[americandream]

Ibon

I will have to disagree with you as far as my project goes. Broader scoped suggestions of yours are welcome and I cannot disagree with all hands to the wheel.

My intent however is to use my money making skills and apply it to education fashioned around pure logic. Part of my approach is to avoid the ego driven problems that arise when people congregate for a common purpose. The aim is to turn people inwards in contemplation and away from the externalities of group dynamics, to make each man and woman an intellectual island unto themselves in a bid to focus strategies at formulating the maximum reach with conscientising initiatives.

I do not want this to be another exercise in gathering people around another guru with all the resulting problems that arise from that when the core object gets lost as people succumb to the power that such an exercise risks seducing us with. I do not want to preach love, nor do I want to instil love or admiration for me in those associated with what I do. They will be there for a purpose, I and others are mere incidentals, agents who simply given effect to the dialectic forces that have brought me to this juncture.

These discussions have been good for me as they have helped me toss ideas back and forth and you guys have challenged me, challenged me in the fullest sense so thankyou. Keep them coming.

[onlooker]

Your ideas are commendable AD, unfortunately with the dire environmental effects seemingly becoming more daunting with each passing day, true change will be provoked only with consequences as Ibon has continuously mentioned as we have been either reluctant or unable to change otherwise. Nevertheless, being apprised of reasonable pathways to lead us along better paths in the future is never a bad idea.

[Tanada]

Just me subscribing to this thread. Gonna have to read up on this.

edit: whoops. just noticed I have posted on here. Funny its not on my subscription list. BTW how do I quickly tidy up that list. Its as old as Lot.

On the left side of your screen there is a button listed as USER CONTROL PANEL. Click that button.

On the screen that opens up there is a second menu column just right of the first one on the left edge of the screen.
The second option on the second menu list is MANAGE SUBSCRIPTIONS. Click that button.

This screen is a list of every forum topic you have subscribed to. 50 topics per page for as many pages as it takes.
At the right side of each entry is a small square box, click on that and a check mark will appear. Go through the list selecting all the threads you no longer wish to follow. When you get to the bottom of the page there is a button labeled UNWATCH MARKED. Click that button and all the topics on that page you have checkmarked are erased from your list.

Next to this button it tells you how many threads you are currently subscribed to. Any changes you have made should appear in that number when the page is refreshed.

[dohboi]

This sacrifice requires more than just educating the masses with cold and reasoned logic. It requires pulling on the heart strings.

Any ideas on how to go about this, especially when much of the MSM is owned by a few billionaires/corporations that seem to have little interest in telling these truths...just the opposite, in fact.

ol wrote: "we can never lose hope"

The thing is, as Derrick Jensen points out, hope can be debilitating as easily as it can be empowering. An abused woman will often stay with her abuser long after it is clear to everyone else that he isn't going to ever change his abusive ways, all because she won't 'give up hope' that he can.

Of course, we can always 'hope' for something: for deeper understanding, for becoming less of the problem ourselves, for having some amount of influence on some level, for some connection with others, for music and dance...but these are things we can immediately start to work toward whenever we decide they are worthy of our efforts. So in a way, hope is irrelevant.

The old adage was: "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst."

At this point, hoping for the best is clearly totally delusional. The best--the beautiful, life-filled planet that our parents and even we ourselves were born into--is gone and degrading further at a lightening pace.

The new adage has to be: "Prepare for the worst, for it's almost certainly coming; but hope for and work desperately toward anything even slightly less bad than the very worst; in the meantime, hope for (and just go ahead and create) moments of joy, moments of insight and clarity, moments of deep connection..."

Not quite as pithy as the original, but there you have it...

Basically, we all need a miracle every day...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xqiu0ekahw

[americandream]

Your ideas are commendable AD, unfortunately with the dire environmental effects seemingly becoming more daunting with each passing day, true change will be provoked only with consequences as Ibon has continuously mentioned as we have been either reluctant or unable to change otherwise. Nevertheless, being apprised of reasonable pathways to lead us along better paths in the future is never a bad idea.

