Anthropocentrism is a fatal disease

The weather has been especially weird across the globe this year, including the Bay Area, which has seen exceptionally cool temperatures. That is, until the last two days, where it’s exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit / 38 degrees centigrade. While checking the forecast at Wunderground, I noticed this blog entry, but particularly the following:

Palestine records its hottest temperature in history
The State of Palestine, the portion of the territories occupied by Israel that declared independence in 1988, recorded its hottest temperature since record keeping began on August 7, 2010, when the temperature hit 51.4°C (124.5°F) at Kibbutz Almog (also called Qalya or Kalya) in the Jordan Valley. The previous record for Palestine was set on June 22, 1942, at the same location.

Palestine was the 4th nation to set an all-time hottest temperature in history record this month, and the 18th to set such a record this year. There has also been one nation (Guinea) that set an all-time coldest temperature in history record this year. Note that many countries, including the U.S., do not recognize Palestine as a nation, though 110 countries do recognize it. Here’s the updated list of nations or semi-independent islands or territories that have set all-time heat or cold records this year:

National heat records set in 2010
Palestine, the portion of the territories occupied by Israel that declared independence in 1988, recorded its hottest temperature since record keeping began on August 7, 2010, when the temperature hit 51.4°C (124.5°F) at Kibbutz Almog (also called Qalya or Kalya) in the Jordan Valley. The previous record for Palestine was set on June 22, 1942, at the same location.

Belarus recorded its hottest temperature in its history on August 6, 2010, when the mercury hit 38.7°C (101.7°F) in Gorky. The previous record was 38.0°C (100.4°F) set at Vasiliyevichy on Aug. 20, 1946.

Ukraine tied its record for hottest temperature in its history when the mercury hit 41.3°C (106.3°F) at Lukhansk on August 1, 2010. Ukraine also reached 41.3°C on July 20 and 21, 2007, at Voznesensk.

Cyprus recorded its hottest temperature in its history on August 1, 2010 when the mercury hit 46.6°C (115.9°F) at Lefconica. The old record for Cyprus was 44.4°C (111.9°F) at Lefkosia in August 1956. An older record of 46.6°C from July 1888 was reported from Nicosia, but is of questionable reliability.

Finland recorded its hottest temperature on July 29, 2010, when the mercury hit 99°F (37.2°C) at Joensuu. The old (undisputed) record was 95°F (35°C) at Jyvaskyla on July 9, 1914.

Qatar had its hottest temperature in history on July 14, 2010, when the mercury hit 50.4°C (122.7°F) at Doha Airport.

Russia had its hottest temperature in history on July 11, when the mercury rose to 44.0°C (111.2°F) in Yashkul, Kalmykia Republic, in the European portion of Russia near the Kazakhstan border. The previous hottest temperature in Russia (not including the former Soviet republics) was the 43.8°C (110.8°F) reading measured at Alexander Gaj, Kalmykia Republic, on August 6, 1940. The remarkable heat in Russia this year has not been limited just to the European portion of the country–the Asian portion of Russia also recorded its hottest temperature in history this year, a 42.7°C (108.9°F) reading at Kara, in the Chita Republic on June 24. The 42.3°C (108.1°F) reading on June 25 at Belogorsk, near the Amur River border with China, also beat the old record for the Asian portion of Russia. The previous record for the Asian portion of Russia was 41.7°C (107.1°F) at Aksha on July 21, 2004.

Sudan recorded its hottest temperature in its history on June 25 when the mercury rose to 49.6°C (121.3°F) at Dongola. The previous record was 49.5°C (121.1°F) set in July 1987 in Aba Hamed.

Niger tied its record for hottest day in history on June 22, 2010, when the temperature reached 47.1°C (116.8°F) at Bilma. That record stood for just one day, as Bilma broke the record again on June 23, when the mercury topped out at 48.2°C (118.8°F). The previous record was 47.1°C on May 24, 1998, also at Bilma.

Saudi Arabia had its hottest temperature ever on June 22, 2010, with a reading of 52.0°C (125.6°F) in Jeddah, the second largest city in Saudi Arabia. The previous record was 51.7°C (125.1°F), at Abqaiq, date unknown. The record heat was accompanied by a sandstorm, which caused eight power plants to go offline, resulting in blackouts to several Saudi cities.

Chad had its hottest day in history on June 22, 2010, when the temperature reached 47.6°C (117.7°F) at Faya. The previous record was 47.4°C (117.3°F) at Faya on June 3 and June 9, 1961.

