.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
Who we are
“To be human is to unfold in time but remain discontinuous. We are living non sequiturs seeking artificial cohesion through the revisions our memory, that capricious seamstress, performs in threading the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. It is, after all, nothing but a supreme feat of storytelling to draw a continuous thread between one’s childhood self and one’s present-day self, since hardly anything makes these two entities “the same person” — not their height, not their social stature, not their beliefs, not their circle of friends, not even the very cells in their bodies. Somewhere in the lacuna between the experiencing self and the remembering self, we create ourselves in what is literally a matter of making sense — of craftsmanship — for, as Oliver Sacks so poignantly observed, it is narrative that holds our identity together.” Maria Popova
More Lake Effect Snow
3 months
More Lake Effect Snow
8 January, 2018
Weather is a more immediate effect of changes in the climate. You can’t have one without the other. On the other hand, it is foolish to choose a cold day and then say – “there, you see, the Earth is NOT getting warmer.” It is fair to note that extreme weather events are occurring more frequently. Two major changes have occurred over the last 2,000 years. One, the human footprint has expanded almost beyond belief and two, the CO2 content in the air has increased proportionately. Our species has never experienced this level of CO2. Not helpful is that our measuring instruments were designed to measure inanimate objects on an inanimate planet. No wonder we have so little understanding as to how the Earth “works.” Our living planet’s behaviour is unpredictable just like people’s behaviour is unpredictable. We don’t destroy the medical profession because they cannot always accurately predict whether our prescription will “work” or not. Finally, we must take into account that millions of dollars, pounds etc. have been awarded to “scientists?” to falsify statistics and create “fake” news. Is it any wonder that there are so few tears shed over the destruction of Nature?
JANUARY 04, 2018 | 11:40 AM
A ‘PERFECT STORM’: EXTREME WINTER WEATHER, BITTER COLD, AND CLIMATE CHANGE
World-renowned climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann explains why the bitter cold and snowy conditions gripping the US are “an example of precisely the sort of extreme winter weather we expect because of climate change.”
Climate Change Is Happening Faster Than Expected
4 months
by sky
in Climate Change
Climate Change Is Happening Faster Than Expected, and It’s More Extreme
New research suggests human-caused emissions will lead to bigger impacts on heat and extreme weather, and sooner than the IPCC warned just three years ago.
BY BOB BERWYN, INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS
DEC 26, 2017
“Uncertainty is not our friend here,” said Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann. “We are seeing increases in extreme weather events that go well beyond what has been predicted or projected in the past. We’re learning that there are factors we were not previously aware of that may be magnifying the impacts of human-caused climate change.” Among those are “subtle mechanisms involving the behavior of the jet stream that may be involved in explaining the dramatic increase we’ve seen in floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires,” he said. (Atmospheric scientist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research)
Sky: We actually have several elephants in the room.
(1) Diminishing Strength of the Atlantic Current
“The Gulf Stream that helps to keep Britain from freezing over in winter is slowing down faster now than at any time in the past millennium according to a study suggesting that major changes are taking place to the ocean currents of the North Atlantic.”
(2) Melting Methane Hydrates (Contained in Permafrost)
“Currently, permafrost covers about nearly 5.8 million square miles, and scientists found as much as 2.5 million square miles of that could thaw—about twice the area of Alaska, California and Texas combined—in a 2 degree Celsius scenario. Thawing would be more limited if warming can be held to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but could still affect 1.8 million square miles.”
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3262.html
“Permafrost, which covers 15 million km2 of the land surface, is one of the components of the Earth system that is most sensitive to warming. Loss of permafrost would radically change high-latitude hydrology and biogeochemical cycling, and could therefore provide very significant feedbacks on climate change.”
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/nclimate3262-s1.pdf
“After so many years spent determining where gas hydrates are breaking down and measuring methane flux at the sea-air interface, we suggest that conclusive evidence for release of hydrate-related methane to the atmosphere is lacking.”
Gas Hydrate Breakdown Unlikely to Cause Massive Greenhouse Gas Release
https://www.usgs.gov/news/gas-hydrate-breakdown-unlikely-cause-massive-greenhouse-gas-release
If you check out funding for this research you’ll get a better handle on who decides what is “conclusive evidence”
Here is the answer!!
