Disaster Opens the World’s Heart As I write, the world is pouring out its heart to the survivors of the Haiti earthquake.  I watch, stunned at the magnitude of the devastation and awed by the magnitude of the generosity this tragedy has elicited. Something about natural disasters brings out the best in people. Perhaps this is because we would want others to treat us with compassion were we the ones in desperate need. Having worked with people closely as a psychiatric nurse for the past forty years, I have come to know one thing:  human beings want to be known.  We want to be seen and treated with compassion.  This is why giving to Haiti is so important and why it was so important during Katrina, and during the Tsunami of 2004 and other disasters.  But what is not often appreciated is that humans want to be known and seen during conflict, and when they are in deep turmoil. We Cannot See the Other as Human During Conflict We seem to forget this during conflict. Perhaps it has to do with the stormy emotions roiling around inside of us: rage, hatred, revenge.  In the midst of conflict our opponent, who may have been a friend before now becomes an enemy.  He or she becomes other.  Their humanity is gone.  This is true as well of people we have decided we don’t like, those who hold different political, religious or social viewpoints from our own.

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Australian Wildfires Caused By Severe Drought, Possibly Global Warming The recent wildfires in southern Australia have presented some of the most horrific images in memory, made all the more so by the news that some of those fires were deliberately set by an arsonist.  200 or more victims had little chance to escape the fiery inferno because of the severe drought that has ravaged Australia since 2002.  More than a few scientists attribute this drought, in part, to global warming.  We are just beginning to see the terrible impact of climate change on human beings. Global Warming Will Cause Sea Levels to Rise Over the next century global warming will continue and human beings will see more hurricanes, floods storms of all kinds, but most critically, the melting of polar ice and the rising of sea levels. As the seas rise, coastal areas that are now inhabited will be flooded and whole populations will have to move-islands like the Maldives, Bangladesh, even large cities like New York City and Los Angeles may be submerged.  Large numbers of people will be on the move, in search of new homes, perhaps new countries.  With huge numbers of people migrating you have the ingredients for conflict, a perfect storm of conflict. Displacement of People Equals Perfect Opportunities for Conflict I have even heard it suggested that as the world warms, people will migrate to the colder areas of the world, like Canada and Siberia. Think about that. How happy would Russia and Canada be to welcome huge numbers of people migrating to their countries?

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Book Review: The Practice of Peace.  Harrison Owen.  Open Space Institutes, Bellevue, Washington, 2003. usa@openspaceworld.org                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Humans Can Accomplish Amazing Things Together Now that Hurricane Gustav has passed, the people of the U.S. are beginning to appreciate what didn’t happen in New Orleans. Three years after the horrors of Katrina, in the days leading up to Gustav’s impact on the still-recovering city, what we saw was a marvel of well orchestrated and coordinated activity by local, state and federal authorities determined to  safely evacuate it ahead of time.

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Americans today are divided, polarized by political and cultural schisms that are wide, painful and deep. The nature of the issues that divide us are social, cultural, political and religious. In some ways it feels as if we are living in two different countries, depending on where you live and how you describe these schisms and how you vote. The simplest description of this division is to separate the country into the so-called red states and blue states, that is that people in those states vote overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic depending on how they feel about certain cultural or social issues. We can pretty much predict that most people who are pro-choice vote Democratic and most people who are against same sex marriage vote Republican. No surprise there.

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