Kuwait recorded its hottest temperature in history on June 15 in Abdaly, according to the Kuwait Met office. The mercury hit 52.6°C (126.7°F). Kuwait’s previous all-time hottest temperature was 51.9°C (125.4°F), on July 27,2007, at Abdaly. Temperatures reached 51°C (123.8°F) in the capital of Kuwait City on June 15, 2010.

Iraq had its hottest day in history on June 14, 2010, when the mercury hit 52.0°C (125.6°F) in Basra. Iraq’s previous record was 51.7°C (125.1°F) set August 8, 1937, in Ash Shu’aybah.

Pakistan had its hottest temperature in history on May 26, when the mercury hit an astonishing 53.5°C (128.3°F) at the town of MohenjuDaro, according to the Pakistani Meteorological Department. While this temperature reading must be reviewed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for authenticity, not only is the 128.3°F reading the hottest temperature ever recorded in Pakistan, it is the hottest reliably measured temperature ever recorded on the continent of Asia.

Myanmar (Burma) had its hottest temperature in its recorded history on May 12, when the mercury hit 47°C (116.6°F) in Myinmu, according to the Myanmar Department of Meteorology and Hydrology. Myanmar’s previous hottest temperature was 45.8°C (114.4°F) at Minbu, Magwe division on May 9, 1998. According to Chris Burt, author of the authoritative weather records book Extreme Weather, the 47°C measured this year is the hottest temperature in Southeast Asia history.

Ascention Island (St. Helena, a U.K. Territory) had its hottest temperature in history on March 25, 2010, when the mercury hit 34.9°C (94.8°C) at Georgetown. The previous record was 34.0°C (93.2°F) at Georgetown in April 2003, exact day unknown.

The Solomon Islands had their hottest temperature in history on February 1, 2010, when the mercury hit 36.1°C (97°F) at Lata Nendo (Ndeni). The previous record for Solomon Islands was 35.6°C (96.0°F) at Honaiara, date unknown.

Colombia had its hottest temperature in history on January 24, 2010, when Puerto Salgar hit 42.3°C (108°F). The previous record was 42.0°C (107.6°F) at El Salto in March 1988 (exact day unknown).

National cold records set in 2010
One nation has set a record for its coldest temperature in history in 2010. Guinea had its coldest temperature in history in January 9, 2010, when the mercury hit 1.4°C (34.5°F) at Mali-ville in the Labe region.

Commentary
The period January – July was the warmest such 7-month period in the planet’s history, and temperatures over Earth’s land regions were at record highs in May, June, and July, according to the National Climatic Data Center. It is not a surprise that many all-time extreme heat records are being shattered when the planet as a whole is so warm. Global warming “loads the dice” to favor extreme heat events unprecedented in recorded history. In fact, it may be more appropriate to say that global warming adds more spots on the dice–it used to be possible to roll no higher than double sixes, and now it is possible to roll a thirteen.

The year 2010 now has the most national extreme heat records for a single year–eighteen. These nations comprise 19% of the total land area of Earth. This is the largest area of Earth’s surface to experience all-time record high temperatures in any single year in the historical record. Looking back at the past decade, which was the hottest decade in the historical record, seventy-five counties set extreme hottest temperature records (33% of all countries.) For comparison, fifteen countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten years (6% of all countries). My source for extreme weather records is the excellent book Extreme Weather by Chris Burt. His new updates (not yet published) remove a number of old disputed records. Keep in mind that the matter of determining extreme records is very difficult, and it is often a judgment call as to whether an old record is reliable or not. For example, one of 2007′s fifteen extreme hottest national temperature records (good for 2nd place behind 2010 for most extreme heat records) is for the U.S.–the 129°F recorded at Death Valley that year. Most weather record books list 1913 as the year the hottest temperature in the U.S. occurred, when Greenland Ranch in Death Valley hit 134°F. However, as explained in a recent Weatherwise article, that record is questionable, since it occurred during a sandstorm when hot sand may have wedged against the thermometer, artificially inflating the temperature. Mr. Burt’s list of 225 countries with extreme heat records includes islands that are not independent countries, such as Puerto Rico and Greenland. I thank Mr. Burt and weather record researchers Maximiliano Herrera and Howard Rainford for their assistance identifying this year’s new extreme temperature records.

2010
08/24
CATEGORY
civilization
nature
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Questions

I received this from a friend that also attended the Eisenstein retreat last September.

