Tag Archives: Global warming

Marching on Behalf of the Planet

Posted on July 5, 2016 by | Comments Off on Marching on Behalf of the Planet

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Photo credit: jomilo75 via Flickr / Creative Commons

Walking in unison can be a powerful means of social and political transformation. Gandhi’s Salt March in 1930 challenged British authority in India and began the long process of civil disobedience that culminated in India’s independence. African Americans in the 1960s won their civil rights by undertaking long walks and marches through the South and in the nation’s capital. Millions of people in the 1960s marched against the Vietnam War, and again in 2003 to protest U.S. plans to attack Iraq. Just two years ago, almost half a million people converged on New York City to join the Peoples’ Climate March, showing that climate consciousness was no longer the concern of a minority. The March for a Clean Energy Revolution, to take place in Philadelphia on July 24th, continues this practice of using our legs to express the ideals that stir in our hearts. Continue reading →

Comments Off on Marching on Behalf of the Planet

Posted in Climate change, Engaged Buddhism, Interfaith action, News item, Social justice

Tagged , , , , ,

On Hope and Hype: Reflections on a New Year’s Tradition

Posted on January 11, 2016 by | Comments Off on On Hope and Hype: Reflections on a New Year’s Tradition

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

2016 New Year's at CYM

At the dawn of a new year it’s customary to suspend our habitual cynicism about human nature in order to express joyful hopes for the year that lies ahead. While this practice helps to spread good cheer, at least for a day, it often seems to me an exercise with no practical consequences. How, I ask myself, can declaring my hopes to others make a dent in a world oblivious to our dreams? How can we expect the mere change of a date to alter the conditions under which we live?

The practice, I fear, may not be very different from a drug habit. Both seem to serve a similar purpose. If I find my life’s circumstances intolerable, I may try to numb my pain and frustration by taking a drug. If I perceive the world descending into chaos, I  try to console myself and cheer up others by declaring that this year things will be better. In this way, hope may turn out to be little more than hype: a psychological hypodermic needle filled with a mind-numbing narcotic, a hyperbole that obscures the grim reality that engulfs us all.
Continue reading →

Comments Off on On Hope and Hype: Reflections on a New Year’s Tradition

Posted in Buddhist social ethics, Climate change, Engaged Buddhism, Interfaith action, Social justice

Tagged , , , , ,

Climate Change as a Moral Call to Social Transformation

Posted on December 2, 2015 by | 2 comments

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

As negotiators gather in Paris this week and next for the COP 21 conference, it is important to recognize that solving the climate crisis is not merely a matter of adopting new policies but of transforming our ways of relating to the world. It entails adopting a new sense of responsibility for the fate of humanity, for the planet and the entire global community. The realization that human activity is altering the earth’s climate assigns to human beings the gravest moral responsibility we have ever faced. It puts the destiny of the planet squarely in our own hands just at a time when we are inflicting near-lethal wounds on its surface and seas and instigating what has been called “the sixth great extinction.”

As an ethical issue, however, climate change cannot be viewed in isolation. To understand its ethical aspects adequately, it is necessary to recognize the close links between climate change and a host of other factors that initially may appear to have little to do with the disruptions affecting the earth’s geophysical processes. Today we face not merely a climate emergency but a single multidimensional crisis whose diverse facets—environmental, social, political, and economic—intersect and reinforce each other with dizzying complexity.
Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Climate change, Engaged Buddhism, News item

Tagged , , , ,

Climate Change and Food System Shocks: Threats of Cascading Catastrophe

Posted on October 17, 2015 by | Comments Off on Climate Change and Food System Shocks: Threats of Cascading Catastrophe

Charles W. Elliott

Food System Shocks
A global pre-eminent insurance market is waving red flags about the risk of climate-change shocks to our world food system that could quadruple the price of basic food commodities, cause widespread famine and social instability, and  bring down governments. Are world capitals paying attention?

