Reason For Hope

                                                                                       written 20 August 2023

                                                                                   published 27 August 2023

                                                                                                  

            Last week Minnesota experienced baseball sized hail, twice.  Ottawa, Frankfurt, Clermont-Ferrand, France, and Washington DC all had flooding.  200 ships wait in line as drought slows passage through the Panama Canal.  A third heatwave hit southern Europe.  Portland experienced 108°F, Qeshm Dayrestan, Iran reported 178°F heat index, and the ocean off southern Florida was above 100°F again.  Canadian fires, their largest on record, forced evacuation of Yellowknife, and Kelowna.

            The climate crisis is already here and accelerating, yet Republican dogma remains "climate change is a liberal hoax".  The war on "woke" is by folks who are asleep, stuck in a nightmare, yearning for a world that no longer exists.  While everyone has to awaken at their own pace, I choose to talk to those already engaging with the accelerating avalanche of change.

            In 2005, Jared Diamond wrote "Collapse", which describes the failure of three historic societies out of synch with their regional climate change.  He identified three precursors of a civilization on the verge of collapse: a persistent pattern of environmental change for the worse; signs that existing modes of agriculture or industrial production were aggravating the crisis; and an elite failure to abandon harmful practices and adopt new means of production.  At some point, a critical threshold is crossed and collapse invariably follows.  

            Concerns about the climate crisis have grown over the last few decades, and what has been foretold as future possibilities are now making daily news.  More alarming is the magnitude and speed with which they are appearing.

            While apocalypse has come to be used popularly as a synonym for catastrophe, or end of the world, the Greek word from which it is derived also means a revelation, a great unveiling or disclosure of knowledge (from Wikipedia).  Our most fundamental problems are caused by the growth-orientated, technological society, and cannot be solved by just more or better technology.  We have to change our fundamental story of life. 

            The new story must be planetary.  It is emerging, but unfinished, being made up collectively as we all go along.  Humanity must evolve past the separation of "us versus them" into experiencing the global connectivity of reality, uncharted territory.  But there are metaphors, rooted in living systems, that help open the mind from obsolete limitations of our upbring. 

            Despair is an ego trip, which goes like this.  "I see everything that is going on, and it is all terrible and hopeless."  While it may be true that all that I see is terrible, it is arrogant to believe I see "everything".  As a finite being, contemplating the infinite universe, everything I "know" is either wrong, or, at best, incomplete.  Acceptance of humility opens a door to peace of mind.  Seemingly, a miracle will be required to resolve the totality of our problems, but a miracle is only the operation of a system I do not currently perceive or deploy. 

            "Spontaneous Evolution", by Lipton and Bhaerman, describes "punctuated equilibrium".  Life on Earth has been confronted with an extinction challenge many times, and then evolved a whole new way of doing business.  For example, the first life forms were simple bacteria, living off the abundant chemical energy of the recently cooled Earth. Over time, robust population growth began to exhaust these limited chemical resources and extinction threated.  Then photosynthesis appeared, drawing energy directly from sunlight.

            The evolution from individuals in lethal competition (our current state of civilization), to collectives in cooperation, has been accomplished by life at least twice.  First when individual cells cooperated to become nucleated cells and second when nucleated cells cooperated to become multi-celled organisms.  Humans are the beneficiaries of both these jumps, so each of us are living proof life knows how to do this.  

            Consider a chicken egg as it grows from fertilization.  Starting from a single cell, in total isolation, it thrives on the stored energy and nutrition of the yolk.  Eventually the yolk is exhausted and the finite volume of the shell allows no more room to grow.  The old order of business faces extinction.  At that point the chick hatches out into the larger world. 

