Alliance of Civilizations between the East and the West: Earth Hour Peaceful Demonstration
K.Wong
Introduction
The 2007 Earth Hour campaign against Climate Change commenced in Sydney as a solo event. It is now sponsored by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). It is organized and managed by the WWF Earth Hour Executive Director, Andy Ridley. Andy Ridley is chief backyard ‘bodhisattva’ who helps the world conserve energy usage and highlight the menace of global warming and climate change. Most importantly, it reminds us to develop a lasting habit to conserve energy usage in our daily lives by dimming off non-essential lights in homes, public offices and private businesses, electrical appliances and computers not in use and by reducing unnecessary travels using private vehicles.
The great success of 2007 Earth Hour created a stronger wave of compassionate participation in the year 2008 in which 371 cities across 35 countries participated. In the March 28, 2009 Earth Hour campaign, the participation circle increased appreciably to nearly 4,000 cities and towns across 88 countries. I could still recall vividly when I was writing an article on Earth Hour campaign for the Deer Park in 2008, I frowned at the poor global response to such a significant campaign to save the planet earth. This year, I exuberantly rejoiced at the Earth Hour night in one hour of darkness because I saw a much larger Face of God or Tao or Emptiness in the global unity to make the Earth Hour campaign more successful.
Growing Support
Earth Hour has gained soaring support from modern icons of world’s major landmarks, multinational corporations, non-profit groups, schools, scientists, celebrities, mass media and even ordinary people all over the world. The Earth Hour campaign is to drive home a strong message that global warming and resultant climate change have degraded the quality of the natural environment . They have also swamped us in the forms of dire extreme weather conditions culminating in the eruption of ‘natural’ disasters or catastrophes. The eco-crisis is very costly to be mitigated and a global eco-problem is hard to be fixed. However, if mitigation efforts are not duely undertaken currently, the crisis will develop into a global catastrophe beyond human mitigation in the future.
The message is derived from scientists’ research reports of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of U.N) which furnish adequate data and information to arouse public awareness of the ongoing eco-crisis. Global warming and climate change, caused by excessive emission of carbon dioxide and other green-house gases, deplete natural resources. Worst of all, they cause severe onslaughts on all living creatures dwelling on our planet earth with epic and dire natural disasters and catastrophes linked closely with global warming and climate change.
The abrupt climate change produces extreme weather conditions in the forms of temperature extremes, heat waves, droughts, forest fires, cold waves, snow storms, rain storms, heavy floods, cyclones, hurricanes and so forth. All these adverse weather conditions exert negative impacts on human health, human economic well-being and security, and the ecology of the eco-systems.
Communal Truth of Wisdom
IPCC reports that eco-crisis is anthropogenic, that is, it is man-made woe. This discovery of the climate or environment scientists corroborates the religious knowledge of bipolar truth of Process Reality. Monotheistically, if one understands the bipolar relationship between the world and God, one comprehends that any occurrence of crisis mirrors the collapse of the unity of existence. Unity of Existence is ultimate Reality designated as God, Brahman, Tao or Buddha . Conversely, disunity of existence is designated as God’s wrath or violation of Unity of Existence. Metaphorically put, God’s wrath punishes the morally flawed human beings through the crisis caused by the collapse of the unity of existence. The insubstantial God never appears as a substantial al-mighty power or figure to punish sinful Man. God is eternal Truth which is invisible and ineffable because God is empty of any inherent existence. Succinctly put, the essence or attribute of Emptiness is God. It is linked to Man in terms of either Unity or Disunity of Existence depending on the standards of the contigent conditions. God is the essence of Emptiness . Emptiness is Insubstantiality or Selflessness (Anattā). God is universally defined as Unity of Existence which is equated with ‘Sūnyatā or Anattā.
