Despair and anger are contributing to a feeling that people have no power to stop the destructive forces behind climate change, but the feeling can be reversed through personal hope and inner peace, an audience in Vancouver was told earlier this week by Buddhist monk, poet, peace and human rights activist, Thich Nhat Hanh.
In Vancouver for a week of teaching and lectures, Thich Nhat Hanh, sat down with Canada's David Suzuki, a world-renowned authority on sustainable ecology, to discuss the path forward to a more sustainable way of living.
Their conversation, based on the premise that it is well-known that humans are harming the earth, destroying its ecosystems and disrupting the climate, focused on how to bring about the change in human behavior that is needed to put the world on a path that will ensure a healthy planet for future generations.
With contributions to the discussion from Vancouver's mayor, Gregor Robertson, the audience listened for an hour to a thoughtful dialogue on tackling attitudes to climate change. The following clips provide a snapshot of the discussion. They will also be featured on the David Suzuki Foundation website and Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh's website. A full version of the event is available for viewing here.
Thich Nhat Hanh said we have to accept that our civilization can be destroyed, not by an outside force, but by ourselves, just as many civilizations before ours have been destroyed. If we allow despair to take over, we will lose the strength to do anything to protect and preserve our civilization. Personal hope and inner peace will help build the strength we need to become instruments to protect the environment.
The conversation was structured around the following questions:
1. I would like your reaction to this economic advice a Lehman Brothers banker, named Paul Mazer, gave American business in 1930 when the age of consumerism was beginning: "People need to be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old have been entirely consumed... Man's desires must overshadow his needs."
2. What gives you hope that we can bring about the collective awakening needed to restore health to the planet? Most of us know we are harming the earth, destroying its ecosystems and disrupting the climate. But we act as if it is not happening. How do we bring about the change in human behavior that is needed to put us on a path that will ensure a healthy planet for our children and grandchildren?
3. Oil industry groups over the past few decades have financed misinformation campaigns to cast doubt on climate science. Today 45 per cent of Americans mistakenly believe there is disagreement among climate scientists that global warming is even happening, this number is up 12 percent since 2008. The number climate scientists saying Climate Change isn't happening is actually closer to zero. It seems to be very easy to pull the wool over the eyes of the public, why are we so gullible? What do you think we can we do to change from deniers of the environmental problems we face to responsible stewards of the environment?
4. What responsibility does government have for solving these problems? How do we motivate government to do the right thing?
5. Social science research in Canada and the U.S. shows that public mistrust is at an all-time high. People believe Government and business say one thing and do another. They don't trust Government; they don't trust business and wonder about each other. This is particularly true when it comes to the environment. This mistrust has led to a kind of social paralysis where people believe their own actions won't make a difference. How do we overcome this mistrust?
Here are two short clips from the conversation:
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Buddhist climate action comes from the inside out | Climatide
No, really.
Heartland Institute global warming "expert" uses Trick to Hide The Incline in global warming, as statistician Tamino demonstrates.*
Heartland Institute global warming "expert" Bob Carter is a leader of and/or contributor to several other of the most prominent organizations that are "skeptical" of man-made global warming as well, including:
* Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI)
* Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
* Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
* International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
ICSC Executive Director Tom Harris has repeatedly refused to address Bob Carter's de facto fraud here on HuffPo, despite the fact that the Heartland Institute global warming "expert"Â is also the ICSC's Chief Science Adviser.**
Dear Orkneygal,
Heartland Institute global warming "expert" Bob Carter is also a founding leader of the "skeptical" New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC). You have indicated that you live in New Zealand - what relationship do you have with the NZCSC, if any?
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* http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/bob-carter-does-his-business/
** http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/social/Publicola/climate-change-denial_b_896543_97738177.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Publicola/climate-change-impacts-water-resources_n_911152_101378826.html
It usually seems like the deck is stacked against us.
by David R. Legates, Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware and a former review editor for the journal Climate Research
David Suzuki has never met, debated or even spoken with my colleague, scientist Willie Soon. But as more people dismiss Mr. Suzuki’s scare stories about global warming cataclysms, Suzuki has resorted to personal attacks against Dr. Soon and others who disagree with him.
Dr. Soon’s brilliant research into the sun’s role in climate change has helped make millions aware that carbon dioxide’s influence is far less than Suzuki wants them to think. In a recent column that was picked up by the Huffington Post and other media outlets, Suzuki attacked Dr. Soon, mostly with a recycled Greenpeace “investigation†that is itself nothing more than a rehash of tiresome (and libelous) misstatements, red herrings and outright lies. It’s time to set the record straight.
First, the alleged corporate cash. Suzuki claims Dr. Soon received “more than $1 million over the past decade†from US energy companies – and implies that Dr. Soon lied to a US Senate committee about the funding. In fact, the research grants were received in the years following the Senate hearing; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics took nearly half of the money (for “administrationâ€), and what was left covered Dr. Soon’s salary, research, and other expenses including even toner for his printer.....
http://tinyurl.com/3b8l2np
"The Greenpeace report, "Dr. Willie Soon: A Career Fueled by Big Oil and Coal," reveals that $1.033 million of Dr. Soon's funding since 2001 has come from oil and coal interests. Since 2002, every grant Dr. Soon received originated with fossil fuel interests, according to documents received from the Smithsonian Institution in response to Greenpeace FOIA requests."
"Soon has served on the roster of many oil- and coal-funded front groups over the past 15 years, from his role as "Scientific Adviser" at the coal-funded Greening Earth Society in the late 1990s, to his affiliations with a variety of Koch-Exxon-Scaife funded groups like the George C. Marshall Institute, the Science and Public Policy Institute, the Center for Science and Public Policy and the Heartland Institute."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/willie-soon-climate-change-_b_886232.html
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=860
In other words, the Soon article was so poorly compiled and shoddy science that three editors resigned because the peer review process was a scam done by other climate change deniers. Can one imagine a paper so poorly written and based on such flimsy evidence that half the magazine resigns in protest. These are the sort of luminaries or professional deniers that Orkney bases her opinions on, while ignoring dozens of researchers with integrity who have arrived at the vast consensus that co2 causes warming.