Monday, 13 July 2015

Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje

To live simply is to be compassionate to yourself and the world. A life full of material goods and barren of compassion is quite unsustainable.
 
The July entry in the Tibetan Buddhist 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje in ‘ Cherish the Earth’ the 2015 Environment Calendar.
 

Monday, 6 July 2015

Russell-Einstein Manifesto

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.
Resolution:   We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:
“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”
 
This week is the 50th anniversary of  the Russell-Einstein Manifesto  9 July 1955 signed by
Max Born
Percy W. Bridgman
Albert Einstein
Leopold Infeld
Frederic Joliot-Curie
Herman J. Muller
Linus Pauling
Cecil F. Powell
Joseph Rotblat
Bertrand Russell
Hideki Yukawa
all (excepting Leopold Infeld andJoseph Rotblat) were Nobel Laureates.
 
 
 

Monday, 29 June 2015

Thích Nhất Hạnh - ‘The Art of Power’

 
If we continue abusing the Earth this way, there is no doubt that our civilisation will be destroyed. This turnaround takes enlightenment, awakening. The Buddha attained individual awakening. Now we need collective enlightenment to stop this course of destruction. Civilisation is going to end if we continue to drown in the competition for power, fame, sex, and profit.

This weeks Green Thought comes from the 2008 book ‘The Art of Power’ by the expatriate Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh.
 

Monday, 22 June 2015

Herman Scheers - Energy Autonomy

Reducing all questions exclusively to price……( results in) the idea of the market economy degenerate(ing) from an economic ordering principle into organised social irresponsibility.
This weeks Green Thought is taken from Herman Scheers 2007 book Energy Autonomy. The late Hermann Scheer ( 1944 - 2010) was a member of the German Bundestag (Parliament), President of Eurosolar (The European Association for Renewable Energy) and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy. In 1999, Scheer was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for his "indefatigable work for the promotion of solar energy worldwide".
 

Monday, 15 June 2015

George Monbiot - Workforce (Guardiuan Article 9/6/15)

We know that our conditions of life are deteriorating. Most young people have little prospect of owning a home, or even of renting a decent one. Interesting jobs are sliced up, through digital Taylorism,  into portions of meaningless drudgery. The natural world, whose wonders enhance our lives, and upon which our survival depends, is being rubbed out with horrible speed. Those to whom we look for guardianship, in government and among the economic elite, do not arrest this decline; they accelerate it.
This weeks Green Thought comes George Monbiots Monbiot.com article ‘Workforce’ posted on 9th June 2015
 
 
 

Monday, 8 June 2015

Gilles Deleuze


 “The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?”
This weeks Green Thought comes from the late French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925 – 1995) .

Monday, 1 June 2015

Neil Evernden - ‘Natural Alien’ 2nd Edition

For, at bottom, nothing has changed. The natural environment remains vulnerable whenever there are short-term benefits to be had by sacrificing environmental protection…….by basing all arguments on enlightened self-interest the environmentalists have ensured their own failure……’
 
He then goes on to quote Anthony Brandt  - ‘The industrialist and the environmentalist are brothers under the skin; they differ only as to the best use the natural world ought to be put to.’
 
 
This weeks Green Thoughts are taken from page 10 of Neil Everndens’ ‘Natural Alien’ (2nd Edit. 1993).