17 Apr 2014 – The world is addicted to hydrocarbons, and it’s easy to see why – cheap, plentiful and easy to mine, they represent an abundant energy source to fuel industrial development the world over. … In other words, there is more energy in methane hydrates than in all the world’s oil, coal and gas put together.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27021610
(3) Ocean Acidification
“Many marine organisms that produce calcium carbonate shells or skeletons are negatively impacted by increasing CO2 levels and decreasing pH in seawater. For example, increasing ocean acidification has been shown to significantly reduce the ability of reef-building corals to produce their skeletons.”
https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F
“Many organisms that form the basis for the marine food chain are going to be affected by ocean acidification. It turns out that changing the pH of the ocean is not the only impact from this phenomenon. There is another, equally impactful side effect. When carbon dioxide (CO2) mixes with water molecule (H2O) it forms carbonic acid (H2CO3) that then breaks down easily into hydrogen ions (H+) and bicarbonate (HCO3-), those available hydrogen ions bond with other carbonate ions to form more bicarbonate. The problem here is that marine organisms possessing shells (many mollusks, crustaceans, corals, coralline algae, foramaniferans) need available carbonate ions to form the calcium carbonate (CaCO3) that comprises their shells. In essence, ocean acidification is robbing these organisms of their necessary building blocks.”
https://climateinterpreter.org/content/effects-ocean-acidification-marine-food-chain
(4) Desertification
“Overgrazing is the major cause of desertification worldwide. Other factors that cause desertification include urbanization, climate change, over drafting of groundwater, deforestation, natural disasters and tillage practices in agriculture that place soils more vulnerable to wind.”
https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-of-desertification.php
Sky: As more and more forests are chopped down there will be fewer rain clouds thus less and less rainfall in arid climates.
One could go on and on. For example: Health issues including the spread of communicable diseases caused by bacteria immune to antibiotics and food shortages that spark violence leading to war. Remember that the Russian intelligentsia did not start the Russian Revolution. It started in Petrograd when the dock workers’ wives couldn’t buy bread!! Surely these are enough examples to make my point.
Sky: Why isn’t more being done about this obvious race to destruction and misery?
“The fossil fuel industry has spent many millions of dollars on confusing the public about climate change.
…Ideology: the other half of an ‘unholy alliance’
However, to focus solely on industry’s role in climate science denial misses half the picture. The other significant player is political ideology. At an individual level, numerous surveys have found that political ideology is the biggest predictor of climate science denial.
People who fear the solutions to climate change, such as increased regulation of industry, are more likely to deny that there is a problem in the first place – what psychologists call “motivated disbelief”.
Consequently, groups promoting political ideology that opposes market regulation have been prolific sources of misinformation about climate change. This productivity has been enabled by the many millions of dollars flowing from the fossil fuel industry. Naomi Oreskes, co-author of ‘Merchants of Doubt’, refers to this partnership between vested interests and ideological groups as an “unholy alliance’”.
http://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-fossil-fuelled-climate-denial-61273
Sky: Hopeless for the individual? Certainly not. A group of individuals can wield the most powerful weapon against economic tyranny ever discovered; purchasing power! So start today voting for the future you want with your pocketbook. There has never been a greater need for us to “Be the change you want to see.” Mahatma Gandhi
Jacksonville’s Poorest Residents Live in the Worst Flood Zones
5 months
by sky
in Capitalism
Jacksonville’s Poorest Residents Live in the Worst Flood Zones
Capitalism at it’s worst
MEREDITH RUTLAND BAUER NOV 15, 2017
“We are okay with those areas being a danger and a disaster waiting to happen.”
“What these buyers didn’t know—or what they chose to risk—was that these neighborhoods were cheaper because the homes were built in a flood zone without underground drainage or nearby retention ponds, which state law didn’t require until the early ‘80s.”
“Nationally, areas with known flooding—which, like the Northside homes, were usually built half a century ago—are going to be valued much lower than areas with proper drainage and flood protection. Residents who settle there “don’t have other options,” Dickerson said. This cheap property comes back to bite residents when a storm comes knocking. “There’s a lot of people on the Northside who need a lot of help,’ Washington said. “A lot of these people just did not know they were in flood plains. A lot of them didn’t have flood insurance because they just did not know.’”