  1. When you try to pay less for something, is that selfish since that would mean the seller gets less money? If you are a seller is it selfish if you always try to get the highest price since that would mean the buyer has less money after?
  2. Is it imposing your will on someone when you tell them they cannot use an object because it is yours?
  3. What types of ownership are there?
  4. Does ownership come from an attachment to objects?
  5. What are the pros and cons of being attached to objects?
  6. What are the pros and cons of having your happiness dependent on whether you have certain objects?
  7. If we did not have the concept of ownership would that mean there is no such thing as stealing?
  8. If we did not have the concept of ownership would that mean there is no such thing as charity (because anything you give is never yours)
  9. Does ownership lead to more freedom or less freedom?
  10. How come friends do not usually share everything?
  11. Does the concept of ownership create the idea of scarcity?
  12. When is something terrorism and when is it activism or environmentalism or freedom fighting? Can it be both?
  13. When is something government security and when is it human rights abuse? Can it be both? When is ‘clamping down on bad parts of society or bad countries’ with force government security, and when is it terrorism?
  14. When is security a way of covering up our fears?
  15. Can you conceive of a society living happily without car insurance? Without house insurance? Without medical insurance? Without social security?
  16. Does the offering of insurance sometimes create fears?
  17. Are pensions and insurance a form of not trusting in the universe?
  18. Does insurance weaken our survival instinct?
  19. Do our fears create the insurance system? What if we let go of our fears?
  20. Does a welfare system weaken the ability of some people to survive by themselves?
  21. Do our needs create the welfare system? What if we let go of our needs?
  22. Does a police force weaken the ability of people to live without protection?
  23. Do our boundaries, rights, expectations of how people can behave towards us, things we ‘own’ that we want to protect create the police system? What if we let go of our boundaries, rights, expectations and ownership ideas?
  24. Does a government weaken the ability of people to cooperate and help each other out without being threatened with jail?
  25. Does our need to have people behave in certain ways create government? What if we let go of our need for people to behave in certain ways?
  26. Does the education system weaken the ability of people to learn for themselves?
  27. Does our dependence on authority for learning create the education system? What if we let go of this dependence?
  28. Does keeping things free of bacteria weaken our immune system?
  29. Does our need for things to be free of bacteria create cleanliness morals and laws? What if we let go our need to be so clean?
  30. Would sharing eating utensils expose our immune system to a wider amount of germs and so strengthen it?
  31. Is keeping our places clean a form of species cleansing (the species being bacteria and bugs, etc.)?
  32. Is imprisonment a human rights abuse? Can something be both a form of justice and a human rights abuse?
  33. When is justice another name for revenge?
  34. If we want more joy in the world, why would we sometimes discourage expressions of joy at work and at school?
  35. If our environment is being destroyed, and the reason for the environment being destroyed is the amount of things being produced, and the force driving the production of things is our work, would our world be better off if people worked less?
  36. Is it possible to have a society where people work, but there is no salary? If so, what kind of society would that look like?
  37. How much of our society now does work for which there is no pay (e.g. housework, volunteering, etc.)?
  38. If technology is doing more of our grunt work, does that mean there are less paying jobs for the less skilled? If so, what happens to those less skilled?
  39. Does being unemployed lead to low self esteem in our society?
  40. What is the point of work? To contribute to society? Who decides what a contribution is? What do you think a contribution is?
  41. Is it possible to be in a job that makes a negative contribution to society? If so, what percentage of jobs make a negative contribution to society? And if so, is it preferable we have people not working rather than be in a negative contribution job?
  42. Would it be healthier for our society to have more people working for pay or less?
  43. Would it be healthier for our society if people played more and worked less?
  44. Why did we create a society where it costs money to buy food? What would happen if a certain amount was made free?
  45. What would happen if we said the fruit that grows on trees and the vegetables that grow out of the land were unownable?
  46. Why did we create a society where it costs money to buy land (as opposed to cultures like American Indians which didn’t have land ownership)? What would happen if we made some land free and unownable?
  47. Is a person free if they feel that they have to work to survive?
  48. Is a person free if they feel that they have to have money to survive?
  49. Is a person free if they feel that they have to own their land or else pay rent in order to survive?
  50. How much do land ownership issues contribute to war?
  51. How much are oil considerations contributing to tension in the Mideast?
  52. How much does our individual usage of cars, planes, and products that are shipped by trucks and/or require oil in its production affect the government oil policy and actions related to oil?
  53. Does living in houses lead to us being more out of tune with the environment?
  54. If so, would encouraging people to live in simpler houses, tents or in the open lead to a world which does not destroy nature as much?
  55. If the idea of technology is to allow us to survive without having to work much, how come it seems to a lot of people that they need to work to survive?
