Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumFinding personal equanimity in the face of global catastrophe
Some recent ruminations, presented for your perusal.
Regarding the global catastrophe, Im currently focused on climate change running faster and more severely than expected, impacting the food supplies and infrastructure in various regions through accelerating extreme weather events. Methane feedbacks will be part of this, and I think their additional impact could be noticeable in two or three more years (and measurable before that of course).
Reading James Hansen's paper on paleoclimate has convinced me that weve drastically underestimated the impact of relatively small rises in global mean temperature. As a result I think weve just passed the threshold of dangerous climate change.
I expect the resulting ripples of social disruption to turn into waves in the next three years, then into a storm in ten. The cracks in GlobCiv 1.0 will become really serious around 2030 as nations begin to focus on worsening internal problems to the exclusion of international ones with the exception of spreading regional wars over water and refugees. I figure the wheels will finally fall off the GlobCiv enterprise in 2040 or so.
I dont foresee human extinction for this century, though I think its distinctly possible next century as temperatures continue to soar past +6C. Depopulation to 1 billion or less by the end of this century is possible-to-probable.
Were going to keep burning fossil fuels at all costs to try and prevent the end of GlobCiv, which will simply make it more certain. We will probably burn through all 1,000 GtC of available fossil carbon reserves before the end of the century, which will introduce a rather interesting bump into the decivilization process as the fuel tank runs dry.
I've been ruminating on on how we can achieve equanimity in the face of all this - for without equanimity there can be little compassion, and without compassion there can be no altruism or community. I think there are two roads to peace of mind, and which road one chooses depends on whether one is more left-brained or right-brained, more scientific/concrete or artistic/abstract.
The left-brain road to equanimity is typified for me by my father. He spent his working life as a research biochemist and biologist as well as being a classical violinist and a deeply, broadly curious free-thinker. This combination has given him an evolutionary, deep-time perspective on the human situation, into which he has been able to integrate his sons growing awareness of the impending collapse with very little sturm and almost no drang.
I have also run into a growing contingent (many of here and on Facebook) who find as much equanimity by moving towards an Eastern philosophical perspective founded on an awareness of the spiritual/ecological interdependence of everything, with lashings of non-dualism and Buddhist non-attachment. This group has become my tribe.
What I have not found is any significant number of people who have achieved lasting peace of mind while remaining psychologically attached to standard Western anthropocentric cultural concerns, values and arrangements. Interestingly, whether they remain attached in support of, or in opposition to, the mainstream paradigm seems to matter little. Both positions seem to generate a similar level of disturbance in the psyche.
This tells me that freeing oneself psychologically from the current paradigm of civilization is more important than precisely what worldview one adopts in its place.
In my opinion the quasi-Buddhist path is more likely to bring about the compassion and altruism well need, because theyre explicitly built into the philosophy. However, some people are allergic to the frankly spiritual orientation of this path. For those whose minds require a more concrete worldview, the evolutionary, deep-time perspective definitely confers peace of mind.
Wishing you deep peace however you find it.
mopinko
(70,135 posts)it will feed my family, and some friends. it will buy me some peace in chaos, i hope, unless we are full out mad max. my children will have a place to live and food to eat, come what may. (do have a goal of acquiring heat tolerant seeds/crops, tho)
i am doing my little bit right. not much in the scheme of things, but it is what is within my power, so i do it.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)In the end, that's enough.
CRH
(1,553 posts)a lasting peace of mind while one has attachment to correcting or controlling our current dilemma. As well, attachment to trying to survive and maintain in the future unknown, is equally bound to find frustration in rapidly evolving circumstances. Just take the climate part of the crisis. Plan as you will, plan as you may, the information you are receiving today is very different from the information you had but a decade ago. It is in constant and rapid flux.
So basically I think what I am growing to learn, and confirming every day, is attachment to controlling anything will not result in peace, planning for evolving circumstance is sure to find frustration, so inner peace will only be realized by finding happiness in the moment, while planning for the immediate future, with no attachment to perceived paths or destinations.
For me that is in the garden, and the oneness I find therein. For others it might be religion or contemplation. Probably many paths to many different but alike, inner destinations.
So for me, equanimity will be found in no attachment, whether physical, mental or spiritual, beyond the moment. Hate to admit it, but Be Here Now, lives on in this old hippie.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Some people come to an angry boil when I talk about going gentle into that good night. And that's fine - wanting to fight to your last breath is an authentic reaction. The reason I talk a lot about the equanimity of non-attachment is that it is sometimes painted as illegitimate, contemptible fatalism by the fighters. I'd like to offer the possibility that it's a sane, productive response - more so for some people and less so for others, but differences are what make this world a wonderful place..
