The following two audio presentations offer separate Buddhist perspectives on the environmental crisis. The first is given by the Rebellious Seeker himself; the second are the thoughts of a friend.
Brief pauses within the presentations allow time for reflection on what has been said.
Buddhism and the Environmental Crisis
Ottawa
October 2021
Here in Ottawa a new hospital will be built. Our National Capital Commission (NCC), after a detailed study recommended that the hospital be built at Tunney’s Pasture. Then suddenly it was decided to place the hospital in a wooded area on our experimental farmland. At an Ottawa city council planning committee, many citizens spoke about this decision. Here is my 5 minute contribution:
Rebellious Seeker's contribution to NCC hospital location debate
Those who have studied water are seeing signs everywhere of an impending climate catastrophe.
First, some places have too much water. Because global warming has raised the temperature of the oceans, there is now more energy to fuel hurricanes and typhons. Recently in the Gulf of Mexico a category 4 hurricane, Ida, formed. It was so powerful that it rampaged through the entire east coast of the United States. Even in the northeastern states, the "tail" of Ida dumped record levels of rainfall in a very short time. These rainfalls were so unexpected that 50 people died trapped in their own homes and in cars on the road. Extreme rainfalls are now a global phenomenon, as seen in Germany and other countries.
I have always liked the slogan “Think globally, act locally”. Here is my contribution to it.
Think globally
This involves seeing things communally and radically, and also intensely.
Facing the future
I am running out of simple solutions for facing the future, but I do have some questions.
There is a storm brewing at the Experimental Farm. Plans are afoot to use 43 acres to build a world-class hospital there. It will be a massive structure, complete with 20 acres of parking, including a four-story parking garage. It will be a car driver’s paradise. No more tedious searching for that last limited parking space. To build this hospital, many trees will need to be sacrificed, about 600 by a recent count.
A good friend sent me a YouTube clip about a global quest to produce non-polluting energy.
I responded as follows...
---
Hi John,
Interesting indeed. A fine example of the hope that "technology will save us". Nuclear fusion is definitely the supreme hope of these attempts. In theory, it is very appealing, but in practice it is most likely not achievable.
As a technologist myself, it is not easy to say that technology will NOT save us here. Why?
Imagine that we are on the Titanic….
Life is good. The champagne flows freely. We are having a wonderful trip. We are enjoying ourselves in good company. We are happy. We are in a positive mood. And then…
The ship’s captain appears and says, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just received information that to the best of our knowledge we are heading into an iceberg. Our best scientific data tells us that with a high level of probability, if we do not change course immediately, we are heading into a disaster!”
