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CLIMATE CHANGE

 Engaged Buddhism/Current Events  ---  SPECIES THREATS

There are many groups, sites, links on this subject. Check out 350 dot org

Since 1-18-15 Climate change posts at cuke blog Environment




1-17-15 - 2014 Was The Hottest Year Since At Least 1880, Government Finds - BBC - More charts and graphs here - Dallas Morning News

Click here to see some of the photos from rallies against the Keystone Pipeline across the country and the petition delivery at the White House. - Good for them, vainly battling against the overwhelming forces enthusiastically working toward world suicide as far as us and many species are concerned but the world? It'll still be around and, I know it must be disappointing to so many of us doing everything possible to heat the globe, but life will survive and evolve as always and in the big big picture, nothing significant, the dream continues unstoppable. But must be really bad karma for those who let it happen. Now let's see, who would that be? That's all the time I can spare for this now. Time for a break. - DC

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If you look at the world map from the Dallas Morning News article on 2014 being the hottest year recorded, you'll see that Bali was in one of the spots with the least temperature rise. Guess that means we don't have to worry about anything here.  - today's post in Saunters


1-10-15 - Ocean Warming Speeds Up Cycle of Climate Change


12-28-14 - Welcome to Year One of the Climate Revolution

By Rebecca Solnit, Guardian UK - thanks Taigen

- posted in Climate Change


12-09-14 - Niel deGrass Tyson's Cosmos was wonderful. He's my favorite materialist. He made an excellent pitch on the threat of climate change from the halls of extinction - and that on a show on Fox TV, the home of climate change denial. There were the five great extinctions so far with names above their hallway entrance and then one unnamed. Pointed out the unusual agreement of evidence pouring in from various and legion scientific sources - biological, geological, meteorological, and so forth. He said that his time climate change is clearly caused by people and that not only do we know the cause, we know what to do and have the means to do what's necessary - but we lack the will. He pointed out the seemingly unstoppable march of short term profit. He said he didn't think it could make us go extinct (which some scientists including Hawking would argue with), but do we really want to leave this comfortable zone we've been living in? Too late for that probably. Now it's just how much can we slow it down. Here's an LA Times article on his "powerful scientific case." Check him out on YouTube and the Internet elsewhere.


12-05-14 - Ocean Heat Drives Surge to Global Warming Record - Truthdig from Climate News Network


12-04-14 - Solar and Wind Energy Start to Win on Price vs. Conventional Fuels - NY Times.

I'm seeing more and more info that indicates we could stop pumping all that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere if we cared to. I don't want to disappoint or inconvenience all the people making money that way, but maybe we could buy them off and tell them oh come on, we're just trying to keep the biosphere habitable for you and your offspring.


12-02-14 - A big reason climate change isn’t a priority: The apocalypse.

I enjoyed reading how the Book of Revelations was a social political treatise on the times it was written, not a prophesy of future events. A lot of early works weren't preserved because so many thought the end was near. Even though the end does look near to me, I preserve anyway. Mentioned recently like St. Francis saying he'd keep hoeing. Another image is the guy who put his car up on blocks and disconnected the battery etc in preparation for his part in human extinction in On the Beach. Just seems like good form.


11-28-14 - Juan Cole's Thanksgiving message from yesterday is a surprising and stirring take on global warming and a call to action. To me, the fact that major news outlets in the US rely on hacks rather than experts like Juan Cole is a sad sign of the times. However, climate is not his area of expertise.


