Global Warming & Climate Change – Living Ubuntu’s Statement of Concern

“Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.”
– Dalai Lama

Global Warming and the Resulting Climate Change

Living Ubuntu’s Statement of Concern

Living Ubuntu is a non-profit organization with a focus on mind-body issues, specifically health and well-being, and the effects of stress, trauma and compassion fatigue. We seek to increase awareness of the global and local impact of these issues, build a sense of community, and encourage living a more fully embodied life.

Given our areas of focus, we are extremely concerned about the disastrous implications of global warming and its direct negative effect on our mission. Climate change is already evident and by all estimations — will get worse.

We can expect an increase in the quantity and severity of natural disasters, with accompanying floods, droughts, and wildfires. Access to clean water will decrease, food shortages more commonplace, air quality worse, and risk of disease increased.  While coastal areas can expect sea levels to rise, desertification will take over in other regions.

Eight Ways Climate Change is Making the World More Dangerous.

It is only to be expected that the number of refugees and mass traumatized populations will exponentially expand, stemming both from extreme weather and scarcity of resources creating additional conflict zone. Even in areas better able to adapt, global warming will bring an era of a more stressful way of life for all of us. With so much more to contend with, we can imagine that compassion fatigue will also increase. From any angle you look at it, near or far, physical or emotional, our wellbeing is going to be increasingly challenged. For many species, including humans, our very survival is at stake.

“The environment is in us, not outside of us. The trees are our lungs, the rivers are our bloodstream. We are all interconnected, and what you do to the environment, ultimately you do to yourself.”
– Ian Somerhalder

Such potentially catastrophic consequences make the reality of global warming hard to think about, yet, we all have choices to make. With part of our mission to “build a sense of community, and encourage living a more fully embodied life” – we don’t want to get stuck in the trauma, run scared from these issues, nor bury our collective heads in the sand. Now, more than ever we seek to gather the local community together in helpful supportive ways as we seek to find our way through these increasingly difficult times.

Ubuntu states, “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.”  We are interconnected. The more we come together on these issues, not only will we be more effective, we will be able to stay calm longer, an essential state for both feeling better and accessing good judgement. Our capacity expands when we feel the sense of “self-assurance that comes from knowing that [we belong] in a greater whole.”

Click here to read our organizational pledge to do what we can, now and progressively over time, to change our ways. This pledge includes a list of what we will do differently to bring our value system into practice, given the times we live in. We seek to decrease our carbon footprint and increase harmonious living with all others who share this earth.

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
– Thich Nhat Hahn