ExploreTruth

People are saying the world may be coming to an end in our lifetime.  And I’m not talking about just your favorite fire and brimstone televangelist, or those often perceived environmental kooks.  The world is now awakening to the reality of a truth that may just be stranger than any Hollywood depiction of the global climate threat we now face.

People like Davis Guggenheim and Al Gore pushed it into the national discussion with the 2006 documentary film An Inconvenient Truth

Bill Gates, who I guess we are all connected to in some way, says that our energy crisis will need to be solved by 2050 to avoid planetary catastrophe.  His one wish, during his TED talk, was for what he called “energy miracles.”  Talk about ambition.  Well suited coming from the man who gave you the device you’re now reading this on.

A Call For Miracles: Bill Gates TED speech

But based on what we are facing, we’re not just talking about change with an uppercase C, but, as he put it, miracles.  We need miracles. And many of them.  We’re talking about a host of revolutionary movements surrounding every aspect of sustainability.  And just be forewarned, that will mean personal revolutions.  Radical changes in lifestyle.

It occurred to me, that this hot issue of sustainability, is something that is uniquely related to what explore truth is all about.  Yes, I’ve advocated a personal responsibility as it pertains to developing your own philosophy on life’s meaning, deeply examining your inherited religious beliefs and practices, and rebelling against many of societies assumptions concerning education, work, and your health.

And its just this same general philosophical and existential ineptitude I hope to grow out of, that has gotten us into the Global Warming jam that we are in.

Our philosophies have gotten us into arguably the biggest global issue of our century.  Will the human race continue?  We’re talking massive natural disasters or worse, mass extinction. Some of which, according to many scientist, we have begun to see.

We cant simply point our fingers at big business greed, or sinister political agendas.  Maybe the blame cannot be equally proportioned, but at the end of the day, we, in a long generational line of human philosophical and spiritual weaknesses, seem to all share in the blame.

I’m no sustainability expert, nor have I changed much of what I know to be contributing to this stuff, but here are some of the philosophies that I’ve begun to recognize as contributing to this issue, and am working on shifting to actionable items:

• Materialism
• Non-reflective Living
• Convenience

We owe it to ourselves, and future generations, to acknowledge the moment that we live in, and with courage, face it.  Let us not wait for it to face us, as it has, and will continue too, in the forms of floods and other calamities, to only then lift our voices in one grand and desperate sense of urgency.

The earth has a finite capacity to provide resources and to absorb waste, and human demands already exceed that capacity.^[173] Current lifestyles in the developed world, to which many people in the developing world also aspire, rely on depleting natural capital and are unsustainable.^[174] The United Nations has stated, in the Millennium Declaration, that “current unsustainable patterns of production and consumption must be changed”.^[175] Yet weight of information and scientific evidence is often insufficient to produce necessary social change, especially if that change entails moving people out of their comfort zones.^[176] This may be due to high systemic change resistance.^[177]

I’ll touch on this the subject of sustainability some more in the future as I begin practicing more of what is being preached :->

I’m curious, are you as late as I am in beginning to think about this, or has it been on your radar?  What are your thoughts on this?  What do you think its going to take for individuals to change some very ingrained habits that are negatively affecting the planet, and life as we know it?

Featured picture:  Eleazar Briceño