compassion, collaboration & cooperation iN transistion
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE
First posted by Michael Grove @zaadz on August 11, 2006 at 11:00
We have remained individually too greedy to distribute the surplus above our simple needs, and collectively too stupid to pile it up in any more useful form than traditional mountains of arms
- Jacob Bronowski's words remain as true of the human condition today as they were when they were first written for his book The Commonsense of Science in 1951.
Loosener and Davies contend persuasively that the ‘clockwork universe' concept helped to shape our materialistic world, formed on the belief that everything proceeds in the cosmos according to fixed laws. The job of science was to establish just what these laws were and to learn how to manipulate them.
The journal Scientific American released a special edition (vol. 293, no. 3, September 2005) to bring the world up to speed on the critical situation we find ourselves in today. The title, Crossroads for Planet Earth, says it all. The way we solve the simultaneous crises—such as our response to climate change, the unsustainable and growing levels of extreme poverty, the emergence of new diseases, the growing shortages of food and fresh drinking water, the growing chasm between extreme wealth and extreme poverty, and the unsustainable demand for energy—will chart the destiny, or seal the fate of our global family that is estimated to reach a staggering 8 billion by 2025 - Gregg Braden
Colin Mason states in his new book -
A short History of the future - surviving The 2030 Spike that -
This mechanistic view, still very much alive and preoccupied with material productivity, largely disavows creativity and free will, the mysterious, the spiritual - and asks
Has the future a future ?
He goes on to say - Science as a discipline has, of course changed. Einstein provided totally new perceptions of space, time and gravity. Quantum physics implies that the apparently solid does not exist, except as energy. ‘Particles' appear to come into existence out of nothing and as mysteriously disappear again.
Chaos theory, contending that systems which normally appear to be ordered can be perturbed by factors impossible to assess, depicts a universe of partly ordered events, partly of unpredictable ones.
A major part of the scientific view is toward the idea that the cosmos is organised on apparently random (dare we say it?) lines which may best be understood intuitively, rather than by reductionism and linear thinking.
As Richard Dawkins points out, the best way to understand how a motor car engine works is to break it down into its component parts and understand them. Whether this ‘reductionist' principle is a tool one can apply to all areas of enquiry is now seriously in question. Many studies have been carried out into "unconscious thinking" -intuition - leaving little doubt that the brain can sort information and present answers to problems without the owner of that brain being consciously aware of what is going on.
Eighteenth century botanist, Carolus Linear, wrote of ‘a great chain of being, a chiefly ordained and immutable hierarchy of life which among other things, established white Europeans as a superior race, with the right, even the mission, to dominate `inferior' races.
Observing any one of several individual but critical trends suggests that, without rapid and positive action, history may have only a very short
way to run.
Whether it is the growth of world population, of greenhouse gas concentrations and the accelerating rate of climate change, the running down of oil and natural gas reserves, growing shortages of fresh water for agriculture, industry and domestic use, or the increasing difficulty in controlling epidemic diseases -we are facing a mounting global crisis that will peak in less than a generation, around the year 2030.
Taken together, these trends point to a potentially apocalyptic period, if not for the planet itself then certainly for human Societies and for
humankind.
In this compelling book, an update to The 2030 Spike, Colin Mason explains in clear and irrefutable terms what is going on - largely below the surface of our daily or weekly news bulletins.
The picture that Colin Mason paints is stark, and yet it is not bleak ...
but as this Native North American elder has said in the context of acknowledging the absolute need for a moral dimension to Corporate
Social Responsibility ...
"Next YEAR you will meet and NO THING will HAVE CHANGED"
Being forewarned, we are forearmed, and Colin Mason draws on his own extensive political experience to describe how much we can do as individuals, and above all collectively, not merely to avert crisis but to engineer thoroughgoing change that can usher in genuinely sustainable and valuable alternatives to the way we live now.