  56. Which is more free, free trade or free sharing?
  57. Does free trade require laws to work?
  58. Does free trade lead to less freedom in other areas?
  59. Does a person who gets money from collecting rent on land they own contribute more to society than a person who gets welfare money?
  60. Why is it women and men are not treated equally in our society if the laws are usually equal for women and men?
  61. Is the idea of a country racist and segregationist?
  62. What is the difference between discipline and manipulation?
  63. When you think of yourself as a victim of something, how much of that is due to your own expectations about how things should have been?
  64. If a boss, or the government tells you to do something, and you do it, how responsible are you for the consequences?
  65. How democratic is a voting system if it does not allow criminals, people under a certain age, ‘illegal’ immigrants and people outside the country(!) to vote?
  66. How come people blame the government for behavior of people that are not in government?
  67. What would be a difference between a government that governs with love, and one that governs by fear?
  68. What institutions create more fear than love in our society? The media? Insurance companies? Stock market? Education system?
  69. Would a government that governs by fear encourage other institutions to create fear?
  70. How come a government leader is voted in by society, while a business CEO is not usually voted in by all the people in the company?
  71. How come it is usually management that fires people in a company, as opposed to a decision made by all the people in a company?
  72. How come many businesses have the goal of surviving? Is there something ‘wrong’ if a business closes?
  73. Does ‘just doing your job’ mean that you are not aware of or responsible for the consequences of your actions?
  74. When is it okay to commit acts of violence in our society (murder, capital punishment, police security, mugging, protest, traffic accident, cutting open someone for surgery, boxing, war)?
  75. When does war prevent bigger problems?
  76. When do laws help prevent the behavior they are trying to stop, and when do they not have an effect, and when do they encourage the behavior they are trying to stop?
  77. Who decides in our society what behaviors are okay and what are not?
  78. In order to prevent certain behaviors we sometimes make laws and sometimes don’t, which behaviors do you think need laws (murder, building houses, store pricing, etc.)?
  79. Are laws basically the formalization of peoples’ opinions about how people should behave?
  80. How free is a society that feels like it needs laws?
  81. When does having certain laws lead to more freedom, and when does having certain laws lead to less freedom?
  82. Are rights basically about what a person’s expectations of how others can behave towards them are?
  83. If so, what happens when people let go of expectations?
  84. How free is a society that has prisons?
  85. Is a country at peace if there are people in jail?
  86. Is it possible to be totally free even while in jail? Is freedom an internal thing that doesn’t depend on external circumstances?
  87. What happens to an innocent person who spends time in jail for a year?
  88. What’s your guess of the percentage of people in jail are innocent?
  89. Do police sometimes create anger, hatred and distrust by being suspicious, by checking up on people who turn out to be innocent, by racial profiling?
  90. If so, do these negative emotions lead to more crime?
  91. If the livelihood of police was dependent on their being crime does this create an unconscious push in society for more crime? E.g. certain police need to fill a quota of traffic citations for their job?
  92. Do police, the legal system and jails lead to more or less crime in this society?
  93. If police were encouraged to love criminals, what form would that love take?
  94. Which is a healthier way for police to approach their job, as helping people, or as stopping crime? Are these two things the same?
  95. Do police lead to more freedom or less freedom?
  96. Is a country at peace if there is no outward violence, but there is a lot of internal anger?
  97. Why do people sometimes feel awkward about expressing love, when love is such a beautiful thing?
  98. If people in business were encouraged to love other people in the same line of business, what form would that love take?
  99. What would happen if we tried to love people in jails more?
  100. Are scientists taught to not love what they study?
  101. If so, what effect does this have on the whole body of science?
  102. Is western education cold, in the sense things are ‘objectified’ for study?
  103. If so, is this leading to the ‘objectifying’ of society?
  104. Does trusting people create good will?
  105. What would happen if police trusted people more?
  106. What would happen if government trusted people more?
  107. When is it better to exert more control in government and when is it better to loosen the reins more?
  108. Does one’s desires keep one from being free?
  109. Is freedom better than responsibility?
  110. Is our idea of poverty based on what our desires are? If we let go of our desires would there be such a thing as poverty?
  111. In a different culture is it possible that what we consider to be pitiable is actually what is strived for and respected?
  112. Why is having less things usually considered pitiable in our culture?
  113. If a country is in debt does that mean they have to produce for the economy even if they otherwise would not want to?
  114. Does the interest on the US’s debt go to private bankers?
  115. If so, how much of taxpayers money goes to the private bankers?
  116. Does the ‘need’ for income taxes cause a ‘need’ in society for people to work at paying jobs?
  117. Does the ‘need’ for sales taxes cause a ‘need’ in society for things to be sold?
  118. Does the US government owe bankers a lot of money?
  119. If so, how much control do private banks wield over the US government, if the US government owes them a lot of money? Do they have a say in government fiscal and business policy?
