Not being a believer in reinventing the wheel, I will just post these two posts from my friends Tom Nichols and Tom Englehardt. Tom Nichols’ post comes from his newsletter “Peacefield.” He’s an “intelligent conservative” you should pay attention to.
In the early 2000's I was looking death in the eye from cancer and ( strange as this seems) it struck me that if I died I would really miss this planet-- its beauty, seasons, animals, flowers. Reading the two Tom's I am right back in that anticipated mourning.....only this time its source is a human self- destruction ( "suicidal" as one of them says) on a scale beyond imagining. And even if I am dead before the planet has its last gasp I mourn for the generations of grandchildren who will be left.
And I am angry beyond words that it is the egos and greed of madmen that keep bringing us , our children, our grandchildren to the nuclear brink. Zelensky is saying it, over and over: the anihilation of Ukraine and Ukrainians is just a microcosm of what can happen......
These were important pieces and I thank you because you are hammering away at the complexity of the crises facing us...but they leave me almost despondent!!
TC, These last three and a half weeks have been as deep stabs for almost every waking moment. I am a Jew and my husband, Mark, was born in Odessa. Putin's war calls up other acts of moral depravity on a mass scale. Mark is not suffering through this one as he died three and half years ago.
Whether attentive to this war or not, we are all victims of it.
No one could evoke my thoughts more completely than Tom Englehardt did in 'Déjà Vu All Over Again'. Still shaken by it and I've been shaking quite a bit these days. Tom has encompassed the dread point we have come to. He tells us humans what we have been doing. He brings together fossil fuels and nuclear weapons. He brings together America's experience and Russia's experience since the end of WW II.
TC and subscribers, I would like to share the blog post of Otto Scharmer that Peter Burnett generously posted on the forum of Letter from an American. Otto introduced it this way, 'I invite you to join me in a meditative journey on the current moment. We start with Putin’s war in Ukraine, unpack some of the deeper systemic forces at play, look at the emerging landscape of conflicting social fields, and conclude with what may well be the emerging superpower of 21st-century politics: our capacity to activate collective action from a shared awareness of the whole.'
Both fascinating! Thanks for posting. Lots to think about for sure and to mull over in the midst of ongoing catastrophe. Planet Earth as the Titanic and several folks fighting to be the captain when sinking is the real threat. I guess my first question once I reach heaven will be, "Why did you have to make everything so damned complicated?" Or maybe, "What kind of clay did you use?"
It is premature to talk about saving the planet - Gaia will do just fine without us, better most likely. We should be concerned with saving ourselves - the Syrian migrant crisis of recent years was only the tiniest tip of the iceberg compared to the climate change migrants to come. We may all end up like the Fremen in 'Dune', wearing ;protective suits to go outside into whatever atmosphere and climate we are left with. The depressing thing is the ignorance of so many who feel we can go right up to the brink, and then pull back and save ourselves. They seem not to understand the process of 'tipping points' - the fact that if we let climate change go too long (and we may have done that already - the jury is still out), the natural processes we have allowed to start may progress to the point at which we cannot stop them, no matter what we do, and those processes may trigger others we don't even know about.
We cannot say we were not warned - here is the URL for a photo of the research paper written by an American woman scientist, Eunice Newton Foote, on the effects of different gasses added to the atmosphere, showing that "carbonic acid gas" (CO2) was the most effective and longest lasting of the gasses used in her experiments. Note the date.....
This is superb stuff, and a welcome departure from the mind-blowing depression one gets reading current events. It also reinforces my feeling that, partisanship aside (and it is very hard to do that in today's political environment), only the pragmatic progressive platform has any hope of saving us from our current political delusions and building the country into the positive leader the world needs to take us into a better future. There is a cadre of very good people in Congress now who could do it, or at least start, but we have to clear the way so the good ideas can be discussed rationally and not swept under the rug (or thrown under the bus).....
