Welcome to the Anthropocene


Maybe the Climate meeting in Paris is the start point for a change.
Most world leaders seem to accept what is going on because to the high CO2 level in the atmosphere.

Right now the temperature is about +2 degrees C in Stockholm.
When I was a kid almost every winter gave us opportunities to ski, build snowmen and so on.
Now its seldom so...

What most of us don't understand is the total impact of the human activities on the planet.


The Nobel price winner Paul Crutzen popularized Antrophocene as a term for the geological era we now live in.
"Anthropo" means mankind: We have now influenced the The Earth so much, that the whole biosphere has changed.

To be mindful means to see things as they are, and to accept them - and know it's time to see the very dangerous scenario that can be our future.

But Crutzen also wants us to see the great achievement that we have made; democracy, United Nations and so on.... He was also one of the researchers that found the source for the ozone-holes and because of that the holes are now much smaller.
 So things can improve.

We can all make a difference when it comes to climate change. We can vote for parties which have an insight in thees problems, we can travel less by airplane and we can eat less meat and so on.
There are many cases where a large number of acts, taken together, will make the world a worse place, even if none of those acts makes any difference on its own. So together we are all responsible for the future.

If women get education and  jobs they tend to give birth to less children.
So we men can help them in that direction.

And if we in the future are getting fewer on The Earth it will give more space for other big animals.

But we have to start now if our children and grandchildren shall have a similar beautiful planet to live on as we have had.


Otherwise the planet itself probably will find solutions to the overpopulating problem - and in much more grim ways


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cora Diamond on eating animals - with the help of Wittgenstein´s ideas

Image
Cora Diamond is a new name for me, even if she has worked as a professor in Philosophy in the states for a long time and is still  teaching at the university of Virginia, even she is over 80 years old. She has written a lot about Wittgenstein and that has helped her to express her view of the topic. Although she, like Wittgenstein,  has lived in a hut in Norway - and actually brought Tractatus with hes - she seems to be different and for sure more glad than W. Anyways, its W: s writings that interests her and especially his critics of metaphysics and ethics in philosophy. As it is said in Tractacus  : " Whereof one  cannot speak , thereof one must be silent." And of ethics philosophy should not speak - why? Is it like in Buddhism - its better to sit in silence and let know yourself, than to speculate about what will happen when we die? But for sure there ethical guidelines in Buddhism,  but the behaviors is often named skilful, not good (or bad). Another
Read more

I think, therefore I am NOT

Image
So Descartes was wrong. He said that he could doubt everything about himself except that he was thinking. That proved that he existed. The word "I" is the central point here. What does it mean? Perhaps we are sure that we know the answer. Is it the thoughts? In that case - where are you when you aren't thinking? Is it your job, your title? In that case - what happens if you loose your job or change job? Is it your house, your nation? Under my course to be a mindfulness instructor, the teacher, Ola Schenström, made us ask to each other; "Who are you?" After each answer the question was repeated by the questioner.We soon discovered that there were no end to the answers - or maybe an adequate end could be; "I don't know."Or maybe; "It seems I have no essence." Other thinkers have come to the same conclusions; Buddha, Sartre and more recently Damasio and Parfit. Sartre, for instance, has said that we are the sum of our actions. We ha
Read more

Wittgenstein and Buddha -buddies?

Image
Ludwig Wittgenstein, the famous philosopher, reflected in the posthumously published  book "Philosophical Investigations" about the picture above; Is it a hare or duck?  He meant that we make, or must make, a statement what it is. And I suppose he meant that we often or always has to interpret the world around us. But two different interpretations can both be right! Language and thoughts controls what we see.....   You can compare with the picture of a glass. Half empty or half empty?  Who decides? Yes, it's you... And whatever you say is right.  But you can be aware of what you think. That can say more of yourself than of the glass....  You can be aware of that you always do interpretations of things that happens.  If you have a pessimistic or a naive point of view, you can be aware of the view and your statements.  Buddha and Wittgenstein were both aware of that different persons uses different perspectives.  But Buddha spoke about the "right 
Read more