Climate Change: We're Doomed

Discuss the application of the Dharma to situations of social, political, environmental and economic suffering and injustice.
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Huseng wrote:Here's an article worth reading:

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/12/19/wh ... ts-missed/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Another carefully chose black pebble.
Sigh.
From a blogger who, as I said when you last posted something of hers, has no expertise or credibility in climate science and (as I may have said) is so close to the fossil fuel industry that she can't see anything else.
Bigger sigh.
Huseng wrote:So, renewables are uneconomical for the time being (perhaps forever?) and reduction of fossil fuel use would likewise be unacceptable to the global community.
I don't know how you came to that conclusion but it is completely false.
Start here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_ ... mic_trends for a more balanced view:
All forms of energy are expensive, but as time progresses, renewable energy generally gets cheaper,[43][44] while fossil fuels generally get more expensive. A 2011 IEA report said: "A portfolio of renewable energy technologies is becoming cost-competitive in an increasingly broad range of circumstances, in some cases providing investment opportunities without the need for specific economic support," and added that "cost reductions in critical technologies, such as wind and solar, are set to continue."[45]
The incentive to use 100% renewable energy is created by global warming and ecological as well as economic concerns, post peak oil. The first country to propose 100% renewable energy was Iceland, in 1998.[89] Proposals have been made for Japan in 2003,[90] and for Australia in 2011.[91] Norway and some other countries already obtain all of their electricity from renewable sources. Iceland proposed using hydrogen for transportation and its fishing fleet. Australia proposed biofuel for those elements of transportation not easily converted to electricity. The road map for the United States,[92][93] commitment by Denmark,[94] and Vision 2050 for Europe set a 2050 timeline for converting to 100% renewable energy,[95] later reduced to 2040 in 2011.[96] Zero Carbon Britain 2030 proposes eliminating carbon emissions in Britain by 2030 by transitioning to renewable energy.[97]

It is estimated that the world will spend an extra $8 trillion over the next 25 years to prolong the use of non-renewable resources, a cost that would be eliminated by transitioning instead to 100% renewable energy.[98] A 2009 study suggests that converting the entire world to 100% renewable energy by 2030 is both possible and affordable, but requires political support. It would require building many more wind turbines and solar power systems. [emphasis added]
Or here - http://thinkprogress.org/tag/renewable-energy/page/2/ -
WIND AND SOLAR MAKE UP 100% OF NEW U.S. ELECTRICITY CAPACITY IN SEPTEMBER | September was tied for the hottest of any September on record globally. It was also a very hot month for renewable energy in the U.S. According to figures from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, wind and solar accounted for all new electricity capacity added to America’s grid in September.
The projects consisted of five wind farms totaling 300 megawatts and 18 solar installations totaling 133 megawatts:
Renewable energy Analyst Kenneth Bossong initially reported on the figures.
“The remarkable expansion of renewable energy’s contribution to the nation’s electrical supply reflects continuing declines in costs, the impact of state renewable electricity standards, and the mix of tax and other incentives provided by the federal government,” said Bossong in an emailed statement.
As the chart above shows, the U.S. has seen 4,055 MW of wind, 936 MW of solar, 340 MW of biomass, 123 MW of geothermal, 9 MW of hydro, and 3 MW of waste heat projects come online since January. This represents a 29 percent increase over the same period in 2011.
Huseng, please pick up the occasional white pebble for yourself.
If you can't bring yourself to do that, at least look carefully at those I find for you. They are much prettier than the black ones. :smile:

Oh, and can you remember to answer the questions I asked at http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.ph ... ad#p143148, i.e.
Can you - no messing about or prevaricating, please - present canonical sources from your own school for your claim that this (2012 +/- 50 years, let's say) is the kaliyuga?
Can you even find canonical sources that all major schools agree on (e.g. as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Poin ... e_Mahāyāna) which predict the coming of the kaliyuga?
and those "relevant texts supporting your views [on the degeneration of the physical world and the human condition]"

:namaste:
Kim
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Huseng »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Can you - no messing about or prevaricating, please - present canonical sources from your own school for your claim that this (2012 +/- 50 years, let's say) is the kaliyuga?
Can you even find canonical sources that all major schools agree on (e.g. as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Poin ... e_Mahāyāna) which predict the coming of the kaliyuga?
and those "relevant texts supporting your views [on the degeneration of the physical world and the human condition]"