In the early 2000's I was looking death in the eye from cancer and ( strange as this seems) it struck me that if I died I would really miss this planet-- its beauty, seasons, animals, flowers. Reading the two Tom's I am right back in that anticipated mourning.....only this time its source is a human self- destruction ( "suicidal" as one of them says) on a scale beyond imagining. And even if I am dead before the planet has its last gasp I mourn for the generations of grandchildren who will be left.
And I am angry beyond words that it is the egos and greed of madmen that keep bringing us , our children, our grandchildren to the nuclear brink. Zelensky is saying it, over and over: the anihilation of Ukraine and Ukrainians is just a microcosm of what can happen......
These were important pieces and I thank you because you are hammering away at the complexity of the crises facing us...but they leave me almost despondent!!
TC, These last three and a half weeks have been as deep stabs for almost every waking moment. I am a Jew and my husband, Mark, was born in Odessa. Putin's war calls up other acts of moral depravity on a mass scale. Mark is not suffering through this one as he died three and half years ago.
Whether attentive to this war or not, we are all victims of it.
No one could evoke my thoughts more completely than Tom Englehardt did in 'Déjà Vu All Over Again'. Still shaken by it and I've been shaking quite a bit these days. Tom has encompassed the dread point we have come to. He tells us humans what we have been doing. He brings together fossil fuels and nuclear weapons. He brings together America's experience and Russia's experience since the end of WW II.
TC and subscribers, I would like to share the blog post of Otto Scharmer that Peter Burnett generously posted on the forum of Letter from an American. Otto introduced it this way, 'I invite you to join me in a meditative journey on the current moment. We start with Putin’s war in Ukraine, unpack some of the deeper systemic forces at play, look at the emerging landscape of conflicting social fields, and conclude with what may well be the emerging superpower of 21st-century politics: our capacity to activate collective action from a shared awareness of the whole.'
https://medium.com/presencing-institute-blog/putin-and-the-power-of-collective-action-from-shared-awareness-a-12-point-meditation-2df81cd54b1e
This was a difficult read. I advised my friends to take a deep breath and read it while sitting down. Thanks for sharing.
Both fascinating! Thanks for posting. Lots to think about for sure and to mull over in the midst of ongoing catastrophe. Planet Earth as the Titanic and several folks fighting to be the captain when sinking is the real threat. I guess my first question once I reach heaven will be, "Why did you have to make everything so damned complicated?" Or maybe, "What kind of clay did you use?"
It is premature to talk about saving the planet - Gaia will do just fine without us, better most likely. We should be concerned with saving ourselves - the Syrian migrant crisis of recent years was only the tiniest tip of the iceberg compared to the climate change migrants to come. We may all end up like the Fremen in 'Dune', wearing ;protective suits to go outside into whatever atmosphere and climate we are left with. The depressing thing is the ignorance of so many who feel we can go right up to the brink, and then pull back and save ourselves. They seem not to understand the process of 'tipping points' - the fact that if we let climate change go too long (and we may have done that already - the jury is still out), the natural processes we have allowed to start may progress to the point at which we cannot stop them, no matter what we do, and those processes may trigger others we don't even know about.
We cannot say we were not warned - here is the URL for a photo of the research paper written by an American woman scientist, Eunice Newton Foote, on the effects of different gasses added to the atmosphere, showing that "carbonic acid gas" (CO2) was the most effective and longest lasting of the gasses used in her experiments. Note the date.....
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Eunice_Foote_-_%22Circumstances_Affecting_the_Heat_of_the_Sun%27s_Rays%22_%281856%29.png
Another Fine Mess, indeed. Thanks TC and the 2 other Toms.
This is superb stuff, and a welcome departure from the mind-blowing depression one gets reading current events. It also reinforces my feeling that, partisanship aside (and it is very hard to do that in today's political environment), only the pragmatic progressive platform has any hope of saving us from our current political delusions and building the country into the positive leader the world needs to take us into a better future. There is a cadre of very good people in Congress now who could do it, or at least start, but we have to clear the way so the good ideas can be discussed rationally and not swept under the rug (or thrown under the bus).....