It's Wrong to Wreck the World: Climate Change and Our Moral Obligation to the Future

Alex Smith, the host of the excellent podcast Radio Eco-Shock says this is among his top three favorite pod-casts of 2012 and I have to agree. See for yourself, some of themes and issues explored, pertaining to consciousness, existentialism, social equality and ecological sustainability are uncannily resonant with those put forth here on my blog, adding further credence, I believe, to the Jungian concept of the Collective Unconscious.

I want to take the opportunity here to clarify something. In the pod-cast, Kathleen Dean Moore defines integrity as the alignment of action with one's values. If you have read my brief and wholly inadequate intro to the right you may get the feeling that I am a victim of circumstance, living the way that I do.

I separated the U.S. Army under Honorable conditions (if that means anything, no seriously) I have a college degree (if that means anything, no seriously), and am of relatively sound physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual health (no anti-depressants or sodium fluoride here, no seriously). I probably could get a job as a wage slave, but thanks to Reagan Era socio-economic reforms (Survival of the Fittest!), I would still have to continue to live as a homeless person, without health care, and as a wage slave would not have the time nor the energy to maintain any semblance of physical and intellectual health. I would rather live as an autonomous, healthy, informed and hence empowered being than a mindless wage slave, how about you?

The truth is that I refuse to participate with a system that benefits an extreme minority of Humanity, that creates massive suffering so that they may live in a virtual utopia, right up to the point that they destroy all life on Earth. This system is failing, no system of such vast inequality and flagrant suicidal tendencies endures for very long. It has been pointed out, poignantly so, that the level of inequality that currently exists in the American Empire exceeds that of the Roman Empire. A true feat indeed, when one considers the technological chasm from then to now, which, one would assume, entail a commensurate increase in overall well being and along with this, social evolution, bringing with it an alleviation of poverty and inequality. It is also a testament to the success of sophisticated cultural programming that a majority of the citizens within the American Empire continue to believe that they are truly free and have relative power to demand democratic reforms now and then, a view that, in light of such overt repression in response to the nascent global political revolution is now shown to be idealistic in the extreme.

A truly dystopian worldview resolves into focus when one, sufficiently free from said socio-cultural programming, realizes that all of the technological progress that has occurred between the fall of the last great Western Empire and now has come into existence by the same immature, underdeveloped, apathetic consciousness that-due to its peculiar propensity for violence and disregard for life-always tends to create inequitable social arrangements that it benefits from and that fulfill the same ultimate goal: the temporal and spatial expansion of power and control.

Imagine where Humanity would be today if each of us had a clearer picture of  reality, acting on the knowledge that although physical life is impermanent, consciousness is eternal. Liberated from the paralyzing fear of mortal danger, allowing, no compelling us to act in alignment with values that reflect all accumulated knowledge of the nature of existence, augmented by Enlightenment Empiricism, confirming our interconnectedness, affirming that not only our actions but even our thoughts reverberate throughout the cosmos....

So this my friends is the true root of all of our interrelated crises, this is primarily a crisis of consciousness, and for us to survive nothing short of a collective shift in consciousness is required.

We are presently bearing witness too and are a part of the evolution of consciousness, a process that is accelerating. In biological evolution, during brief periods of cataclysmic upheaval (Punctuated Equilibrium) that accompany Mass Extinction Events, the most rapid biological evolution occurs. I believe that the evolution of consciousness accelerates during these periods as well, what has been referred to as "The Quickening".

We are presently living through just such a period.

I usually posit the question " Mass Extinction or (r)Evolution of Consciousness?" at the end of many of my blog posts, and this is not a rhetorical question. Either we have a fundamental shift in the way we view and relate with the Universe or we're going to go along with not just the Romans as a failed socio-cultural paradigm but the way of the Great Lizards as a failed organism.

Einstein said once that "The significant problems that we have can't be solved with the same level of thinking that created them".

You can't solve the problem of Industrial Civilization, hyper-complexity, overpopulation, and social-inequality with more Industrial Civilization, greater complexity, more people and more social-inequality.

May we find the 100th monkey soon.

Onto the podcast:

IT'S WRONG TO WRECK THE WORLD From the University of Oregon, Kathleen Dean Moore delivers an artful talk about our attack on Nature, and hope of reviving love instead. Recorded in Vancouver. With readings from her work & original songs by Libby Roderick ("The Lifeboats Are Burning" and Tempting Eve ("We Are"). Radio Ecoshock 120502 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB. Show blog.

more: http://www.ecoshock.org/audio-on-demand/2012-radio-ecoshock-show/

See also:

Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe by Robert Lanza