Artfully Mindful

Mindful Choices

• D. R. Thompson • Season 2 • Episode 43

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Can mindful personal choices really make a difference in combating climate change, or is it too little, too late? Join me, Don Thompson, as we navigate the intricacies of love, personal connection, and the political landscape during an election cycle in the United States. We take a deep dive into the importance of mindful engagement with politics and the need for a proactive government to address critical issues, especially climate change. Highlighting the inspiring work of climate activist Ray Katz and his initiative "We Are Saners," we discuss practical steps individuals can take to mitigate climate change, like driving less and embracing remote work, underscoring the inherent conflict between capitalist growth and ecological sustainability.

Inspired by themes from my play "Tibet Does Not Exist," we explore the urgent need for a shift towards a virtual economy as a solution to environmental degradation, connecting it to Buddhist ideals and sustainability. Personal observations of climate change effects, such as hotter summers and milder winters, emphasize the immediacy of the crisis. From downsizing to a more energy-efficient home to critiquing authorities' inaction, we underscore the critical need for collective awareness and proactive behavior. This episode will make you ponder your own behaviors and inspire you to make small, mindful changes toward a more sustainable future, even if it’s just reducing your personal impact by 50%. Let’s safeguard our planet together.

You can find Ray Katz's website here: https://wearesaners.org/

Music: Mika Sade - 'Between Us'

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Note that Don Thompson is now available as a coach or mentor on an individual basis. To find out more, please go to his website www.nextpixprods.com, and use the 'contact' form to request additional information.

Speaker 1:

Maybe we're in trouble. I've got no answers how to make it better, to get closer to you. Maybe find something new that will arise one more time between us. Love the words you just sang. I can't forget them. There's a pain that grows inside me Again and again. Love is a losing game. Without, without you, it feels so lonely. Some of you are so good to me.

Speaker 2:

Hi Don Thompson, here with another random podcast thought for you and because we're in the throes of a election cycle here in the United States. In the throes of an election cycle here in the United States, it seems to me that I would be woefully irresponsible not to talk about the election and some of the choices that we have in front of us. So, rather than not address these issues and not talk about them, or just talk about them or just, you know, talk about issues related to mindfulness in a sort of a sequestered way and not really deal with politics, I think a mindful person needs to think about politics. I mean, it is in front of us, in the here and now, affecting us day by day. Right now, as I record this podcast, we have the Republican National Convention occurring Now. I have to say that I'm not really a supporter of the Republican agenda necessarily. I understand conservative ideals and ideas intellectually, I understand where they're coming from and oftentimes I can sympathize with some of the ideas. But I think, in general, the overarching issues that are confronting the nation and the world need to have a proactive government, need to have a government, a functioning government, and it does seem like the Republicans are intent on, or intend on, deregulating the situation and downsizing government and moving away from a situation where we have the necessary power within the government sphere to do things related to primarily the environment, which is a key issue that's front and center for all of us really. Now there are people out there in the world that have come up with some really interesting ideas related to the environment in lieu of any kind of government action, and I have to say that some of these ideas and some of these people I think are quite interesting, quite fascinating. So one of these people that I think is interesting and I just found out about this relatively recently is somebody named Ray Katz. Ray Katz, who's a climate activist, and he has a very interesting idea and he set up a website called we Are Saners, and I have to say that what's interesting about this is a similar thought had gone through my own brain my thinking process related to climate change, and my spouse and I have taken action relative to this approach, which is basically to just be proactive and just do things yourself. You can cut down your own activity related to polluting, related to the climate, just simply by driving less, by changing your behavior, and I think that's basically the message of Ray Katz and what he's promoting through his website this idea is wearesanersorg and I'll list it under the podcast is what he's promoting is that people basically take the time to change their behavior and to mitigate the climate crisis by simply changing, burning less fossil fuels.

Speaker 2:

We have this idea in our culture, in our capitalist culture, that there's a couple of ideas implicit in the capitalist society, capitalist economies. One is growth. So growth is a requirement of capitalism as we have it. You have to grow a certain percentage every year or you're not being successful. So this growth, if you look at it from the planet's perspective and bear with me, if you will if you just look at it from an ecological planet perspective, let's say that the human beings, in a sense, this growth is an illness like cancer. Cancer is growing on the planet and this cancer is humanity in its polluting ways, and the Earth is in conflict with this growth, this capitalist growth. So you could look at it that way that capitalist growth is sort of like a cancerous growth on the planet. So one way to stop that kind of growth is to simply don't participate in it.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't mean you have to quit your job that's not necessarily what I'm talking about, because your job per se may know contributing to environmental collapse, but, you know, if you're driving to work every day, maybe you can work remotely. You know, maybe you don't have to drive to work every day. Maybe, rather than going shopping at the mall, you can do your shopping online To whatever extent you can have your meetings virtually. You can do your shopping online To whatever extent you can have your meetings virtually. You can do so, so you can move towards a more virtual situation in your life. And actually it's a very funny thing because I was talking about this.

Speaker 2:

I'm not trying to brag, but I was talking about this many, many years ago in a play I wrote called To Bet this Not Exist, where they were talking about virtual economics. That's what the protagonist of the story, the professor, the protagonist, was talking about. He was talking about moving to a virtual economy that would be much more environmentally friendly, and they were comparing that to sort of Buddhist ideals when he was talking about these things, to Tibetan Buddhist Lama, or Rinpoche as they're known in that world. So the point being, harris, is that these ideas have been out there, whether or not I was talking about it or others were talking about it. I mean, the idea of virtual economics certainly predated my play. People were talking about these things. The whole idea of the internet itself was to move into more of a virtual economy that would be less impactful on the environment.

