sharing programs are showing up, too. In Washington, D.C., the Capital Bikeshare program that began in 2010 has expanded to 116 stations with 1,100 bicycles. Within the first year, some 16,000 riders signed up for annual membership in the program. Denver and Chicago have similar bike share programs. And New York City is about to launch a huge program of its own.
The second reason that gasoline use is falling is the decline in miles driven per car. This is partly in response to economic uncertainty and the high price of gasoline. When gas costs nearly $4 a gallon, people think twice before jumping in a car and using a gallon of gasoline to pick up a half-gallon of milk.
A third trend that is reducing gasoline use is the rising fuel efficiency of the U.S. automobile fleet. New cars sold in 2008 averaged 27 miles per gallon. But in early 2009, President Obama raised the average fuel efficiency standard so that those sold in 2016 will get 36 miles per gallon. Additional standards announced in 2011 mean that new cars sold in 2025 will use less than half as much gasoline as the 2008 models.
The game changer in reducing gasoline use is going to come as drivers shift from gasoline to electrically powered vehicles, including plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars. General Motors recently introduced the Chevrolet Volt, designed to run largely on electricity, and Nissan unveiled the Leaf, an all-electric vehicle. Beyond these, Toyota is accepting orders for the plug-in version of its Prius hybrid, the pacesetter in fuel efficiency. It will be followed by a steady flow of new plug-in hybrid and all-electric car models coming to market.
Although these electrically powered vehicles are typically more costly to buy, the day-to-day cost of operating them is extraordinarily low. An analysis by Professor Michael McElroy at Harvard indicates that running a car on wind-generated electricity could cost less than the equivalent of 80-cent-a-gallon gasoline.
With the auto fleet shrinking, with the average car being driven less, with the fuel use of new cars to be cut in half by 2025, and with electricity starting to replace gasoline as a fuel, why do we need to build a pipeline to bring crude oil from Canada’s tar sands to oil refineries in Texas? The answer is we don’t.
Lester R. Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of World on the Edge.
There’s a footnote that I would like to add from the Center for Biological Diversity (great website!) that came out in a recent newsletter.
Here it is,
Lawsuit Seeks to Halt Work on Controversial Keystone XL Pipeline
Keystone Pipeline
The hotly contested Keystone XL pipeline hasn’t been approved for construction, but federal officials don’t seem to care; they’ve allowed the pipeline company to mow down 100 miles of native prairie grasslands in Nebraska to clear the way — before any public hearings were held on whether Keystone XL should move forward at all.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth filed a lawsuit in federal court in Omaha Wednesday to halt that work. Specifically, we’re challenging decisions by the State Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow work to begin before a decision’s been made on the pipeline or the public hearings, which look like little more than a sham at this point.
If approved, TransCanada’s 1,700-mile pipeline would carry up to 35 million gallons of oil a day from tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas. Not only will this project add fuel to the global climate crisis, but the pipeline will cut across Nebraska’s legendary Sandhills, hundreds of rivers and streams, and the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides drinking water for millions of people. TransCanada’s existing pipeline, called Keystone 1, has reportedly leaked 14 times since it started operating in June 2010.
A canine charitable opportunity that deserves wide support.
The details that follow strike a chord with me, strike a chord in a big way. When I first came to live with Jean back in 2008 it was clear that this wasn’t going to be a normal relationship. Why? Because, at that time Jean had 12 dogs living with her in San Carlos, Mexico and my arrival, together with my Shepherd dog, Pharaoh (see home page for a picture of him), took that number to 13. Jean’s dogs were all Mexican rescues; she also ran her own local humane society in San Carlos and over the years had found homes for literally dozens of dogs.
One of those Mexican rescues was a dog called Loopy, who had been terribly treated by local Mexicans. The consequence when I arrived, a stranger in the middle of Loopy’s life with Jean, was that Loopy was very aggressive towards me; my hands have small scars to bear witness to the number of nips Loopy launched in my direction.
It took over a year before I was able to just let my hand ‘accidentally’ brush her side. Slowly Loopy’s trust in me built up until now I can press my face to her face and cuddle her for ages. (To underline the love that Loopy bestows on me, I will get Jean to take a picture and publish that before the end of the week.) So with that in mind, let me turn to the details recently sent to me by friend and colleague, Dapinder Singh, from England.
