Archive of
Positive Commentaries
April 2007
Archived Positive Commentaries
Tuesday, April 3rd 2007
The Positive News Network recently ran a story on the technology of "concentrating solar power (CSP)" and how countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa are collaborating to take advantage of its possibilities. CSP involves using mirrors to concentrate sunlight and create heat. The heat can then be used in a variety of ways, such as raising steam and driving a conventional generator. TREC-UK, a group of volunteers from the UK who aim to raise awareness of the concept, offered some detailed projections prepared for the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety which show how, "even allowing for increases in demand for energy, a combination of CSP with other technologies could allow Europe to cut CO2 emissions from electricity generation by about 70% by the year 2050, and phase out nuclear power at the same time." The article notes that "every year, each square kilometer of desert receives solar energy equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of oil. Multiplied by the area of deserts worldwide, this is nearly one thousand times the entire energy consumption of the world." Other benefits of CSP include using waste heat for desalination of sea water or for air conditioning; and reduced risk of conflict over shortages of water and energy. "Light is real. As you value energy and power on your world, sunlight would be economical at a million dollars a pound." (The URANTIA Book, p. 460) Altruistic and other-oriented motivations can result not only in the discovery of ways to use the free light of the sun to create sustainable sources of clean energy, but other advances that benefit of all humankind as well.
Monday, April 9th 2007
David Smith, in an article published by the UK's Observer and titled "Stop Shopping ... or the Planet Will Go Pop" features Jonathon Porritt who he describes as government adviser and all-around environmental guru. According to Porritt we have become a generation of shopaholics convinced that that the more we consume, the better our lives will be, and that while advertising equates shopping with fun, fulfillment and self-identity, it fails to inform that shopping is also killing the planet. Smith also draws attention to individuals and groups awakening and resisting the consumer culture. A group of teachers, engineers, executives and other professionals in the Bay Area formed a group called the Compact and have made a vow to not buy anything new in 2006 except food, health and safety items and underwear. The group Froogles.org uses the Internet to exchange items for free. Freecycle.org helps prevent consumer waste by enabling users to exchange unwanted goods. Buy Nothing Day, an international event started in 1993 and celebrated in 55 countries, aims to make consumers think about how buying goods impacts on the environment and poverty. The Buy (Less) Crap website parodies RED, the global fundraising campaign led by U2 singer Bono that encourages purchases of their RED branded products by telling them buyers that some of the profits to fight Aids in Africa. Buy (Less) Crap challenges the concept that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering and instead provides weblinks to several charities so that people can make direct donations.
The URANTIA Book tells us—and the more spiritual of humankind realize—that as human beings advance, life actually becomes more simple and efficient. "The complex nature of an advancing civilization is running its course, and mortals are learning to live more naturally and effectively. And this trend increases with each succeeding epoch. This is the age of the flowering of art, music, and higher learning. The physical sciences have already reached their height of development. The termination of this age, on an ideal world, witnesses the fullness of a great religious awakening, a world-wide spiritual enlightenment." (p. 595)
Monday, April 23rd 2007
Jon Kabat-Zinn, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who teaches about mindfulness and meditation as a way to help people overcome stress and disease, in an article published by Resurgence magazine, reminds us that with the technology available that allows us to be connected to any one at any time we may have run the risk of losing touch with ourselves. He writes, "We easily forget that our primary connection to life is through our own interior realms—the experiencing of our own bodies and all our senses, including the mind, which allow us to touch and be touched by the world, and to act appropriately in response to it." He believes that "the more we are yanked into the outer world with all these new technology-driven habits that our nervous system has never before encountered, the more important it may be for us to develop a robust counterbalance in the inner world: one that calms and tunes the nervous system and puts it into the service of living wisely, both for ourselves and for others. This counterbalance can be cultivated by bringing greater mindfulness to our bodies, to our minds, and to our experiences—including the very moments in which we are using the technology to stay connected. Otherwise, we may wind up at a very high risk of living robotic lives, no longer even having time to contemplate who is doing all this doing, who is getting somewhere that looks more desirable, and is it really a better place to be?" The URANTIA Book reveals on page 1221, "The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God—with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible." Getting in touch with the higher mind circuitry can eventuate in moment to moment connection with the living God of All. And as more individuals achieve such a creative union, civilization can truly advance.
Monday, April 30th 2007
Seacoastonline.com, the online news source for the New Hamshire and Maine, recently reported on the recent regathering of the Clamshell Alliance. The group originally formed in 1976 and swelled in numbers that year when it set out to oppose the construction of Seabrook Station nuclear power plant. Thirty years ago this week 1,400 people of that alliance were arrested. According to the article, written by Karen Dandurant, members are now coming together again "...to recruit new blood to create public opposition to claims by nuclear power proponents that the energy source is the answer to global warming." According to Paul Gunter, a Clamshell Alliance founder and director of the Reactor Watchdog Project at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C., nuclear power proponents are engaging in just another shell game effort to legitimize expansion. Gunter stated, "Twenty-first century energy policy solutions will be conservation coupled with renewable energy, biofuel, use of the sun and wind. We can cut 47 percent of our demand by 2055. We could have a policy to drastically cut emissions and improve our lifestyle with less consumption. It's not time to burn more coal, guzzle more oil and fire up more power plants. The con is as clear today as it was then." It is indeed important that wisdom from discerning citizens and activists be heeded, for The URANTIA Book warns on page 1302, "...when culture advances overfast, when material achievement outruns the evolution of worship-wisdom, then does civilization contain within itself the seeds of retrogression; and unless buttressed by the swift augmentation of experiential wisdom, such human societies will recede from high but premature levels of attainment, and the "dark ages" of the interregnum of wisdom will bear witness to the inexorable restoration of the imbalance between self-liberty and self-control."