Early year reflections on our planetary crisis
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Posted on January 9, 2008
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Ecological overshoot, Ecological hope, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Sorry for the several days’ silence. It has been a busy time, including many hours spent on the final proofreading of my book on this whole topic of spirituality and ecological hope — due out this year. More on that soon. I’m pretty excited about it, to say the least.
Anyway, what I thought I’d do today is just share with you some of the articles of the past couple of weeks, mostly from the NY Times, and offer them as a litany of some of our ecological crises. You may not want to read them all, but they give a pretty good perspective on why many of us deal with what has been called ‘ecological grief.’ We know the planet is changing. We know there is no going back to the old equilibrium. What we are fighting for now is not the biodiversity and stable climate of a generation ago — it’s already too late for that — but to stop the changes from bringing on irreversible catastrophe beyond anything we can imagine.
What we are fighting for is a habitable planet, a rich and wonderous habitable planet, for the generations that come after us.
Notice any strange weather lately? Notice any ‘extremes,’ perhaps driven by the extra warmth in the atmosphere — heat meaning more energy to drive things like, oh, storms, storms that bring tornados to the Midwest in January, for example?!
So, for your reflection, I list these in the chronological order in which they came to me:
Who Moved My Glacier, by Jon Christensen
The Olive Tree Doesn’t Lie, by Mort Rosenblum
Chile’s Rising Waters and Frozen Avocados, by Antonio Skarmeta
Here’s what for me is a real heart-breaker:
Thousands of loons dying in Great Lakes area. If you have heard loons crying out in the night, you know what I mean by heartbreak.
Something for reflection on the matter of our consumption, by Jared Diamond, author of the best-selling books, Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel. His article is entitled, What’s Your Consumption Factor. What it’s about is this: we cannot live like this anymore. We are so far beyond the capacity of the earth to support our consumption and waste, that it’s becoming truly scary. We can still save ourselves — if we choose to live differently.
More local and personal heartbreak: Lake levels may fall to uncharted territory, by Dan Egan, who covers this issue for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I stand on the shore of Lake Michigan and see the receding of the lake. My lake is emptying out to the sea, brought to you by the Army Corps of Engineers and global warming. Please, help save the lakes! Also…
A little tidbit I won’t bother to link, from the Milwaukee weather page on the 4th. The year 2007 was one of the warmest ever recorded in the US, and the fifth warmest globally, this according to the National Climate Data Center.
Then there’s this, a piece on the moral crisis before us, like it or not, the tension between our Carbon output vs. Conscience, written by Martin Bunzl, dir. of the Initiative on Climate Change, Social Policy and Politics at Rutgers.
Finally, more alarm from Greenland — and I do mean alarm. As I have often said when scientists get scared, I get scared. 
So: In Greenland, Ice and Instability, written by the NY Times’ terrific environmental reporter, Andrew Revkin, from this week’s Science section.
Imagine the list one could gather beyond these two newspapers. I offer it for this reason — we have a real political race now for president. Both parties’ nominations are uncertain and these next weeks, up to Super Tuesday in February, are crucial. I want these candidates to address the issues that emerge from these articles. I want them to tell us what they intend to do, concretely and in measures commensurate with the level of crisis, as I determine who will get my support on the ballot.
I urge you, urge you, to demand this of them in whatever way you can. If nothing else, see what you can do to get this stuff into your local media to stir up the conversation.
This may be one of the most important political year ever in terms of the future of the planet.
Technorati Tags: ecological grief, planetary crisis, habitable planet, national climate data center, initiative on climate change social policy and politics rutgers, greenland ice melt, great lakes receding, 2007 fifth warmest year
Photo credit: Goddard Institute for Space Studies/NASA
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2 Responses to “Early year reflections on our planetary crisis”
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Dear Friends,
If the rich and famous people among us do not start expressing their concern for something other than their riches and privileges soon, then approaching global challenges, to be found in the offing, could serve the purpose of helping them refocus their attention and change their behavior.
There can be no functioning manmade global economy without adequate natural resources and global ecosystem services that only the Earth can provide. To believe that business-as-usual economic globalization can continue to expand much longer, let alone endlessly, in our relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planetary home is magical and wishful thinking of the first order. Such thinking is an embarrassment to anyone who values good science, sound reasoning and common sense.
The failure of the wealthy and politically powerful people in my not-so-great generation of elders to respond ably to the requirements of practical reality will soon be seen by our children as the worst example of a gross dereliction of duty in human history.
Sincerely,
Steve
Steve Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
Dear Friends,
The rich and famous people in the world are about only maimum 5%. The politician’s are working only for them to stay in the power. Entire whether it stay’s are not they are least bothered. They forget that even these riches they can not take them to either to hell or haven nor even they body they posses. It same with every body but these people are higly sefish(not even like shell fish which is useful to the nature that turns into pearl) even though god gives everything to these people he has not given the wisdom. Those who have the wisdom can manage any situation. If we are together and make cosistant efforts to reovle the present day environ problems there are enough solutions. Think for the alternatives. We can make others to implement if are together.