SN 35.238 and the UN's IPCC 2021 Report on Climate Change

In this talk, Callie Justice looks at SN 35.238, and considers how it speaks to the challenges raised by the newly released report on the climate crisis from the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change. (Please note: the talk includes references to Bhante @Sujato’s recent workshop on approaches to reading the sutta’s given through the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.)

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Thanks so much, Callie.

As it happens, I just came across this tweet from a couple of years ago. This is Chris Hayes, a presenter on MSNBC, responding to someone who asked why there was so little media coverage on climate change.

almost without exception. every single time we've covered it's been a palpable ratings killer. so the incentives are not great.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 24, 2018

It’s raw to see it stated so openly. It’s up to us to talk about it!

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The information from Chris Hayes is indeed disturbing. Made all the more so when considering the fact that MSNBC is a network favored by people who one would expect to support dealing with environmental issues.

One thing I wish that I had talked a bit about more fully in this talk is how essential the practice of reading discourses like ‘The Vipers’ has become for me in attempting to both show-up for the horror and trauma of what is becoming of the earth thanks to people while still living everyday understanding the necessity of whole-heartedly following the Buddha’s path. Talk about a koan!

Thank you for the many, many, many things you do to help with this endeavor.

| sujato Bhante
August 22 |

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Thanks so much, Callie.

As it happens, I just came across this tweet from a couple of years ago. This is Chris Hayes, a presenter on MSNBC, responding to someone who asked why there was so little media coverage on climate change.

almost without exception. every single time we’ve covered it’s been a palpable ratings killer. so the incentives are not great.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 24, 2018

It’s raw to see it stated so openly. It’s up to us to talk about it!

On the topic of media, when the IPCC AR6 report came out, I gave a talk on it, and pointed out how inadequate media coverage was, basically it had vanished in a day or two from most media, the Guardian being an honorable exception.

Well, it seems I was right. It happens occasionally!

Here’s a graph plotting media responses of three “serious” American newspapers: New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal. Only the Washington Post shows an increase of articles on climate change following the AR6.

(Including text and image for accessibility)

Very surprising result from analyzing the number of #climate change articles and the effect of #IPCCReport2021 . Not sure the expected reaction is there. @MichaelEMann @KHayhoe @ClimateReality pic.twitter.com/Xac8RdFQyP

— Kruger du Plessis (@KrugerduPlessis) August 21, 2021

Incidentally, I came across this on the twitter of Prof. Katharine Hayhoe, it’s excellent!

https://twitter.com/KHayhoe

her website:

http://www.katharinehayhoe.com/biography/

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Thank you for the resource on media. We can use it in putting together our ‘Heading for Extinction and What to Do About It’ talk for XR here in North Carolina. I was hoping to start a thread (if that’s the right term) for people to post talks about how the teachings from discourses help us get by these days. I’ve been unable to stop speaking on this theme recently, and just posted another such talk here. It feels very good to have this forum for connecting around all of this (Buddha’s path and climate crisis, etc.).

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