Has anything changed since John Steinbeck wrote “The Grapes of Wrath”?
Since when are facts a “distraction?”
5 months
by sky
in Climate Change
“BONN, Germany (Reuters) – Many nations’ view that the United States should do more to fight climate change because it is the biggest historical emitter is a ‘distraction’ from technological innovation, an adviser to the President said on Thursday.”
Since when are facts a “distraction”? What happened to the “technological innovation” around the Keystone Pipeline? Sadly, I realize that I am complicit in not speaking out about this kind of nonsense.
The evidence speaks for itself
5 months
Native News Online.net
BY LEVI RICKERT / CURRENTS / 18 NOV 2017
“The evidence speaks for itself.”
“EAGLE BUTTE, SOUTH DAKOTA – American Indian tribes have opposed the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline since it was announced. The tribes have longed fear the danger of oil leaks which are inevitable.
After the existing Keystone oil pipeline leaked 210,000 gallons of oil on Thursday, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Harold Frazer released the following statement:
On November 16, 2017, the existing Keystone pipeline spilled more than 210,000 gallons of Alberta tar sands crude oil within miles of the Lake Traverse Sioux, our sister Tribe. This was the third pipeline spill in the State of South Dakota this year alone. It was also the largest Keystone spill to date in South Dakota. I condemn this oil spill, the company that built this pipeline and anybody associated with it. The evidence speaks for itself.”
The Preamble of the Declaration Opposing Oil Sands Expansion
8 months
The Preamble of the Declaration Opposing Oil Sands Expansion and the Construction of the Keystone-XL Pipeline. Signed 17 May, 2017 in Calgary, Alberta
“We, The First People, were and remain the stewards of the land and with this Declaration renew our vow to carry that sacred obligation in defense of our Mother, the Earth, and all born of her body and nurtured at her breast who are no longer heard amidst the dissonance of industrialization and corporate domination.”
The Real Problem
9 months
I totally disagree with this hypothesis. “Like Exxon, Utilities knew about Climate Change risks decades ago” See my post on Facebook yesterday, 27 July. Climate change inaction is caused by: (1) Establishment conditioning views our planet as fodder for the taking with no intelligence, wisdom nor consciousness. (2) This conditioning has been reinforced by Jewish and Christian doctrine according to Genesis 1:26. (3) These two circumstances were exploited by Capitalism and expressed with the commandments; “profit first” and “grow or die” (4) All of the above were supported by the failure of our species to develop an “enoughness” gene. The lack of this ability is expressed by what we call greed revealed as anti-social behaviour bordering on the psychopathic. Lastly, from this state of being in the world, we will not honour and protect that which we do not love and most of the rich and powerful do not view Earth as lovable.
“Climate change is an existential risk that could abruptly end human civilisation because of a catastrophic “failure of imagination” by global leaders to understand and act on the science and evidence before them.”
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-07-26/a-failure-of-imagination-on-climate-risks/
Who am I
10 months
by sky
in Advaita Vedanta
Who am I?
When we look for the self we cannot help but be looking for something which is out there different from what we think we are. When we look for the self we find ourselves using the only language permitted or even available. This is a huge problem and block to understanding. Why? Because that which we are is not an object for that which is doing the looking. We are what we are looking for so explaining it is only rhetoric. Such thinking may bring us to asking – who then is actually doing the looking? Then what follows is the question – where, what is that which is doing the looking? Me, you say. But then we remember that the looker, call it me if you like, cannot be found. Next, perhaps we ask, if I am the self and the self cannot be found then it seems that we have been taught falsehoods. There is not nor ever was a self in here looking out on a world out there. There is only the act or experience of looking. Yes, but the English language supposes that there is first a subject, second an action or verb and thirdly an object – at something. Unless we find other terminology, we are locked into the assumption that there is a me, inside the body doing.
Although modern science cannot and never will find the location of the “I,” an alternative word description has not been accepted. The prevailing attitude is always – If there is no “I” doing the looking, then something must be doing the looking that we wrongly attribute to me doing.
At around this point, most people just tune out.
One can readily see that we will get nowhere until we question the whole concept of separate objects. Only with separate objects can one look at another.
