CLIMATE CHANGE
How To Move on to Constructive Solutions
HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD: We must stop blaming ourselves. The climate crisis is not our fault. But it is our responsibility!
Thoughts
Thoughts are ideas or images we make about things in life and in the world.
When we think about the world today with the climate crisis and global warming, we can think about these issues in different ways.
— We can think that there are big and important problems and challenges that humans face and have to deal with,
— or we can think that it is hardly as dangerous as the worst predictions say. It will probably go well in the end anyway, we might think.
We have different ways in which we meet challenges, and especially different ways in which we meet negative news. It is normal for people to encounter negative news and challenges in various ways. The closest thing is perhaps for most people to feel insecure, to feel fear and anxiety about the future.
— What will the future be like for our children and grandchildren, will the globe continue to be such that people can live on the earth and mostly live their lives and work as before?
— Or are we facing such extensive deterioration in living conditions on earth that there is cause for great concern?
Science on climate change
NASA is one of thousands of research organizations that have high competence and extensive knowledge in climate research. On its website, NASA describes the main features of the climate situation on Earth as follows:
Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.
The current warming trend is different because it is clearly the result of human activities since the mid-1800s, and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia.1 It is undeniable that human activities have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the Sun’s energy in the Earth system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.
Thought power
Regardless of whether we think in one direction or the other — optimistically or pessimistically — it is important how we think in relation to these questions.
This is where the concept of mind power comes in. Thought power is a power, a resource that we can bring to life, develop and use with the help of thought.
Thought power is a resource that has had great significance for humanity, but it is at the same time a very neglected resource.
Thought power has not always been used for what it is worth. Even in everyday life, the thought power of very many people is not used well enough.
As an individual, you yourself are responsible for whether you use this resource in your life. Not nature. Not society. Not your family members. Not the others.
How we feel
Thoughts and the power of thought are important forces in human life, and how we feel when we think, is of great importance. We can think positively, preferably fundamentally positively, in the way that we try to find and focus on positive things in our lives and in the world.
But very often people feel down, anxious and depressed because of what they learn from their interaction with the world.
In today’s world, where we are bombarded almost daily with serious, negative news reports, it is not easy to avoid feeling anxious and thinking dark thoughts.
Many will probably think that there is almost something abnormal about not having the mind dominated by dark thoughts as the world is today.
It is a danger to humanity if this becomes the dominant thought pattern, because if future pessimism, anxiety and depressive thoughts of the future are allowed to dominate, it is easy for this to lead to a series of negative consequences in society.
Responsibility and ‘blame’
I believe that there are two important things that are needed for humans to be able to save our common future on earth:
We must stop blaming ourselves for what is happening to the climate, and we must stand together and find good solutions that do not divide us into conflicting groups.
We must stop feeling guilty, and we must stop accusing ourselves of not having done enough.
Should we feel guilt and shame?
According to NASA and scientists from all over the world, the warming trend we now see as a result of human activity started in the middle of the 19th century.
— Should we feel guilt and shame because of that fact?
A hundred years ago none of us were born, and the industrial revolution started more than 150 years ago.
Today, in 2022, we live in a world where all the knowledge about the climate crisis and all the information we receive constantly reminds us that the situation is serious for the humans on earth.
We can easily feel depressed and pessimistic
In today’s world, the individual can very easily feel depressed and pessimistic, and many are depressed because of all the negativity that flies at us every single day, every second we have our eyes open and see what the news and social media have to tell us. There is negativity everywhere, negative news about upcoming disasters, negative messages about unnecessary conflicts and wars between people and between countries.
Again, remember: None of us were alive when the industrial revolution started, and we have not known enough about all this until today. It now dawns on us that we are faced with the full and entire scope of climate change which deserves the term climate crisis.
Negative way of thinking
The negative ways we think about climate change make us feel guilty and ashamed. We feel that we have failed, we feel partly responsible and we can think that someone other than ourselves has also failed. In any case, they have failed more than us.
We must get away from the negative way of thinking that creates contradictions, bad feelings in general and guilt in particular.
These are wrong ways of thinking because it leads to polarization, conflict and fear. It leads to anxiety and pessimism, and it leads to such sad things as the progress of fascism in some countries.
This negative way of thinking also affects others, it affects the environment in which our children grow up and it conveys a collective consciousness and a widespread feeling of collective guilt, that we have failed and do not take responsibility. The focus is always on the fact that someone other than ourselves has failed, and this creates an unhealthy mental climate in society.
‘In the same boat’
We — humans on earth — are all ‘in the same boat’, and today we all face the same common ‘enemy’, which are the consequences of climate change and global warming. Due to actions that humans have made in the last two hundred years — the industrial revolution — human activity on earth has led to changes in living conditions on earth that no one predicted when the industrial revolution started.
We are all aware that the industrial revolution has also given people many positive results and that it led to dramatically improved living conditions for millions of people on earth.
We are all aware that it is thanks to the results of the industrial revolution that so many people in our time live in partly very good conditions, materially and financially. This fact must not, however, mean that we do not see and address the negative consequences of the industrial revolution.
Good leadership
But we must tackle these major challenges together, in constructive ways, without it creating new contradictions and conflicts. Here it is a very important task to exercise good leadership. Good leaders take responsibility and influence people to stand together and take joint responsibility for the challenges.
Action — A CLIMATE DECLARATION
We have to think that we can do something where we are now. We must counteract pessimism, anxiety, apathy and conflicts and wars between groups of people and countries. We must think that we will use all the knowledge and all the tools we can use to stop the negative development we see in the world today.
How to live in a time of crisis
The best thing to do is to think for yourself and say that we should live as normal and good a life as possible where we can feel good about ourselves, our loved ones and our fellow human beings.
Don’t accuse each other
We must think that we should not accuse each other of all that has been done wrong by people in the last 170 years. But we must learn from it, and we must realize that we have not done enough.
We must admit that we have not done what we perhaps should have done.
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Video | A Climate Declaration
Edited Sep 30 2022