            Our egos, experienced as personalities, are our shells, once beneficial, now lethal.  The time has come to "hatch" out into experiencing the larger connected world of life.  We are each called to make progress on this journey, and every success builds toward a transformational global "tipping point".  Imagine what that might be!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living With Life

                                                                                       written 12 August 2023

                                                                                   published 20 August 2023

                                                                                                  

            Last week, Reutlingen, Germany experienced a foot of hail.  A glacial lake outburst flood destroyed homes in Alaska, and flooding impacted parts of central Europe, Slovenia, Norway, and Sweden.  Strong storms hit eastern US, with wide spread damage, and hundreds of thousands without power, including flash floods and a tornado in Massachusetts.  Fire devastated western Maui, destroying at least 2,200 buildings, including historic downtown Lahaina, driven by 80 mph wind gusts.  The official count is currently 93 dead, which is expected to rise significantly. Siberian fires are larger than the rest of the world combined.  In Iran, the heat index hit 158°F.

            "The Marsh Builders", by Sharon Levy, describes historic human impact on water quality, and the struggle by Arcata to build alternative sewage treatment in Humboldt Bay.  

            Booming post war industrial growth left American's waterways in terrible condition.  Capitalism treats the natural world as a consumable resource, or a trash dump.  Money is made by ignoring toxic waste.  Consequently, most people were forced to drink polluted water, rivers burned periodically, and lakes became lethal to fish.  Public outrage eventually forced a federal response.  Nixon signed the Clean Water Act in 1972, and created the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce it.

            As urban densities increase, sewage disposal becomes a significant human impact on water quality.  For centuries, untreated sewage was dumped into rivers or oceans, with the philosophy that "pollution dilution is the solution".  Over time, the "dilution" became inadequate, and actual treatment became essential.  The primary phase is physical removal of chunks and trash, leaving a hazardous sludge.  Secondary treatment cultivates bacteria to digests everything organic, beginning to work with other life forms.  

            By the 70's, the accepted method was activated sludge, an energy intensive process forcing oxygen into the sludge, stimulating rapid bacteria growth, resulting in cleaner water.  Under the Clean Water Act, federal grants help communities build centralized sewage systems, and engineering companies flourished by charging a percentage of the huge project cost.

            California had set water quality standards not met by the numerous aging sewer systems around the Humboldt Bay.  The Humboldt Bay Wastewater Authority planned a regional sewer system which would gather all the effluent, pipe it under the Bay, treat it in a central plant on the western edge, and dump the output into deep ocean water.  This expensive system, very energy intensive at a time of increasing awareness of the need for energy conservation, had a vulnerable under-bay pipe, and would open vast areas to suburban sprawl.

            Arcata, which had just elected a progressive majority to the City Council, proposed an alternative treatment method, using engineered marsh construction to clean the water sufficiently to be beneficially dumped in the Bay, not piped to the ocean for disposal.  This enlisted more life forms than simple bacteria, mimicking how nature cleans water.  It was much less energy intensive, scaled to suit the local needs, and would create rich local biodiversity, replacing some of the diminishing marshlands.  

            After years of effort, the State eventually allowed Arcata to remove themselves from the regional wastewater plan, and build their biodynamic system.  The result not only succeeded, but thrived, expanding to become more than a sewage treatment system: a birder's paradise with thriving biodiversity.  It became a model for thousands of systems all over the planet, especially relevant in low-income areas of the world. 

            What I found interesting in this story was how an environmentally good goal, clean water, became limited by institutionalized scientific dogma, regulatory inertia, and the economic blinkers of entrenched construction industrialization, to stymy an even better environmental goal of using living systems to sustain human health.

            The book also helped explain why the Republican party, and big businesses that fund it, hates the EPA.  Corporate capitalism, as practiced these days, depends on not taking responsibility for the messes created in the industrial process.  They expect to profit from the product, but require "others" to pay for the cleanup, ignoring that we are all in this together.  As companies have gotten larger, only the federal government has the financial and legal clout to force accountability.  But rather than take responsibility, corporations cry "regulatory burden".