11-27-14 - Niel deGrasse Tyson with Chris Hayes on Climate Change


11-14-14 - The Solutions Project - Taigen Dan Leighton sent this link with the following note:

Thanks to Peter Coyote for telling me about this state by state project, sponsored by actor Mark Ruffalo and others, including Stanford researchers.  This wonderful website shows how "The World Can Transition to 100% Clean, Renewable Energy Starting Today."  It includes an amazing state by state map showing how each state in the U.S. already has the renewable, clean energy resources that could take care of all its energy needs, without relying on any of the fossil fuels or nuclear power that are devastating our planet. 
Check it out.  - posted also in Taigen's Peace and Justice page

 


11-04-14 - Science Panel’s Urgent Warning to Tackle Climate Change - but not as urgent as it would be if they'd included findings since March 15, 2013

 


9-27-14 - Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, What to Do When You're Running Out of Time - thanks Taigen

 

Rebecca Solnit dot net

 


9-26-14 - Common Misconceptions about Global Warming - from IFL Science {I Fuckin Love Science]

 


9-23-14 - Michael Katz at the New York City Climate March two days ago with his sister Carol, and SFZC alum Dian Woodner ran into David Zimmerman, Linda Ruth Cutts and Steve Weintraub and his sister, Teah Strozer, Susan O'Connell, and (more at Sangha News)

 


9-22-14 - Yesterday's climate rallies - BBC

 

300,000 in NYC - Huff Post

China Co2 levels per captita exceed Europe with India not far behind - BBC

World sets carbon record - Huff Post

Paul Krugman: Saving the Planet ‘Might Be Free’ - NYT & Truth Dig


9-21-14 - Logistics for today's Climate March in NYC.

 

Say hi for me. - dc


9-19-14 - Sorry I can't make the People's Climate March on September 21st in NYC. Say hi for me. - DC


9-13-14 - A good article on global warming from the Houston Chron


9-09-14 - Greenhouse Gas rate accelerating


7-28-14 - Richard Lindzen of MIT says global warming is alarmist nonsense. Debate with others here on Aljazeera. ------Desmog Blog------Wikipedia


7-15-14 - How Guy McPherson got it wrong


6-28-14 - Jeff Broadbent is currently leading a global research project on climate change

Jeffrey Broadbent University of Minnesota personal page

A recent email is posted at the top of Jeff's cuke interview page

On that page are links from seven years ago to climate work Jeff was doing.

His email signature includes: “The world is much more interesting than any one discipline.”  – Edward Tufte


6-11-14 - Climate Change Seen Posing Risk to Food Supplies - an article from late last year in NYTimes. It's an interesting corralery to yesterday's post on CO2 increases reducing nutritional value of crops, something that was unexpected.

These articles turn my attention to a cuke link from late last year, 12-29 from an October NYTimes article: And then there's overpopulation - at the root  (Thanks Michael Katz). Andrew Main in Santa Fe. Also mentioned that as the primary problem. How could anyone doubt this? Will post more on this.


6-10-14 - Rising CO2 poses significant threat to human nutrition - Harvard Gazette - Posted here in Climate Change though it's just about the effect of CO2 levels.


5-12-14 - Debunking a global warming skeptic in a way that probably does not satisfy global warming skeptics.


5-11-14 - Another way of looking at climate change and suggesting other threats loom greater. - thanks Andrew M. -


5-04-14 - Global cooling scheme increases dangerous seafood toxin that destroys kidney function. - thanks Andrew M who writes "This is what the Hopis call the Crooked Path, wherein every "solution" proposed by human cleverness merely creates new problems. According to the Hopi Prophecy, we are headed for a great Purification (Hopi: Powateoni), and in fact I believe we are already well into it:"


4-18-14 - James Lovelock on Environmentalism has becom a religion

Wikipedia Lovelock


4-16-14 - More James Lovelock on humans being too stupid to prevent climate change from the Guardian


4-15-14 - The Dharma Teachers International Collaborative on Climate Change


4-13-14 - We should give up trying to save the world from climate change, says James Lovelock.


4-11-14 - You may want to join the Years of Living Dangerously watch party for Episode One. It's a Showtime series on climate change. Looks good.  - posted in Climate Change

 


4-09-13 - Call climate change what it is: violence - Rebecca Solnit in the Guardian  - thanks Taigen Dan Leighton (Rebecca is a Zennie)


3-31-14 - Climate impacts 'overwhelming' - UN


3-16-14 - Andy Ferguson's Net Zero Made Simple

Andy Ferguson cuke page


3-13-14 - Warm Weather and Warm-Hearted Practice —Linda Galijan, Tassajara Director from Tassajara News.


