Shocking News about Pollution, Global Warming and Climate Change Too Awful to Accept

Whoa! Climate change and global warming are in the news again!

Self-described "global warming skeptic" Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller recently completed a global temperature study and concluded that the Earth is warming.

Pollution, plant in Port Huron, MI

The amount of global warming gases sent into the atmosphere made an unprecedented jump from 2009-2010 - 6%, according to the US Department of Energy's latest world data on carbon emissions. "These results show that it will be harder to make the tough cuts to emissions if we are to head off a climate crisis," said John Abraham, professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering in Minnesota. Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, called it a "monster increase," the biggest ever recorded and much more than the worst case scenario predicted by scientists four years ago.

So how much carbon is being pumped into the atmosphere? According to the data, over 3 trillion pounds of carbon. Every year.

One of the reports featured a poll. "Are you worried about climate change?" The poll results showed that 81% of the people who read the article said "No."

And why is that, if the problem is so grave?

The answer is simple. Not only do people not want to imagine such awful consequences, they simply can't. When faced with horrible realities, like death and disaster, they deny them, put them out of their minds. They have too many other problems to deal with. Besides, the numbers don't make sense to them. Paradoxically, while the impact is amazingly large, in everyday life it's impossible to notice it. Three trillion pounds a year? Who can imagine a trillion of anything? Nobody. Not even a trillion dollars. Most people can't even imagine a billion dollars, which is 1/1000 of a trillion. Besides, the changes are nearly impossible to notice. You wake up the next day, and nothing seems changed. The following year, nothing seems changed. The changes are noticeable only if you compare centuries, which is longer than a human lifetime.

Scientists have told us that by the time the effects of climate change push ordinary people up against the wall, it will be too late to do anything about it.

I'm in my mid-60s, so I can tell you, my brothers and sisters, that I won't be around when people cry out in anger and amazement, "They saw it coming way back in the late 20th century. They could have avoided this disaster! Why didn't they do something about it?"

The answer is, as smart as we think we are, most people's brains are incapable of truly appreciating the problem. So while this stuff may be making a small blip in the news again, it won't be there for long.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

BP Oil Spill - A Contrasting Spirit

On the one hand, you have politicians who worked next to the President of the United States who were part of the oil establishment and who willfully let companies like BP write the rules they wanted and enforce themselves. Instead of doing the right thing for safety, you have greed and hubris. You have the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which is destroying a beautiful part of Earth and a vital fishing industry. You have evil.

By contrast, you have a spirit that values the sea and the land and the life that flourishes there. You have appreciation for the fragility of the environment. You have people doing what then can to responsibly care for these resources. Rather than acting in self-interest, you have people doing the right thing.

Watch this brief clip. It is the voice of the spirit that stands in contrast to the values of the people responsible for the BP oil disaster. It's worth listening to over and over again.

The Personal Strength of Responsibility - Three Principles

The other day a neighbor and I were talking about some conflicts that were troubling our property owners association. “You should run for office,” he said.
 
I let that thought sink in. No. I shouldn’t. I already have a full plate. I’ve served on association boards before, and if I volunteered for this now I wouldn’t be able to fulfill the responsibilities I already have. But for a moment I doubted myself. Was I avoiding a community responsibility?

When I reflect on the concept of responsibility, my thoughts go to three themes or “principles.”
 
The Principle of Huge and Humble. Often there’s a grand, romantic view of “duty,” that it’s about completing some heroic or exalted mission. Your duty to serve your country. To help save a life. To save an enterprise from failure. To “give back.”

But worthy responsibilities don’t have to be lofty undertakings. Some of the most important duties in life are the simple, practical ones right in front of you. Who will fix the fence? Who will move the neighbor’s trash can that the wind has blown into the street? Who will clean the mess in the kitchen? Who will replace the burned-out light bulb? It can be hard to see mundane tasks as significant responsibilities. If they’re small and uninteresting, it’s tempting to think, “It’s no big deal. Somebody else will take care of it.”

When my wife, Kathleen, and I lived in Vero Beach, our home was only a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. A frequent delight was to walk along the beach after work. More often than not, these walks turned into trash pick-up projects. Kathleen explained that inorganic waste is unsightly and dangerous to pelicans, gulls and other seabirds. Our arms would be full of debris by the time we found a trash receptacle.
 
Seemingly trivial acts can make a difference. You take care of them without being asked simply because you know they’ll contribute to the general betterment of things. You appreciate the importance of what you’ve done, even if no one else does. And your reward is the improvement you see in the world around you, and the good feeling you have about yourself because you “took care of business.”
 
In the end, you don’t have to be the one to take responsibility for everything, even if you care about it. You choose your tasks. You choose how you’ll contribute.
 
The Principle of Follow-through. This one’s simple. If it’s your job, then do it. Once you agree to do something, being responsible means that you actually do what you said you would do. And it means you do it to the best of your abilities. You don't do it half-way. You don’t “phone it in.” You don’t just give it lip-service.
 
In my youth, I loved playing golf. When I was captain of the high school golf team, I’d sometimes play two rounds of golf in a day. But my career as an Army officer made it difficult to play often enough to maintain my skills. When my scores steadily declined, golf was no longer fun. So I gave it up, and I haven’t played since.
 
But I still enjoy walking with friends on the golf course. Sometimes I’ll caddy for them. It’s an enjoyable way to get some exercise.
 

One day, I overheard one of the guys playing in our group say this into his cell phone: “Yeah, I’ll take care of it. I’m on my way there right now.” I wondered where “there” might be.
 
“Who was that? You gotta go somewhere?”
 
“Hey, no way. That was my boss. He thinks I’m in my truck doing deliveries. I love these cell phones,” he said as he grinned and walked towards the green.
 
I was surprised by his willingness to lie so that he could play golf rather than do the job he was being paid to do. Later I heard that he lost that job. And the next job after that.
 
The Principle of Self-responsibility. Adults take responsibility for their children and make most decisions for them. But children eventually grow into adults, when they’ll need the inner strength to take responsibility for their own lives and make their own choices.
 
Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. I’ve known people who grew up in wealthy families, had everything they wanted given to them and continued to expect their parents to provide for them well into middle-age. I’ve known people who were raised by parents who protected them from hardship and challenges. As adults, they didn’t know how or have the motivation to take responsibility for their own lives. When bad things happened, they blamed other people or external factors for their misfortune.
 
I’ve also known people who grew up believing that society or the government was supposed to take care of them. They had a hard time dealing with life. They underperformed at work. 

I'm reminded of this sobering thought from Nathaniel Branden, author of Taking Responsibility: "If you are an adult, you are responsible for your life and well being. No one owes you the fulfillment of your needs or wants; no one is here on earth to serve you. If you respect the principle of self-ownership, you understand that no one else owns you and that you do not own anyone else. Only on this understanding can there be peace on earth and good will among human beings."

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., , Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .