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mistress
November 2009 
Green TV and the nexus for climate data
Posted on Feb 13th, 2008
by 
elementstew
elementstew
Tuesday I attended a free lecture on climate change in 2008 presented by The Asheville Chapter of the American Meteorological Society and The Colburn Science Museum. There was some public recognition and awarding, after all, Asheville is the hub for climate data. There was a six-minute video with an intro from the director and founder of AmericanGreen.tv. followed by a seemingly condenced and updated ameturish lecture in the vien of An Inconvienient Truth. By no means should the reader imply that the presentation by Anne Waple was anything less than professional and of high quality, but she hasn't had the many years and refinements that Al Gore has.
The crowd was elder, I judged the vast majority were older than I and was slightly unsettled that those who would be affected least by climatic changes were those present. The irony is more poingiant with reflection. The end of the lecture focused on the possible timetables and consequences for mitigating greenhouse gasses. The youngest among us will suffer the most in porportion to how quickly and effectively we address these impending crisies.
It is my opinion that Global Warming is an undersold issue, tragicly under-played and under-reported. Nothing inspires greater sadness in my soul than contemplation of the future of humanity and the fate of the animal kingdom and life on this precious planet.
We need to make profound changes within a decade, probably less, and it doesn't look promising.
The crowd was elder, I judged the vast majority were older than I and was slightly unsettled that those who would be affected least by climatic changes were those present. The irony is more poingiant with reflection. The end of the lecture focused on the possible timetables and consequences for mitigating greenhouse gasses. The youngest among us will suffer the most in porportion to how quickly and effectively we address these impending crisies.
It is my opinion that Global Warming is an undersold issue, tragicly under-played and under-reported. Nothing inspires greater sadness in my soul than contemplation of the future of humanity and the fate of the animal kingdom and life on this precious planet.
We need to make profound changes within a decade, probably less, and it doesn't look promising.
Access: Public
Explain to me how the current warming is any different than previous periods of warming that followed ice ages a repetition of which would be far more devastating to the earth than any amount of warming. Please exclude reference to man made greenhouse gases. I accept that as a given. Also, how does one who pursues an integral life conjure so much fear of the unknowable (future) when integral spirituality emphasized the present moment?
I doubt that I can adequately explain how the present warming is different than previous warming cycles without reference to man-made greenhouse gases because the man-made greenhouse gasses are the biggest difference. Fifteen or twenty years ago I was reading some Carl Sagan and he wrote that the gasses we emit today do not reach full cumulative effect for 50-100 years. That was before global warming was a popular issue, but it struck me profoundly.
Other significant factors are man-made as well such as forest depletion and soil loss which reduces the carbon sinking capacity of the biosphere. Marine degradation may also affect carbon-sinking capacities. Throw in the thawing of the perafrost which will increase green-house levels and it starts to look pretty ugly.
To me, “integral”, means whole, complete, with none of the parts missing. “Non-dual” is a term to describe a lofty stage or state of conscious evolution. To me, being non-dual is an all embracing attitude that enables one to more fully appreciate the entire offerings of the kosmos rather than a more partial dualistic perspective that is commonly driven by less than fully conscious motivations to seek pleasure and avoid pain. As an integral practioneer or student, I function with relative equanimity, embracing the bad and dark as fully as the good and light. I see that fear, guilt and shame have important functions and are essential elements in the full expression of this creation.
Aesop wrote a story of an ant and a grasshopper. The ant was industrious and was preparing for the winter that was yet to come and warned the grasshopper that he should do the same, but the grasshopper would not listen and when winter came….well, he was fucked.
Maybe the “integral spirituality” that you are familiar with emphasizes the present moment, but any teaching that emphasizes the present to the point that the past and future are under-valued is a poor, misguided, narrow and perhaps even blasphemous philosophy to me. It's all or partial. Non-daul and integral should be all, not partial. How can one know and embrace Truth, Goodness and Beauty without an equal familiarity of the False, Evil and Ugly?
I am a bit confused about the glogal warming debate. You seem to be saying that the current period of warming is due to human activity. The following quote from Wikopedia indicates that we have undergone at least four other warming periods before humans walked the earth. ” There have been at least four major ice ages in the Earth's past. Outside these periods, the Earth seems to have been ice-free even in high latitudes.” To me, this indicates that there is more to this picture than a simplistic assumption that greenhouse gases are the cause of the warming. I have heard it said that when one analyzes the long term warming trends of the past, one finds that the increase in greenhous gases is the natural result of the warming not its cause. These people contend that the warming of the earth follows a period of warming of the oceans and that the lag time is in the hundreds of years. None of this means that human caused greenhouse gases don't exacerbate the problem, but to assume they are the cause seems to me to be a stretch. Of course I am not a scientist, so what do I know?
Oh, and by the way, the use of the ef word in intellectual discourse diminishes the effect of your argument. It is like scraping your fingernails against a chalk board. One tends to avoid a repeat experience. Just a thought.