Adding to the chorus of voices warning of threats to the global food system caused by climate change is global insurer Lloyds, which recently issued its report, “Food System Shock: The insurance impacts of acute disruption to global food supply“.  Food System Shock is one in a series of Lloyd “emerging risk” reports that address risks that are “perceived to be potentially significant but which may not be fully understood or allowed for in insurance terms and conditions, pricing, reserving or capital setting.”  This is not the first risk report on climate change issued by Lloyds (see, Lloyds’ Catastrophe Modelling and Climate Change (2014)), nor the first to address global food security (see, Lloyds’ Feast or Famine (2013)).  But it is the first by Lloyds to connect these two, explicitly addressing the impacts of climate change on food production and follow-on effects to society in a globalized economy.
Continue reading →

Comments Off on Climate Change and Food System Shocks: Threats of Cascading Catastrophe

Posted in Agriculture, Climate change, Food insecurity, Food security, Food shortages, Global Hunger

Tagged , , , ,

A Buddhist Diagnosis of the Climate Crisis

Posted on June 26, 2015 by | 2 comments

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Here is a video of my presentation at the Buddhist leaders gathering in Washington (on May 14th), “A Buddhist Diagnosis of the Climate Crisis.” I use the four noble truths as a template for understanding the crisis, proceeding from manifestations to causes and then seek a remedy to the crisis modeled on the factors of the noble eightfold path.

For those who would like the Power Point, here is a link:
Presentation-BDCC

And here is a PDF of the same outline:
Long Handout_BDCC_2015-05-09

And this is an hour-long version of my talk, given last August at the Eco-Dharma Conference in Wonderwell, New Hampshire:
http://tinyurl.com/qzcaqw2

To follow this in detail, one also needs to refer to the “Domains of Value” chart:

Click to access Eco-Dharma%20Conference

2 Comments

Posted in Buddhist social ethics, Climate change, Engaged Buddhism

Tagged , , , ,

Climate Change is a Moral Issue

Posted on June 19, 2015 by | Comments Off on Climate Change is a Moral Issue

A Buddhist Reflection on the Pope’s Climate Encyclical, Laudato si’

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

On June 18, Pope Francis issued an encyclical letter, Laudato si’ (Praised Be), “On Care for our Common Home,” pointing to climate change as the overriding moral issue of our time. The encyclical boldly proclaims that humanity’s capacity to alter the climate charges us with the gravest moral responsibility we have ever had to bear. Climate change affects everyone. The disruptions to the biosphere occurring today bind all peoples everywhere into a single human family, our fates inseparably intertwined. No one can escape the impact, no matter how remotely they may live from the bustling centers of industry and commerce. The responsibility for preserving the planet falls on everyone.

The future of human life on earth hangs in a delicate balance, and the window for effective action is rapidly closing. Tipping points and feedback loops threaten us as ominously as nuclear warheads. What heightens the danger is our proclivity to apathy and denial. For this reason, we must begin tackling the crisis with an act of truth, by acknowledging that climate change is real and stems from human activity. On this, the science is clear, the consensus among climate scientists almost universal. The time for denial, skepticism, and delay is over.
Continue reading →

Comments Off on Climate Change is a Moral Issue

Posted in Buddhist social ethics, Climate change, Engaged Buddhism, Interfaith action, News item, Social justice, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , ,

Small Is Not Only Beautiful … It May Be the Key to Our Survival!

Posted on February 28, 2015 by | 1 comment

by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

As climate change advances ever more ominously and leads us closer to climate chaos, the key to reducing carbon emissions may lie not in ambitious market-based solutions but in a transformation of the dominant model of food production.

Last month the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that it had moved the hand of its Doomsday Clock ahead from five minutes to three minutes before midnight, a decision due to the unchecked advance of climate change and the modernization of nuclear weapons systems. At almost the same time, the National Climatic Data Center of NOAA confirmed that 2014 was the hottest year on record. They also pointed out that the previous ten hottest years ever recorded have all occurred since 1998.

These revelations that our survival as a species–or at least as a civilization–is in jeopardy add to the urgency of the UN’s climate conference, COP 21, to be held in Paris next December. While hopes ride high that a rigorous and legally binding agreement on reducing carbon emissions will finally emerge in Paris, it would be a mistake to assume we can just sit back and trust negotiators to devise an effective accord on their own. We should never underestimate the power of the fossil fuel corporations and their allies. Time and again, at COP conferences from Copenhagen to Lima, they have used their influence to dash hopes and shatter promises, and it’s unlikely they will keep aloof from the talks in Paris. Strong pressure, indeed relentless pressure, will be necessary to prevail against them.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Agriculture, Climate change, Engaged Buddhism, Food security, Global Hunger, Politics & food justice, Social justice

