Category: People

Future shock

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy

I am going to refer to some ideas before explaining from whom they came, and when.

Try this: the term “future shock” is defined as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. The shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of “too much change in too short a period of time”.

Or try this: society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a “super-industrial society”. This change will overwhelm people, the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaving them disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation” – future shocked. It was stated that the majority of social problems were symptoms of the future shock.

Stay with me a little longer as I pose a few questions.  How do you feel at the moment?  Slightly unsure of where the world is going right now? Feeling a little unsettled?

Why those questions?  With the Dow Jones index heading down through 11,130 (at the time of writing on the 8th) and ‘chaos across markets’ headlines all over the place these are very unsettling times

Last week’s edition of The Economist had five pages about the present uncertain times in the USA.

August 6th, 2011

Here’s a quote from an article entitled,

Six years into a lost decade

The numbers keep being revised inexorably downwards

The rough news did not end there. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) revised its numbers back through the recession, revealing a downturn more serious than previously understood. The BEA’s first estimate of output in the fourth quarter of 2008, published in January of 2009, showed a contraction of 3.8%, later revised to a 6.8% drop. The new numbers change the figure yet again, to a shocking 8.9% fall in GDP. For 2009 as a whole, the American economy shrank by 3.5% rather than the previously reported 2.6%. American output has yet to reattain its 2007 peak. On a per-person basis, inflation-adjusted GDP stands at virtually the same level as in the second quarter of 2005. America is six years into a lost decade. [my emphasis]

So back to those comments about  ‘future shock’.  They come from a gentleman known across the world for his writings as a futurist, Alvin Toffler.  His website is here and there is a good review of the man and his works on Wikipedia.

Alvin Toffler, born 1928

Toffler’s book, Future Shock, from 1970 was prescient in forecasting …. well here’s how it is written on Wikipedia,

Toffler argues that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a “super-industrial society“. This change will overwhelm people, the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaving them disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation” – future shocked. Toffler stated that the majority of social problems were symptoms of the future shock. In his discussion of the components of such shock, he also popularized the term “information overload.”

But there’s an aspect that wasn’t even on the horizon when Toffler was writing that book in the late 60s – the end of growth.  That is creating a whole new level of change and ‘information overload’, in my opinion.

Just a few days ago, I reviewed the Paul Gilding book The Great Disruption.  I quoted this extract from the very start of the book,

This means things are going to change.  Not because we will choose change out of philosophical or political preference, but because if we don’t transform our society and economy, we risk social and economic collapse and the descent into chaos.  The science on this is now clear and accepted by any rational observer.  While an initial look at the public debate may suggest controversy, any serious examination of the peer-reviewed conclusions of leading science bodies shows the core direction we are heading in is now clear.  Things do not look good.

These challenges and the facts  behind them are well-known by experts and leaders around the world, and have been for decades.  But despite this understanding, that we would at some point pass the limits to growth, it has been continually filed away to the back of our mind and the back of our drawers, with the label “Interesting – For Consideration Later” prominently attached.  Well, later has arrived.

Indeed, ‘later’ has arrived.  The ‘future’ is now here!

Watch the first 10 minutes of the Future Shock film made back in 1972 and ponder.

The following four parts are easily found on YouTube.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Reinhold Niebuhr

From ants to cities

More on the work of E. O. Wilson

Yesterday, I introduced a 50-minute film concerning the famous biologist E O Wilson, Lord of the Ants which, as well as being a wonderful tribute to Prof. Wilson, also allowed us humans to have a better understanding of our deeper human issues.

Coincidentally, around the same time of watching that film, I saw an article on the Grist website that referred to some research published in Nature magazine.  This what I read, first from Grist, reprinted with the kind permission of Libby S., Senior Marketing Manager of Grist.

Scientists have been doing studies for years that show you are more likely to suffer from mental illness if you live in a city. What they haven’t figured out is why.

Now, researchers in Germany have conducted experiments that they believe might begin to get at the neuroscience behind the crazy-making nature of urban areas.

Publishing in the journal Nature, a group led by Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg of the University of Heidelberg’s Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany, looked at how social stress affected the minds of subjects, some city-dwellers and some not.