———————
George and loving owner, Ian.
This is George. He was in an English dog pound and condemned to death.
He had been very badly abused, one eye blinded by what was thought to be a kick, he trusted no-one and had rejected all human contact. He was desperate and in despair.
After an exhaustive search for anyone who take on the rescue of George, we (as in Doris Banham) took him into our care just a day before he was due to be euthanased. His veterinary problems were easier to deal with than the mental ones. His eye was damaged beyond repair causing him constant pain so it had to be removed, teaching George to trust again was much harder.
That journey back to trusting humans was long, George had suffered severe and terrible abuse, but there was no question of giving up on him and slowly but surely he began to live again as we fought to undo the wrongs that had been done to him. After some months with us, a wonderful family came to the rescue and offered George his ‘forever’ home where he found the love that he so deserved. His family are completely devoted to him.
His story, however, could have been a very different one were it not for the work of the team at Doris Banham’s. Below is an extract written by the lovely family who adopted him and from our fantastic volunteer, Sheila, who helped bring George back to life again.
“Hi, Sheila. Here is a shot of George in his new garden. He is settling down very well and seems to be very happy. I will keep you posted as to his progress. All the best Liz and Ian.”
There were a number of photographs sent to Sheila, however I have taken editor’s liberty and moved them to the foot of the article – I want you to stay with this to the point where you can see how to help. Here’s Sheila’s reply,
“WELL THESE BOUGHT ME TO TEARS , OUR GEORGE , THIS IS TRUE RESCUE , THIS IS ALL DOWN TO YOU DORIS BANHAM NOTHING ELSE TO SAY …” SHEILA X.
Are there other Georges out there? You bet! Far too many of them, right across the world. So let’s all do something to help these special creatures, who show us humans just what unconditionally love feels like.
Friday 4th November, 7.30pm – Come to the Hellaby Hall Hotel, Old Hellaby, Maltby, Yorkshire, S66 8SN
Call for tickets now to the Pound Dog Ball telephone number (UK) 07772 538513 or email pogpublications@yahoo.com Full details here.
Please help all the Georges out there by supporting this Charity Fundraising Event: Black Tie, Dinner/Dance at Hellaby Hall, Rotherham, 7.30pm, on Friday 4th November. It’s a don’t miss night…..3 course meal, live entertainment all night and dancing ’til late!!!! It’s going to be a great night.
If you can’t make the Ball but would like to send in a donation then please post a cheque, made out to Pound Dog Ball, to the following address:
c/o Jennifer Smith
Clumber Lodge,
50 Hemingfield Road
Wombwell, S73 0LY.
Or if you prefer an electronic donation, further details are:
Pound Dog Ball
A/C 31542265
Sort 40-45-29 (HSBC)
The account is a charity account, set up only for this event. Once the money has been paid to the charities the account will be closed.
I know that Dapinder, and everyone else involved in helping these precious animals, sends you their heartfelt thanks.
Finally, more photos of George enjoying life as all dogs should. What a wonderful story, an honour to be able to publish it, and promote the Ball, on Learning from Dogs. Please help.
Readers may recall that John H. and I went to the nearest Moving Planet event in Phoenix, as posted on Monday. Now 350.org have released a video of the event as seen from a global perspective.
2000+ events. 180+ countries. A single day to Move Beyond Fossil Fuels. 350.org’s 2011 day of action, Moving Planet, brought together Moving Together.
Photos and Videos submitted by thousands of organizers and activists around the world — THANK YOU!
I know that expression from my days as a private pilot. It makes such obvious sense, especially in a single-engined light aircraft with one pilot on board. It’s all about risk.
Frederick Herzberg, the famous American psychologist, coined the term ‘hygiene factor’. It was the second part of a two-factor approach to the management of people. According to Herzberg’s theory, people are influenced by two sets of factors, motivation factors and hygiene factors. More background on this aspect here.
To me, as I reflect on the messages offered in the Sceptical Voices article, Part One and Part Two, the concepts of risk and hygiene seem totally appropriate to the topic of AGW, Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Whether or not AGW is a valid theory behind the rapid change in global warming is utterly irrelevant. It is the risk to humanity that matters. There is absolutely no harm done from assuming that AGW is happening and that feedback processes run a grave risk of tipping planetary conditions out of control, and getting that wrong.
On the other hand, assume that AGW is such an uncertain concept that it really isn’t wise to adjust our life styles, and getting that wrong would endanger the human species.
Think of being on a commercial airline flight and you become aware that one of the two pilots in the cockpit is incapacitated through food poisoning. No doubt that you, with all your fellow passengers, would vote for an immediate diversionary landing. It’s to do with risk.
From the perspective of Herzberg, a co-ordinated program by the world’s leading governments to tackle AGW might also improve the overall motivation of their peoples in a whole manner of ways.
Yes, question all we want, yes, there are other important issues to resolve in the world, but WHAT IF “Climate Change/Global Warming“ is for real, what then?
Dan wrote also in that Part One piece,
And by “peel-back-the-onion”, I mean that any ardent, independent researcher should publish both sides of the story as a matter of course. Especially in regards to global warming.
But publishing both sides of the story is not the argument. The argument is the risk to humanity of doing nothing, and getting it wrong.
That well-respected weekly newspaper The Economist had a recent article about the melting of Arctic ice, from which is quoted,
Arctic sea ice is melting far faster than climate models predict. Why?
Sep 24th 2011 - from the print edition
ON SEPTEMBER 9th, at the height of its summertime shrinkage, ice covered 4.33m square km, or 1.67m square miles, of the Arctic Ocean, according to America’s National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC). That is not a record low—not quite. But the actual record, 4.17m square km in 2007, was the product of an unusual combination of sunny days, cloudless skies and warm currents flowing up from mid-latitudes. This year has seen no such opposite of a perfect storm, yet the summer sea-ice minimum is a mere 4% bigger than that record. Add in the fact that the thickness of the ice, which is much harder to measure, is estimated to have fallen by half since 1979, when satellite records began, and there is probably less ice floating on the Arctic Ocean now than at any time since a particularly warm period 8,000 years ago, soon after the last ice age.
That Arctic sea ice is disappearing has been known for decades. The underlying cause is believed by all but a handful of climatologists to be global warming brought about by greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet the rate the ice is vanishing confounds these climatologists’ models. These predict that if the level of carbon dioxide, methane and so on in the atmosphere continues to rise, then the Arctic Ocean will be free of floating summer ice by the end of the century. At current rates of shrinkage, by contrast, this looks likely to happen some time between 2020 and 2050.
Re-read the sentence, “The underlying cause is believed by all but a handful of climatologists to be global warming brought about by greenhouse-gas emissions.” In particular, “by all but a handful of climatologists” Think of risk.
That article, which should be read in full, concludes thus,
A warming Arctic will bring local benefits to some. The rest of the world may pay the cost.
Indeed, the rest of the world may pay the cost! As I wrote, it’s all about risk.
So whether or not one wants to believe every word of that Economist article is irrelevant. Or whether one should have believed, or not, the article in New York’s The Sun newspaper back in 2007,
By SETH BORENSTEIN, Associated Press | December 12, 2007
WASHINGTON — An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.
Greenland’s ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer’s end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by the Associated Press.
“The Arctic is screaming,” a senior scientist at the government’s snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo., Mark Serreze, said.
Last year, two scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so fast that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040. This week, after reviewing his own new data, a NASA climate scientist, Jay Zwally, said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.”
So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models? “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming,” Mr. Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal, said. “Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines.” [My emphasis, PH]
So, in conclusion, scepticism is healthy and is an important aspect of open debate within an open society, part of determining truth, however challenging that simple concept might be.
But eventually one needs to take a position, to take a stand on the really important issues in life and in the case of climate change the risk of being too sceptical, too cautious is to put the lives of future generations at stake. For me, and I guess for tens of thousands of others, that is a risk too far.
Why should such an obvious concept, that of truth, be so very difficult to define?
Who in the world whose native tongue is English isn’t familiar with the words of the oath, “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” often with the phrase, “so help me God.” It is the fundamental foundation of a working justice system. Probably the most famous of oaths is the American Presidential oath upon taking up office, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Then just the other day I was exploring the blog Lack of Environment written by Martin Lack who made himself known to Learning from Dogs from a comment to the post Sceptical voices, part two, published on the 23rd. Martin’s blog carried an article about scientific scepticism (outcome being very little) in global warming being caused by man. There was reference to the book Climate Cover-Up written by James Hoggan and an extract from that book on the Desmogblog website, as follows,
Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy. There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.
The sentence highlighted by me is fundamental to this essay. Perhaps the crux of why it feels so difficult to determine the truth is that the vast 24-hour output of news and information, the 24-hour fear machine as John H. calls it, carries no means of distinguishing the reliability of the source, no details of any affiliations that the person offering the information to that particular media outlet may have, and so on and so on. I wrote a piece on the 12th July called What Exactly is the Truth where I concluded that,
Despite my chest-beating on the subject of politicians and leaders deliberately lying in that recent piece about Juncker, there’s something much more fundamental. What defines lying is really not that important. It’s whether or not we trust that our leaders are doing their best for their constituents, to the best of their abilities.
Whether you support left-leaning or right-leaning policies is unimportant; indeed political differences and the ability to vote for one’s beliefs is at the heart of an open democracy.
But if we don’t trust that our leaders are doing their best for our country then that causes the destruction of faith. If we do not have faith in those that lead us then the breakdown of a civilised social order becomes a very real risk.
So examining the essence of the word ‘truth’ creates a conflict, well it does in my mind. A conflict between the idea that truth is a very simple concept and that peeling back the meaning of the word truth reveals many, many layers. Let me quote from the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy,
Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth.
It would be impossible to survey all there is to say about truth in any coherent way. Instead, this essay will concentrate on the main themes in the study of truth in the contemporary philosophical literature. It will attempt to survey the key problems and theories of current interest, and show how they relate to one-another. A number of other entries investigate many of these topics in greater depth. Generally, discussion of the principal arguments is left to them. The goal of this essay is only to provide an overview of the current theories.
The problem of truth is in a way easy to state: what truths are, and what (if anything) makes them true. But this simple statement masks a great deal of controversy. Whether there is a metaphysical problem of truth at all, and if there is, what kind of theory might address it, are all standing issues in the theory of truth. We will see a number of distinct ways of answering these questions.
“Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years.” So I’m not the first and certainly won’t be the last to ponder on how one gets to know the truth.
Do I have any answers? None! Except, perhaps, to muse that if truth can be so difficult to pin down then adopting a rigid stance based on assumptions of truth will carry risk. And, of course, to reflect that dogs don’t lie.
I’ll close with the quote from Oscar Wilde, “Truth is rarely pure and never simple.” Quite so.
Martin Luther King, (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968)
One of the aspects of modern life that is deeply unsatisfactory is the way that politicians and leaders of democratic societies fudge the truth in the hope that trying to be all things to all men means wider acceptance of their messages.
Think of the quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. ”
These words serve as an introduction to some beautiful thoughts from a loyal American living here in Payson. This is a man who is deeply spiritual, who has fought for his country, and who is soft and gentle to the core. This is a man who is not afraid to offer a personal vision to the world. I regard it as a real bonus that Jean and I have his friendship.
Here is the first of two contributions from John H.
The Passion of Enlightenment
Enlightenment includes deep grief and a passion to leave life a bit better than we found it. Enlightenment has little practical value in a growing and constantly consuming cultural demographic. Consumers tend to spiritually disconnect when faced by a need for change or when morality becomes inconvenient.
Is God truth? What is the opposite of truth? We’ve lost our way as a species. Does God tell us to worship money? Does God tell us to ignore our finite earth? Does God tell us to kill each other? Does God tell us to ignore human history and the emerging network of scientific understandings?
Human wisdom has been far greater in the past than it is today. God is not known through empirical knowledge. Man is as limited as the finite planet which gave life to our species and sustains our existence. Matter and energy are interchangeable as fundamental forces. God is experienced through our inner being and understood through the wisdom tradition of our species.
Sustainability includes the well-being of our planet and the life it supports. Sustainability includes serving as caretakers rather than acting as owners. Sustainability includes surrendering our addictions, our illusions and our delusions. Surrendering includes the courage to speak the truth and walk as we talk. Surrendering assures our common well-being as a conscious component of God. We have nothing to fear.
Consider world leadership. Who are the aggressors? Who are the oppressed? Who serves God? Who serves Mammon? We each must search our heart, mind and soul to answer these questions honestly. We need to face our shame and guilt in order to redeem ourselves and make a sustained effort to change.
The roots of wisdom in a constantly changing world are God, nature, history, and science. We’ve come a long way since we first learned to use tools. What have we forgotten in the process? We can’t wait for the truth to become popular. We each need to help make the truth popular.
Want a brilliant idea for tomorrow? Stay in the present!
Dogs do this wonderfully. I am told that followers of Zen Buddhism discover peace and grace from embracing the present. But is there more to this? Is there some deeper psychology involved? Does our species have an intrinsic challenge in terms of staying in the present?
My musings on this arise from a couple of recent conversations.
The first was with Peter McCarthy from the Bristol area of West England. Peter and I go back a few years (at my age, everything goes back a few years!) and at one stage I did some work for Peter’s company, Telecom Potential. Just a quick aside, Peter’s company was based in the magnificent Clevedon Hall, a mansion built in 1853 as a family home for Conrad William Finzel, a German-born businessman. Here’s a picture of one of the rooms,
A room at Clevedon Hall
Peter, like me, is sure that the period in which the world now appears to be, is not some cyclical downturn, not some temporary departure from the national growth and employment ambitions promoted by so many countries. No! This one is different.
Peter is sure that a major transition is under way, as big as any of the great societal upheavals of the past. And, for me, a fascinating comment from Peter was his belief that the key attitude required for the next years would be innovation. Peter reminded me that we tend to think of innovation as applying to things physical, scientific and technical. But Peter sensed that it would be in the area of social innovation where key changes would arise and, from which, these large societal changes would flow.
Then a day later I was chatting with one of the founders of a brilliant new authentication process, Pin Plus. It is a very smart solution to a major global problem, the weaknesses of traditional password user-authentication systems.
On the face of it, Pin Plus is obviously a better and more secure way of authenticating users, and a number of key test customers have borne this out. Jonathan C was speaking of the challenges of convincing companies to have faith in this new process. This is what he said,
More than once, indeed many times, I am told by prospects something along the lines that the IT world has been looking so hard and so long for a password solution that a solution can’t possibly exist.
Let’s ponder that for a moment. Are we saying that a far-sighted approach to the potential for change is not an easy place for some, probably many, human brains?
Indeed, Jonathan and I mused that here we were, both speaking via Skype, an internet telephony service, both of us looking at different web sites in support of many of the points that we were discussing and totally dependent, in terms of our mentoring relationship, on the technology of the internet, a multi-node packet-switched communications system that was a direct result of the American shock of seeing the Russians launch the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, into low earth orbit on the 4th October, 1957.
Launch of Sputnik 1
At that time, it would have seemed impossible for anyone on the planet to see that the American response to Sputnik 1 would eventually lead to the vast packet-switched network that is now the modern Internet.
But why do we regard the ability to look into the future so utterly out of reach of the common man? Look at this, the Internet Timeline here. Look how quickly the response to Sputnik1 gathered pace. See how Leonard Kleinrock of MIT way back in May, 1961, presented a paper on the theory of packet-switching in large communications networks.
So maybe there’s a blindness with humans. A blindess that creates the following bizarre characteristics,
Whatever is going on in our lives at present we assume will go on forever. I.e. the boom times will never end, or the period of doom and gloom is endless.
Our obsession with how things are now prevents us from reflecting on those signs that indicate changes are under way, even when the likely conclusions are unmistakeable. The ecological and climatic changes being the most obvious example of this strange blindness that mankind possesses.
Yet, unlike animals and some spiritual groups of humans, truly living in the present appears incredibly difficult for man.
However, the history of mankind shows that our species is capable of huge change, practically living in constant change for the last few millennia, and that a very small proportion of a society, see yesterday’s article, is all that is required to create a ‘tipping point’.
I want to continue with this theme but conscious that there is still much to be written. So, dear reader, I shall pause and pick this up tomorrow.
Yesterday, I published a soft little item showing some reflective pictures and rather appropriate words of attachment. Little did I know that some very powerful word forces were planning same day to really thump me around the head. Here’s what happened.
The church that Jean and I go to on a regular basis is very inspiring. Two reasons come to mind. The first is the love and friendship that the congregation offer, both to regulars and visitors alike. The second is the spiritual inspiration gifted to the priest and, boy oh boy, does that come out through his sermons. Indeed, the rest of this article was motivated by yesterday’s sermon.
Take a look at the American railway ticket above. Turn your head and look at the right-hand part. What do you read? ‘This check is not good if detached‘. Now let me quote a little from the sermon,
It is difficult to care for people in the world when we are not a caring community. It is totally absurd to speak of peace in a world when we do not have peace in our community. It is impossible to be an instrument of love in the world if we are not a community of love.
What is true in the Church is of course true in the world as a whole. We do need to learn to live together. Railway tickets used to carry the words, “Not good if detached.” That is true of life in general. Our survival and progress as people on this planet are dependent on our interrelatedness.
See the beautiful spiritual inspiration that comes from those gifted to draw such powerful word pictures. Take that last word ‘interrelatedness’. Jean and I are studying at the local college for a Master Gardener’s Certificate. For the simple reason that we have to find a way to tame our wild garden, comprised mainly of decomposed granite granules, so that we can grown our own vegetables, have some chickens, that sort of thing.
The last session was about botany. To a complete non-gardener like me it was, nonetheless, fascinating. What moved me beyond measure was the detail and complexity of all things botanical; grasses, trees, shrubs, flowering plants, you name it. It was the interconnectedness of it all. Here’s an example.
Not a female wasp, just an orchid.
Certain orchids dupe male wasps into trying to mate with them. Here are a few extracts from a piece in the New Scientist website,
Few can resist the allure of a beautiful rose, but some wasps outdo even the most ardent flower lover. Presented with the right specimen, a male orchid dupe wasp ejaculates right on the petals.
Many insects mistake flowers for femmes, but few go as far as these wasps, says Anne Gaskett, a biologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, who led a study of the insects’ amorous intentions toward two species of Australian tongue orchids. “It’s just so hard [for the wasps] to resist,” she says.
Now have a quick watch of this video extract from the BBC,
OK, let me get back to that botany class. As our teacher pointed out, lose that particular species of wasp and the planet probably loses that species of orchid. Think about the interconnectedness of that, and much more in the beautiful planet all around us. It is such a marvellous, beautiful, complex and interconnected world. We need constant reminding of that fact. Which is where yesterday’s sermon hit the mark again.
Inspired by the pictures from a flight to the moon in 1968, American poet Archibald MacLeish spoke these beautiful words:
“To see the earth as it truly is, small, blue, beautiful in the eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together …“
That is a wonderful image, riders on the earth together. It speaks of our togetherness as a human race, brothers and sisters on this fragile island within the vastness of the universe. Brothers and sisters … that really need to know … that we are brothers and sisters.
We need to do all that we can to build bridges, to mend bridges, to stay together as a true community… because we are:
Not good if detached. Amen.
What a powerful sermon. What inspired power in those words. Real words.
Earthrise, from Apollo 8, 1968
Forgive me for holding your attention just a tad longer. This is the full Archibald MacLeish’s quotation, referred to in the sermon above.
To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold—brothers who know now they are truly brothers.
— Archibald MacLeish, American poet, ‘Riders on earth together, Brothers in eternal cold,’ front page of the New York Times, Christmas Day, 25 December 1968
This is what Frank Borman, who was on Apollo 8, had published in Newsweek, 23 December 1968,
When you’re finally up at the moon looking back on earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you’re going to get a concept that maybe this really is one world and why the hell can’t we learn to live together like decent people.
This is what Frank Borman was reported as saying in the press in early 1969,
I think the one overwhelming emotion that we had was when we saw the earth rising in the distance over the lunar landscape . . . . It makes us realize that we all do exist on one small globe. For from 230,000 miles away it really is a small planet.
and this,
The view of the Earth from the Moon fascinated me—a small disk, 240,000 miles away. It was hard to think that that little thing held so many problems, so many frustrations. Raging nationalistic interests, famines, wars, pestilence don’t show from that distance.
The power in those words. The power of the truth about our interconnectedness and the power of Not good if detached.
Let me leave you with a fragment from another Blogsite that I came across quite by chance while researching for this piece.
A blog is a voice, the inner voice, telling, in this case, what is going on, inside and out. And in me, that means it should also be about my spiritual path. My spiritual life is as important to me as breathing. Without connection with the One, what is life? What is it for?
Learning from Dogs 