Perspectives on Climate Change

87Discourse-3MonkwithdogsDiscourse by Alireza Nurbakhsh

Without wishing to make a claim as to what is possible in the realm of science and technology or in the context of the global community of nation states, I want to explore the difference between viewing climate change from an ethical perspective and viewing it from a spiritual perspective.

Implicit in the spiritual point of view is the idea that through self-transformation and the experience, at least to some extent, that all life is part of a single whole, a human being can become free from the acquisitive, selfish, aggressive and careless motivation and behavior that give rise to calamities such as global warming.

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and

day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

 

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth

in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves

of leaves and flowers.

 

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and

of death, in ebb and in flow.

–Rabindranath Tagore – Gitanjali

 

photo © Guillaume Mégevand

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