If we then turn to that article in Nature (to get access you will need to arrange prior free sign-up) we get to read this,

City living marks the brain

Neuroscientists study social risk factor for mental illness.

Alison Abbott

Epidemiologists showed decades ago that people raised in cities are more prone to mental disorders than those raised in the countryside. But neuroscientists have avoided studying the connection, preferring to leave the disorderly realm of the social environment to social scientists. A paper in this issue of Naturerepresents a pioneering foray across that divide.

Using functional brain imaging, a group led by Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg of the University of Heidelberg’s Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany, showed that specific brain structures in people from the city and the countryside respond differently to social stress (see pages 452 and 498). Stress is a major factor in precipitating psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.

The work is a first step towards defining how urban life can affect brain biology in a way that has a potentially major impact on society — schizophrenia affects one in 100 people. It may also open the way for greater cooperation between neuroscientists and social scientists. “There has been a long history of mutual antipathy, particularly in psychiatry,” says sociologist Craig Morgan at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. “But this is the sort of study that can prove to both sides that they can gain from each others’ insights.”

I feel uncomfortable about reproducing more of this fascinating study without some formal permission to do so, therefore, if you want to read the full article then do sign up for access at the Nature website.

Back to the article from Grist written by Sarah Goodyear, Grist’s cities editor,

I called Dr. Meyer-Lindenberg to ask him more about the implications of his experiment, and what he thought might be the cause of heightened sensitivity to social stress among urban dwellers.

“On the neural level, we find two things,” he told me. “A, the neural effects are completely dissociated, so current urban living only affects the amygdala, urban upbringing only affects the cingulate. And B, these areas are associated with these illnesses. The amygdala is sort of a danger center, and it’s critically important for fear. And it is clear that the amygdala is a major player in depression. The cingulate is a prefrontal area regulating negative emotion, and it’s known to be one of the earliest areas affected by schizophrenia.”

So what accounts for the hyperactivity of the amygdala-cingulate circuit in urban dwellers? “That exact circuit that we found hyperactive has also shown to be activated when someone comes too close to you and crowds your personal space,” Meyer-Lindenberg told me.

But he cautioned against inferring that mere density of population is at fault. “It’s still speculation,” he said. “There could be myriad components of the urban experience that might or might not be bad for you from the point of your risk for mental illness. No one really knows. People are annoyed by noise or by traffic, or it could also be lead, or air pollution, but there’s no evidence base to say this is an important factor, this is not an important factor. Therefore there’s no basis for urban planning that’s grounded in human biology, at least with regard to mental illness.”

Later in the Grist article, Dr. Meyer-Lindenberg told Sarah Goodyear,

“Social status is closely linked to socioeconomic variables. What we found in our imaging studies is that if your social status becomes labile, and especially if you are in danger of losing it, a very similar brain circuit becomes active. There is a convergence of socially relevant risk factors on that circuit.”

Different types of urban environments might also affect people in different ways. “It’s very different if you live in Manhattan and you sort of live in a series of overlapping villages, if you will, or if you live in a city like Sao Paolo, in which no such microstructure is immediately available to you, or if you live in a large spread-out area,” said Meyer-Lindberg.

The social connections that are fostered in more walkable neighborhoods could help city dwellers from losing it. “A previous study found that that the size of your social support network is actually correlated to the size of the exact brain circuit we found in this study,” Meyer-Lindenberg said. “So that’s a protective factor. The more friends you have, the bigger those brain structures are.”

Already, more than half the human population lives in cities. That proportion will only increase. New cities are springing up all over the developing world, some built to order, some completely unplanned. The form they take could be crucial.

More knowledge about what exactly drives people could lead to concrete solutions that would make for better mental health — the same way the discovery of how disease was spread by waterborne germs finally ended the scourge of cholera in London.

“I think it would be important to make cities better, given that we can’t escape cities, given the dynamics of urbanization,” said Meyer-Lindenberg. “That’s a reality that we’re not going to get rid of.”

Fascinating article made doubly interesting by E O Wilson’s lifetime study of ants!