James Lovelock, a man who was in his late 80s when he wrote his latest book,
The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning, now in paperback ...
IS universally recognized as the man who gave the world the “Gaia Theory”.
Lovelock, however, is not going quietly into that good night, but is burning and raving at the close of day, and is now one of the most effective voices warning us about the dangers our world now faces from the climate change transition that we are now experiencing.
This is an excellent book, short, well-argued and the work of a man who has thought long and hard about our problems.
He is dismissive of “Greens” and those who believe that driving hybrids, recycling rubbish and reducing our C02 emissions will now make a difference.
As Lawrence Bloom expressed it, we are not going to see a “reboot” of our system, and according to Lovelock we now have to look beyond the misery and pain, that we inevitably face over the coming decades, to a world
where a much smaller human population survives on those parts of the planet that are not too hot for human life.
Lovelock is one of those, “Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight,” as Dylan Thomas put it.
BUT if Ervin Laszlo has any influence or say in the matter - his latest book certainly provides more than enough guidance for us ALL to understand that THERE IS ALWAYS an APPROPRIATE SOLUTION to EVERY LAST PROBLEM - however extensive, complex and global that problem might present itself - the trick is to convince our OLD ORDER MINDSET elite leaderships that the TIME has actually arrived to acknowledge that the present HUMPTY DUMPTY system is broken and to switch to a NEW ORDER MINDSET.
The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads - by Ervin Laszlo. Charlottesville, VA
This is an inspirational book, a call for action, and a basis for hope. We have entered a window of opportunity that the author brilliantly illustrates using the concepts of chaos theory. Dr. Ervin Laszlo is a unique scientist who founded systems philosophy and general evolution theory. But he is also the founder and president of the Club of Budapest, an informal association of highly creative people who use their insight to enhance awareness of global problems and human opportunities.
The book starts with a Chinese proverb that warns, “If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up exactly where we are headed.” The author then summarizes the problems the world is now facing and their causes. He emphasizes that we are at a critical juncture in history. We now face a “decision-window.” We are headed on a path towards global breakdown where societies will experience accelerating terrorism, crime, wars, intolerance and an inhospitable biosphere for human life. Thus, there will either be a global breakdown of civilization or a breakthrough to a better future for our children and us.
William C. Gough, Chairman, Emeritus
Foundation for Mind-Being Research
442 Knoll Drive, Los Altos, CA 94024
To send an email to Bill Gough click here
INDEED, the more we learned about change and the future, the more we found ourselves asking the question: Can our existing spiritual and ethical structures—both traditional and contemporary—equip us to handle the enormity, the speed, the complexity, and the overwhelming nature of the changes we're undergoing? Changes that may shortly take us, as you will see in the interviews that follow, far beyond our current capacities of imagination.
As a first step toward finding the answers to these questions, we spoke with a number of scientists, evolutionary thinkers, and futurists, who each view the world of change from a slightly different perspective. From biologist Elisabet Sahtouris's microscopic empires of warring bacteria to inventor Ray Kurzweil's intravenous brain-enhancing nanobots; from futurist Jeremy Rifkin's deathblow to the oil age to Barbara Marx Hubbard's birth of a new consciousness, each contributor opens a unique window into the many dimensions of our changing life conditions. Whether the subject of discussion is as large as our universe or as small as a nanotube, whether it's as tangible as petroleum or as ephemeral as consciousness—one thing you can count on is that it's ALL changing. And just how much and how fast is something that all of us, like it or not, are about to find out.
NO RESPECT for your environment - NO RESPECT for YOURSELF
First posted by Michael Grove @zaadz on August 11, 2006 at 11:00
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Comment by Michael Grove on March 5, 2012 at 7:27
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Jeremy Rifkin talks about the problems that our planet is facing & the possible solution to it.
