Climate Change: We're Doomed

[Konchog1]

Welcome to the Dark Age.

I'll be in a cave. See you guys at one of Maitreya's public teachings.

[nirmal]

but...

[Raksha]

Don't forget 'The Four Evil Kings' (global tyranny) and 'The Five Great Plagues' (four to go).

I really just want to translate and help preserve Buddhist texts while doing meditation. I foresee some very ugly times coming, and I might die prematurely, but in the meanwhile I'd like to contribute to the preservation and transmission of the canon as best I can.

Sadhu!

[Raksha]

Er...I'm sorry there's more...

'At that time people who practice the Dharma correctly and sincerely will be as rare as daytime stars. Devils will set up obstacles for the holy ones, so that they will not find food or clothing. They will bear a great many illnesses and afflictions, and become meek and humble. Even if there is one pure individual who can properly keep the full monastic precepts, evil forces will interfere with virtue and noble aspiration, and will overpower them. With short lives, little fortune and many conditions for disease they will become miserable and tormented.' [Machig Labdron]

'This decadent age is not a time for ordinary beings to help others externally, but rather a time for them to live in solitary places and train their own minds in the love and compassion of Bodhicitta.' [Geshe Tonpa]

[Dave The Seeker]

I have, actually, a great deal of anger that I sit with over that.
Sara H

Is that anger going to help you or anyone else?

Anger is a great downfall we must all get past. I read once that anger only causes hurt to ourselves, and that it's just not worth it.

This is an issue that won't change unless the whole world becomes one and changes in an immense way.

I feel great compassion for my children and the generations that follow.

[Indrajala]

I feel great compassion for my children and the generations that follow.

Don't forget the polar bears, too. That ice up north is melting away rapidly.

Future generations will look back with a lot of resentment perhaps.

[Dave The Seeker]

How true my friend.
But it's not just the polar bears, there are many species in the arctic as well as every other climate that are going to be suffering or extinct if the current trend continues.
Many of these species will be gone before we ever knew they existed.

Just one point though, we may not be the total cause of this. Our weather records really only go back less than 200 years. This could be a cycle the earth goes through on a regular basis. We might have just sped it up a bit.

[Indrajala]

Just one point though, we may not be the total cause of this. Our weather records really only go back less than 200 years. This could be a cycle the earth goes through on a regular basis. We might have just sped it up a bit.

True. We know that crocodiles used to live in what is now a rather chilly Canada. The planet used to be much warmer. Natural warming cycles have even affected civilizations in the past with clear consequences:

http://phys.org/news145199282.html


Still, dumping loads of carbon into a naturally unstable atmosphere is probably a bad idea. If we hadn't done so the warming cycle might take a lot more time and/or be less extreme in the end before it reverses.

Our species will survive. We made it through the ice ages intact.

[Roland]

Here are some facts that I've collected and that seem to be relevant in this thread. I'm sure some people are already aware of a lot or all of these.

The United States uses 25% of the world's annual energy resources to support a little less that 5% of the world's population.
With more than 200 million cars and trucks.
It takes 7 gallons of oil to make one tire.
In 2004, (I think the US) generated 314 million metric tons of carbon, which is about equal to a coal train 55,000 miles long, wrapping around Earth twice.
The world consumes 80 million barrels of oil per day and it takes 4 barrels of oil to produce 1 barrel of oil.

Also, I heard that if we somehow removed all the human created carbon emissions from the atmosphere instantly, the global warming effects of that carbon would continue for a generation because there is that much momentum at this point.

Way too dependent on dinosaur juice.

[Roland]

Just one point though, we may not be the total cause of this. Our weather records really only go back less than 200 years. This could be a cycle the earth goes through on a regular basis. We might have just sped it up a bit.

This is the way I see it. I think there are many variables and that the Earth naturally goes through climate changes. It seems like Earth is going through one of these phases of warming up, but at the same time, we are causing further and quicker warming, as you said.

Our species will survive. We made it through the ice ages intact.

There are some that say, possibly because of climate change in the past, due to supervolcanoes and other major catastrophic climate change, that the human species has "bottlenecked" down to anywhere between a couple thousand to tens of thousands of people. Considering the implications of 7 or 8 billion people dying off to around a couple thousand is hideous, terrifying, gross, and (insert description here).

[Indrajala]

The United States uses 25% of the world's annual energy resources to support a little less that 5% of the world's population.

It can do so by virtue of having the military machine that it does.

The wealth and standard of living Americans enjoy is largely a result of military operations which both directly and indirectly enforce unfair trade agreements with the rest of the world. The system is rigged in western favour, so client states like Canada and Japan get a share of the pie as well.

[Roland]

The US spends something like $1 trillion per year on military operations, even though apparently world hunger could be taken care of for $160 billion per year. Complete insanity.