Lord of the Ants

A passing visit to the American biologist, E. O. Wilson

E O Wilson

Edward Osborne Wilson was born in June 1929 thus making him, at this time of writing, just into his 82 year.  His biological specialty is myrmecology.  Got that?  Myrmecology.  And if you, like me, didn’t have a clue as to what  myrmecology is and had to look it up, it is the study of ants.  Blow me down, there is even a myrmecology blogsite!

So where is this all heading?

One of the things that we do know about dogs, especially if we go way back into the dim and distant times when they behaved more like the grey wolf, from which the species ‘dog’ genetically originates 100,000 years ago, is that their social order, their pack behaviour, was highly stable.  As an aside, when Jean was rescuing dogs in San Carlos, Mexico during the years that she lived there with her late husband she readily observed that the stray dogs, of which there were too many, had a natural propensity to group up into their historic pack formations.  (And as an aside to my aside, Jean’s close friend of many years, Dan’s sister Suzann, today carries on the splendid work of looking after stray dogs from her San Carlos house!)

OK, back to the plot!

E O Wilson’s study of ants has revealed much about social order and organisation.  The following YouTube video was from a PBS programme, aired in May, 2008, from which I quote (that is the PBS website),

Program Description

At age 78, E.O. Wilson is still going through his “little savage” phase of boyhood exploration of the natural world. In “Lord of the Ants,” NOVA profiles this soft-spoken Southerner and Harvard professor, who is an acclaimed advocate for ants, biological diversity, and the controversial extension of Darwinian ideas to human society.

Actor and environmentalist Harrison Ford narrates this engaging portrait of a ceaselessly active scientist and eloquent writer, who has accumulated two Pulitzer Prizes among his many other honors. Says fellow naturalist David Attenborough: “He will go down as the man who opened the eyes of millions ’round the world to the glories, the values, the importance of—to use his term—biodiversity.”

It’s a fascinating film, truly engaging, so do settle down for a relaxing 53 minutes and watch,

Now there’s more to this and I do want to continue with the theme of this Post tomorrow.

So for now, look in on the E O Wilson Biodiversity Foundation’s website and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Lose yourself in the night sky

Time to forget about all the ‘stuff’ in the news.

Dogs have that wonderful ability to savour the moment and just enjoy the present.  Seems to me that there is just a bit too much going on at the moment in the big wide world and we could do a lot worse than take a chair out into the garden, or wherever, and enjoy the majesty of one of the light shows that the universe can put on.

But first an acknowledgement to Mike Shedlock, more details here.  I subscribe to his daily newsletter and it was there that, rather uncharacteristically for an economic blog, I saw the reference to the Perseids meteor shower which, annually, provides vivid viewing for us earth-bound creatures this time of the year.

Mike gave the link to an article in National Geographic Daily News, from which I quote,

A Perseid meteor appears to strike the peak of Mount Rainier, Washington, in 2010. Photograph by Siddhartha Saha, Your Shot

Andrew Fazekas

for National Geographic News

Published July 25, 2011

A celestial traffic jam may be on tap this week as two meteor showers combine forces to put on a brilliant sky show.

One of the best shooting star events of the year is the annual August Perseid meteor shower. (See Perseids pictures.) However this year’s peak, on August 12, happens to coincide with a bright full moon—drastically cutting down the number of meteors visible to the naked eye.

Yet while the main event might be blocked out by the blinding moonlight, the opening act promises to be much better.

(See “Year’s Biggest Full Moon, Mars Create Sky Show [2010].”)

This year the lesser known Delta Aquarid meteor shower is expected to peak on Friday night, when the Delta Aquarids’ more productive Perseid cousin is just starting to ramp up.

Together the showers will produce anywhere between 15 and 30 shooting stars per hour under clear, dark skies.

If this tickles your fancy then go to that article and read how best to view this wonderful sky show.

We haven’t seen them from this part of the world (i.e. Payson, Arizona), but down in South-West England it was easy to get up onto the moors (Dartmoor).  Sunset at this time of the year down in Devon is around 7pm local time and by 8pm there was often a beautiful cloudless night sky.