God’s wrath is a mere metaphorical expression. It denotes the pain or woe caused to sinful people by the disunity of existence. Disunity of existence denotes failure, defeat or doom conditioned by toxic contigent conditions of the disunity of existence. Failure, defeat or doom serves as the pain or hardship which is retributive justice experienced by one who fails or is defeated due to one’s moral flaws. Metaphorically put, God’s wrath or disunity of existence is an evaluation feedback to the victim that a failing person or collapsed entity has performed poorly in unifying the contigent conditions of unity of existence. Unity of existence is accomplishment. Disunity of existence is failure or defeat.
Taoistically, eco-crisis is caused by the destruction of the equilibrium between Yin and Yang. Yin is the hidden or unmanifest principle. Yang is the manifest phenomenal world. Buddhistly put, the conventional reality is Yang and the ultimate Reality is Yin. Unity of existence occurs when Yin and Yang are harmoniously associated. Buddhistly put, the unity of existence is the harmonious unity of a main caused and a set of contigent conditions. Abhidhammically put, the unity of existence is the harmonious synthesis of all contigent physical and mental dhammas (phenomena) through the operation of the natural law of Dependent Co-arising.
Mahāyāna Buddhistly put, any occurrence of crisis mirrors that the anthropogenic phenomenon obstructs the principle of dependent co-arisen Unity or Non-duality which is Emptiness (‘Sūnyatā). God (Ḥaqq; Truth) and Emptiness are philosophically synonymous in quintessence. Emptiness is the Essence of God.
From the perspective of Theravāda Buddhism, any occurrence of crisis is the exertion of attā (self or ego) which is the negation of Insubstantiality, Selflessness or Egolessness (Anattā). Like Emptiness, Anattā is the Essence of God. The negation of Anattā is the negation of God because Anattā is the divine attribute of God. Anattā is the process Reality of the Insubstantiality of dynamic process becoming. God or Emptiness is also the process of Insubstantiality of dynamic process becoming (sanātana dharma).
The global Earth Hour campaign mirrors global unity of the alliance of civilizations between the east and the west to combat eco-crisis of global warming and climate change. It is the unity of existence transcending creed, colour, belief and religion. Every form of unity is the unity of God, Tao or Emptiness. The campaign brings the global villagers together as a single human family conveying the message of anti-global warming and anti-climate change to their respective governments.
Global Demonstration
The participating cities or organizations are required to turn off the lights for an hour on the same day at local time. The global Earth Hour campaign saves energy and reduces carbon dioxide emission. Each participating city or town organization entity is a vote to support Earth Hour campaign to express planet lover’s concern for the eco-crisis of global warming and climate change. Extreme climate change not only has degraded our natural environment but also has produced extreme weather conditions swamping us disastrously.
In the 2009 Earthy Hour campaign, millions of people across the globe gathered in parks, streets, city squares, recreational centres, hotels, restaurants, sea sides and homes to witness the lights going out on iconic landmarks and city skylines. There were countless people participating in the Earth Hour campaign globally, but the hearts were one – the fervent desire to save our mother planet from the onslaught of global warming and climate change. It is global appeal to the governments to urgently take mitigating measures to combat global warming and climate change before it is too late to act. This unity of actions for a common cause is sacred and divine.
Monotheistically, the unity of existence to actualize a communal goal is the essence of God. Theravāda Buddhistly put, the unity of existence is Insubstantiality (Anattā). Mahāyāna Buddhistly put, the unity of association is Emptiness (‘Sūnyatā). Global Earth Hour campaign unites the world into a single family of a global villagers. Such global unity should be venerated as it is the quintessence of God or Tao or Emptiness. God appears in unity and disappears in disunity.
Network of Relationships
The world’s religions, such as Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam share a communal objective. The communal objective is the study of holistic or organic co-rrelationhsip between biotic and abiotic beings. Religion is principally about ecology – Man’s correlationship with the environment. The symbiotic interrelationship between Man and the natural environment is called ecology. Ecology is an important part of the process or perennial philosophy of all aforementioned major world’s religions. Hence, whoever knows his or her religion will naturally love the natural environment comprising unlimited ecosystems . Whoever loves his neighbour and the natural environment loves God.
