[EcoDharma] If the world is our temple ...
If we can clean temple floors, tend its gardens, scrub our bowls, preserve its resources, we can treat the entire planet with the same attitudes of practice.
I found this new statement from the United Nations particularly inspiring ...
Quote:
A new UN report urges a radical shift in the way we think about nature
The United Nations released a report Thursday on the health of the planet that proposes a radical shift in the way mankind thinks about it.
The report, "Making Peace with Nature," spans 168 pages and distills the latest science on climate change and mankind's "war" on the planet. It also argues that amid our pursuit of wealth and security, humans must now learn to value the fundamental "natural capital" of geology, soil, air and water -- and urgently.
"For too long, we have been waging a senseless and suicidal war on nature," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at a news briefing Thursday presenting the report. "The result is three interlinked environmental crises: climate disruption, biodiversity loss and pollution that threaten our viability as a species."
"We are destroying the planet, placing our own health and prosperity at risk," said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, which released the report.
The world is far from meeting its agreed objectives to protect the planet. Species and ecosystems are vanishing faster than ever, despite long-standing global commitments to protect them. While the ozone layer is slowly being restored, mankind has fallen off track to limit global warming as envisioned in the landmark Paris Agreement, the report says.
"At the current rate, warming will reach 1.5°C by around 2040 and possibly earlier. Taken together, current national policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions put the world on a pathway to warming of at least 3°C by 2100," it reads.
... The report offers suggestions for everyone from governments to financial institutions to individuals, but its proposition for a new way to think about the environment and the global economy is civilizational in scale.
"Economic and financial systems fail to account for the essential benefits that humanity gets from nature and to provide incentives to manage nature wisely and maintain its value. ... Conventional metrics like gross domestic product (GDP) overstate progress because they fail to adequately capture the costs of environmental degradation or reflect declines in natural capital," it says.
If mankind began to factor the value of our environment -- and the costs of its degradation to our health and security -- into economic activity, our decisions might be different, the report argues. "Excluding the value of nature skews investment away from economic solutions that conserve and restore nature, reduce pollution, expand renewable energy and make more sustainable use of resources while also increasing prosperity and well-being."
Guterres put it this way: "Just to give you an example of how important is this mind-shift requirement, even in the way we organize economic policies and economic data, we can see GDP growth when we overfish. We are destroying nature, but we count it as increase of wealth."
He added, "We can see the GDP growth when we cut forests, and we are destroying nature, and we are destroying wealth, but we consider it GDP growth."
Several global meetings planned for this year could begin to shift mankind's perspective on nature. The virtual UN Environment Assembly falls next week, followed by the COP15 Conference on Biodiversity and the UN Climate Change Conference later in the year.
Guterres said another "key moment" in the momentum of 2021 will come as early as Friday, when the United States officially rejoins the Paris Climate Agreement. Former US President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the accord last year.
"There is indeed no precedent for what we have to do, but if 2020 was a disaster, let 2021 then be the year humanity began making peace with nature and secured a fair, just and sustainable future for everyone," he said.
You can read the full report here:
https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature
Gassho, J
STLah
If the world is our temple ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jundo
I will just offer the Buddhist take that the world is impermanent, everything changes, no person or who species will survive together, and this whole planet is just one of countless planets ... don't be attached to it.
That said, might as well nurture our world and keep it in good health as long as we can.
In any event, I don't think that individuals can fully be the determinants of environmental policy because most people working for big corporations are not free to oppose corporate policy, and even the president is thinking about how to keep the shareholders happy so he does not get fired. That is what is nasty about corporate culture.
We won't fix the environment until we change peoples' desires, which will not be until (I write in my book) we change peoples' DNA so that they desire in moderation.
Gassho, J
STLah
The Dalai Lama always says it: education. It’s what it takes since you can’t force people to do the right thing all the time while letting them make their own choices, but you can educate them from early on. Also, I believe everyone is free to do the right thing and oppose whoever and whatever they want although not many would gladly accept the inevitable consequences of that opposition.
That being said: compassion should always guide our actions and compassion means caring for everyone and everything and doing everything in our power to bring about beneficial results regardless of what others choose to do.
(Sorry for the extra 2 lines, including this one [emoji1787])
[emoji1374] SatToday