:namaste:
Kim
The Sūrya Siddhānta among other classical Indian astronomical treatises date the start of Kaliyuga to February 18th 3102 BCE. See the following:

http://books.google.com.tw/books?id=9oi ... ce&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The term "kaliyuga" is presently only employed by Tibetans, though similar lines of thinking are to be found elsewhere albeit without the specific term "kaliyuga". One old idea is that the Dharma Ending age is inevitable given how the Buddha's teachings eventually fade away in the world, though the scriptures also widely speak of degenerate times ahead of us until some distant future when things pick up and thereafter Maitreya appears in the world. Afflictions become increasingly heavy and beings are driven to destructive ends. The lifespan and size of humans is likewise expected to shrink (considering evolution and a much warmer planet in the future, this actually makes a lot of sense).

The aforementioned astronomical treatises base the start of kaliyuga on a planetary alignment that occurred on said date. It is a convenient way to mark the start of the period given how it is reasonably easy enough to calculate to and from that date. Kaliyuga is not necessarily absolutely fixed at midnight February 18th 3102 BCE. It is just a convenient place to start.

It seems Indian Buddhists came to accept this and consequently so did the Tibetans. The Chinese probably had no use for it given how they had their own native astronomical traditions and calender sciences. Hence even if scholars in China encountered the term in Indic texts, it never entered common usage. There are a lot of Indic ideas and terms, in particular related to grammar, that some Chinese Buddhist scholars understood, but were never really adopted into common usage in the East Asian Buddhist lexicon.

So, yes, kaliyuga is part of the Buddhist heritage owing primarily to the fact that native Indian Buddhists accepted it as a reality.

As to an example of kaliyuga specifically discussed in the literature, see the following:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/stupa.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Legend of the Great Stupa Jarungkhasor
"As the Kaliyuga progresses towards the final conflagration,
life expectancy of man decreases and the weight of darkness
becomes more intense, but there remain restraints on the downward
path when the Voice of Buddha is heard and the Path of Dharma
followed. Towards the end of the era, when the duration of man's
lifespan has been reduced from sixty to fifty years and there has
been no respite in man's increasing egoism, these conditions will
prevail, portending ruin to the Great Stupa: householders fill
the monasteries and there is fighting before the alter; the
temples are used as slaughterhouses; the ascetics of the caves
return to the cultivated valleys and the Yogins become traders;
thieves own the wealth and cattle; monks become householders
while priests and spiritual leaders turn to robbery, brigandage,
and thievery. Disorder becomes chaos, turning to panic which
rages like wildfire. Corrupt and selfish men become leaders while
abbots turned army officers lead their monks as soldiers; nuns
but their own bastards to death ....

If you read through the text you'll see mention of the physical world in decay as well.
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Huseng wrote:
Kim O'Hara wrote: Can you - no messing about or prevaricating, please - present canonical sources from your own school for your claim that this (2012 +/- 50 years, let's say) is the kaliyuga?
Can you even find canonical sources that all major schools agree on (e.g. as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Poin ... e_Mahāyāna) which predict the coming of the kaliyuga?
and those "relevant texts supporting your views [on the degeneration of the physical world and the human condition]"

:namaste:
Kim
The Sūrya Siddhānta among other classical Indian astronomical treatises ...
Well, thanks for looking.
Your results so far aren't really what I asked for, though: canonical sources from your own school and canonical sources that all major schools agree on.
You've given me is a Vedic source widely accepted within Hinduism, an acknowledgement that "the term "kaliyuga" is presently only employed by Tibetans" and an attempt to fudge an equivalence with "the Dharma Ending age" which is spoken of in Buddhist traditions in terms of five hundred years, not 432 000. Proportionally speaking, if the Kaliyuga were one year, the Dharma Ending age would be about eight hours. Hmm.
You're also fudging a bit with "kaliyuga is part of the Buddhist heritage owing primarily to the fact that native Indian Buddhists accepted it" because Buddhism died out in India - as I'm sure you know.

I've got to admit that I had forgotten just how long the yugas were supposed to be; it is many years since I dismissed these teachings (along with Mt Meru and the rest of the early Buddhist cosmology) as useless, and I had forgotten details. I will also admit that according to your sources, we are indeed in Kaliyuga. Then again, we have been in it for 5000 years, which is only a little over 1% of it, so if it is gradually changing we should just about be able to notice the difference between the Buddha's time and our own ... if we look really carefully. The difference between last century and this one? You're joking.

