[MD] Selfishness a Buddhist idea?

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Craig to DM]
In a dynamic world, the weather could change everywhere, but the 
overall-temperature could remain the same.

[Arlo]
I don't think this is right. Certainly the larger and larger you move 
up the context, the longer and longer aggregate averages seem to 
hold. For example, in your example the average temperature of the 
planet has longer stability than the average temperature of a 
continent, which in turn has longer stability than the average 
temperature of a state. Moving in the other direction, too, we could 
see that the average temperature of the solar system has greater 
stability than the average temperature of the planet.

But even on these larger contextual levels, there has to be Dynamic 
changes occurring. Because the overall temperature of the earth is 
more stable than the overall temperature of America, or Montana, does 
not mean the overall temperature of the earth is not also itself in flux.

We live presently in between two cycles of glaciation (a time I see 
referred to as "glacial regress") near the end of a larger cycle we 
call an "ice age". Geological records would tell us that before this 
present Ice Age ends, the Earth will see at least one more cycle of 
"glacial progress", before the Earth returns to its "normal" state, a 
state as experienced by the dinosaurs for millions of years. This is 
undeniable geology.

Whether the glacial progress will occur in 1,000 years, or in 10,000 
years no one can really say. Some speculate that the onset of glacial 
progress occurs rapidly following some major event, like the collapse 
of the ocean's "conveyor belts" due to desalination from polar 
melting. Other speculate the glaciers will creep down across the 
continent slowly. One side may be overly paranoid, the other may be 
overly blind.

But one thing is certain. The "warming" of the earth is a precursor 
to another cycle of glaciation. Rest assured, however, that in maybe 
fifty thousand years or so the earth will end its present Ice Age, 
and return to the nice, hot, jungle-like normality the dinos enjoyed. 
But whether its our children or our great-great-great-great 
grandchildren that will have to remaster the art of Wooly Mammoth 
cuisine, well, we'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I am much more concerned with how our pollution 
effects our present world, the quality of my life and the quality of 
the lives of others, then worrying about shaving a decade or so off 
the inevitable coming of ice. The horrific toxic dumping of entities 
like Union Carbide, the reduction of fish populations and the 
dramatic increase in mercury in our ocean's harvest, the fact that 
bottled water is now the norm, the replacing of mountain valleys and 
hiking trails with landfills, the smog and foul air that is becoming 
increasingly common and not just in large urban areas. We have made 
much progress since the early part of the century, when the Chicago 
river ran afoul with the stench of tons of decaying carcasses and 
animal blood, when the smokestacks of our cities left a black soot 
covering the lungs of all who lived nearby, when our forests were 
routinely decimated and clear-cut. But while we have made much 
progress, we have also fallen prey to believing that invisibility is 
a solution. We dump tons of trash into our oceans rather than discuss 
ways to actually decrease the amount of trash we produce. We dump our 
toxins across the borders of second and third world nations. We think 
that the exhaust from our 747s is less a problem than the black 
plumes of our early trains, simply because we don't see it.

Okay, and on that note you see what happens when you go a week 
without coffee and then lose your will and get a cup. :-)