Wikipedia has some good background information on the Perseid meteor shower including, what I didn’t realise, that,

The Perseid meteor shower has been observed for about 2000 years, with the earliest information on this meteor shower coming from the Far East.  Some Catholics refer to the Perseids as the “tears of St. Lawrence“, since 10 August is the date of that saint’s martyrdom.

I think most people are aware, again from Wikipedia, that,

The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the peak in activity being between August 9 and 14, depending on the particular location of the stream. During the peak, the rate of meteors reaches 60 or more per hour. They can be seen all across the sky, but because of the path of Swift-Tuttle’s orbit, Perseids are primarily visible in the northern hemisphere. As with all meteor showers, the rate is greatest in the pre-dawn hours, since the side of the Earth nearest to turning into the sun scoops up more meteors as the Earth moves through space.

But to come back to the National Geographic piece, as above, this year could be better than normal.  As I wrote,

This year the lesser known Delta Aquarid meteor shower is expected to peak on Friday night, when the Delta Aquarids’ more productive Perseid cousin is just starting to ramp up.

Together the showers will produce anywhere between 15 and 30 shooting stars per hour under clear, dark skies.

So I know it could be a tough choice – politics or standing in awe under a night sky – but, go on, force yourself!

Try that night sky.

The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding

A book review

Unlike my recent review of Capt. Luis Montalvan’s book Until Tuesday which came about as a result of an invitation from the UK publishers, Headline Publishing, this review of Mr. Gilding’s book is totally off my own bat.  I should also declare that I have recently been in email contact with Paul Gilding with some pleasant outcomes.  To the review.

The way ahead.

Regular readers of Learning from Dogs will know that I have been making recent references to this book, which I have now finished reading.  On the 25th I quoted from the book in a post that I called The blame game.  I used a quote from Chapter 5, Addicted to Growth, namely “Growth goes to the core of the society we have built because it is the result of who we are and what we have decided to value.”

Then the next day again when writing about Tim Bennett’s movie, What a Way To Go, when I reflected on Paul Gilding’s opinion that, ” the quicker that mankind recognises the massive levels of denial presently in place, the quicker that mankind will commit to the scale of change that is required“.

Now if mankind’s efforts to change to a sustainable way of life were proportional to the number of books, films and essays written about the subject then, frankly, the task would be complete.  There’s an awful lot out there!  Here’s a list of the books that I have read in the last few years:

The Human Side of Enterprise – Douglas McGregor

Motivation and Personality – Abraham Maslow

The Power of Pause – Terry Hershey

Earth in the Balance – Al Gore

The Spectrum of Consciousness – Ken Wilber

Politics Lost – Joe Klein

Why America Doesn’t Work – Chuck Colson & Jack Eckerd

The Art of Happiness – HH Dalai Lama & Howard C Cutler

Eaarth – Bill McKibben

Stabilizing an Unstable Economy – Hyman P. Minsky

The Next 100 Years – George Friedman

World of the Edge – Lester Brown

and finally

The Great Disruption – Paul Gilding

And, of course, this doesn’t even scratch the number of online journals, essays and articles that have been read in conjunction with writing hundreds of posts on this Blog.

So what’s the point?

On p.260, Chapter 20 Guess Who’s in Charge?, Paul Gilding writes,

We need to fully acknowledge the challenging times and inevitable suffering ahead but stay focused and determined to move forward and past this.  Easy to say, harder to do.

So yes, it is challenging to know how to respond to all this and what to do personally.  It is easy to see what the world should do, but what should you do?

but what should you do? Talk about a thump on the back of the head!

This is about me!

Of all the books that have influenced how I see the world and my opinions, the one book that has rammed home to me that this is about me, about my attitudes and behaviours, is The Great Disruption.  For a long time I haven’t needed convincing that man is screwing up the planet.  For ages, I’ve been sure that our greed and materialism were fundamentally incompatible with the planet. I have been so good at ‘talking the talk’ ….. but ….

But the way that Mr. Gilding has so comprehensively approached every aspect of how my past behaviours have been incompatible with the future needs of my little grandson, Morten, (and all the grandchildren in the world) is powerfully inspiring.  I now totally and utterly believe that only I am in charge of making a difference.

