Global warming represents the dark side of the commercial ledger for the industrial age. For the past several hundred years, and especially in the 20th century, human beings burned massive amounts of “stored sun” in the form of coal, oil and natural gas, to produce the energy that made an industrial way of life possible. That spent energy has accumulated in the atmosphere and has begun to adversely affect the climate of the planet and the workings of its many ecosystems. (03/03/02)
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Ralph Metzner writes: It is widely agreed that the global ecological crisis (which confronts the world today) is one of the most critical turning points that human civilization has ever faced. Furthermore, the realization is spreading that the root causes of environmental destruction lie in human psychology—in certain distorted perceptions, attitudes, and values that modern humans have come to hold. … In indigenous cultures around the world, the natural world is regarded as the realm of spirit and the sacred; the natural is the spiritual. From this belief follows an attitude of respect, a desire to maintain a balanced relationship, and an instinctive understanding of the need for considering future generations and the future health of the ecosystem—in short, sustainable. Recognizing and respecting worldviews and spiritual practices different from our own is probably the best antidote to the West’s fixation in the life-destroying dissociation between spirit and nature. (03/03/02)
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