The saddest day in any of our lives?

[skip fox]

In retrospect, couldn't it be a day, as this, when our worst fears were beginning to be confirmed: that our globe is hurling out of human balance and our species headed to extinction? And that we have condemned thousands of other species as well?

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article351135.ece

[Bluebear]

1. "History? We'll all be dead!" - George W. Bush

:eyes:

[sam sarrha]

2. listen up.. 'A negative thought continues and increased exponentially until

replaced by a positive thought, however the positive thought must me cultivated.' ..HH the 14th Dalai Lama

you have to work with what you got, you have to start where you are..

we are in a pivotal time of great transition, that is a given, that makes the job we are born to do even more important, that presses us even harder to acquire the skillful means to help those who will suffer the most.

you can achieve nothing bemoaning you fate, roll up you sleeves and get to work doing what you can in the time you have left.

you need to learn to meditate to dissociate the emotions for your thought, to train your mind to be clear of destructive thoughts. dying a good death is as important as living a good life. fear death and you shackle your life.

it is a good day to live..

i have found that meditation is the best treatment for depression.., every juvenile at the institution i got to meditate daily was paroled in 60 days

[havocmom]

3. Thank you, sam sarrha, I needed that reminder!

Needed it more right now than could be expressed.

Thanks

[skip fox]

5. I'm neither downbeat nor shortsighted. I wish for the best, hoping

the world's leadership takes the problem seriously, listens to its best minds, and acts to avert the results of global heating. (I'm accelerating the vocabulary to match the article.) But I also hope to win the lottery, so . . .

I'm probably twice as active and productive as most of my progressive fellows, but I would be remiss not to mention the possibility (referred to speculatively by the nature of the _question_ nested "in retrospect") that we might see this period as the beginning the globe's decline in so far as we (and many other species) are concerned.

Being clear about a situation is not actually negative. Being myopic is not truly optimistic. It all depends on what one does with the presumptive knowledge. Negative thinking might mean one thing to a theological/ideological stance, but recognizing the negative is important to a stance based on one's own understandings.

[sam sarrha]

10. I know it is going to hell, things will start to cascade down hill very

very quickly.. I was in the Peace Corps in NW Africa in '73, in Drought relief camps where donkey carts picked up the dead every morning, the streets were littered with the sick and dying ..pitifully begging for any scrap of food or water, lepers, people with abscesses to the bone with churning masses of flies and maggots.. we are only about 1 week at any given time form that scenario..

when a 6 month train of class 5 hurricanes 6 apart for 6 months straight decimate the East coast.. when a class 5 pushes a 35 foot tidal surge into New York harbor that when the harbor narrows will become 70 feet and totally destroys all the underground utilities and subways in New York City.. WE ARE FUCKED.!!

not to mention the potential of simultaneous drought and famine everyelse..we only have about 2 weeks of stored food supplies in this country.. now one else can help us when they are in a worse situation.. when the droughts hit Mexico we will have at least 50,000,000 cross the boarder to compete with what we are already fighting for between ourselves..

the cycle of sunspots coming up can destroy the entire east coast infrastructure grid also shutting down the west coast during the crash.. with now power to run pumps for water.. which in some areas wont even exist anymore.. entire regions will be abandoned, the southern coast and the arid south west.. where are these people going to go.. was Kitrina a test to see how refugees would be recieved.?

[skip fox]

11. We are of a mind. AND we share the desire to do our best and

and act as if "forward looking" had a "forward" to which to look.

[JitterbugPerfume]

4. Hi Skip

I just asked oneighty recently if he had heard anything from you. It is good to see you:hi:

[skip fox]

7. Hey JitterrbugPerfume and 180!

Hope all is well. I post in fits and spurts. Working on another books, etc., and sometimes that spurs me to post here; sometimes it seems to exhaust the portion of my desire to write that brings me to post here.

I love it, of course, and really enjoy all the good friends I have made here, such as your very selves.

[oneighty]

20. I sent you a copy

of my very short book 'KAZUKO' Did you get it? I worried you had bad things happen because of Katrina.

And I am looking forward to your latest effort. DU has a writing group now. Some good stuff there.

Ed

[myrna minx]

6. K&R.

:-(

[skip fox]

8. Then, if all goes wrong and any of us are lucky enough to have a tombstone

we can say we gave our lives for the profit margin of a Halliburton subsidiary. Wow. At least my life will have had a greater purpose. :)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Yeah, yeah. But, who's going to win the NCAA?

Which is what the average 'murkan consumer is deeply concerned about.

[CatWoman]

12. SKIP!!!!

So very nice to see you again.

I was thinking of you, and *poof*, here you are!!

:hi:

[genie_weenie]

13. Do you think it's worse now than

say in Europe during the Black Death when 1/3 of Europeans died?
Or China during the Taiping Rebeliion (1851-1864CE) when at least 20 million died?
Or WWI and the Swine Flu Pandemic immediately afterwards?
Or after Man crossed into America across the Bering Sea Land Bridge and began hunting all Large American Fauna to extinction?
Or the Little Ice Age from the mid 1300s to the mid 1800s?

[skip fox]

15. Indications are that it might be far worse. Sadly.

Let's hope it's reversible and that the globe's leadership (esp. that of the US) comes to its senses in time.

Hey, Catwoman. Very good to hear from you.

[genie_weenie]

16. Sadly I believe your conclusion to be correct.

Mankind has a far greater capacity for damaging the enviroment, nowadays.

[Strong Atheist]

14. Scary! Fasten your seatbelt and brace for impact...

:scared:

We are on a ride we can't stop...

:scared:

[marions ghost]

17. this planet is very fragile ... people don't get it that

the lower atmosphere only covers us for about 30 miles straight up. Then you have about 300 miles of very thin upper atmosphere and that's it.

But with record winter temperatures this year people are beginning to wake up. Global Warming appears to be accelerating judging by the polar ice cap studies. Everywhere I drive now, I think about it.

What are we gonna do if this is really upon us right now?????????????????????????????????????????

:cry: :scared: :cry:

[skip fox]

18. Great question. We'll all have to answer for ourselves, I guess.

My choice will be (I hope) to confront it as humanly as possible, which to me means to continue working, reading and writing and talking and teaching and learning. Etc.

Sort of a _On the Beach_ reaction. Or of the people in Camus's _The Plague_.

Anyway, I hope that's mine.

[marions ghost]

19. so you will be staying the course

It's been a long time since I read The Plague...I forgot how people in the book reacted. Thanx for the reminder. And I take it 'On The Beach' also features a fatalistic, cool-headed rational crew. I'll probably be one of the hysterical wailers myself. Maybe this tendency can be channeled into group singing...

First people have to wrap their heads around the fact that Global Warming is real and it's happening. And acknowledge that it has the potential to change the world as we know it very fast...Our leaders need to start talking about it as though they understand it, or they will have no credibility on the subject. The era of "Duh--what Global Warming???" may be over.

What should be the first steps to mitigate (not sure we can reverse) the problems????????