Why The Great Disruption touched me in this way when so many other books and articles haven’t done so isn’t clear.  Perhaps it was in the opening paragraphs?

The earth is full.

[skip one paragraph]

This means things are going to change.  Not because we will choose change out of philosophical or political preference, but because if we don’t transform our society and economy, we risk social and economic collapse and the descent into chaos.  The science on this is now clear and accepted by any rational observer.  While an initial look at the public debate may suggest controversy, any serious examination of the peer-reviewed conclusions of leading science bodies shows the core direction we are heading in is now clear.  Things do not look good.

These challenges and the facts  behind them are well-known by experts and leaders around the world, and have been for decades.  But despite this understanding, that we would at some point pass the limits to growth, it has been continually filed away to the back of our mind and the back of our drawers, with the label “Interesting – For Consideration Later” prominently attached.  Well, later has arrived.

I nodded silently in agreement when reading that.

Was it the opening paragraph to Chapter 4, Beyond the Limits – The Great Disruption?

The plans we have been making for our economies, our companies, and our lives have all been based on a key assumption that is clearly wrong.  This assumption is that our current economic model will carry on unless we choose to change it – in other words, no action means more of the same.

This resonated strongly with me because I happen to believe, without any specialist economic skills to my name – just a gut sense, that the economic situation now afflicting so many economies across the world is not cyclical but the start of a breakdown of the policies and behaviours of the last 20 years or more.  In other words, the Great Disruption was in my face already!  As is written on p. 87 in Chapter 6, Global Foreshock – The Year That Growth Stopped,

My view, firmly held at the time and since, is that 2008 was the year that growth stopped.  It was the year, as Thomas Friedman said, “when Mother Nature and Father Greed hit the wall at once”.

The Power of a New Future

But, in the end, the real power that I found in this book was the strength of Gilding’s argument that we will change, that seeing the future as hopeless is wrong, that man has the ability to commit to huge change when there is no alternative.  Ergo, p121 Chapter 9 When the Dam of Denial Breaks,

To argue we are naturally greedy and competitive and can’t change is like arguing that we engage naturally in murder and infanticide as our forebears the chimps do and therefore as we did.  We have certain tendencies in our genes, but unlike other creatures we have the proven capacity to make conscious decisions to overcome them and also the proven ability to build a society with laws and values to enshrine and, critically, to enforce such changes when these tendencies come to the surface.

So don’t underestimate how profoundly we can change.  We are still capable of evolution, including conscious evolution.  This coming crisis is perhaps the greatest opportunity in millennia for a step change in human society.

This quote is towards the end of the last chapter that spells out, as so many other books have done, that our global society Has a Very Big Problem.  Thus from page 123 onwards, slightly less than half-way through the book, Paul Gilding devotes huge detail to describing how we will change.  Frequently, the comparison used is World War II,

British poster from 1940

When Great Britain went to war in World War II, do you think they had clarity on all the details of transitioning into a war economy before they made the decision to act?  Of course they considered it, as we must, but it wasn’t a determining issue because there was no choice.  Do you think President Roosevelt calculated the United States could win the war by increasing military spending to 37 percent of U.S. GDP and producing a nuclear bomb before he decided to enter the war?  Of course not: he just knew they had to succeed and so they would.  He had confidence in human ingenuity delivering under pressure, when it’s given defined parameters and political support, and so must we.

From p. 164, Chapter 12 Creative Destruction on Steroids.

That’s what ended up being the real inspiration for me.  That it’s not about the complex problems looming large; as so many that Jean and I chat to here in Payson, AZ, readily admit to being worried.  It’s not news! The majority of the world’s citizens know the trends are not good.

No, what really socked me between the eyes was reading all the many and varied ways that we are changing (note present tense), that the Great Disruption is, in fact, mankind moving to a new era.  One where we will have less inequality, less poverty, be happier, have extended life-spans and a future that goes on for thousand of years.

The Future is Here.

The phrase ‘life-changing’ is often used but this book is truly life-changing.  The book will motivate you in ways that you can’t imagine.  It will inspire you but, above all, it will show you the way ahead.  Read it.

Well done, Mr. Gilding.  Well done, indeed!

Mr. Paul Gilding

The unexplored shores of the future

A focus on Tim Bennett’s movie, What a Way To Go: Life at the end of Empire

We first came across this film, made by independent film-maker Tim Bennett, on the Top Documentary Films website, see here.  The title to this article comes from that introduction, from which is quoted,

Tim Bennett, middle-class white guy, started waking up to the global environmental nightmare in the mid-1980s. But life was so busy with raising kids and pursuing the American dream that he never got around to acting on his concerns. Until now…

Bennett journeys from complacency to consciousness in his feature-length documentary, What a Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire. He reviews his Midwestern roots, ruthlessly examines the stories he was raised with, and then details the grim realities humans now face: escalating climate change, resource shortages, degraded ecosystems, an exploding global population and teetering global economies.

Now to be honest, this is a film that is both captivating and, in parts, pretty grim.  A couple of trailers and other background material were posted on Learning from Dogs back in February.

The film also has an excellent web site What a Way To Go Movie which contains much background material including the opportunity to watch the film for free, click here.  Or a quick YouTube search will bring you to here.

My own view is that this is a ‘must see’ film.  Not because I want all of you to wallow in doom and gloom, far from it, but because, as Paul Gilding writes in his book, The Great Disruption, the quicker that mankind recognises the massive levels of denial presently in place, the quicker that mankind will commit to the scale of change that is required.  That’s where Paul Gilding’s approach differs from the movie, The End of Empire.  Gilding is optimistic that man will bring about change simply because fairly soon, in just a few years, it will be obvious at all levels in our societies that there simply is no choice!

The blame game

A retrospective muse about the present global challenges.

A few days back I posted an article by Tom Engelhardt called The Great American Carbon Bomb.  It attracted a number of comments including a couple from Learning from Dogs supporter, Patrice Ayme.  Here is one of those comments,

Dear Paul: There is a gentleman leading the Tour de France, right now. He was not given a chance, especially in the mountains. However, he has been going day by day, and has now worn the Yellow Jersey for more than a week, supported by his inferior, but dedicated team. His philosophy: humility, and do the job day by day, trying his best, although he strongly doubts that he is up to the task.

We, as humankind, or, rather, our hubristic leaders are doing the exact opposite. We are not doing our best, and it’s precisely because those leaders are not humble and not honest, and so very sure we are going to pull out OK, because that’s what we do best, and have always done, and thus will always do.

Verily all indicators are that of an unfolding catastrophe. All signals are loud and clear that way. So it’s really not the moment to say:”Oh, BTW, we are very resilient and totally great, so it’s just a matter of time before we put it all together OK. So now let’s all pull together, and it’s fine.”

In truth we are on the verge of an irreversible situation, as the CO2 poisoning will turn, within a decade or so, into a political, and then military issue.
PA

Patrice is an angry man (not a criticism by the way – so many of us are angry!) and anger is a great reason to find someone, something, anything, to blame!  I suspect, wearing my cloak of an amateur psychologist, that a core reason why we feel anger is that, so often, the causes of our anger are our own errors.  Anger at one’s self is much more difficult to deal with!

Anyway, back to the plot.

Like Patrice I also feel badly let down by our ‘leaders’.  Especially with regard to the nightmare of economic and ecological issues fast approaching.

Then I read this in Paul Gilding’s book, The Great Disruption, that has been featured on this Blog a couple of times.

Our addiction to growth is a complex phenomenon, one that can’t be blamed on a single economic model or philosophy.  It is not the fault of capitalism or Western democracy, and it is not a conspiracy of the global corporate sector or of the rich.  It is not a bad idea that emerged in economics, and it is not the result of free market fundamentalism that emerged in the 1980s with globalization.  While each of those factors is involved, it is too simple and convenient to blame any of them as the main driver.  Growth goes to the core of the society we have built because it is the result of who we are and what we have decided to value. [Chapter 5, Addicted to Growth, p66]

That last half of that last sentence – ‘it is the result of who we are and what we have decided to value.‘  That strikes me as the core truth.  It is the reason why Patrice, and me, and countless thousands of others across the globe, are so angry.  At heart we all know that the circumstances we find ourselves in are, in great part and before we ‘saw the light’, the result of earlier personal values which we now know were not compatible with a sustainable relationship with the planet we all live on.