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The West has the disquieting experience
of watching crude soar even as we languish in stagnation. This never used to happen. If we faltered, energy costs would fall too, acting as a stabilizer. This harsh new reality is going to become uncomfortable when the emerging world enters a new cycle of growth, leaving us behind. Rising utility costs have already raised the numbers of UK households in poverty from a fifth to a quarter.
We should not be defeatist. Engineers and scientists are forever at work. A quantum-leap is possible in solar technology. The Chinese may crack cheap and safe nuclear power from thorium, abdicated by the British. But we should not be complacent either. Windmills anybody?
What better place to start than to follow this presentation by Hazel henderson -
ETHICAL MARKETS and Growing the Green Economy
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Some small evidence of which can be understood as a direct result of the cooperation that has been established between the Russians and the Chinese and ESA's Galileo GPS project -
ESA – China collaboration takes Earth observation to new heights
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The journal Scientific American released a special edition (vol. 293, no. 3, September 2005) to bring the world up to speed on the critical situation we find ourselves in today. The title, Crossroads for Planet Earth, says it all. The way we solve the simultaneous crises—such as our response to climate change, the unsustainable and growing levels of extreme poverty, the emergence of new diseases, the growing shortages of food and fresh drinking water, the growing chasm between extreme wealth and extreme poverty, and the unsustainable demand for energy—will chart the destiny, or seal the fate of our global family that is estimated to reach a staggering 8 billion by 2025 - Gregg Braden
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Do we then conclude that for all intents and purposes a global climate catastrophe is inevitable?
On first sight, this is plausible, but not on a deeper look. How reasonable is it to assume that when pushed beyond safe limits only the natural systems of the planet breakdown and not the human systems? The current economic-financial-industrial system pushes the planet’s ecologies beyond humanly favorable thermal balances. But this system has its own limits, beyond which it cannot function. There are multiple such limits, economic, social, political, even cultural, and many of them are close to critical thresholds.
The operational limits of the global financial system may be the most critical.
The global financial system rests on self-created quicksand. When banks lend to other banks or financial institutions, those funds are used as a basis for further lending, and each transaction is larger than the one before. Interest has its own interest, and money breeds money. The greater the amounts and quicker the transactions, the more money is created. The amount of money in the system has grown exponentially. Computers decide in milliseconds the buying and selling of millions and billions of dollars worth of financial instruments. With so much money available, and with the ease and speed of global transactions, trade in derivates and other forms of financial gambling has progressively detached the financial system from economic and social reality.
Ervin Laszlo
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A draft of a major report on climate change, due to be published next year, has been leaked online. Climate-sceptic bloggers have seized on it, claiming that it admits that much of global warming has been caused by the sun's variability, not by greenhouse gas emissions.
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Current climate models (simulations) based on estimates of increasing CO2 and, to a lesser extent, by decreasing sulfate aerosols, predict that temperatures will increase by 1.4-5.8°C (2.5-10.4°F) between 1990-2100. This is a somewhat wide range; however, it is difficult to predict CO2 emissions because of the number of variables involved. Some climate studies have shown that, even in the absence of the CO2 emission variable, global climate will increase by 0.5°C (0.9°F) over the next one hundred years due to warming caused just by the ocean. In addition, models predict that sea levels will rise by about 10 cm over the next century.
http://marinebio.org/Oceans/Conservation/global-warming.asp#.UNiebn...
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You can view it as a technology race or a joint venture in the common interest. It hardly matters which. If the Chinese can crack thorium, the world will need less oil, coal, and gas than feared. Wind turbines will vanish from our landscape. There will less risk of a global energy crunch, less risk of resource wars, and less risk of a climate tipping point.
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THERE IS NO DOUBT that the world has warmed, and that this will con....
Certainly, picking an exceptionally hot year from the past to suggest that the world is not warming is like asserting that summer will not come this year because the mild weather of the past week is about to be replaced by a cold snap.
The only honest way to make comparisons is on a longer timescale, and on that basis it is clear that every decade since the 1960s has been warmer than the previous one, and that average temperatures have increased markedly over the past century.