3-10-14 - Reflections on Traditions Cafe - near term extinction talk -


3-08-14 - Malaria rises with the tempurature. Read about this ten years ago too. The #1 killer of all time inches up. (correct me if I'm wrong) - Contact DC


2-28-14 - Andy Ferguson - Since we installed our green energy changes we’ve easily learned how to use them to minimize energy. - read more on Andy's cuke page.


2-17-14 - They did do a bit this Sunday but still, cuke dot com's irresponsible irrelevance award goes to mainstream TV news for their coverage of climate change:

 TV news shows almost never cover climate change, which ought to be one of the most aggressively-reported issues around, given that, y'know, it's a dire threat to the planet and everyone on it. A recent study from Media Matters found that the Sunday shows on NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox spent a combined 27 minutes on the topic in the whole of 2013. Meet the Press was singled out as "failing to offer a single substantial mention of climate change" for the entire year. - Media Matters

Read on


2-16-12 - The jet stream is meandering


2-05-14 - The Last Time Co2 Levels were at 400 parts per Million, Humans didn't exist - Science Blogs with arguments by others and a place for all debating and links to more.


2-04-14 - Andy Ferguson comments on yesterday's mention of 350.org and him.

Thanks for the donation to 350 and plug for action. It really isn’t too late, I think. I believe that that radical palliative measures, including geo-engineering will likely be necessary, but these must be complemented with the cheapest and correct path which is to think globally and act locally to the best of our abilities. - posting in Climate Change


2-03-14 - Made a tiny donation today to 350.org and when it was through it opened up to a page thanking me, giving me the opportunity to make a comment, with previous comments below. The top one was Andy Ferguson. Check out 350 - for those with hope that it's not too late and those without hope who think doing something is good form, a right thing to do - in my case giving it that good old college drop out try. - dc


2-01-14 - Another positive feedback loop increasing co2 in the atmosphere - Tropical drought


1-23-14 - Cuke's Most Important Thing in the World Award goes to:

One Earth Sangha -

International Dharma Teachers’ Statement on Climate Change

Endorsement Sought by Dharma Teachers and Sangha Members Worldwide

"Climate change is the most serious issue facing humanity today. It is already seriously impacting economies, ecosystems, and people worldwide. Left unchecked, it will cause tremendous suffering for all living beings."

I signed it and I hate to sign things or belong to anything. I'd say the quote above was an understatement. - DC


1-19-14 - Lee Temple in Crestone, CO, has a blog centering around Climate Change and environmental issues. - thanks Paul Shippee


1-14-14 - Posted this from Jeff Broadbent on Climate Change in 2007


1-04-14 - In this, the official cuke Year of Climate Change Denial, let it be noted that we walk without resistance into the oven, stoking the fires on our way in.


1-03-14 - One positive result of Climate Change is to disprove that old adage, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." Ha ha! Showed them!


1-02-14 - Maybe we should make 2014 the year of Climate Change Denial. Need a motto. How about: Climate Change? Borrrrrrrrring!


12-30-13 - Andy Ferguson on Climate Change and What He's Doing About It


12-29-13 - And then there's overpopulation - at the root. -  - thanks Michael Katz -


12-28-13 - Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt


12-25-13 - Merry Christmas.

Give everyone in the world a Christmas present. Join 350 dot org. - dc


12-24-13 - Put all the prior cuke posts on Climate Change on its own page in the Species Threat Section. Ten years ago I didn't think it was a species threat. Now I think it's moved from threat to likelihood. At lunch with a couple of friends in Stinson Beach last month, asked what I thought about climate change, my response was geared not to spoil the meal. The most positive comment I can come up with, I said, is that everything I believe always turns out to be wrong. - dc


12-23-13 - The Coming ‘Instant Planetary Emergency’ - from the Nation which got it from Tom's Dispatch which comes with an intro by Tom. Sorta puts everything else in an interesting perspective. - DC - Thanks Kelly. -


12-21-13 - Who's to Blame for Climate Change?