            In the 60's, the crisis was pollution in the water, and national public pressure forced governmental response.  Today's climate crisis is atmospheric carbon pollution.  As the world heating accelerates, the only question is: how much has to be destroyed before a global response says ENOUGH!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Separation Manifested in Politics

                                                                                       written 6 August 2023

                                                                                 published 13 August 2023

                                                                                                 

            Last week, saw 11 inches of rain in Kentucky and Tennessee, 12 inches in Okinawa, and 25 inches in 24 hours in Beijing, creating torrential floods.  After a 2-day respite, Phoenix faces weeks more above 110°F, Tunisia hit 120°F, southern Iran hit 123°F, shutting down the country for 2 days, while Algeria hit 135°F.  Canada now has 1,000 fires and Italy has 1,400.  Despite being winter in the southern hemisphere, Chile hit 102°F, surpassing summer records, the second largest lake in Bolivia has gone dry, and Antarctic winter sea ice levels are at record low.  AAA quit writing new insurance in Florida, the fifth company this year. 

            The climate crisis is a symptom of the deeper cultural illusion of separation.  Nowhere is the expression of separation more obvious than the increasingly polarized political arena.

            The American democratic system, despite its limitations, was a step away from previous politics of separation.  The ideal of democracy is that everyone has a say in making the rules, which then apply to everyone.  The system originally enfranchised just white men, but grew to include women and people of color.  As more are included, those that previously held control feel threatened.

            The GOP has traditionally been the party of big business, and, in the last few decades, aligned with the Christian Right to support their limited goals as well.  While these groups (religious extremists and the outrageously wealthy) are relative powerful, they are minorities in the voter base, and demographic changes have been working against the GOP. In addition, the party has aggressively pushed more extreme policies supporting wealth inequity, misogyny, racism, and religious intolerance, which are increasingly unpopular with the voting public.  

            Rather than change those policies, the response has been to dismantle the structure of our democracy to retain power, using extreme gerrymandering, voter restrictions, fear mongering, and blatant lies.  The extremely conservative Supreme Court has legalized unlimited campaign funding.  Propaganda, such as the steady stream from Fox News, sways folks and muddies the water. 

            "Republican-controlled “Red” states, almost across the board, have higher rates of: spousal abuse, obesity, smoking, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion (now “forced births”), bankruptcies and poverty, homicide and suicide, infant mortality, maternal mortality, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault, dropouts from high school, divorce, contaminated air and water, opiate addiction and deaths, unskilled workers, parasitic infections, income and wealth inequality, covid deaths and unvaccinated people, federal subsidies to states (“Red State Welfare”), people on welfare, child poverty, homelessness, spousal murder, unemployment, deaths from auto accidents, people living on disability, and gun deaths."  (Daily Kos 29Jun23)

            If Republicans return to power in 2024, they promise to remake the country, eliminating decades of cultural progress.  Rights of women, gays, and workers, religious tolerance, and support of democratic institutions globally, are all on the chopping block.  

            For the last two months, I have been reporting weather extremes of the previous week.  This is already a record-breaking summer, and we have months to go, including the hurricane season.  Despite the increasing impact of an over-heated climate, climate denial is well funded by the fossil fuel industry, which still thinks their massive short-term profits are more important than the risk of toasting the entire economy.  Consequently, Republican leadership denies there is a problem, plans to stop every effort to address the issue, and aggressively expand fossil fuel extraction and usage,  

            Their "Project 2025" plan would "block wind and solar power from being added to the electrical grid; gut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency; eliminate the Department of Energy’s renewable energy offices; prohibit states from adopting California’s tailpipe pollution standards, transfer many federal environmental regulatory duties to Republican state officials; and prop up the fossil fuel industry."  (Inside Climate News 1Aug23)

             Not only would our national climate response halt, but the US is a quarter of the global economy, so the planetary effort would be hampered as well, risking the survival of our species.  Of course, this assumes a Republican, and specifically Trump, wins the 2024 presidential election.  

