The Five Poisons (Sanskrit: pañca-kleśa; Tibetan: Japanese: go-shō), also known as the Five Disturbing Emotions are:
1. Passion ( desire, greed, lust, etc.)
2. Aggression (anger, hatred, resentment etc.)
3. Ignorance (bewilderment, confusion, apathy etc.)
4. Pride (wounded pride, low-self esteem etc.)
5. Jealousy ( envy, paranoia etc.)
All Buddhist schools teach that through Tranquility (Samatha) meditation the kilesas are pacified, though not eradicated, and through Insight (Vipassana) the true nature of the kilesas and the mind itself is understood. When the empty nature of the Self and the Mind is fully understood, there is no longer a root for the disturbing emotions to be attached to, and the disturbing emotions lose their power to distract the mind. Kleśā, Wikipedia
The Climate Crisis: "The global financial crisis has pushed climate change off the front pages despite new evidence ..." "Time is running out."
The hour glass has been turned over. The sands are almost all at the bottom. When they have finished falling, regrets will not earn us anything. The human community must summon the strength of will to deal with both the Climate Crisis and the Global Financial Crisis, and even more than that, it must summon the strength of will to understand how and why these two beasts are connected at the hip. Both are really sustainability issues. But there is something even more dangerous than drilling for more oil, building more coal-burning plants and felling more forests, and that is the deepening of the five poisons within us. They are, after all, the ingredients of the toxic soup from which these two beasts emerged. -- Richard Power
Here are excerpts from two important stories:
The global financial crisis has pushed climate change off the front pages despite new evidence that it is happening faster and with stronger impacts than previous projections, a new report warns.
Meanwhile, some political leaders in Europe, Canada and elsewhere are saying that now is not the time to make sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions because the global economy is heading into a recession.
"It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it's vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious," said Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, professor of Climatology and Environmental Sciences at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
The new data is so compelling that van Ypersele, the newly elected vice chair of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has urged the European Union to aim for a lower temperature target than the 2 degrees C they adopted in 1996.
That will require emission reductions beyond the 20 percent lower than the 1990 baseline by the year 2020 that the EU has as a target but is struggling to meet. Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service, 10-22-08
Time is running out. If the European Union is unable to resolve internal differences over its ambitious emissions reduction plan, then global climate talks could suffer, say experts. The world needs European leadership. ...
That vision, though, may now be in danger. With just six weeks to go before representatives from around the globe gather in Poznan, Poland to work towards a successor to the Kyoto Protocol -- a process known as the Copenhagen process after the location chosen for the 2009 climate summit -- the European Union is having trouble passing a final version of its emissions reduction package. A number of EU members are demanding changes, exceptions or opt outs, meaning the bloc's role as a global climate protection leader could be compromised.
"If the European Union does not get its act together on a clear climate agreement and it does not continue pressing ahead globally, that would relax a lot of pressure on the US," Christian Egenhofer, a climate change expert who is a senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "And that could very well lead to Copenhagen being a non-event." Charles Hawley, Der Spiegel, 10-22-08
Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.
For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.
Click here for access to great promotional tools available on The Eleventh Hour action page.
To sign the Live Earth Pledge, click here.
For analysis of the US mainstream news media's failure to treat global warming and climate change with accuracy or appropriae urgency, click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".
Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"
Want to join over one million people on the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions now? Click here.
Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio has released a witty and compelling compilation on the Top 100 Effects of Global Warming, organized into sections like "Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun" (e.g., "Goodbye to Pinot Noir," "Goodbye to Baseball," "Goodbye to Salmon Dinners," "Goodbye to Ski Vacations," etc.), "Global Warming Kills the Animals" (e.g., "Death March of the Penguins," "Dying Grey Whales," "Farewell to Frogs," etc.) and yes, "Global Warming Threatens Our National Security" (e.g., "Famine," "Drought," "Large-Scale Migrations," "The World's Checkbook," etc.) I urge you to utilize Top 100 Effects of Global Warming in your dialogues with friends, family and colleagues.
Laura Flanders, Christopher Brauchli,Mark Hertsgaard, Nuclear Energy,Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Human Rights, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth,Laurie David, Stop Global Warming!, The Eleventh Hour, Organic Gardening, Richard Power, Words of Power