[Indrajala]

The US spends something like $1 trillion per year on military operations, even though apparently world hunger could be taken care of for $160 billion per year. Complete insanity.

The spending pays for the 35% of the world's resources that Americans enjoy. As a citizen of America or a client state you get access to that pie.

In history it has often been the case that militarization when successful brings with it economic perks. It doesn't even have to come to pillaging and enslaving anyone. You just have the threat of violence and you can enforce unfair trade relationships that would otherwise not exist if it wasn't for gunboat diplomacy.

[kirtu]

I feel great compassion for my children and the generations that follow.

Don't forget the polar bears, too.

The Polar Bears in North America in the wild are doomed for real. There are 16 or so major groupings of Polar Bears worldwide. They may all be doomed as well or perhaps those in Eurasia may survive in the wild still.

Kirt

[Sara H]

I have, actually, a great deal of anger that I sit with over that.
Sara H

Is that anger going to help you or anyone else?

Anger is a great downfall we must all get past. I read once that anger only causes hurt to ourselves, and that it's just not worth it.

This is an issue that won't change unless the whole world becomes one and changes in an immense way.

I feel great compassion for my children and the generations that follow.

I didn't say that I actively indulge anger friend, I said it arises and I sit with it.

I appreceate your compassion for my and future generations.

What will actually be of help though, rather than just warm feelings is some "engaged" compassion of actual real investment dollars, and the Baby Boomers being willing to sacrifice maintaining what's left of their ideal lifestyle, ( by breaking into their savings and giving real cash where it's very needed, or passing on their tools, cars, and property to their children who sorely need them for starting new businesses or completing school, and/or be willing to retire and let new generations have their jobs and businesses and property) so that their kids and future generations can have Any lifestyle at all.

Not to mention getting the heck out of politics, as they're not very good at it.

I've experienced first hand Baby Boomers who have and would let their children sleep on the street, and care very little about the safety, health, future of their children and even whether their kids lived or died, before sacrificing their "lifestyle" to give their children and their children's generation some much need cash investment.

That's not an exaggeration, it's an actual occurence that's so common among how Baby Boomers treat their own kids and their kids generation, that it's actually normal behavior for Baby Boomers.

They feel entitled to it.

I don't see a lot of Baby Boomers standing up and telling their peers directly that they need to treat their kids better. Actually speaking up and being confrontational about it, to people's faces.


In Gassho, friend,

Sara H

[viniketa]

What will actually be of help though, rather than just warm feelings is some "engaged" compassion of actual real investment dollars, and the Baby Boomers being willing to sacrifice maintaining what's left of their ideal lifestyle, ( by breaking into their savings and giving real cash where it's very needed, or passing on their tools, cars, and property to their children who sorely need them for starting new businesses or completing school, and/or be willing to retire and let new generations have their jobs and businesses and property) so that their kids and future generations can have Any lifestyle at all.

Could we just die, instead, please? Perhaps we (Baby Boomers) could arrange a time and place for a mass surrender to you and 'your generation' and could be publicly executed?

[Sara H]

Could we just die, instead, please? Perhaps we (Baby Boomers) could arrange a time and place for a mass surrender to you and 'your generation' and could be publicly executed?

You know, what I said was the honest truth.

And it was good to say.

In Gassho, friend,

-Sara H

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

Could we just die, instead, please?

No, just stop sending the feds over to pay for your credit card.

[Indrajala]

Could we just die, instead, please? Perhaps we (Baby Boomers) could arrange a time and place for a mass surrender to you and 'your generation' and could be publicly executed?

Incidentally, your generation had the most enormous amount of resources and opportunities available to any generation in the history of humanity. It might not have seemed as such, but it really was.

Now my generation will have less, and the following ones will get even less... until we go back to 1930's standards of living.

I don't expect to ever get a pension.

[viniketa]

You know, what I said was the honest truth.

And it was good to say.

The truth about your feelings, yes. I don't pretend to know your life circumstances, so am not sure who to feel more sorry for, you or your parents/grandparents or with whomever you are angry.

No, just stop sending the feds over to pay for your credit card.

Not my credit card - I don't support war under any circumstances. That's the major source of the current deficit in the U.S.

Incidentally, your generation had the most enormous amount of resources and opportunities available to any generation in the history of humanity. It might not have seemed as such, but it really was.

I agree, and we knew it. We we told by those in power that the more we used, the more jobs we created and the better-off all would be. By the time matured enough and understood differently, it was the beginning of the end. My generation began environmental protests in the 1960s.

Now my generation will have less, and the following ones will get even less... until we go back to 1930's standards of living.

I'm still not convinced of your oracular powers, though I do agree that change is needed and everyone needs to learn how to do more with less.

I don't expect to ever get a pension.

I don't understand Canada's system well enough to comment.

It's a good thing not all Boomers generalize to "your generation" from what has been posted here.

May all beings know peace and the means of peacefulness.