The cold hot facts of faith in science
by Gary Simons
It’s currently freezing cold in Cape Town. But is it really? It’s all a matter of comparison to ‘with what’. To the Sahara desert, yes. Well during the day anyway, because at night in the Sahara it’s cold, Very cold. Probably cold enough to kill you if you’re exposed. However, compared to standing on the Larsen C ice shelf of the Antarctic, it is not freezing in Cape Town. BY the way, a humongous piece of this shelf has just calved a mega iceberg. Click here to check it out
The challenge with language is that it is metaphorical and used relatively. This is a fundamental barrier when it comes to believing in global warming and it’s scientific, verifiable facts. Well certainly for those of us who aren’t scientists. Our neurobiology tells me through my physiology that it is currently cold, so the fact that it is actually getting warmer on the planet is contradictory to the ‘facts’ from my viscera. It takes a mental step of faith in the facts of science for me to ‘believe’ that things are getting hot in here.
This is a more profound and challenging neurolinguistic switch than we may at first realise. I have to make my rational intellect contradict my body brain signals. This is a critical shift that has to happen if I am to be motivated to play my role in cooling things down on our world.
One of the most important ways to ‘convince’ my brain of this is to be reading and listening to the clarion call of what scientific research is telling and showing. Scientists like Gondwana Alive’s Dr John Anderson have dedicated their lives of scientific research to bringing us such facts in relation to the ‘Sixth Extinction’. John’s work is highlighted here on the Gondwana Alive web page. Here is a readable science that helps us convince our brains of the truth that we are the proverbial ‘frog in the slowly warming pot’, and most importantly, that we have to play or role In becoming stewards of the planet’s return to health. We have to be doing practical things to chill it all out.
Check out the following page to get a taste of John’s work. https://www.gondwanaalive.org/publications/
There are, of course, many people working in the field of the science who are bringing us the facts about global warming. A quick Google Search will give you a few lifetimes of reading material. The important thing is not just to read, but to act locally and globally. The following read tells us we are already in the process of the Sixth Extinction. Our challenge as a species is to act together to stem it and minimize it’s impact on all of life as we now know it.
Our brains give us the right message in regard to our immediate environment and we should listen to these messages contextually. If it is ‘freezing in Cape Town I must dress myself accordingly so that my body and brain are happy. However, I must tell myself that this is a false positive in relation to the bigger context I live in. The facts that I read about must cause me to recognize that it is in fact hot, and getting hotter, and that this is not a good thing. I must then live my life in ways that make me a steward of the planet, both for the current living as well as future generations of life.
Share with us on our Facebook Page (click the link on our site) what you are doing to help Stem the Sixth Extinction. Facebook itself has well over a billion subscribers. Imagine the positive impact if we could get his conversation truly global so that more and more positive action takes place. The brain also has the capacity to ‘dream’ and visualize. It also can be used to convince us to take action and turn these neurological dreamlike firings into reality above, in, and on the ground. We need to be doing this now. After all, who really wants to be a boiled frog?