But it’s also true that over the past 15 years or so, the rate of warming has slowed down.
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We are not allowed to "decide", our rulers decide, they rule, not we. We are forced to play their "game", we are but pawns for their game of empire but this game they play is destroying our planet, the living part of this planet. "We decide" to have too many children, we expect somehow to continue to have enough clean water & food.
Overpopulation however has made this impossible, too much human waste fouls our water, air & food & we continue to have too many children. This can only lead to disaster, a collapse of our excessive numbers. All [y]our hopes & worthless prayers can not change anything until WE CHANGE, we MUST stop having so many dam CHILDREN ! Because of our horrible overpopulation, we have set our course to collapse, billions of us will die of starvation, disease & wars. This is the future we are leaving our children, but not me, I had no children out of choice, I won't have to watch my children suffering because of the poor choice I made by having them.IT IS truly shocking that Sheila has had to arrive at this conclusion, but not one of [y]our leaders of the globe have DONE anything about Colin Mason's 2 Axioms, let alone understand them - SO THIS IS the biggest thing David Suzuki has ever done, and ALL Power to his elbow, as they say.
Around the world, more than 110 nations recognise the right to live in a healthy environment ... but not Canada. Together, we can change that: http://www.bluedot.ca/join-us
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Michael said
” the best way to understand how a motor car engine works is
to break it down into its component parts and understand them ”
- is I would suggest not the way Pirsig would have seen things !
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Eileen said
Thank you so much for this Michael. I'll be making a trip to the bookstore today.
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Michael said
HOW RICH ARE YOU ?
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Thea said
Tit for tat - I will comment to your blog as you so generously sent me a link to it while making comments to mine.
I’ll definitely be looking for this book. It looks very interesting, thank you for sharing.
The process of scientific discovery is a double edged sword… It looks like we want to know how everything works, but instead of wanting to know for knowledge’s sake, we’ve taken that process a step further
by believing that we can control and manipulate what we observe,
somewhat indescriminately. Although technology has advanced
tremendously, the cost has become prohibitive enough that the Earth
itself has begun to reject our manipulation of it.
That being said, I still believe that science can be (and is) a wonderful and joyful part of our material existence, provided that our own hubris does not get the better of us.
Namaste
Thea
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fidocancan said
i’m with ya
‘snot looking good
if the peak is say 2030
then
we have to do something before it
big time
is that right?
if so
what?
and please don’t say
read the book
because it is not so much to do with filling my head with more words
but more like
what are we going to do together?
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Michael said
Well apart from my own catalytic / production role - in establishing the mechanism by which each and everyone of us 6.5 billion on earth will have the opportunity to understand the paramount need for action on ALL the fronts which Colin Mason espouses - we could do no better in the meantime than pay heed to Paul Hawken's view that - sustainability is not enough and that the holy grail must be restoration.
His concept of - creating the conditions that are conducive to life - must be the seen as the foundation stone of OUR FUTURE.
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Michael said
… and EVEN MORE SO since Al Gore’s UN Climate Change
Conference statement, in Poznan, that …
“It is wrong for this generation to destroy the habitability of the
planet and ruin the prospects of every future generation. That realisation
must carry us forward. Our children have a right to hold us to a high
standard when the future of all human kind is hanging in the balance.”
“The political systems of the developed world have become sclerotic. We
have to overcome the paralysis that has prevented us from acting and focus
clearly and unblinkingly on this crisis rather than spending so much time on
OJ Simpson, Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith.”
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Michael said
World leaders “failing to get” climate message
… perhaps Al Gore can get the MIND-SWITCH ”green ball” rolling again ?
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Albert said
O. J. Simpson, Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith represent however the belly of the collective unconsciousness in media.Some kind of icons
which need to be understood deeply.
As they say in Hollywood( and right they are this time)
Nobody knows what anthing is.
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Godess of Love said
Idea! There has to be a new style that will hit BIG , and also that will help our globe.