            The question becomes, how bad does it have to get before general voter self-preservation kicks in?  For thousands of years, humanity has lived the belief of "us versus them", despite increasing evidence that we are all "us".  Consequently, any war on "them" also destroys "us", and we are on track to collective suicide.  As this truth sinks in, we have to act accordingly.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Separation Manifested in Science

                                                                                                 written 30 July 2023

                                                                                          published 6 August 2023

                                                                                                 

            Last week, ocean temperature off southern Florida hit 101°F.  Phoenix, which endured 30 days above 110°F, and lows above 90°F, was declared the "first city uninhabitable without AC".  Two days of grid blackout would send millions to the emergency room and kill thousands.  Algeria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, and Turkey are all battling deadly wildfires, while 4" diameter hail injured 100 in northern Italy.  July 2023 is hottest month ever recorded, but this will be remembered as the coolest summer of the rest of our lives.

            After the Protestant Revolution, the absolute power of the Church diminished.  The European Renaissance reviving ancient ideas and Western science began to flourish.  Because the Church still killed people who challenged their dogma, science steered clear of anything spiritual, and focused on the objectively measurable, with confirmation required.  Despite this limitation, scientific understanding flourished and powered the industrial revolution, transforming society and the planet.

            Originally, matter was understood to be only a part of reality, and Newton wrote extensive commentaries on the Bible.  This quickly shifted to the idea that matter is the foundation of reality, and consciousness was relegated to an "epiphenomenon", an artifact of highly complex matter, limited to humans.  "Meaning" in life had no place in orthodox science.  The body was a meat machine, and medical learning proceeded like any mechanic describing and maintaining a mechanism.  

            Darwin focused exclusively on competition, postulating evolution as survival of the "fittest", which quickly became survival of the "strongest".  The scientific assumption of a "meaningless" material reality, combined with a validation that "might makes right", encouraged, and justified, the economic exploitation of the Earth, where all activity was designed to further limited human goals.  

            Scientist are people, subject to the cultural limitations of people.  In our misogynistic culture, women scientists are still a minority, typically ignored for decades before their findings are validated and accepted.  Strong scientific egos often held up progress, and big changes in thinking had to wait until key scientists died, or whole new fields of study brought more information to bear.  

            However, there is an integrity in the scientific method which constantly seeks the deeper reality of the world, and unlike rigid religious dogma, scientific dogma changes over time, with further research.  A little over a century ago, the world changed significantly.  Psychology showed a powerful subconscious shapes human perception.  Relativity added time to the consideration of matter.  Quantum physics introduced the understanding that all matter is actually energy, which can act as a particle or a wave, depending only on how it is viewed, putting consciousness central to material form.

            Being a culture of domination and separation, the first use of this new physics was destruction, ending the world war 78 years ago.  But it also brought the computer revolution, which continues to change the world.  I bought my first computer 40 years ago, and the machine I am using to write this article is 9 years old, almost obsolete, but orders of magnitude more powerful than my first machine.  The World Wide Web began 30 years ago giving global access to information.  The first iPhone hit the market 17 years ago.  Now 86 percent of the world has a smartphone.  This rapid social transformation is unprecedented.

            Because we are still a culture of domination, trauma, and separation, these powerful changes have a dark side as well.  Traffic on the web is 90 percent porn or spam, and social media is a destructive addiction.  Online hackers threaten everything from individuals to entire civilizations.  Cyberwar is ongoing.

            As consciousness has taken on more importance, we see humans are not just meat machines.  The assumption of the primacy of matter is a Western science bias, as Eastern science assumes consciousness is primary, eliminating the problem of "how does consciousness arise in dead matter".  Fifty years ago, the Institute of Noetic Sciences held medical conferences for the study of psycho-neuro-immunology: how what the mind thinks shapes the health of our body.  This is now a recognized field of medicine.

            The wave nature of the quantum world describes a unity world.  Einstein said "either everything is sacred, or nothing is".  We now know that cooperation is as biologically important as competition.  Our technologies are expressing the fundamental unity into a global culture stunted by centuries of belief in separation.  The social upheavals we are experiencing are the growing pains of healing that conflict.