Finally, you've given me one rather obscure Tibetan text. (You may ask how I know it's obscure since I can't possibly know all the texts of all the Tibetan schools. I may tell you ... or I may not. Buddhists are not encouraged to boast about their siddhis, are they?)

After looking at what you've provided I'm going to stand by my top-of-the-head estimate that "about 99% [of Buddhists] would find your position unorthodox, or at least extreme, and unjustifiable."

:coffee:
Kim
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Simon E. »

A large ( ? ) proportion of Vajrayana students would without doubt disagree with you Kim O Hara concerning the reality ( in conventional terms ) of the Kaliyuga...certainly my past and present teachers would.
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

True. But what the doom sayers infer from the fact that we live in Kaliyuga - as our ancestors did a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, ten thousand years ago, etc. - is rather far away from what most Vajrayana/Dzogchen teachers would infer, isn't it?

http://www.ecobuddhism.org/bcp/all_content/350_hhdl/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And of course HHDL isn't the only one here urging people to take action - and not slump in despair, or shrug the problem away, waiting for a Hollywood-style Ragnarok to happen in technicolour and 3D:

http://www.ecobuddhism.org/index.php/bc ... _teachers/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Huseng »

Again: kaliyuga just means an age of degeneration. It means you can expect things to ultimately get worse, not better. At best a plateau of stability for a time. It is not the end of the world, only its degeneration and decay as part of cyclical time.

This is in contrast to the myth of progress which promises immutable development and technological fixes for everything. Even if the climate is warming up, it is assumed there will be a technological fix for it such as carbon capture or geo-engineering. Faith is placed in a class of intellectuals.

The kaliyuga narrative speaks of physical decay as well. Famine, droughts, floods and unstable weather. This is our fate it looks like.
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Karma Dondrup Tashi »

Huseng wrote:The aforementioned astronomical treatises base the start of kaliyuga on a planetary alignment that occurred on said date.
The stars incline, they do not compel.

In your view what is the function of prophecy, what purpose does it serve?
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by treehuggingoctopus »

treehuggingoctopus wrote:waiting for a Hollywood-style Ragnarok to happen in technicolour and 3D
Huseng wrote:I'm waiting for darkness to descend over the land as demonic forces are victorious just as all the prophetic literature suggests.
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

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Huseng wrote: I'm waiting for darkness to descend over the land as demonic forces are victorious just as all the prophetic literature suggests.
Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Kirt
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

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Simon E. wrote:A large ( ? ) proportion of Vajrayana students would without doubt disagree with you Kim O Hara concerning the reality ( in conventional terms ) of the Kaliyuga...certainly my past and present teachers would.
Perhaps. But you're not sure how large (or why the "?") and you acknowledge it's only a Vajrayana thing, whereas Huseng was claiming that it was orthodox Buddhism. I will acknowledge a slight possibility that as few as 90% of Buddhists would disagree. :tongue:
And even at that,
treehuggingoctopus wrote: ... what the doom sayers infer from the fact that we live in Kaliyuga - as our ancestors did a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, ten thousand years ago, etc. - is rather far away from what most Vajrayana/Dzogchen teachers would infer, isn't it?
And even at that:
Huseng wrote: It means you can expect things to ultimately get worse, not better. At best a plateau of stability for a time. It is not the end of the world, only its degeneration and decay as part of cyclical time.
... misses completely my point about the difference between the length of kaliyuga and the length of human history:
.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..
If each dot is 1000 years, the whole line is a kaliyuga and the period since the Buddha's time is in red, i.e. we have just reached the end of the red segment. Just how much "degeneration and decay", i.e. change, can we expect to see in the (roughly) one percent of the red segment that is our own lifetime?
:thinking:
Kim
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Kim O'Hara »

kirtu wrote:
Huseng wrote: I'm waiting for darkness to descend over the land as demonic forces are victorious just as all the prophetic literature suggests.
Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Kirt
:twothumbsup:
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Kim's question is worth answering...I thought the end of the age. Maitreya and all that was like, 500,000,000 years away or something, if indeed this is the latter part of the kali yuga, is the math just severely off or what?
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Huseng »

Johnny Dangerous wrote:Kim's question is worth answering...I thought the end of the age. Maitreya and all that was like, 500,000,000 years away or something, if indeed this is the latter part of the kali yuga, is the math just severely off or what?
The years specified for these sorts of things often vary. It is just loose categorization of time.