When the consequences start as in the climate arena and as in leaving us in no doubt, it will be too late. Our global modernity is both a blessing and a curse. If harnessed in circular fashion it can take us to the stars. China serves as an example of capitalism out of control vis a vis the environment. They will export that madness if not stopped within the next 5 years..

[onlooker]

Funny cause your post Dohboi, makes me remember how in a Catholic upbringing, Catholics appeal to God in the hope that God will rescue them. Well, this is something similar. Hope without the relevant response is useless. The hope I refer to is the hope to as you eloquently described Dohboi to just try and be part of a solution though not necessarily thy solution. Maybe we are living on borrowed time and the END is fast approaching. Still we can console, we can mitigate suffering, we can try and find peace within this context. That is about hope too. Not too be completely debilitated by a give up attitude. We can never truly know what the future brings so hope with a never give up attitude.

[onlooker]

Consequences are already setting in and people are awakening and becoming conscious. The question is if it is too little too late.

[americandream]

Consequences are already setting in and people are awakening and becoming conscious. The question is if it is too little too late.

The Greece bailout should be an inkling of just how unserious this matter is being taken. They simply have no idea about capitalisms exponential function. Was it Albert Bartlett who did an excellent video on its mathematical basis. That should be required viewing for everyone followed by a class on social relations

[ROCKMAN]

Yes: sacrifice is needed...especially when someone else is doing the sacrificing. Maybe the way to convince others to not use coal in the future to meet their electrical needs is for all of us to get rid of our fossil fuel sourced electricity.

OK...who wants to go first? LOL

[americandream]

Just me subscribing to this thread. Gonna have to read up on this.

edit: whoops. just noticed I have posted on here. Funny its not on my subscription list. BTW how do I quickly tidy up that list. Its as old as Lot.

On the left side of your screen there is a button listed as USER CONTROL PANEL. Click that button.

Thanks Tanada.

[dohboi]

"get rid of our fossil fuel sourced electricity"

Done.

ol wrote: "The question is if it is too little too late."

Is that really a question?

But really, as with hope, it is an incomplete question as stated.

With hope, one has to ask, "Hope for what?"

With your question, one must ask, "Too late for what?"

It is, of course, never too late to make things even worse, and that is pretty much all anyone anywhere is doing, especially, I find, those who are most opposed to giving up on 'hope.'

I think 'hope' is generally always a selfish impulse. The implied object of 'hope' is nearly always 'for what I want for me.' Clinging on to 'hope' generally means, "I have 'hope' for the future, so I don't really think bad things are going to come, so I don't really have to examine my own contributions to those bad things, and I don't have to think about minimizing those contributions, or taking serious actions that may have a chance at reducing the number and level of bad things...'

The proof that 'hope' is nearly always an essentially selfish/self-centered impulse comes from the cognitive dissonance we get from the famous Kafka quote: "THERE IS HOPE! (But not for us!)"

Of course, I'm glad if you have some less self-oriented and some more pro-active sense of 'hope.' But I'm afraid our religious traditions, as you point out, don't encourage that interpretation of the word.

[onlooker]

I personally would be ready to give up all my modern conveniences, TV, Internet etc. for the sake of future generations.

[dohboi]

Good for you, ol. The snide assumptions of some that no one ever would are mostly projections on the part of right-wingers...they could never imagine giving up anything ever for any greater good, so they smugly assume that no one else ever would or ever has.

(But I'm sure that's not the case with ROCKY, since he is the very bodhi-est of all bodhisattvas! )

[onlooker]

Yes Dohboi, is it not a matter of hoping for what. I am sure some ie. right wingers have hope to continue in pretty much the same materialistic world we inhabit. Other I think like you and me D, have hope just to maintain some semblance of a rich and fruitful world and yes a peaceful coexistence among humans and in relations with the planet. Alas, that hope is quickly fading. So I stand by my claim of willingness to sacrifice and would take exception to any who would doubt it as they cannot for they are not me.