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Battling Climate Change in the Himalayas, One Woman at a Time

Posted on February 22, 2015 by | Comments Off on Battling Climate Change in the Himalayas, One Woman at a Time

by Jennifer Russ

The Indian state of Uttarakhand, in the lower Himalayas, holds the fifteenth rank in agriculture in the country. Almost 88% percent of the land holdings come under the small and marginal category, which is about 55% of the area under cultivation. In the past three years, Uttarakhand has received less-than-normal rainfall, which has affected crop production and adversely impacted the livelihood of the almost 78% of the State’s population dependent on agriculture.

On these mountainous farms, the families’ survival depends on their ability to adapt to increasingly erratic weather patterns. About 90% of agricultural lands in Uttarakhand are fed by rain and are thus highly vulnerable to climate change and degradation due to erratic and unpredictable rainfall and severe erosion of soil nutrients. This has posed a major threat to agriculture in the region, the life support for the state’s population.

1, , thaheli village, bhilangana block, tehri district, MVDA (Kirti Nautiyal)

Meeting of seed bank group

Women play a crucial role in hill agriculture, as they undertake up to 90% of the total work in agriculture and animal care. The impact of decline in productivity due to climate change and degradation of natural resources has affected the food security of women the most.
Continue reading →

Comments Off on Battling Climate Change in the Himalayas, One Woman at a Time

Posted in Agriculture, Climate change, Engaged Buddhism, Food security, Projects & programs

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Three Minutes to Midnight: Can We Turn the Clock Back in Time?

Posted on February 8, 2015 by | 1 comment

by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

With atomic scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” two minutes closer to midnight and a report from the National Climatic Data Center confirming that 2014 was the hottest year on record, Congress is trying to move us closer to ecocide. Reversing course will require urgent, concerted action.

On January 22, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced that it had moved the minutes hand of its “Doomsday Clock” ahead two minutes, from five minutes before midnight to three minutes before midnight. The clock envisions the life span of human civilization as a period of 24 hours. Thus when scientists decide to move the minutes hand ahead by two minutes, this means that they consider us to be drawing closer to the end of our time. With only three minutes left, we don’t have much leeway.

The analogy, however, is not perfect, for there’s an important difference between a real clock and the Doomsday Clock. A real clock, as long as its batteries are working, will always move forward, from second to second and minute to minute. The Doomsday Clock, in contrast, does not have to move forward, for apart from its astrophysical constraints, human civilization is not rolling along a one-way track toward some predestined end where everything comes to a stop. The minute hand on the clock of civilization could well stand still, or indeed even move in reverse, from the danger zone back toward safety. We can, perhaps, delay our final dénouement and flourish – even for many more centuries.

The hand has not moved forward because a giant meteor is about to crash into Central Europe, or because a ring of volcanoes is due to erupt from France to Siberia, or because alien invaders from a distant galaxy are about to land in the American Corn Belt. No, the hand of the clock has moved forward, from five minutes to three minutes before midnight, because of human activity itself. It has moved forward because of bad choices, programs and policies imposed by those at the wheels of power.
Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Climate change, News item

Tagged , ,

Aspiring for Peace in the New Year

Posted on January 7, 2015 by | 3 comments

by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

The expanded text of a talk given at the New Year’s Interfaith Prayer Service, Chuang Yen Monastery, January 1, 2015.

 

At the beginning of a new year it is customary for us to express our hopes for peace in the year ahead and to wish each other peace. But to actually achieve peace is by no means an easy task. Real peace is not simply the absence of violent conflict but a state of harmony: harmony between people; harmony between humanity and nature; and harmony within ourselves. Without harmony, the seeds of conflict and violence will always be ready to sprout.

When I reflect on the challenge of achieving peace in today’s world, I have found it useful to treat the subject under three main headings: (1) The Obstacles to Achieving Peace—the barriers that maintain tension and foment conflict; (2) The Prerequisites of Peace—the goals we should pursue to achieve peace; and (3) The Means to Realizing these Goals. Each can in turn be analyzed into three secondary aspects.
Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Buddhist social ethics, Engaged Buddhism, Global Hunger, Interfaith action, News item

Tagged , , , , , , , ,