The State of Affairs

Recently I have seen an uptick in my older posts concerning climate change. These posts had been the least viewed. This increase in views is probably because of the realization that climate is really changing with unprecedented heat and storms. Perhaps this new interest in these posts should not be a surprise. People focus on immediate concerns and for most people climate change seemed to be something far off with little relevance to their lives. Now all of that is changing. More people are searching for safe places to live, although the main movement is still from colder regions in the North to the South and Southwest, which are areas that are or will be negatively affected by climate change.

I wish I could say that the current situation is a blip that will soon pass. However, my dreams have shown that weather will only get worse for several more years (see my August 2015 post titled A Dream About Edgar Cayce and Climate Change), something also now projected to be the case by scientists. Maybe by the end of the decade new technologies will bring about more stable conditions. There are many encouraging new developments that should substantially reduce greenhouse gases during the latter half of this decade. But for now, we must live with the results of past inaction with things still getting worse.

 

How bad will it get? I don’t know the answer, but for many people disaster has already struck. Some parts of the world such as Africa are seeing unprecedented drought conditions. Somalia is hard hit with thousands dying of starvation. International aid organizations are desperately seeking donations to avert a catastrophe. In the United States, we are seeing record heat in cities such as Phoenix that is resulting in deaths. So far, crops are largely surviving, although that could change very quickly. It will not take much of a further increase in temperatures to push at risk areas into a crisis with people and crops unable to endure the heat.

 

In addition to climate change, the world is now facing a war in Europe that could envelope all nations. In the United States I am seeing a division among people that I have never before witnessed in my lifetime. Instead of working together to solve this nation’s problems, groups are working against each other. The polarization may have multiple causes, but the division that even pits family members against each other is quite shocking. We are facing a seminal moment in history and many politicians nurse petty grievances and look for ways to punish their political enemies instead of solving critical problems.

 

In my earlier post titled Seeing the Future, I wrote about the limitations that we experience as humans. I pointed out the nature of our mental world as an individual creation that is based on very limited information. Even the physical world we think we know is a creation of our brains that depends on sense information that is far from comprehensive. And our mental world is based on beliefs, thoughts, and feelings that may bear little relation to reality. Even the rational, levelheaded person is unable to peer into the mind of another person and see all their thoughts; they must reach conclusions and make judgements about the person based on limited information captured by the senses.

 

Fortunately, there is an answer. Help exists in the way of communications from our subconscious mind, which is not as limited as the conscious mind. We can see the connection between ourselves and other people. At deep levels of the unconscious, the mind experiences a unity that is beyond conscious awareness, except during enlightened periods. However, through our dreams we are shown a connection with others that goes far beyond what our conscious awareness sees. We are also shown our own limitations and misconceptions about ourselves and other people. We soon realize that things we were certain were true may not be true; they are only our beliefs about what is true.

 

When I was employed by a corporation, I managed a technical group responsible for software applications. Late in my career, I moved to a new position that was more directly related to sales and customer support. One day I recall having a conversation with the person who replaced me as manager of the applications group. He said he had previously wondered why I had done certain things, which he admitted he regarded as questionable. But now that he was in my former position, he said he understood my earlier actions.

 

Education helps us understand other people, even those from foreign cultures. I am somewhat distressed by the emphasis on going to college just to get a better, higher paying job. Improving one’s occupational opportunities is important, but equally important is the enhancement of understanding of the arts, other cultures, and society. As we explore other cultures, we find that people everywhere have the same basic concerns and desires that we have. If humanity is to endure and prosper, it will not be because of technology; it will be because we have turned to the spiritual to guide our actions and recognized that at a deep level, we are all one.

 

Recently, I was talking with a neighbor about climate change. He asked me who I thought was responsible. I said we all are. As early as four decades ago, scientists and others began warning about the negative impact humans were having on the Earth. But most ignored the warnings, including the US Congress. A few voices cried out about the urgency of acting, but most thought actions were unnecessary. Al Gore warned us thirty years ago. (See https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/mtp-flashback-1993-al-gore-warned-climate-change-us-temperatures-soare-rcna40221.) 