11-14-13 - Emissions of CO2 driving rapid oceans 'acid trip'


11-03-13 - Climate Change Report Sees Violent, Sicker, Poorer Future - Are we including possible scenarios of climate change in our long term planning? Are we preparing for various eventualities? Or are we marching along with the governments, corporations, masses, ignoring the warnings? That's what we here at cukeville do. What, us worry?


10-25-13 - Arctic Temperatures Reach Highest Levels In 44,000 Years, Study Finds - This is placed last as item 3 in today's What's New posts because my brain is ill equipped to deal with such a slow moving threat, especially one that doesn't focus on a smaller group and demands so many changes in the money flow and in our habits. By smaller group how about our tribe or my child or my teacher as a subject that could grab my attention. But a threat to the species, to higher forms of life, to the biosphere as we know it? And some ice melting far away? All too vague. Too bad. - dc  - posted in Species Threats


10-11-13 - Union of Concerned Scientists on Global Warming Solutions - those who still have hope

It's too late #1

It's too late #2

Almost too late


10-09-13 - Guy McPhearson on near term extincion and seeing all of us as in a global hospice

His site: Nature Bats Last - thanks Brigid Meier


10-07-13 - We're Addicted to Economic Growth and It Will Be the Death of Us - thanks Gregory - posted in Engaged Buddhism/Current Events


9-25-13 - EDF - the Environmental Defense Fund - on global warming

According to our spies, the steering committee of those planning a global military coup to force the human race to deal with climate change, plan on immediately shutting down all coal plants world wide. More reports on this soon. - dc


9-21-13 - In CA's Marin County today: Climate Action: Draw the Line on the Keystone XL Pipeline in San Anselmo, Saturday, September 21st,1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.


9-20-13 - Met a man collecting cans to sell. He used to be in banking. He said he'd been thinking about climate change and how the human race is bringing it on and doesn't seem to be able to make the sorts of changes necessary to avert calamity, that it seems that neither democratic or undemocratic states are capable of dealing with it and it's coming on in a way that we're not mentally prepared for. He said he knows some folks who have run some computer models on responses to climate change and that the only one that worked out well for humans and the most other species involved a global military takeover working with artificial intelligence. More will surely be revealed. - dc


9-19-13 - Chasing Ice


9-18-13 - Got this strange message: Read your Jr Hi article.  Try pickleball.  You'd b a natural.  Good conditioner, low stress & sociable sport.  You can play anywhere in country.  Great low impact exercise for old(and young) monks and Zen priests.  Check out in your area.  "Have paddle, will travel". Searched and found this: Pickleball is a highly contagious, progressive and incurable disease. How could I resist with a come-on like that?

Brett writes his band Everest Cale wrote a song about Nuclear War titled 'Fossils'.  It is their newest single.  You can stream 'Fossils' on Soundcloud. Here's their Facebook page and here's more on these folks. Posting this on Defuser Music dot com which has a nuke song section.

We can play Pickleball as we wait to see which threat gets us first. Good luck human race. - dc


7-16-13 - [from TruthDig] Sea Levels ‘Are Set for Continuing Rise’ - Predictions of possible global temperature rise by the end of this century suggest that sea levels could rise by more than two meters, much further than scientists had thought. (DC's italics. Something I keep pointing out - climate change news frequently has this sort of comment with it - either much further than thought before or much faster or much worse or some new factor that makes it worse or faster.)


6-03-13 - Old Data Reveals Warming Oceans - just another article on climate change. An early sentence in the article is characteristic of reporting on this topic, not just now but way back - it's worse, happening faster than scientists previously thought, or some new factor that accelerates it.

A main finding is that the impact of global warming on the oceans might have been significantly underestimated: the oceans are absorbing far more heat than previously realized.


5-11-13 - The human race for reaching the 400 parts per million for the first time in four million years or so. The World Suicide Club is delighted.


