Join me this Saturday

image source: http://www.earthday.org/

This Saturday is the 9th Earth Hour event, and had grown to include hundreds of millions of people, governments, and businesses from around the world. Please join people around the world on March 23rd, 2013 between 8:30 and 9:30pm local time by turning off your lights to raise awareness about climate change and the importance of a healthy planet.

As a Buddhist, I try to consider how my actions will impact on all beings who share this planet with us. This one day event only asks one hour of your time, however it can change how you look at the environment. Imagine a planet with clean air, fresh water that is drinkable from the source, oceans with out islands made of plastic, and land that is non toxic. These are all possible, however we need to change how we approach our decisions.

Lets leave our children a healthier planet than we received.

For more information on what you can do, please visit: Earth Day Network

Daily Prompt: Impossibility

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” – the White Queen, Alice in Wonderland.

What are the six impossible things you believe in? (If you can only manage one or two, that’s also okay.)

1. Religious tolerance and acceptance of each others beliefs becomes universal. “All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love,  compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our  daily lives.” The Dalai Lama. He also talked about it in this article titled: Many Faiths, One Truth

2. Our first contact with a non-terrestrial intelligent life form. This has been a common science fiction theme for generations, and now science has caught up to fiction. The closest earth like planet might only be 13 light years from earth. Granted it would take longer than 13 years for us to travel there, but a generation ship could easily be on it’s way by 2050. If humans are to have a better chance of surviving as a species, we need to spread to other planets, and other solar systems. For more check out Earth-like planets are right next door.

3. Universal peace, I have listed third on my impossible dream list. Because the first two, could happen sooner than this one. If both happen then the possibility of humanity uniting as one species increases. Imagine a world where national borders are historical markers, and places such as the Brandenburg Gate are found all over the world, as reminders of a time where we concentrated on the minor differences, rather than the immense commonality we all share. Where Universal Peace Day celebrates peace not the first use of an atomic weapon of mass destruction. ”My  attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace – it really  means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world. So  peace does not mean just putting an end to violence or to war, but to all other  factors that threaten peace, such as discrimination, such as inequality,  poverty.” “Human  beings want to be free and however long they may agree to stay locked up, to  stay oppressed, there will come a time when they say ‘That’s it.’ Suddenly they  find themselves doing something that they never would have thought they would be  doing, simply because of the human instinct that makes them turn their face  towards freedom.” Both quotes by Aung San Su Kyi. As Dr. Martin Luther King stated; “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

4. That we leave our children a planet that is healthier and more environmentally sound than we received from our parents. Global warming, air, water and soil contaminated by chemicals that cause diseases, genetic damage, and other similar atrocities must be stopped. This requires that we stop studying, planning and talking about making changes, and start implementing the best practices we have, with the goal of constant improvement in our processes. To turn off all the fossil fuels in the world at once, would kill billions of people, and possibly bring us to the brink of another dark ages or stone age. The technology to build a vehicle that gets hundreds of kilometers per litre of fuel exists today. The Shell Eco-Marathon held in Houston April 5th – 7th 2013 will showcase vehicles designed by university students from around the world, to see how the team from the University of Alberta made the news read this article. Granted most of us want something a bit more aesthetically pleasing and with all the safety features, but we as consumers need to start voting with our wallets when making purchases.

5. A world where we have time to enjoy each others companionship, and be involved in our children’s lives. Talk to many people who are estranged from their parents, and you will notice a common complaint; “They weren’t there for me as a child”, or “They were too busy for me”. Children not only need us there to help them grow into adults, they want us there. Watch a child who’s parents are at their school play, or whose parents are in the stands watching him play hockey at 5am, or the smile of a daughter who knows how much her dad hates shopping, but he’s at the mall with her.

6. That the right to use the internet and other forms of communication becomes an enshrined human right. Just as libraries and universities helped propel us to the technologies we enjoy today, so will the internet spur the catching up of all societies to an age of equity and equality for all. Authors can self publish, musicians have the option to  bypass the media companies, inventors have the ability to raise funds. Look at the peaceful and some not so peaceful revolutions around the world, where people are standing up to repressive regime’s, and forcing change to bring benefits to all. That searches are presented in an unbiased and non-commercial way, so the mom and pop pizza shop around the corner from your house isn’t listed 5 pages deep in the results because of paid advertisement or sponsorships. Yes search engines need to pay the bills, but ads can be handled other than as sponsored results, which is just another way of saying advertising.

 

More Daily Prompt: Impossibility

Neophobe or Neophile

Two terms to describe the opposite viewpoints about things new to us. Neo come from the ancient Greek word neos which means young or new. Phobe from the ancient Greek word phobos, which means fearing. While phile means to love or enthusiast for, again derived from ancient Greek.

So when it comes to accepting new ideas, adopting new technology, or meeting new people of different cultures which describes you, or are you a neophobe in some areas and a neophile in other areas of your life. Lets look at a few areas where you can be one or the other.

New ideas have occurred since before man discovered how to control fire, and these ideas have been circulated and improved on. Take fire as an example, it can keep us warm, give light, scare away predators, dry our clothes and ourselves, cook our food, and it can also destroy everything in it’s path. Yet man learned how to control this force of nature, and made it a tool, which we still depend on today. The same with any technology that has been discovered, or will be discovered in the future. Nuclear energy has advantages and disadvantages, so does solar power, fossil fuels, wind power yet the world’s demand for power continues to grow. As an individual are you contributing to this demand for power, if so have you thought about how this power should be provided, and what costs, both economical and environmental you are willing to pay to get access to the power you need? Does everybody in the world have the same right to use the amount of energy you consume, on a daily basis? Can the world support the production of the energy your lifestyle requires? How about other beings on the planet, are they to have their homes sacrificed in the pursuit of this power?

Today in medicine we have progressed to the point where a fair number of injuries are repairable, including the replacement of limbs, a damaged heart, loss of hearing to name a few. We have stepped on to the path of gene therapy to treat diseases, including while the fetus is in the womb, known as in utero treatment. If you suffer from type two diabetes, you may have access to islet transplants using cells harvested from a pig, to restore your insulin production. Treatments for such diseases as cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, and cancer have emerged, some already in use others in testing. If we could cure all disease and extend the average human life span to one hundred years or more, the question is should we do so? What impacts on the economy would this have, on the learning of a skill to support your family and keep up employment?

Perhaps you are the type of person who rapidly accepts and adopts all the new technology, should companies have to make major improvements before releasing a new model, or are incremental improvements acceptable? Many loyal IPhone owners were upset when the lifespan of a model became less than a year. Microsoft has an approximate 3 year life span for a new version of Windows, and support for an extra four years. How about manufactures of vehicles that sell next years model, before this year is barely started, should this be regulated to give uniformity, or will we soon see the release of the 2020 NVC (new vehicle concept) to consumers in 2018 perhaps, skipping the 2019 model year altogether.

The day of the implantable cell phone are rapidly approaching, will you be one of the first to adopt these, or will you be a hold out? Consider you won’t have to worry about losing or forgetting your cell phone. However you will never be able to say you didn’t have it when the boss is asking why you didn’t answer. Or perhaps your enjoying some quality time with your spouse, and really want the privacy. There are also the potential health risks involved, or do you consider those an acceptable trade off, for the convenience. For myself, fittingly I walk a middle path, neither afraid of advances in our knowledge, yet not always being on the bleeding edge of adopting new ideas.

These are not easy questions to answer, but answer them we must, and our decisions will impact all other beings on the planet. So are you a neophile or a neophobe?

Speaking of technology, here’s a post from Tilly about it.