[Ecodharma] An Ecodharma perspective on the US election

[Matt Johnson]

Show of hands. Who views the emergence of harmful pathogens as an anthropogenic issue that belongs in discussions about eco-dharma?

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Ryumon]

Sure, not just the emergence but also the movement of diseases, such as those carried by mosquitoes that are occurring further north than in the past.

I'm not sure that, say, bird flu, which apparently has started moving to humans, is totally due to these causes though. I guess there is some influence, because of more chickens being bred in more concentrated locations, etc....

Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat Lah

[Stephen E. Kauffman]

Thank you for this group - first time poster, long time reader and follower.

Without saying anything that has not been said by others before, we always walk on the knife's edge - just sometimes it seems more obvious. The recent US election proves to be such a point. Reflecting on the experience, and in the context of turning 65 this year, the rapid change affecting the planet, and the lives and beings on it drives home the need for our efforts. During my lifetime,

• There were places on the planet that were unexplored, or at least unmapped by the west (Amazonia, parts of Africa & many of Asia's larger islands). This was so significant that even the original Mercury astronauts received training in jungle & desert survival skills – not because they would experience them in space, but because it was feared they would land on some unexplored region of earth!
• The population of the planet in 1960 was 3 billion. It is about 8.2 billion today. Malvina Reynold's "We will all be a doubling in 32 years" from 1969 was dead-on.
• I personally wondered through farms & fields in Ohio that are now cities; the vacant beaches I walked on in Southwest Florida are now coated with wall to wall condos, and the coral reefs I loved to dive on in the Florida Keys & Caribbean are dead or dying
• But during the same time, world poverty has fallen, child labor has been reduced, infant & mother mortality rates have improved (though stalled!), and nuclear weapons inventories have been reduced.

The problem for where this election will lead, and the knife's edge we walk on was oddly best summed up by Donald Rumsfeld (!!) when discussing one of our mid-eastern wars. It was actually rather brilliant. I paraphrase.."There are known-knowns, known-unknowns, and unknown-unknowns”

Gassho,
Steve
Sat/Lah