Our Global Responsibility

This world of us is highly interconnected. There is not a single action that we take that is isolated from the rest of the world or the rest of society. There is no neutrality when it comes to our actions and the environment, including social environment.
When it comes to looking for our wellbeing we realize that our lives are interconnected within our spirituality, biology, sociology, and psychology with a greater sense of reality.
So one question we might pose is what is reality? As this question is too profound for me to be able to find an easy answer, it is better to translate it to: What is really going on with our environment?
In trying to find answers to the latter question I came across ideas that intertwine the physical with the metaphysical, that is the appearance of the connection between what we think and what we believe. In his book "A Spirituality of Resistance" Roger Gottlieb

makes sure that the reader find a strong sense of responsibility and accountability in connection to taking care of the environment. Using the way in which some Germans behaved during the holocaust Gottlieb emphasizes the strong need of humans to belong to society, to have a place in the 'production' line, and to be someone through what it is 'accomplished.' Gottlieb is direct in pointing out that we are guilty of harming the earth just by being complacent and unaware that with our daily routines we are contributing to an irreversible damage to the environment.
In the Oregonian today we read good news about an epidemiologist researcher at Oregon State University who is studying pollution at a global level. The article is a reprint from the Corvallis Gazette-Times. You can read the article here.

 

Perry Hystad received one of the Early Independence Award by the National Institute of Health. The $250,000 a year (for up to five years) will help Hystad continue his research correlating community with health risks. No doubt he will be able to get valuable information helping all of us understand how with our daily ramblings interact and change the environment. We will find for sure information that will help develop new strategies for social behavior, that will help all of us to have a much better life. Not only in the economic sense but in the holistic sense of spiritual, psychological, social, and material interconnectedness.

Have you ever thought about how your daily life is affecting the environment, and how you can change your lifestyle to have a positive effect?