Extinguish the fires of greed; globe will be less warm

Ven Bhikkhu Nyanatusita

"Everything is burning," said the Buddha in one of his first discourses. He continued by explaining that the world of the senses is burning with the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion.

Now, when the effects of global warming are becoming apparent in many parts of the world, this statement of the Buddha may also be taken in a more literal and material sense: the world's atmosphere is rapidly heating up due to greed-driven human activity.

Everything is burning," said the Buddha in one of his first discourses. He continued by explaining that the world of the senses is burning with the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion.

Now, when the effects of global warming are becoming apparent in many parts of the world, this statement of the Buddha may also be taken in a more literal and material sense: the world's atmosphere is rapidly heating up due to greed-driven human activity.

The internal and external reflect each other, so, in one sense, it is not surprising that modern people, burning with inner greed, hatred, and delusion, are heating up the external atmosphere through their actions.

Global warming is a concept that denotes the temperature increase in the earth's atmosphere due to the huge amounts of carbon dioxide emitted by human activity, mostly through the inconsiderate combustion of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.

Although climate scientists have been warning against the potentially disastrous effects of global warming for four decades, no large-scale counter-measures have been taken so far. Scientists predict that global warming will cause increasingly extreme weather patterns: greater heat, greater cold, stronger wind, more or less rain.

The increasing warmer temperatures are causing the ice caps in the North and South Poles to melt, which results in rising sea levels.

A recent research project that analyzed trapped air in the Antarctic ice core concluded that the present levels of CO2 are the highest in 600,000 years, the furthest they could go back, that the fastest increase during that period was during the last seventeen years, and that a similar hike in CO2 levels has never happened in less than a thousand year period up to now.

One of the researchers involved said that there is nothing in the ice core that gives us any reason for comfort and that changes of CO2 levels in the past have always been accompanied by climate change.

Although sceptics, often financially sponsored by US oil companies such as Exxon, try to cast doubt on the fact that human activity is responsible for global warming, suggesting that it could be a natural occurrence, leading climate scientists and political figures such as Al Gore and Tony Blair connect global warming to the ever increasing combustion of fossil fuels.

The recent UN report on global warming also puts the blame on human activity with great certainty. Global warming is a global problem in the sense that it is caused globally and effects globally. The emission of CO2 in one area of the world will have effects on the climate everywhere.

Thus, even if the emission of CO2 is reduced in Europe, the great increase of CO2 emissions in rapidly developing countries such as India or China will cause this reduction to have no effect.

At the end October, the Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair, said that the world was facing "nothing more serious, more urgent, or more demanding of leadership" than climate change. Speaking at the launching of a major economic report commissioned by the British Treasury, Blair said there was "overwhelming scientific evidence" that climate change was taking place and that the consequences of failing to act would be "disastrous."

According to the report, "Our actions over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."

The former US vice-president Al Gore made the Oscar-award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth on global warming. He convincingly argues that it is ethically unjustifiable to evade this issue any longer, especially if one wishes a future for one's children, and that drastic action needs to be taken now.

A recent UN report, the Global Biodiversity Outlook, states the need for unprecedented effort to slow down the decline in the richness of natural systems throughout the world. More species of animals and plants are becoming extinct now than at any time since the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

And this is all due to human activity. Eventually, the misuse of modern technology might cause our natural environment to collapse in such a way it can not support people anymore.

Last year, I had first-hand experience of the effects of global warming when visiting Europe. When I grew up in the Netherlands, it was a cool and drizzly country even in summer.

However, when I was there at the end of June, a tropical heat wave started to envelope the whole of Northern Europe, and in some areas temperatures soared above 35?c. These extreme heat waves were unknown in Northern Europe until a few years ago.

When the heat wave was over, unprecedented tropical rainstorms inundated streets. In Autumn the trees carried their leaves for weeks longer than they normally would have, and the first frost, which would normally already come at night by mid-October, only came late January and then only for a few days. Daffodils and other spring flowers that would normally flower in March, already started to flower in January.

As a consequence of the rising temperatures, plants, animals, fish, insects, and cattle-diseases, which would normally only be found in distant southern European areas with mild winters and warm summers, have started to appear in the Netherlands during the last few years.

Due to the warmer weather, southern creatures find conditions suitable in the north and rapidly move up. Another consequence of the heat waves in Europe was that yields of crops were affected, and consequently the prices of certain foods such as milk and bread went up. With a large part of the Netherlands being land below sea level that is only protected by dykes from the sea, Dutch government organizations are naturally taking global warming seriously.

Serious plans have been made on how to deal with drastically rising sea levels due to the melting ice-caps in the Arctic and Antarctic, and what to do when the large rivers that flow through the Netherlands overflow due to rapidly melting snow in the Alps in spring and heavy rains in summer.

In Switzerland, where I also went to visit a monastery, I was told that the glaciers on the mountains around the monastery are disappearing, and, where there previously was ice and snow on the mountains during the summer, now there is none.

