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The simple reason that
humanity is a burden on the planet's eco-systems
is that the bulk of humanity is involved in
activities which are non-ecologic or
anti-ecologic. If these same people were involved
in activities directed towards personal growth and
planetary stewardship the overall impact of human
life on the planet Earth would be more beneficial
both to the planet and to the stewarding
population. This flaw in cultural behavior has
developed to critical proportions.
That the Earth is capable of
self-healing has, from before the start, been
one of the axioms of Circle Institute. It has
been humans' miss-understanding of the nature of
nature that has been a source of damage to
nature. And this has proceeded from lack of
contact with nature -- mostly their own. This
is, of course, where the practice of Nei Kung
(cf.
recovering earth, on this site) comes into the picture, as the
Standing Pole exercise gives a way to slowly and carefully
untangle the affective block that have been installed in every
human on this planet.
That said, there is a factor
that has not been present in most of the
thinking about the Earth and it's ecology. That
is the simple fact that while the worlds forests
account for about 10% of the 'carbon dioxide
sink' for the planet, the worlds oceans hold 90%
in the colder, lower layers of it's waters.
A worst case
scenario involve the turn-over and warming of the oceans leading
to releasing the stored carbon dioxide that they contain. This
would cause a chain of events leading to catastrophic global
warming and an un-breathable atmosphere in very short order. The
phenomena of 'El Nino' is the first indication of turn-over of the
oceans thermocline which precedes an increase of
release of the carbon dioxide stored there. This
is an accelerating and compounding situation
where every bit of carbon sink is of value in
the overall picture.
The rapid
desertification of large areas of the Earths surface is a clear
indication that the healing ability of the planet can be stretched
past the point of no return making self healing of the planet's
ecosystem impossible on any time scale the would include the
continued habitation by the human population.
The ability of the ecosystem to
regenerate from an intact system is well known by anyone who has
tried to keep a fence-row clean, but the progressive
desertification is a critical failure. There is the story of the
frog in the cold water that is heated gradually such that the frog
doesn't notice (I've never tried this!). I read recently that on
one day during the Dust Bowl period of US history, 12 million tons
of top soil settled in the city of Chicago alone. William Reich,
in his work, ties in the idea of the Emotional Plague and chronic
energy blockage in the human population with desertification --
through both energy exchange and by self and other directed
destructive behavior. There is a connection between these two
phenomena who's directness and potency is not fully explored. |