The dilemma I have just left us at is the trigger for the idea of non-duality. Monism, in one form or another thus enters and sows volumes of discussion. Several miles down the road and after several turnings, fits and restarts, many just accept that they are that which is aware of their experience. So there is only awareness and nobody being aware.
That’s enough for tonight. Run it back and forth, inside and out but please let me know when you find the exact location of the “I” that does stuff. OK?
18/06/2017
Doctrine of Christian Discovery
11 months
by sky
in Native American Justice
I don’t expect many Christians are aware of this. When I was both a Christian and in grade school in the US, I certainly was not made aware of this. Then later, when I took a college course in early American History, I did not hear about it then either.
Doctrine of Christian Discovery
“The heightened awareness of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s fight for clean water has equally brought awareness about the flawed system of dispute resolution utilized by the judicial branch of the United States that Native Nations must navigate in their pursuit of protecting their natural resources.
During remarks, Chairman Dave Archambault II of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Chairman JoDe Goudy of the Yakama Nation read the proclamation calling to question how historical documents of domination and dehumanization have historically—and in present day—been used against Native Nations and peoples.
The proclamation calls upon Pope Francis to revoke the historical Roman Catholic Church Papal Bulls of Dum Diversas (1452), Romanus Pontifex (1455), and Inter Caetera (1493), questioning their unholy orders of domination and dehumanization, and the manner in which these historical papal decrees laid the foundation of modern day Federal Indian Law. The historical papal decrees also resulted in the “Doctrine of Discovery,” utilized not only in the formation, but the current function of the U.S. government.
The proclamation highlights the extreme contradiction of the separation of church and state in dealing with disputes among Native Nations.
“The United States government claims the ‘right of Christian Discoverer’ to dominate our Nations, lands, and waters,” Chairman Archambault stated. “This claimed ‘right’ is stated in U.S. Supreme Court decisions—starting with Johnson v. McIntosh in 1823, and reaffirmed by Tee-Hit-Ton v. U.S. in 1955, City of Sherrill, N.Y. v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York in 2005, and many others.””
“The lesson to be learned is that the papal bulls of 1452 and 1493 are but two clear examples of how the “Christian Powers,” or “different States of Christendom,” viewed indigenous peoples as “the lawful spoil and prey of their civilized conquerors.” [Wheaton:270-1] In fact, the Christian “Law of Nations” asserted that Christian nations had a divine right, based on the Bible, to claim absolute title to and ultimate authority over any newly “discovered” Non-Christian inhabitants and their lands. Over the next several centuries, these beliefs gave rise to the Doctrine of Discovery used by Spain, Portugal, England, France, and Holland – all Christian nations.
The Doctrine of Discovery in U.S. Law
In 1823, the Christian Doctrine of Discovery was quietly adopted into U.S. law by the Supreme Court in the celebrated case, Johnson v. McIntosh (8 Wheat., 543). Writing for a unanimous court, Chief Justice John Marshall observed that Christian European nations had assumed “ultimate dominion” over the lands of America during the Age of Discovery, and that – upon “discovery” – the Indians had lost “their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations,” and only retained a right of “occupancy” in their lands. In other words, Indians nations were subject to the ultimate authority of the first nation of Christendom to claim possession of a given region of Indian lands.” [Johnson:574; Wheaton:270-1]
http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html
Can we still wonder why the many treaties drawn up between indigenous, “first peoples” tribes had so little merit and were not worth the paper they were written on? And yet, Americans still regularly sing: “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” I have heard that ignorance of the law is no excuse. But what American school board would allow this to be taught? Thus we are bound in ignorance and continue to wonder why the rest of the world do not love us as we expect to be loved. The American government continues to dishonor great numbers of it’s citizens, such as, the hanging of the picture of Andrew Jackson and laying down of a wreath at his grave on Memorial Day.
“The Indian Removal Act set in motion the Trail of Tears, which attributed to the genocide of thousands of American Indians and the death of one-quarter Cherokee people. For this reason, Jackson is referred to by American Indians as the “Indian-killer” president and does not feel he should be honored or celebrated in any fashion.” http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/day-history-may-28-1830-andrew-jackson-signs-indian-removal-act/