by Mankh
The definition and etymology of the word “climate” unveils the deception of the phrase “climate change,” a phrase that has shoved away the motivation for local responsibilities in privileged areas, while those on the front lines can’t avoid having to stand up and face the machines of machination.
The general understanding of “climate change” is that it is only one thing, thus the solution is too-often presented as one-stop shopping, the current craze for electric vehicles being a prime example along with buzz words such as “clean” “green” “renewable” “sustainable.”
Turning all of the Earth’s areas into one issue reflects a kind of monotheistic thinking and behavioral mode, whereas the word “climate” pertains to a particular “region, zone,” from the Greek klima, and definition,“a region of the earth having specified climatic conditions.”
The significance of particular regions was impressed upon me some years ago from reading Red Alert! by Daniel R. Wildcat (Yuchi, Muscogee).
“Indigenous knowledges begin with a realization that today seems counterintuitive: we can only know ourselves through our relationships with relatives in the natural world—the nature-culture nexus. Such knowledges are the result of introspection and extropsection. It is not an either/or proposition.” (p.69)
While I can learn about an African Lion, I personally know from direct experience that the Blue Jay sometimes makes a whistle-like call when he wants me to throw him a peanut.
viriled news
The mentality that currently dominates the world’s commercial atmosphere is franchise-based. Whether the ubiquitous carbon copies of fastfood, gas stations, and pharmacies along the roads of the USEmpire landscape or the global array of high-end, luxury boutiques, it often looks and feels the same, like a cookie- cutter Hollywood set. What this promotes are citizen-consumers devoid of relationship with the habitats and biodiversity of the region. They say, “You are what you eat,” therefore, You are where you shop – which is to say, your consciousness of your surroundings and how that relates with the world, er, Earth-at-large.
Another dominant aspect of “climate change” is thinking of where we’re at as the “world,” a word meaning “marked by manly force” from virilis or vir “a man, a hero,” or according to Wikipedia, “Common Germanic, weraldiz, a compound of weraz ‘man’ and aldiz ‘age’, thus literally meaning roughly ‘age of man” aka anthropocentric.’ Virile is strong and energetic, and often with a sexual connotation. The “world” then becomes an abstract entity upon which we can force our individual and manly solutions. Add to that the irony of umpteen geopolitical analysts explaining what’s going on in “the world” without ever mentioning the Earth, which is what “geo” is in Greek.
Put the above word analyses together and you get a choice: ‘male chauvinist dominated one world’ or an instructive and healing modality: ‘particular regions of Mother Earth.’
This is not to deny the issues that do affect virtually everyone, nor to deny the Butterfly Effect (“a butterfly flapping its wings in Rio de Janeiro might change the weather in Chicago”), rather to accentuate thinking and activities where you can make a direct impact starting today!
As I was writing this, the forest fires’ smoke from Quebec had me staying indoors in New York. That’s a literally in the face humongous butterfly effect. Yet local news was oblivious to the butterfly fact of, “Wildfires forcing evacuation of Anishnabe, Atikamekw and Cree communities in Quebec” (APTN News video).
I’m reminded of that map of the universe with an arrow pointing to one spot with the caption “You are here.” Because you have to start doing something, somewhere, even though the task may seem daunting, the action insignificant.
Local farming is another activity of immense regional importance considering the advent of “digital agriculture platforms”: “Now, the likes of Bayer, Corteva and Syngenta are working with Microsoft, Google and the big-tech giants to facilitate farmerless farms driven by cloud and AI technology……………… Climate
FieldView, an app owned by Bayer [parent of The Climate Corporation]. It collects data from satellites and sensors in fields and on tractors and then uses algorithms to advise farmers on their farming practices: when and what to plant, how much pesticide to spray, how much fertiliser to apply, etc. FieldView is already being used on farms in the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Europe.”*
climax change
Sharing a related word-root with “climate” is “climax.”Another overlooked aspect of climate change is overpopulation. The more and more babies means more and more housing, more and more resources, more and more pollution, and so on. This is mentioned because I’m skeptical that the world, er, virile-at- large and the women who abet them are willing to face this issue and because future predictions mindlessly tell us that by the year 20-whatever there will be whatever-billion human beings.. which is one of the reasons there are species extinctions because the less and less natural habitats due to more and more humans makes it more challenging for critters to survive.
Therefore I have good reason to encourage people to think twice about the possible effects of their sexual climax. As well, to think about how to be turned- on with living and serving the greater good. Although religions and educational systems have done their best to squelch the topic, instead of simply for procreation one’s sexuality and sexual energies can be in service of spirituality and Earth. One example is shown with the phrase “creative juices” which is neatly explained by an understanding of the second chakra which corresponds to energies of the genitals and relates to both sexuality and creativity, thus not just of babies but works of art or virtually anything. And with the tree of life of Kaballah, that same physical location of the human body corresponds to the element of water.
In your yard, town, country, alleyway, street, neighborhood what can you do? From picking up trash, to asking a tree for guidance, to attempting to stop a desecrating building project or mine, there are umpteen ways to participate locally. How creative can you be? Your excitement level or ability to climax non- sexually can be part of the fuel that helps alleviate climate change.
local knowledge
As Vine Deloria, Jr., wrote, in the 1994 edition of God Is Red though the book was first published in 1973: “The lands wait for those who can discern their rhythms. The peculiar genius of each continent—each river valley, the rugged mountains, the placid lakes—all call for relief from the constant burden of exploitation. … Who will listen to the trees, the animals and birds, the voices of the places of the land?”
One day in early Spring while walking along the street of a harbor town, I saw a man and woman planting shrubs so as to adorn the entranceway of a restaurant. What I learned from chatting with them was that: After several years of attempts with different plants that didn’t fare well, they asked or somehow learned that the type that would thrive needs to be the kind that would not be adversely affected by salty-spray-air coming from the nearby harbor—and one of those kind, a Bay Laurel, is what they were planting.
Whether the local knowledge is from Native Peoples who have been living in a place for thousands of years or from a local nursery, there are actions that can help mitigate adverse effects, whether from age-old weather patterns or climate change.
Being receptive, asking around, getting turned-on, being the local butterfly whose wingbeats inspire the heartbeats of those miles and miles away whom you don’t know and will never meet. Becoming more familiar with the locale and the beings there. That’s one blueprint for the work ahead.
NOTE
*“From Net Zero to Glyphosate: Agritech’s Greenwashed Corporate Power Grab” by Colin Todhunter, https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/06/from-net-zero-to- glyphosate-agritechs-greenwashed-corporate-power-grab/