In his second inaugural address Barack Obama highlighted the threat of climate change and the need for immediate action. That was over ten years ago. Still Congress did not act. Finally, President Biden was able to get a bill passed in Congress that supplied critically needed funding to address climate change. But we are late in addressing the problem. Innovations from this funding will not change what is currently happening. We are going to have to live with the lack of action during earlier decades. When I say all of us are responsible, I am referring to our lifestyles and choice of representatives to Congress with little vision who disavowed any real threats from climate change.

 

As I stated above, I don’t know how bad things will get but past dreams indicate it will get worse, maybe even catastrophic for some areas in the United States and other parts of the world. My dream about California is certainly shocking (see post on 6/25/2021 titled Warning Dream about Seismic Activity in California). The acceleration of the melting of the glacier ice caps, heat waves, and forest fires is very worrisome. People are dying from the heat, and some have no place to go for relief. We need to work together, both in the US and in the United Nations, to address this urgent problem. This is a critical moment for humanity. If we cannot come together and focus all our combined energy and resources on the problem, many people will not survive. We need a plan on the national level about how to help people who live in areas that may suddenly become uninhabitable. How will people be fed, clothed, and housed? How will health care be provided?

 

A couple of years ago, I expressed concerns in a post about the effects of climate change on the economic environment and financial markets. At that time, there was little concern expressed in the financial news, but now I am starting to see articles expressing alarm about the financial impact of climate change. As a society we are not very proactive; thinking is very short term and great sweeps of change are often ignored or not seen at all. It isn’t until we are feeling the direct effects of threats that we are able to galvanize into action. My belief is that when the full effects of climate change are realized, panic will set in. For now, the stock market is moving higher, and analysts are making future stock predictions with no thought of the effects of climate change. That could all change in an instant because of a critical event affecting our food sources, physical health, or the sustainability of certain geographic areas. We saw how quickly Covid-19 changed everything. A new disease for which we are unprepared could appear overnight.

 

Pray for guidance and turn to your dreams for answers. They will provide help, and a single dream could help prevent a loss to you and your family. The certainty of help will strengthen your faith and help you keep a positive attitude during trying times. Even if you are not directly affected, many others are and need your help. Over the years, my dreams have saved me from serious grief. Yours can as well, but you must be willing to take the time to understand this critical aspect of your being.

 

In this country, people place great emphasis on material things. The belief in God is a at a low point; technology is the new God. But technology has not and will not solve the basic problems we face that bring about hunger, disease, and war. Human nature has not learned from history as current problems around the world show. More and better technology will be exploited for war just as past developments have been. The only hope for humanity is an understanding of and reverence for all life. A growth in awareness must occur or the destructive use of technology will end us.

 

The new movie Oppenheimer raises serious questions, but it is sad that the scientists involved in the development of the atomic bomb did not fully realize where it would lead. The situation we have today was predictable once the first bomb exploded. But they and the country’s leaders did not see the probable future that was already contained in their present. A group of scientists did try to urge the government to not use the bomb once it was developed, but I think they were being naïve. Oppenheimer apparently went into a depression when he began to see the results of the detonation over Hiroshima. I wonder what he thought was going to happen.

 

In a future post, I am going to share a few of my thoughts about AI. This is a very important topic that I believe will further test the moral fiber of humanity. Technical developments are occurring at a pace that may well be outstripping humanity’s ability to understand and control the outcomes of those developments. We are creating ever more powerful systems, tools, and weapons without an increase in our wisdom. 

It was not just Oppenheimer who had great misgivings about what he had done in developing the atomic bomb and who later opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb. John Von Neumann, the great twentieth century polymath, played an integral part in its development and use as well. Some ten years later, he wrote an article that appeared in the Fortune magazine in 1955 titled “Can We Survive Technology?”  He was considered by some colleagues to be the smartest person alive at that time, and he was very worried about technology outstripping humanity’s ability to manage and even survive it. (See https://www.thenation.com/article/society/john-von-neumann/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity.) Is humanity now at that singularity suggested by Von Neumann?