It is very good news.  That anger is fuelling change.  As Malcolm Gladwell writes in his book The Tipping Point societies change when something of the order of 18% of individuals emotionally commit to change.

Surf Dog Ricochet

Sit back and enjoy.

More information about this lovely dog on Facebook.

Sanity out of insanity

Dogs are such a great metaphor!

There’s no question that when one stays very still and closely watches a dog’s behaviour you see an amazing level of awareness.  Even when they appear to be deeply asleep anything sensed by their ‘being’ is registered immediately.  A small tale, by way of example.  Many years ago when Pharaoh and I lived in the Devon village of Harberton, we  frequently shopped in the town of Totnes, just 3 miles away.  Many times, I would be walking up the High Street with Pharaoh nicely to heel being passed by many people walking the opposite way on the same pavement.

Totnes High Street

Every once in a while, during the fraction of time that it took for someone to pass us by, Pharaoh would utter a low, throatal growl without even slowing his pace.  I always presumed that something, way beyond my level of consciousness, had disturbed Pharaoh during that instant of time.

Real awareness, or if you prefer, consciousness is not some touchy/feely concept but a true understanding about just what the heck is going on.

So do watch the following video of Peter Russell discussing Rediscovering Ourselves; it’s very relevant.

Then have a read of a couple of items on Peter’s website.  The first is about runaway climate change, and here’s an extract,

Runaway Climate Change

The most dangerous aspect of global warming.

Global Warming is bad enough. Over the last hundred years, average global temperatures have increased by 0.75°C, one third of that rise occurring in the last twenty years. The 2007 report by The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) forecast that, by 2090, temperatures will have risen between 2 and 6 degrees.

Even a two degree rise in temperature would be disastrous. Changes in climate will lead to more intense storms, longer periods of drought, crop failures in many developing countries, the destruction of nearly all the coral reefs, the melting of much of the polar ice, the flooding of many low-lying urban areas, the possible collapse of the Amazonian rain forest, and the extinction of 20-30% of the planet’s species. The IPCC projects that this could happen by 2050.

If the temperature were to rise by six degrees, the prognosis is extremely bleak. At this temperature, the entire planet will be ice-free. Sea levels will rise by 70 meters. Many species of tiny plankton will cease to exist, and the problem would echo up the food chain, bringing the extinction of many fish, sea mammals, and the largest whales. Much of the land will now be desert. Hurricanes of unimaginable ferocity will bring widespread ecological devastation. If, as is possible, the ozone layer were destroyed, the burning ultraviolet light could make life on land impossible. Evolution would have been set back a billion years. It would be a planetary catastrophe.

Read the rest of that essay here.  Now on to the next extract, from here,

The Under-rated Approach to Carbon Reduction

As critical as it is to reduce future carbon emissions, it is equally critical, perhaps even more critical, to get much of the CO2 that as already been released—and which is responsible for the current warming—out of the atmosphere and back into the ground where it belongs.

This approach, known as carbon capture and sequestration, has until now been largely ignored, and for several reasons. The atmosphere is so huge, it would seem to be an impossible task. There are possible technologies, but they are not nearly so well-developed as alternative energy sources. Many are still only ideas on paper. Where technologies of carbon capture have been developed they are mostly for capturing CO2 from smokestacks. Valuable as this may be, it is still dealing with the problem of future carbon emissions. What we need are technologies that will remove from the atmosphere the carbon that we already emitted, and then sequestrate it (put it away) in a stable form.

It is to this end that Sir Richard Branson announced his $25 million prize (Virgin Earth Challenge) for technologies that could capture a billion tons of carbon a year from the atmosphere (about one tenth of what we now release each year). Nor is it just Richard Branson who believes we must make this an equally important approach to the problem. His team includes Al Gore, James Lovelock, Sir Crispin Tickell (former UK ambassador to the UN), and James Hansen, the head climate scientist at NASA).

Again, the full article, a ‘must-read, in my opinion, is here.

It is really about awareness!  Dogs have so much to teach us!