  120. Are poorer countries in debt to richer ones? If so, how much power does this give the richer country over the poorer one? And if so, how much of this power is used to help, and how much of it is abused?
  121. Do banks make money if more people in society are in debt because of interest payments?
  122. Do bankers try to influence government policy which favors more people in debt?
  123. How free is a person if they have home loans or car loans or student loans or credit card debt to pay off?
  124. Do banks fund both sides of a war (by providing money)? Do they make a lot of money because of war? How does this affect whether wars happen?
  125. When banks ask for more money back than was loaned out where does that extra money (the interest) come from? Does it mean the total amount of money in the world has to increase for the debt to be paid off?
  126. How do our emotions affect the way we perceive events?
  127. Different things happening are combined into one news story; is it the journalist who creates the connection between these different things happening? Is it possible the connection between these different things happening is quite distinct from how the journalist imagines them to be?
  128. Does the media require a paradigm within which it reports news?
  129. If so, does this paradigm have emotional overtones which may lead us to looking at events in a certain way?
  130. Can focusing on certain events and people as opposed to other ones skew the news?
  131. Is our news paradigm that of a bad news paradigm?
  132. If so, what other ways could we report news?
  133. What if poets were the reporters for newspapers?
  134. Does a dependency on advertisers and paying subscribers/readers affect what news is in the media?
  135. Do the people who own the media have an influence on what is broadcast/printed?
  136. Why do some things get reported and others do not?
  137. Do the media affect events themselves?
  138. Does media create fear?
  139. If so, does this fear lead to more need for things like insurance and government security?
  140. Is there a way of knowing intuitively what is happening in the world without using the media? If so, is it possible that your intuition is more accurate than the media?
  141. Does media lead to more freedom or less?
  142. Does media lead to more caring or less?
  143. Which forms of technology give us more freedom and which ones less?
  144. Does technology lead us to be more or less humane? If so, which ones lead us to be more humane and which ones to be less?
  145. Is science leading us to be more humane or is it leading us to be less humane?
  146. Would it be advisable to slow down our technology development since some of it is being put to use in weapons of mass destruction?
  147. Is disease a symptom of a psychological problem? A problem with the way a person is living their life? A symptom of something wrong with society?
  148. Why are certain drugs (usually medical) legal and others (usually street) not?
  149. What is your definition of a drug?
  150. Is the usage of drugs in medicine weakening our immune system?
  151. If so, is this making humans more susceptible to viruses? More susceptible to AIDS?
  152. Are medical drugs leading us to be out of touch with our bodies?
  153. Is medical technology leading us to be out of touch with body intuition?
  154. Is medicine leading us to forget natural ways our bodies can heal themselves?
  155. Is our society ‘addicted’ to medicine?
  156. Is the killing of bacteria and germs with medicines and cleaning agents leading to the evolution of more powerful bacteria and germs?
  157. Are germs ‘bad’? Why are many people scared of them?
  158. Is western medicine leading to a healthier society or less healthy society?
  159. Does the dependence of the medical community and pharmaceutical companies on the need for people to heal lead to a unconscious generation of diseases in our society?
  160. Is cancer partially caused by toxins and radiation?
  161. If so, would it be advisable to slow down the development of chemical engineering and electricity dependent technology?
  162. If so, how is it possible to slow down development of technology and science?
  163. If people lived in simpler houses, or tents, or in nature would the incidence of cancer be less?
  164. How free is a society where you cannot touch or handle a significant amount of objects because they are privately owned?
  165. How free is a society where you cannot walk on a lot of the land because it is privately owned?
2010
08/17
CATEGORY
consciousness
evolution
other
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Capitalism

From Democracy Now

Harpers: The food bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it:

The global speculative frenzy sparked riots in more than thirty countries and drove the number of the world’s “food insecure” to more than a billion. In 2008, for the first time since such statistics have been kept, the proportion of the world’s population without enough to eat ratcheted upward. The ranks of the hungry had increased by 250 million in a single year, the most abysmal increase in all of human history.

The Independent (UK): How Goldman gambled on starvation:

The world’s wealthiest speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of hundreds of millions of innocent people. They gambled on increasing starvation, and won. Their Wasteland moment created a real wasteland. What does it say about our political and economic system that we can so casually inflict so much pain?

2010
07/22
CATEGORY
civilization
collapse
consciousness
transition
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As we walk the path of evolving consciousness, we're confronted with the sobering realization of the unprecedented convergence of crises unfolding throughout the world today.

Accompanying our developing awareness is the recognition of our profound personal and collective responsibility, yet most critically: the immutable call to action.

(Then again, what you find here might simply be the effluvium of yet another narcissist blogger.)