Draft Sept 2014
Summary reminder about this guide.
Our world view is simultaneously shaped by and reflected in our use of symbols. The human ego can easily generate very subtle and sophisticated rationales for any use of a symbol. This guide employs deep psychoanalysis founded in the profound wisdom of the principles of physics. It enables us to use that wisdom to transcend the ingenious deceits and trickery of the ego so that our use of symbols sustains us.
True hope resides in symbol use that embraces change/stewardship.
Delusive hope resides in symbol use that denies change/stewardship.
You can enjoy a brief introduction to wise uses of the “warming” and “cooling” symbols here. The simple explanations will reassure those who are uncertain of the fundamentals of thermodynamics that they too can understand vital physics. All that is required is an open, inquiring spirit with its capacity to truly embrace the flows and balances of energy that sustain us.
Symbol: Global warming
True Hope: Global warming is a wonderful life enabling process.
Comment: Global warming is the continuous solar warming of our planet even as it is cooling. There is no net change in temperature i.e. a relatively equable thermal state exists.
For over a billion years a unique warming-cooling balance has prevailed that has enabled life forms to exist on Earth.
Over the past few millennia the temperatures of Earth have averaged about 15C and have been sufficiently moderate that human life has flourished.
Delusive Hope: Global warming is malevolent and a threat to human beings.
Comment: The human ego is well capable of generating sensations of self-hatred and can even cause suicide. This is because it is born of the division caused in our consciousness with the advent of self-awareness. Thus it is threatened by the reminders inherent in notions of stewardship that a continuous universal transformation occurs and we are part of this change.
In this case the ego denies our roles as stewards amidst the universal transformation by framing the life-enabling global warming process as hostile to life as we know it. It thus absolves us of our responsibilities to act as stewards of the global thermal balances that sustain human life. The delusive hope enables us to act with impunity.
Delusive Hope: Stop global warming
Comment: Again this is an exemplar of the ego’s ingenious and sometimes desperate attempts to deny our roles as stewards amidst the universal flux. It reveals both self-hatred and arrogance that we should imagine to prevent the solar system operating and kill life on Earth. Smile. there is a very funny side to the ego’s trickery.
Delusive Hope: Combat or fight global warming
Comment: The ego tends to abhor notions of harmony and communion with the universal flows and balances for they form an inherent reminder of our mortality. It is born of and is sustained in division so it tends to promote conflict in our lives. We see this manifest in the above militaristic language. Fundamentally we are denying the possibility that it is our actions that are not in harmony with the global climate balances that sustain us.
Note: Searches on “global warming” with or without the “stop” , “fight” generate many similar posters. “Kill global warming” generates many satirical illustrations though they all perpetuate the nonsense they mock.
Delusive Hope: Global warming is climate change.
Comment: Almost invariably this equation involves equating the process in our planet is warmed by the sun with human-induced global climate change.
This completely obscures the physics of our actions. It denies the dangerous impacts of some of our actions on climate balances and the general nature of change.
Certainly the global warming process generates myriad, continuous micro-climate changes. However an essential global stability is retained.
See the true hope uses of the “climate change” symbol.
Symbol: Global warming–up
True Hope: Global warming-up (and global cooling-down) are dangerous.
Comment. The use of the “up” and “down” symbols reminds us that a thermal imbalance is occurring. An imbalance in the warming and cooling processes of our planet is causing the net temperature to change and this indicates a possible dangerous change of state is occurring.
True hope resides in our embracing this reality of temperature change and truthfully assessing if human actions threaten us and/or we need to adapt to more universal changes.
Delusive Hope: Global warming is Global warming-up.
Comment: The ego is well capable of enabling us to be in complete denial of essential change. Even our most prominent “energy” and climate experts can be oblivious to the fact that they deny the fundamental principles of thermodynamics.
These valuable principles remind us that any form only exists as long as its unique thermal balance is sustained and its temperature is relative constant. A state of change occurs with the cessation of that unique balance and the form ceases to exist.
Delusive Hope. Global warming-up does not exist.
Comment: The failure to employ the “global warming-up” symbol when an average global temperature change is occurring indicates non-users of the symbol have a flawed or delusional world view. They are in denial of the physics of changes of state. They are thus not mindful of their own role in causing such a change or of their need to adapt to change from other forces.
NOTE: The failure to appropriately employ either the “warming up” or “cooling down” symbols derives from the same fatally flawed psychology. This psychology tends to exclude notions of harmony and balance from the discourse of our lives .
You can enjoy a cartoon panel discussing our use and abuse of the “global warming” symbol in climate discourse at Energy?! Chapter five The Ego and Global Warming