Global Warming
Why a Buddhist approach to living could, but probably won’t, save the Planet
My view on global warming and climate change is a pessimistic one. I am old enough and cynical enough to realise the sad truth that politics and economics (not necessarily such different things nowadays), will always get in the way. Things are complicated, too complicated to disentangle at this late stage, and this is compounded by the fact that there is no single source of authority able to dictate appropriate behaviours that would lead to change.
Who is going to tell the major powers that they must cut back on consumption, on manufacturing, on the use of fossil fuels? Who is going to control multi national companies when they control so much of politics? The answer is ‘no one’. So you see where my pessimism comes from.
It is easy to say ‘well they should sort it out’, to accuse them of failing in their duty to the electorate when they don’t.
As individuals we have come to expect government to resolve major issues, or at least pretend so to do. It is easy to say ‘well they should sort it out’, to accuse them of failing in their duty to the electorate when they don’t.
We have all done it. Unfortunately this approach comes from the idea that someone else should always fix things. It isn’t my fault, it is the governments. I didn’t vote for them, or if I did, they have let me down. There is nothing as an individual that I can do about global warming, about climate change, about poverty, or slavery, so what am I supposed to do?
What the Buddha taught was different to other religious teachers. At the heart of his teaching was the key message of personal responsibility. Don’t expect someone else to save you, to promise you a land of milk and honey, don’t worship someone or something in order to secure an eternal state of bliss.
Instead look to yourself, find out who you currently are and seek to change in order to find peace and equanimity. Begin by accepting the world for what it is and change yourself and your relationship to it. This is not as it might first appear a stance of resignation, of sitting back and doing nothing, far from it. Changing yourself is one of the hardest things to do, alongside true acceptance.
Transfer the Buddha’s teaching to the problems the world faces with global warming, poverty, immigration, modern slavery and it is clear to see that first and foremost the action you need to take is addressing your own behaviour.
Join action groups, protest at rallies, write to your political representatives do all of these things, but these should be secondary to saying ‘what part of the problem am I?’ If I buy cheap clothes do I accept I am adding to the problem of poverty by financing sweat shops? If I take a holiday and fly, or I drive long distances in my car do I accept I am adding to carbon emissions? If I upgrade my kitchen and throw the old units away, am I prepared to admit I am part of the problem? If I continually consume, do I own the fact that nothing is going to get better, only worse?
I often refer to the Fire Sermon, where the Buddha says ‘your eyes are burning, your senses are burning, your whole being is burning’ with what is it burning?
Desire.
Desire for a holiday, for cheap clothes for a new car or a new kitchen, desire for more. Isn’t that where the problem lies and not with governments? Do they make you buy new things? Do they make you fly around the world? Do they insist that your car or house is always new or contains new things? If everybody desired less and shared more with those who have little then surely emissions could be cut? Less materials would be used, there would be no need for palm oil plantations, for factory ships at sea, for vast quantities of meat to be produced to feed those who are already well fed.
Individual responsibility is actually getting less and not more in these times.
So back to where we came in. Am I optimistic? No not really, because to truly change things we must ask individuals to be responsible for their part in the problem. Individual responsibility is actually getting less and not more in these times.
One only has to look at the pandemic and the way people behaved to see there is a lack of personal responsibility. We live in a blame culture, where it is easier to point the finger at someone else rather than at ourselves. As an individual all I can do is to try to consume less, desire less, and try to point out that it is how one behaves as an individual, and not how governments behave that makes real change occur.
One of the things that has become quite noticeable in recent years is the way in which instead of doing anything, people protest in words, mostly online. They post angry statements and accusations, they re-tweet unconfirmed ‘statements of fact’ and they complain.
How much more would one action achieve than all of this ranting!
How much more could be done if we could stop and remind ourselves that perhaps, just perhaps, we ourselves are being hypocritical and are not seeing the damage we do, or the things we have left undone.
If you have more money than you need then why haven’t you given it to the poor?
If you see someone abusing another why didn’t you step in and help the abused?
If you see something in the shop that is so cheap it would be impossible to produce it without coercion or slavery why did you buy it?
If you know the components in your mobile phone are rare and have been obtained using child labour why did you choose that model?
There is a blindness in all of us. The ability to distance ourselves from what we know to be true, lets call it abattoir syndrome. Few people would eat meat if they had to walk through the abattoir to choose their steak or their chicken, rather than a sanitised shopping aisle. Few people would buy cheap clothes if they had to visit the squalid homes of those poor souls who make them to collect their products and take them whilst looking into their eyes. Who would make unnecessary long distance flights if they knew it would result in their grandchildren facing horrendous flooding or forest fires, or being unable to breathe?
We have an ability to know, and yet to un-know when it suits us. All of this is happening somewhere else when it applies to us, and we tell ourselves ‘what difference does it make if I do this or that thing, everyone else is doing it?’
Don’t get me wrong, I stand accused along with the rest of humanity, and that is why I am so pessimistic. I know from personal experience how easy it is to order a parcel from Amazon and not think about the amount of carbon that has been emitted producing and delivering my new purchase. I drive into town on a whim and don’t plan one trip a week when I could do everything in one go. I have money in the bank for a rainy day when it is already pouring down on other souls who have nothing.
I am trying. In my meditations and subsequent actions I am truly trying, but change comes slowly and I am afraid that I may have left it too late, just like the climate. When it is time, I would like to leave having let go of the need to own, to have learned to accept things. without judgement, to have become less hypocritical and have done so by understanding myself and in so doing lose that same sense of self. All I know for certain is that action and not words will achieve this and only actions, and not words, will save the climate.
