the power of tides

Albert Einstein once stated that: “Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.” He did not speak of global climate change, but I apply his words to it as if it were a problem, created at a particular level of awareness.

Global Climate Change is a problem caused by people who were quite aware of the risks they created. The inventors and manufacturers of gasoline powered engines understood fully. The planned that the air we must breathe was the preferred dumping place for toxic substances and carbon wastes. A lack of understanding existed at the public level when we assumed that a few million cars, buses and trucks would not cause problems; nor would enough coal burning to power our homes and cities. The public surmised that the government would not permit massive activity that caused massive harms, and that traditional methods of food and energy production were safe because they had persisted over many generations.

When evidence mounted, and events began to cause human suffering, the level of public knowledge began to change. A cadre of thinkers who knew the connection between carbon and the atmospheric changes in process began to spread information. The counter arguments have proceeded in a similar direction; far from responsibility, they project blame elsewhere.

The marketplace of ideas has always been a cauldron. Ideas that cause greater life and abundance must compete with those that cause destruction. Human have frequently adopted ideas that caused ruin and suffering. War is an example, and reckless industrial activity is another. That poor ruse “I am not a scientist…” is actually the correct answer. The level of knowledge needed to combat global climate change from human activity is not scientific; rather it is social, it is based on survival and, to succeed, it must come from the roots. The sword and shield of climate change have the same origin. It will rise as a sword to pursue disastrous continuation or as a shield to protect populations from public knowledge. We will ultimately only accept that we, as a body of humanity, voluntarily agree to accept.

The battlefield is a metaphorical Armageddon on the landscape of human thought processes. Forces of annihilation and mercy are at painful odds. The struggle for human souls has a path through the human mind, and it is made of words and thoughts but with the power of tides.