[americandream]

Many of us on here are presumably parents. We will have arrived at an informed view of our precarious position. What does it say for those who can who can look our kids squarely in the eyes whilst contemplating their deaths with not a foggiest notion as to what got us here but convinced that we are headed into a collective abyss. I would argue that especially for us, there is an obligation to understand the dynamics of this mess and any possible solutions and not to be defeatist. That is if we take our obligations as parents seriously.

When I say that the family in capitalism is largely a sham held together by facile sentiment and commercial necessity, I have good reason for such a belief. But the bonds between parent and child run deep and it is there that ptential for change lies. No informed society would stare impotently into its childs abyss. We would be galvanised into snowballing reaction. That is where my hope lies. Not in sentiment, but in the deep primeval ties which if combined with conscientising, are powerful.

And when I see the emerging data such as this thread I am even more committed.

[dohboi]

For all the bodhisattvas out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZbUaxsB3WQ

ad wrote: " I would argue that especially for us, there is an obligation to understand the dynamics of this mess and any possible solutions and not to be defeatist."

Nicely put. Except for some, unless you agree with their technofantasies or other false 'hopes,' you are labeled 'defeatist.'

The fact is that those of us who have been trying to point out the problems for decades and have been working to try to live at least more sustainably than the norm and to push for changes that might start to move us in the right direction, on many levels...have, in fact, largely already been defeated.

That doesn't mean that there haven't been small-to-middling successes along the way.

But even if some 'battles' have been won, the 'war' that many of us thought we were fighting--the war to prevent GW from even getting to this stage of one degree beyond pre-industrial levels (highest since before the beginning of civilization) and CO2 to 400ppm (higher than any time since humans existed on the planet) has been lost.

We have been defeated in that (perhaps always fantastically quixotic) goal: the mere wish to preserve something like the richness and integrity of world we were born into.

That world is now long gone, and we things have been set in motion now that will continue to fundamentally alter the basic structures of the earth throughout our lives and the lives of our children and (if any) grandchildren...

[americandream]

Unlike or perhaps like you DB, I dread the exponential function in capitalism.

I watched Chinas accession into the WTO and the collapse of the Iron Curtain with alarm, knowing that we were now truly in the exponential phase. Much of this will play out before the end of our lives of that I have no doubt. So for me, although the timing is unclear, its approach is not. So i minimising that volatility is my goal.

[onlooker]

Yes truly, Ad and Dohboi, with children their is a heightened sense of urgency. I myself do not have children. The sober assessment above is true. I only hope both of you can reconcile yourselves with these facts for your sake and the sake of your children. Yet I still say do not despair for this miracle of existence is not about despairing it is about just staring out into the cosmos with awe, humility and hope.

[ritter]

I am also increasingly concerned with the delayed feedback of climate change and the fact that by the time dire consequences appear that can act as catalysts toward cultural change, we will already have gone so far into debilitating the biosphere that we will experience the cruel reality when we do finally arrive at collective consensus to real mitigation with hard sacrifices this will be too little too late.

Ibon: I believe it is too late. Even immediate and wholehearted abandonment of fossil fuels leaves us somewhere between 1.5 and 2+ degrees. We're ~1 degree right now and things have absolutely destabilized.

[dohboi]

"Much of this will play out before the end of our lives "

And it's starting to play out now. Hence my perhaps ghoulish-seeming obsession with keeping track of Arctic sea ice loss, explosions in wildfire, obliterations of ecosystems...

But it seems to me (and apparently so with many of you who also follow these things) that the very very least we can do is to have the minimal humanity to not turn away from the spectacle of the horrors we have spawned on the world.

Nietzshe said: "And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

Dohboi says: "And when it does, be sure to give it a hearty, 'Howdy, howdy howdy!'"