Recent plans for shifting over from fossil fuels to nuclear power would increase the risk of nuclear disasters, and, besides this, the building, maintaining, and especially the decommissioning of nuclear plants and the storage of nuclear waste uses tremendous amounts of energy obtained from fossil fuels.

There is no guarantee that future societies, which might not have the same resources as we have now, will be able to handle nuclear waste left over from us. Moreover, uranium is an even more limited resource than oil, and economically viable extraction might finish within twenty years.

Alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar power, are attractive alternatives, but, as these technologies don't create large-scale industries and income for governments and companies, their introduction has been slow.

The ever increasing human over-population of the world is a major contributing factor to global warming. More and more people with ever increasing demands continue to cause more and more strain on limited energy resources, which will lead to increasing political and military conflicts.

There is no need to go into more detail as there are plenty of articles on the effects of global warming in newspapers and magazines. Therefore, the rest of this essay will concentrate on the attitudes of people that are underlying causes for the problem and how the Buddha's teaching could help to resolve this dangerous situation.

Among the family and friends I talked to in the Netherlands there was a general acknowledgement that the climate is changing; however, when one touches upon the causes and results of it, then a visible uneasiness arises, and the topic is changed. For many, it is difficult to accept that human activity can change the climate.

Weather has always been something that has been considered unpredictable and uncontrollable.

In pre-modern times, and still, in traditional cultures, it was supposed that gods who controlled the weather, and the only thing that humans could do was to try to placate such gods by making offerings. With the rise of the scientific technological worldview, the consequent belief in an all-controlling god responsible for the weather vanished.

Statistical research in the Netherlands has shown that when fertilizers and pesticides first started to be used on a large scale in the 1950s, church attendance in farming communities drastically dropped because farmers no longer needed to solicit the help of God for a successful harvest.

Even then, although the weather could be predicted to a fairly accurate degree, it was not believed that humans could influence or control the weather. Now, however, it has become apparent that humans are responsible for the increasingly extreme weather patterns that are appearing in many parts of the world.

A reasonable argument for this possibility is that, if people are responsible for such drastic changes in the natural world as the holes in the ozone layer in the stratosphere, the drying up of the Aral Sea in the former USSR, and the spread of deserts in various parts of the world, then why couldn't people cause the atmosphere to heat up? Even if it dawns on people that the climate is changing, they don't see that it is caused by their lifestyles.

Because they don't seriously take into account the effects it could have on their own lives and on the lives of their children; they don't see the need to change their habits. In Buddhism this would be an aspect of the mental fire of delusion or mental blindness.

Most people don't want to think about the prospect of having to live in a world with increasingly extreme weather conditions combined with increasingly limited natural resources to compensate for the calamities-such as floods, famines, mass refugee movements, and wars-caused by it.

The Buddha, however, encouraged his followers to be realistic. He recommended reflecting on the five future dangers-old age, sickness, famine, war, and schism in the Sangha-as an impetus to put forth effort to attain Nibbana.

He warned that when there are famines and wars, there will be many refugees moving to places where there are no famine and war. These refugees will become crowded, making meditation practice hard. (AN 5:78)

The Buddha taught that all mental and physical actions are accompanied and conditioned by a certain view or attitude, what is called a ditti in Pali. People act in accordance with their views.

According to the Buddha, if one's view is wrong, the consequent actions will be unwholesome; likewise, if one's view is right, the consequent actions will be wholesome. Wholesome action leads to the well-being and happiness of oneself and others, and unwholesome action to the detriment and harm of oneself and others.

It is to be noted that, according to the Buddha, right view needs to be based on a proper understanding of his teachings. The aspect of harmlessness is an important part of right view.

Tyrants like Hitler, Mao, and Stalin, at least initially, may have sincerely believed that they were doing good, but their ideas of goodness were not founded on the qualities of harmlessness and virtue. Therefore, millions of innocent people, who were considered obstacles to the 'utopian' societies that they had in mind, were put in concentration camps and murdered.

Likewise, the creators of the atomic bomb believed that they were doing a good thing. Professor Peter Singer has pointed out in his book, How are we to Live?, that beneath the limitless consumerist greed that has enveloped the world, especially in America, there is the view that "greed is good."

This view has its roots in the Protestant doctrine that work is a divine calling and that wealth is a sign of divine grace. This view lies behind the manic work ethic, and the extravagance and grandiosity that characterizes American society. It also lies behind the theory of unlimited economic growth as the way to global prosperity and happiness.

However, what lies at the end of this road of economic growth? The whole of humanity living in mansions and driving Rolls Royces? A study done some years ago suggested that there were enough resources on the earth to supply all its inhabitants a modest, but comfortable, life.

However, due to an excessive and reckless consumption of these resources and their consequent exhaustion, such an ideal might never be realised.