4-22-13 - Happy Earth Day

Poll Finds Americans Less Concerned About The Environment Now Than When Earth Day Began


2-27-13 - Ecological Buddhism - a Response to Global Warming


2-21-13 - A note from Taigen Dan Leighton on the importance of stopping the Keystone XL pipeline with a link to a talk he gave on this. He just returned from demonstrating in front of the White House with 50,000 others. - filed on Taigen's Peace and Justice Page.

Related to this, Shudo Spring sends a link to Compassionate Earth Walk


1-27-12 - First saw this in today's Fort Worth paper from Carolyn Lochhead, the San Francisco Chronicle's Washington correspondent.: Climate change may be irreversible, scientists say

Googled "global warming" and got a string of more encouraging links such as

Norway Data Shows Earth’s Global Warming Less Severe Than Feared

Checked science sites and got more dire results.

Experts Agree Global Warming Is Melting the World Rapidly

Have not noticed Buddhist groups including this subject in their projections and plans. Like the government. Like almost every institution and everyone. Individual and local actions are good I think but only massive global action it seems will help. All I do is mention it, link to it, watch and wait. Good luck to us all. - dc


1-14-13 - So 2012 was the hottest year on record in the US with a one degree spike that was unprecedented, usually it's one tenth this way or that. I recall Dennis Miller on some talk show a few years ago saying he could live with a world that was one degree warmer and I'm sure that's what a lot of people think. But it seems to me that thinking about the significance of the world's average temperature in terms of what it's like outside is not useful. Better to liken it to the temperature of a human, one's child or parent might bring it home better for some. We could look at the world as our mother who is running a bit of a fever with signs that the fever is going to get worse. But that analogy also doesn't quite work. The mother is fine - as George Carlin pointed out - it's her children that will suffer from her running a temperature, not her. She runs a few degrees and catastrophes happen, world order is threatened. Stephen Hawken warned that too many degrees could tip us into a Jurassic type climate not suitable for humans. Mother earth would just have different children. Meanwhile the smartest pundits like Zakaria whom I admire greatly, host conversations with authorities whom speak of the necessity of every country having continued growth, the benefits of all this cheap gas that wasn't figured on. We hear all sorts of interesting ideas and learn important facts but there seems to be a factor or two missing. We don't seem to be able to focus on serious impending problems or prepare for and do everything we can to avert catastrophe. See Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Are our leaders to blame? Again I refer to George Carlin who didn't blame the elected leaders but the electorate.


11-24-12 - UNEP Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report Finds Climate Change Goals Growing More Elusive


11-13-12 -Climate Change - it's the Heat and the Humidity


11-03-12 - Chris Mathews and guests on Climate Change


10-13-12 - Diss Information: Is There a Way to Stop Popular Falsehoods from Morphing into "Facts"? - Scientific American


9-15-12 - Arctic Ice Melting fast


7-25-12 - Greenland Ice Melting liquidy split.

Why haven’t we rallied our collective power to mitigate climate change? - Columbia U blog

We’re All Climate-Change Idiots - NY Times - thanks Gregory


6-07-12 - While we're fiddling:

Earth Tipping Point Study In Nature Journal Predicts Disturbing And Unpredictable Changes

Green decline 'may bring irreversible change'


4-22-12 - Happy Earth Day.

Al Gore on Earth Day

Earth Day Network

Cuke staff takes day off to honor our interconnectivity with the land, sky, water, animals, and plants. We will go forth into the world to hug rocks, dance with trees, dissolve into the  earth body. reflect on public policy, sing to the crushing treads of corporate and governmental robots which tower over us, crush our dreams, and disappear as we awaken. - dc


2-22-07 - I was just getting ready to sit zazen but...
 

Trinkita hadn't seen An Inconvenient Truth so I watched the DVD with her and once again was so impressed with the film and Al Gore and with the extreme urgency of the issue of global warming and how well it's all presented. Can't wait for the academy awards. Isn't that embarrassing. And I am digging (through) the supplementary DVD materials like the informative 30 minute intro and update by Al Gore. I appreciate how he has put this whole thing together pretty much by himself - the info, the slide show as he calls it - not the movie (thanks Laurie David and Lawrence Bender and Davis Guggenheim and others).