Key:
Continue to repeat , repeat , repeat, like a broken record , and then it will sink in.
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Godess of Love said
There are many links to promo this movement:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=green+clothing&aq=f&am...=
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Michael said
THAT IDEA, an idea which embodies an understanding of global collective wisdom, has been most eloquently described by Helen in her zBlog@gaia; and the underlying TRUTH of both Colin Mason's Short History and Rob Hopkins' Transition movement IS THAT Climate change is only half of the story and that developing an understanding of Peak OIL is similarly essential. As Rob Hopkins has said …
”Together these two issues have been referred to as the “Hydrocarbon Twins”. They are so intertwined, that seen in isolation, a large part of the story remains untold.”
ALAS a ”MISUNDERSTANDING” OF THIS FACT IS YET AGAIN MANIFESTED by
an INABILITY OF OUR SPECIES to ACCEPT that ”CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING!”
IT IS NOT just about holistic thinking
IT IS about an acceptance of the infinite consequences of the interdependence of independence within that holistic thinking …
and no better example of those infinite consequences has been the GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS. Greenspan himself has now realised that you can
change the system but you can't change human nature.
I would say that unless we change human nature NO THING will change and our species will reap its fate rather than sharing in its destiny.
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Michael said
” Oil depletion presents a unique set of vulnerabilities and risks. If policy makers fail to understand this, the resulting policies may leave
nations mired both in internal economic turmoil and external conflict
caused by fuel shortages, to the point that the pursuit of
international climate policies becomes much more difficult than is
already the case. Thus
while policy makers may assume that, in addressing the dilemma of
global Climate Change, they are also doing what is needed to deal with
the problem of dependence on depleting petroleum, this could be a
dangerously misleading assumption.
On the other hand, if nations were to try to mitigate the economic impacts
of oil depletion by producing large amounts of synthetic petroleum from
coal and other low-grade hydrocarbons, the climatic effects could be
catastrophic.
Fossil fuels have delivered enormous economic benefits to modern societies, but we are now becoming aware of the
burgeoning costs of our dependence on these fuels. The
human community’s central task for the coming decades must be the
undoing of its dependence on oil, coal, and natural gas in order to
deal with the twin crises of resource depletion and climate chaos.
It is surely fair to say that fossil fuel dependency constitutes a
systemic problem of a kind and scale that no society has ever had to
address before. If we are to deal with this challenge successfully, we
must engage in systemic thinking that leads to sustained, bold action.”
Richard Heinberg
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Michael said
The commonly used expression …
“Those who ignore history are bound (or doomed) to repeat it”
is actually a mis-quotation of the original text written by George Santayana, who, in his Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason,
Vol.1, wrote …
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Rooted in the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and many
others to follow, his biography (1863-1952) and more contemporary
intepretations and observations about man and life can be found at Wikipedia by searching for George Santayana.
Stanford University online also provides an outstanding and much more
detailed background on this important and profound philosopher,
essayist, poet and novelist.
Santayana's quotation, in turn, was a slight modification of an Edmund Burke (1729-1797) statement …
“Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.”
Burke was a British Statesman and Philosopher who is generally viewed
as the philosophical founder of modern political conservatism.
IT IS of course nothing to do with remembering or indeed choosing not to remember or ignoring the lessons of the past or our destiny to repeat those lessons or being doomed to do so; IT IS a matter of knowing that history is the history of amalgamating an ever increasing amount of information, which constitutes the exponentially expanding interconnections and consequences of the WEB of LIFE of our multiverse of parallel universes; and understanding that THE paramount requirement of our species, IS to positively act on our experiences of that informational data, in a wholly compassionate, mutually beneficial and holistic manner such that our destiny is indeed achieved and our fate averted.
TRUTH has a test and that IS ACCEPTANCE
AWAKEN to THE TRUTH and LET US begin the process of OPENING THE DOOR