The Calvinistic view got joined to the materialistic, scientific world-view, which, in the minds of many of its adherents, eventually promises a scientific, technological solution for any problem-a "scientific, technological salvation" in other words "a world that's fully under control."

Indeed, technological science has made life much more comfortable for many and has had many benefits, however, it has also produced disastrous inventions such as nuclear weapons. The inventors of technology often don't think about how their inventions might be abused, when limited, short-term financial and economic benefits are put ahead of long-term negative effects.

A good example of the abuse of an apparently beneficial technological invention is the combustion engine, which has led to great short-term benefits, but which is also responsible for great pollution and global warming, which might well lead to even more disastrous consequences than nuclear weapons. So far, the use of nuclear weapons has been limited due to the evident horrendous results.

In the case of global warming, although the effects seem at first unclear and slow, scientists are warning us, there will be no way it can be stopped once it has started. The carbon dioxide and methane now put into the atmosphere will not leave it for decades.

The comfortable and convenient view that technology is eventually going to solve all problems can, from the Buddhist perspective, be considered a wrong view. It is wrong in the sense that is the nature of the world to be uncontrollable.

New problems will always crop up. Due to a wrong, unrestrained use of technology, modern humanity could end up worse-off than its less technologically advanced, but perhaps more sensible and content ancestors.

It is important to reflect on the ancient Jataka story of the immature magician's apprentice who brought a dead tiger to life with a spell he had mastered, at which point the tiger devoured his saviour.

In a similar way, the abuse of technology, due to greed and deluded wrong views, could destroy humanity or a large part of it. Psychological studies have pointed out that people who are living in countries at the bottom of the scale of economic prosperity, such as the Himalayan state of Bhutan and the Pacific island of Vanuatu, are often relatively much happier than those who live in countries that are at the top, such as the USA.

Thus, ironically, it would seem that it is not the people in the richest societies who are happiest, but the ones in less affluent ones.

The main reason for this difference is that most people living in such humble countries don't have the view that happiness lies in the endless accumulation of more wealth, and that, in order to be happy, one needs to have the latest type of car, better, more expensive, and bigger than that of one's neighbours.

The perspective on life that causes such "poor" peoples' relative happiness has naturally evolved out of the need for contentment with the limited natural resources available to them. In any case, whether we want it or not, the impending oil shortages will eventually make us adapt to a simpler, more limited life-style.

The Buddha encouraged contentment and simplicity. His teaching goes against the worldly stream of craving. In contrast to the belief that happiness lies in getting more, the Buddha said, "contentment is the greatest wealth." In Asia, where most Buddhists live, people are thoughtlessly embracing Western consumerist lifestyles.

For example, the rich buy luxurious off-road vehicles. Just as in the West, these SUV vehicles are rarely employed for their actual purpose, and, besides showing off, are mostly used for going shopping and taking children to school. A coalition of Christian and environmental groups in the USA recently launched a campaign to reduce fuel consumption with the motto "What would Jesus drive?"

Buddhist leaders should also encourage their followers to live simple, less environmentally abusive life-styles.

The threat of Christian missionaries is a popular topic among Buddhist leaders in Asia, however, global warming and the widespread destruction and pollution of the environment due to thoughtless consumerism is relatively much more of a threat to Buddhism, and should become a major issue for Buddhist leaders.

It is an irony that conversion to Christian doctrine is paid so much attention to, while the popular adaptation by Buddhists of the destructive, hedonistic, consumerist lifestyle that is a result of Christian doctrine and other wrong views is not criticized. The Buddha encouraged a simple, frugal, and contented lifestyle as being conducive to happiness: "One should be ... contented and easy to support, ... having a frugal lifestyle ...'' (Sn 144) The wise King Asoka gave similar advice in his third Rock Edict: "... moderation in expenditure and moderation in possessions are good."

Qualities such as moderation and frugality do not entail the foregoing of all comfort and happiness, but entail the simplification of one's lifestyle, the development of a sense of responsibility, and an awareness about the consequences of one's lifestyle.

Because Buddhist laypeople don't identify themselves with the Buddha in the same way that Christians do with Jesus, it would be difficult to imagine a campaign with the motto, "What would the Buddha drive?" Nevertheless, the timeless teachings of the Buddha are all about the extinguishing of the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion.

They are actual and modern in encouraging people to live in a frugal and contented manner in harmony with society and nature.

If people can be convinced that their wrong views towards life are fundamentally destructive to themselves and others and that simplicity and contentment are the greatest wealth, they will accept more responsible, harmless and wholesome ways of life. Hopefully, this will help prevent the climate from changing for the worse.

(The writer was born in the Netherlands in 1967 and became a novice in the forest tradition of Sri Lanka in 1991, receiving the full acceptance into the Sangha in 1993. He has stayed in forest monasteries in Sri Lanka, Australia, England, and Thailand. In 2005 he accepted the position of English editor of the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy.)