Being in the moment is the core of every nondualist tradition in the world. Don't cling to memories, don't cling to plans. If one does decide to look for balance and equanimity that's where to start and end - right Now.
Leary/Alpert <==> Stones/Beatles. As one old hippie to another, I took Leary's path back then, but now I walk a bit more with Ram Dass. Although even now I still try and achieve a balance.
CRH
(1,553 posts)in the absence of solution, it is sanity unto itself.
Timothy was yet another path, that absolutely demolished barriers both social and self inflicted. Once those barriers fall, to paraphrase the MB, Timothy Leary leaver dies, he is always outside looking in. Tripping through cow pastures can have an equally profound effect.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)Its an alternate purpose during what will become a worldwide existential crisis. It may be rejection of your fundamental human instinctual feelings while we meet the grand bottleneck. You are simply seeking something that you value as good according to your own world-view, which is not objective by any means.
Is seeking a state of peace following the same human pattern of finding some purpose when its becoming apparently clear that there is in fact no ultimate purpose for human life? Are you sure you are not just swapping infinite growth with ascetic calm, so that your brain can fulfil some desire to pursue a goal, any goal, but be human (and in this case, is it not human to fear or own demise)?
My personal path as a scientist converted me into an arrogant, God-Killing agnostic for the last decade, who perceived all things such as spirituality and human irrationality as silly and devoid of intellectualism; I was, in my own way, living life according to an equation and denying human instincts and emotions (so was I really alive as a human should be?). Somewhere along the way--and I won't get into it--I came to the conclusion that there may be more to life than what spiritual and modern scientific culture has defined it to be. There may be feelings and knowledge that existed during the first hundred thousand years that Homo Sapiens explored the earth that were forever exploited by religion and forever killed by science, all to benefit the pervasive civilization we find around us.
Again, I will not use this opportunity to explore this notion, but I ask: if there is more to being human--mainly instinctual--than what culture has defined (which so regularly asks us to withdraw from our instincts), isn't this finally the time to embrace that humanity and let it take us wherever? Why pursue a goal that denies your humanity? If you are angry one morning, embrace it. If you are sad another, perhaps that is ok. If you find understanding and peace the next, then great. If you simply want to walk the rivers and feel a rythm of the energy around you, whether it brings mourning or euphoria, then perhaps thats ok as well. If you want to sit and do nothing, then what is wrong with that? Nothing.
Let's just be (human), and figure out what that means again as time is slipping away. Like a reed in an ocean current, let it take you where it may
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)What I'm really talking about is usually called awakening or enlightenment, and equanimity is just one of the side effects. I think of awakening as achieving clarity regarding What Is. From that point of view it's not so much a life goal as something like going to the hardware store to buy a good magnifying glass. It lets me see what I need to do, and what I can do - and not fret so much over the options I don't choose. It lets me get on with life and not tie myself in knots with woulda/coulda/shoulda. The goal is not awakening or finding peace of mind, but getting on with life.
I like the Advaita premise that you already are that which you seek. The trick is to consciously accept that reality, and not keep wanting to be someone or something else.
I agree that being human is much, much bigger than we've made it seem. We seem to fear being big much more than being small. I also broke from a deeply held scientific/positivist mindset, but not until I'd spend over half a century asleep in it. It's nice not to have to worry about keeping myself small enough to fit in that box any more. As the Bard of Avon said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
It's enough to simply try our best to be what we truly are. If we can manage that, equanimity in a climate or energy crisis is a cinch.
Bigmack
(8,020 posts)for your thoughts. Always appreciate your thoughtful wisdom, AND the often equally thoughtful folks who respond to your posts. Ms bigmack
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Iterate
(3,020 posts)Last edited Mon Dec 17, 2012, 07:17 AM - Edit history (1)
Three simple steps: avoid the contempt of your heirs, don't race the Red Queen, and burn you car. It's not for them but for you. It will clarify your thinking like nothing else.
cprise
(8,445 posts)Or, perhaps, a kind of intense self-satisfaction.
Sometimes when I read posts like this, I wonder if people self-arrange into their own unrecognized dualisms: Those who are either completely passive or bent on control, many of whom have no apparent ability to discern the possibilities in-between.
I'd prefer to describe my own inner aims as centeredness and resilience. My worldview is naturalist-humanist in recognition of the web of life and our species' relationship to it, though there are places where Eastern philosophy has influenced me.
For the most part I have rejected the latter because after years of delving, I started to yearn for knowledge of the contemporary Far East; As a consequence I realized Eastern philosophy had the same capacity for justifying denial as Western traditions. Perhaps more. No conservative Christian has ever condescended to me for hoping to protect the environment.