Being friendly towards the ecosystems is knowing God or Tao or Emptiness. Buddhism emphasizes the study of ecology to discern Truth of Insubstantiality (Anattā) and Dependent Co-arising (Pațiccasamuppāda). Mahāyānists prefer to designate the eternal Truth of dependently co-arisen Unity or Non-duality as Emptiness (‘Sūnyatā). Emptiness is dependently co-arisen Unity or Non-duality.
All phenomena of multiplicity of the empirical world is the Form; the Unity of Existence is Emptiness. Heart Sūtra depicts the relationship between multiplicity and Unity thus: Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form. Monotheistically put, it is the co-rrelationship between the One and All. All refers to all phenomena of multiplicity and One is the Emptiness. Both Buddhism and Monotheism are process philosophy or perennial wisdom relating the phenomena with the absolute Principle. The phenomena are waves and the absolute Principle is Ocean. The waves and the Ocean are innately inseparable.
Addressing the Crisis
The global warming and climate change are great threats to the sustainable development on our planet. The participation in the campaign is a global demonstration to urge the governments all over the globe to take immediate measures to mitigate and finally fix the eco-crisis. It also creates global awareness that every global villager ought to change his or her lifestyle to preserve the sustainable development of the eco-systems. We are all together in the cosmic unity. All are equally responsible to preserve sustainable development of the earth.
The global Earth Hour’s peaceful demonstration is a global outpour of great compassion to protect our eco-systems. We ought to bear in mind that each and everyone of us is an integral part of the whole or the cosmic Unity in which none is excluded.
The unity of the clusters of eco-systems constitutes the whole universe. Living in God or Tao or Emptiness is annihilating one’s individual self in the cosmic or universal Unity. An individual self or self-identity never exists. It exists merely in conceptual designation that is illusive and unreal. Universal Unity is the only Reality and multiplicity is mere designation. God or Tao or Emptiness is the only Reality. If this Truth of universal Unity is discovered by all participants of Earth Hour demonstration, the planet earth will definitely be saved.
Global Message
Most importantly, the Earth Hour demonstration hopes to provide a global mandate for mitigation actions against global warming and climate change to the world’s political leaders at the coming U.N Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December, 2009. This conference is crucial as the conference will reach a harmonious consensus that will be made to supersede the Kyoto Protocol expiring on 2012. The Kyoto Protocol is not comprehensive and inclusive enough to combat global warming and climate change as some grave polluting economies with large GDPs (Gross Domestic Products) have not committed their nations to the agreement of the Kyoto Protocol. A more consummated agreement is required to mitigate and finally fix the eco-crisis assailing us with epi and dire natural disasters and catastrophes which are actually anthropogenic.
Scientists’ Discovery
The world’s leading climate scientists have ascertained that the current eco-crisis is worsening. It is depleting the natural resources through extreme weather conditions causing enormous disasters or catastrophes. The eco-crisis has been found to be the byproduct of anthropogenic activities. The scientists have even speculated or estimated that the world has only a time duration of 100 months to address the eco-crisis. If the mitigating measures are not implemented within 100 months from now, the eco-crisis will become an eco-catastrophe beyond remedy.
Conclusion
I cannot deny that the Earth Hour demonstration has successfully created public awareness among us to be friendly towards the natural environment and to preserve sustainable economic development. Without the followed-up invigoration by the global actions of wisdom and virtue of all global villagers to protect the natural environment, the demonstration will be an exercise in futility. Actions of wisdom and virtue are developed from religious instructions, self-cultivation, self-awareness and self-rectification. There is no free lunch in the world. We ought to learn religion seriously and put it into practice sincerely. This is how the our mother earth can be saved. The current financial crisis is a good lesson on the evil consequence of greed, laxity and irresponsibility rooted in religious ignorance.
Editor’s Note
Global warming and resultant climate change are environmental issues related to the impacts of human activities on the natural environment. The interrelationship between Man and the natural environment can be better comprehended if the religious wisdom of Unity of Existence is rightly apprehended. Religion helps us understand ecology better. Environmental ethics are developed from understanding ecology from the religious perspective.
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