In any case, degeneration in this age was taught by the Buddha, and is believed to be the case by many Hindu traditions as well.
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Huseng »

Karma Dondrup Tashi wrote: In your view what is the function of prophecy, what purpose does it serve?
Contemplation of what direction to best take given how fate is turning out.
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Huseng wrote:
Johnny Dangerous wrote:Kim's question is worth answering...I thought the end of the age. Maitreya and all that was like, 500,000,000 years away or something, if indeed this is the latter part of the kali yuga, is the math just severely off or what?
The years specified for these sorts of things often vary. It is just loose categorization of time.
By that logic, any time at all can be identified as the kaliyuga.
:rolleye:
And you have decided that right now is a great time to pick.
:crazy:

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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Huseng »

This is religion. Whether you believe in kaliyuga or not is up to you, though a lot of very adept individuals throughout history have indeed believed in kaliyuga and adjusted themselves appropriately to the times.

The idea is part of the Buddhist heritage of India. You have the right to reject it, but you're just an individual and not representative of any tradition or school.
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by greentara »

Kali yuga "age of vice" is the last of the four stages the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas described in the Indian scriptures.
It couldn't be more apt. The proliferation of porn on the internet, rampant greed, the chopping down of vast tracts of forest, pollution of the great rivers of India, China, Sth America and the USA... on it goes.
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

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Huseng wrote:This is religion. Whether you believe in kaliyuga or not is up to you, though a lot of very adept individuals throughout history have indeed believed in kaliyuga and adjusted themselves appropriately to the times.

The idea is part of the Buddhist heritage of India. You have the right to reject it, but you're just an individual and not representative of any tradition or school.
The tone of this is a bit ondescending don't you think - is it neccessary to resort to that kind of tactic, questioning people's Buddhism for disagreeing with you? Can't everyone avoid that.... It's just that if I remember right if you go by any of the chronological mentionings of it, the termination - and culmination of it is like millions and millions of years after Shakyamuni Buddha..in which case, the view that we are at the terminal edge of it seems out of whack.

Are you representative of a certain school Huseng, rather than your own individual interpretation? What makes your interpretation (seemingly) of the terminal bit of the Kaliyuga being now rather than another time "traditional"? IS there some sort of strict standard for the idea of Kaliyuga across a broad swathe of Buddhist thought? It doesn't seem like that to me. There are also issues like the idea of people's life spans dwindling as the Kaliyuga progresses - the opposite of this is happening now- why? Or is that just like the spans of time, they don't need to be specific but somehow just magically represent this point in time, and add weight to your opinions..despite the obvious inconsistencies?

Essentially you seem to be asking us to accept Kaliyuga as literal fact (fine, there is some merit there, I think it's more than just an metaphor too), while you yourself say things like the spans of time are unimportant...which is it? Either there is something there to point to the Edge of the Kaliyuga being nearer rather than farther, or it's all so vague as to essentially just mean "stuff gets worse", which is such a pointless statement of future vision, and so relative that it is hardly worth considering.
Last edited by Johnny Dangerous on Fri Dec 21, 2012 4:40 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Kim O'Hara
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Kim O'Hara »

:thanks:
Thanks for that, JD - saved me from saying more or less the same thing.

:namaste:
Kim
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Re: Climate Change: We're Doomed

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Huseng wrote:This is religion. Whether you believe in kaliyuga or not is up to you, though a lot of very adept individuals throughout history have indeed believed in kaliyuga and adjusted themselves appropriately to the times.
If it was just religion, I could happily let you go off and be as miserably defeatist as you wanted to be. I would feel sorry for you, of course, but I wouldn't feel that your religion was any of my business. The problem is that you have used your religion to argue that we are doomed and therefore shouldn't even try to do anything about climate change.

This aspect of your religion is therefore leading you to abandon compassionate action on behalf of people and other living beings now alive and yet to be born, and to encourage other people to do likewise. That is the crux of my opposition to you.

:namaste:
Kim
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