Speaker 2:

So you know, again, we can take action ourselves, and I think that Red Cass with his we Are Seniors movement and again I'll leave the website down below and you can sign up for his newsletter but basically what he's saying is that, well, I'll quote here what he says. I quote from Ray Katz it's been over 30 years since the scope of our climate crisis has been well understood. I thought that our authorities would do something. After all, they have children and families. They should want a world for them, just as we do for our children, but the authorities have done nothing. The allure of fossil fuels has blinded everyone in power. They are functionally insane, and so we must be the sane ones. We must lead ourselves out of this crisis. End of quote. So that's again from Ray Katz. I think that this is a very true thing that he's speaking to. I mean, I can see it.

Speaker 2:

I've been around for a while. I mean I've mentioned this a few times. I've been around for a while. I've been able to observe the degradation over decades of the environment, and it's been substantial. It's been substantial just in my observation of the climate change, of the change in the weather which I've noticed, particularly on the east coast of the US. It's just different. It's hotter, the summers are hotter, the heat spells are longer and hotter, the winters are milder, much milder than they used to be. I'm telling you so there's change happening in front of my face. If I didn't admit it, I would be, you know, lying to myself. So it's happening, it's happening in front of me.

Speaker 2:

And then I read reports. You know there's still, thankfully, media that reports on all the environmental destruction that we're doing. They don't report on it enough, they don't report on it consistently, they don't keep it in front of our face enough. You know so that we have it inculcated in our feeble human minds that we are destroying the planet. But if you look at the statistics related to the ocean, for example, and how we are systematically or have been systematically destroying life in the ocean, you know we're destroying entire ecosystems in the Antarctic. We are destroying the planet's ecosystems. We have to be aware of this and remind ourselves about this constantly. We need to change our behavior. If the government won't do something, we need to do something. We need to change our behavior. If the government won't do something, we need to do something. We need to change our behavior. So I applaud Ray and what he's saying.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I should have talked about this more. I mean, I do allude to the environment in the podcast here and there, but it really is the primary issue. And we talk about a lot of things in this election cycle that are seemingly important, you know, like the fact that we have a dangerous assassin trying to kill one of our presidential candidates, and the violence that's evident sometimes in our political landscape, the violent rhetoric or the violent actions of some people. We talk about that. That's all important and we talk about. You know, I listen to a woman this is an example on C-SPAN. A great, you should listen to C-SPAN if you don't once in a while just to get a sense of what's going on out there. And you know I don't mean to sound like a holier-than-thou, but literally the mentality of some people is woefully ignorant. You know, when you listen to the spectrum of voices that are interviewed on C-SPAN and allowed to speak.

Speaker 2:

And this one woman said literally I'm not kidding that her priority was, you know, she was so upset that we were being forced in quotes to drive electronic vehicles, evs, because she felt that we as human beings should have a choice to drive fossil fuel powered cars, that we should have a choice. In other words, she feels if you sum it up A, that we need to have a choice to pollute. There's our God-given right to pollute. That's sort of what she's saying, and this would be in my mind if I was to look at it again from the standpoint of the Earth as a body, as human beings, is an illness. She would be the cancer promoting its own agenda. I'm a cancer seal. I want to have the freedom to be cancerous. That's what she's saying, and I laugh. I laugh and again, as I've said many times, when I laugh it's in a sad way. It's not that I'm happy about any of that. So you know these people are out there and they're voting. You know what can we say? This is we have to.

Speaker 2:

Whoever is awake enough or aware enough to realize that we're, you know, destroying the planet needs to take action. So my spouse and I have taken action. We downsized out of our big house, which, you know, we used way too much energy. We downsized into a smaller house that has a very, very, a much better imprint in terms of its energy usage and we don't drive nearly as much as we used to, we don't travel nearly as much as we used to and, as a result, our footprint is substantially less than it used to be. So it is possible, you know, if everybody did that, if everybody simply changed their behavior and downsized themselves to 50% and even though the capitalists aren't going to like it you know they aren't going to like the fact that we might reach an era of zero growth or degrowth in the world, but maybe that's what's necessary. Maybe we can figure out other ways to think about growth and other indexes to think about growth, what that means. So I'm going to leave the podcast at that.

Speaker 2:

I think I got my point across Basically. I'm saying you saying, look at your behavior. I would say, look at your behavior and what you can do personally to simply stop participating in the destruction of the planet. Do what you can, do what you can. I'm not saying quit your job again or completely upend your life, I mean. But there are some things you can do. And if, simply, everyone cut their footprint by 50%. I mean that probably would be enough to stop mitigate the problem. I mean, I'm just guessing that it would seem to me it would certainly hit us in the right direction. Okay, again, I'll leave it at that and I thank you for listening, and Don Thompson here, with Artfully Mindful, being mindful about the environment. Talk to you soon, bye-bye.

Speaker 1:

You know I'm a fighter, tired of all battles Losing my direction. There's a limit to our Unconditional hearts. Don't say you're sorry, just please get out Suddenly. You're so good to me I know it won't last more than a week. I remember the last time that you said it won't happen again. Maybe it's your memory, or maybe you're in a loop Of bad behavior. I don't wanna analyze you, but it's hard for me. Thank you.