The thought crossed my mind that what Gore's doing might be more important than what he might have done as president cause, for one thing, there might have been too many issues to deal with, like what to do with all those Saudi's that were, due to having an alert crew running the country, caught plotting to send planes into buildings. I thought it could be that having these reckless, psychopathic, warmongering incompetents in charge could be, from a global point of view, in terms of the survival of civilization and the coral reefs and all, it could be that the good work Gore's doing outbalances all that misery and waste. I think it's good for him too - not being president. He's so much more free and easy-going now. I really don't want him to run in 2008. Politics is a sea of lies and misrepresentation so greatly influenced by sinister whispers and worshipers of Mammon who cannot be concerned about the fate of the earth and earthlings when there's so much short-term profit to be had, to be dived into like ole Scrooge McDuck used to do. It would be fun. Oh yes, back to that thought. It might turn out that Ralph Nader will be heralded as the man who saved the world by making the 2000 election so close that the Republicans could steal it thus freeing Al Gore up and away to pursue his life-long passion - making people aware of global warming. And we turn the tide in the nick of time. Hooray! Or maybe not.  It doesn't look like we're going to but, not to despair, I recommend seeing the film as a terribly relevant thing to do and also heartily promote going to the site of the film, http://climatecrisis.org. - DC

All this while of course keeping in mind that it was time to cool off with a refreshing period of, well, as Sylvia Boorstein said, Don't just do something - sit there.


9-06.5-06 - Some ZC people  went to Burning Man this year with a cardboard zendo built by Paul Disco of Joinery Structures. Mayumi Oda painted it. The idea was to burn it but I think due to global warming rules, they can't. See www.coolingman.org. Photo by Gene de Smidt.

click on thumbnail to enlarge


9-05-06 - Global Warming Blues


6-19-06 - To learn a little more about Global Warming, follow this link. It's never too late to do something, at least for fun.


6-17-06 - An official cuke.com point of view: we should pay attention to global warming like we would a boulder above us about to fall. By we I mean SFZC folk, Zennies in general, Buddhists, Spiritual seekers, and humanoids. If we keep leaving it up to inanimate corporations and their lackeys, we may be doomed to inanimacy. It may be too late and too hard, but why not give it at least a hail mary. More tomorrow or at least Monday if I don't get it in before going off for the day. Doing some Aluminati visiting. Should do an Aluminati update. Luv. dc


1-23-06 - Even more on Global Warming from JR.

1-22-06 - Something more on Global Warming from New Dimensions Radio.

1-22-06 - Even More on Global Warming from JR in Ft. Worth.

1-21-06 - A hopeful response to Lovelock's pessimistic view from Taigen.

1-21-06 - this week's New Dimensions radio interview  program is on "A Holistic Approach to Global Warming: A sincere and energetic group of college students have found a way to deal with one of the gravest of threats facing our world today, by addressing the problem at its roots, bringing people with diverse viewpoints together--and having a lot of fun along the way."<http://newdimensions.org/listen-now/programofweek.html>The program can be heard via the Internet thru January 29. - thanks to Andrew Main for the tip.

Later in the day. Better links for the articles below. Thanks Andrew Main.

1-20-06 - Some very bad news for those who were planning on a manageable future - environmental disaster predicted to be just around the corner by the man who created the theory of Gaia. In Current Events to end current events as we know it. It's all predicted in "The Revenge of Gaia." Sorry.


5/05/04 - So far I can think of only two species threats. Other suggestions are welcome. Andrew Atkinson suggested climate change but I'm not convinced that there's anything on the horizon there that the human race wouldn't adapt to, at least some of us. But there are two dangers that seem to be serious threats to the survival of the species and, avoiding that, major threats to any imaginable lesser degree. Carl Sagan was hip to this and he will be remembered here later. For now, here are the big two as seen by cuke.com. - DC. [Changed my mind 0n this. See Species Threat #3 above] - And there are more, many more. - dc 11-18-14