We are all Interconnected even with the Universe

I began these blogs on how to help our organs stay healthy since there is little info on this compared to the usual exercise info. So here is some info that can be helpful. If you need more info go talk to your health professional.

• SPLEEN

The spleen is located on the left side of the abdomen and weighs around 200g in the average healthy adult. The spleen can be considered as two organs in one; it filters the blood and removes abnormal cells (such as old and defective red blood cells), and it makes disease-fighting components of the immune system (including antibodies and lymphocytes). Since the spleen is involved in so many bodily functions, it is vulnerable to a wide range of disorders. However, the human body adapts well to life without this organ, so surgically removing a diseased or damaged spleen is possible without causing any serious harm to the patient.

Spleen structure

The body of the spleen appears red and pulpy, surrounded by a tough capsule. The red pulp consists of blood vessels (splenic sinusoids) interwoven with connective tissue (splenic cords). The red pulp filters the blood and removes old and defective blood cells. The white pulp is inside the red pulp, and consists of little lumps of lymphoid tissue. Antibodies are made inside the white pulp.

Similarly to other organs of the lymphatic system, particular immune cells (B lymphocytes and T lymphocytes) and blood cells are either made or matured inside the spleen. Blood enters the spleen via the splenic artery, which subdivides into many tiny branches. Each branch is encased in a clump of lymphocytes, which means every drop of blood is filtered for foreign particles as it enters the spleen.

Situated just under the left side of the ribcage, the spleen is an amazing, multi-tasking organ that performs a variety of functions. Its main function is to create lymphocytes to filter or, when needed, to destroy red blood cells. It is also where white blood cells are busy protecting the body from foreign agents. As an active organ that endures ongoing punishment from poisons and unwelcome invaders, the spleen is always susceptible to enlarging and rupturing.

Avoiding enlargement

1. Another function of the spleen is to return useful nutrients and other elements to the body by filtering them for reuse. This is why spleen health, though often neglected, is imperative. A healthy spleen can be managed through a healthy diet and by avoiding substances that tend to cause enlargement. Slightly increasing in size during digestion, the average adult spleen is about 3 inches by 5 inches. When the spleen is under stress, it responds by slightly enlarging. Sometimes, when diseases and physical conditions like leukemia, lupus, sickle cell and rheumatoid arthritis are present, they can cause the spleen to enlarge so much that it may rupture. This happens when it performs many tasks at once and when it is sent into a full-blown, defense mode. Viruses and bacteria are also contributing factors to an enlarged spleen. One thing you can do to attempt to maintain spleen health is to try, when possible, to avoid contracting a bacterial or viral infection. Do this by practicing good sanitation and hygiene: wash your hands frequently, avoid contact with people who are ill, and get regular checkups to catch any illnesses early.

Avoid Harmful Substances

2. Because your spleen is an active organ that filters, supplies, destroys and rebuilds cells regularly, it depends on a good supply of nutrients in order to function optimally. Illegal drugs, excessive alcohol, smoking and overly processed foods that are stuffed with unnecessary ingredients can all cause your spleen to enlarge. Avoid eating these processed foods in excess to help improve the health of your spleen. Once it is enlarged it may rupture, and excessive bleeding can create a serious emergency or even the need for surgery. Without surgery, the spleen can be healed, but only with discipline and care in order to nourish it back to health and later by applying preventative measures to keep it healthy. This would involve following a careful diet regimen, and taking medications such as antibiotics as prescribed by your doctor.

The spleen is an organ that is not always taken seriously. Much of that has to do with the fact that many people have ruptured their spleen and are living healthy lives without it. But the spleen does have benefits, such as fighting infection and balancing body fluids, and when a spleen is removed, other organs have to take on bigger roles. So to keep fighting off infections with a healthy spleen, you need to know what food you can eat to strengthen your spleen.

1. Eat more fruits, vegetables, and grains in your diet. These foods are all easier to digest. Raw fruits and vegetables keep many of the enzymes that are lost in cooked, processed foods, making less work for the spleen.
2. Buy more organic food. The spleen needs to process the pesticides in conventional food, treating them as chemicals that shouldn’t have been in the body in the first place. Even if you wash your food, many of the pesticides have already been absorbed. However, organic food can pass right through. But since organic food is often more expensive than conventional food, try purchasing organic food that is in season to save money.
3. Don’t eat too much at a time. The body can only digest so much food at a time, so when you overeat, food gets backed up, straining the spleen.
4. Chew your food thoroughly. Like overeating, not chewing your food creates more work for your entire digestive process.
5. Eat your larger meals earlier in the day when your spleen is functioning at its highest levels. Organs get more tired as the day goes on.

INTESTINES

There are several things you will have to do to maintain healthy Intestines. First of all, the more exercise the better. It really does not have to be painful. The important point is movement. You don’t have to go to the weight room, but walk when you can. Your thighs are your body’s biggest muscles, and exercising them forces your body to pump a lot of blood. When you increase your blood circulation like this, you are exercising your heart (very good for you), and the increased circulation and higher metabolism means that your body can process any junk within it at a faster pace. Don’t force yourself to do some horribly painful jog, and get all sweaty to the point that you hate the idea and can’t possibly motivate yourself to repeat it the next day, or never. But increase your daily activity slowly and at a leisurely pace. With little quick exercises you can keep your body in fairly good shape. Walk almost everywhere, or jog there, find on a map a nice route through tree-lined residential areas or parks, so it is quite a pleasant experience. So you can think of ways how to exercise, multi task so to speak, in such a way that it will not consume any extra time during your day, and not be a painful and regretful experience for you. This will increase your body’s metabolism to the point that it will be much better able to process any junk you might eat.

And try to shift your diet away from such junk food. Sure, go to McDonald’s once in a while, or eat an unhealthy hotdog, or a bag of chips with coke etc., but always be conscious of whatever you put in your mouth. read the package. You know, it is not that difficult to find a bag of chips (or snacks – such as a granola bar) that is healthier. Once again, if you make a slow transition in this department as well, your shift will not be a painful and torturous experience. The important point is not to go overboard to the point that you abandon your intentions. Go as slow as you need, but be resolute in your shift. And you will find that your taste buds will change accordingly. Below you will find some simple healthy recipes. It really is not difficult to eat healthy, cheaply, and it can be a joy to cook and eat such healthy food.

Now if you take care of these two points you will go a long way towards a healthy body, and healthy intestines. It does not really make sense to go into great detail about healthy intestines if you are regularly pounding your system with garbage, and if you are inactive. Once you have attained the above state to some degree, you can proceed to focus on your intestines (although you can certainly focus on everything at the same time). Your intestine, in a healthy state, apparently maintains some bacterial balance. Like a swamp which helps keep a lake clean. Full of certain types of bugs which eat the bad stuff.

Your intestines are similar, and if it is coming out as hard as a brick or as runny as Niagara, it is a sign to you that you are doing something wrong. One way you can regulate the bacteria is by drinking Kefir every day. It introduces a certain bacteria into your system to help maintain your intestinal ecology the way it should be.

You should also regulate your poo. I know, sounds pretty funny doesn’t it? But it makes total sense to examine what comes out. If my poop smells bad, I always think back to what I ate that day or the day before, and decide to try and avoid it. Pay attention to how your stomach feels and your body in general after eating crap food. So gauge your body this way, watching what you put into it, paying attention to how you feel afterwards, and examining what comes out. Do not treat your poo with disgust. As some sort of bad evidence you want to conceal and flush out of your sight as quickly as possible, but as something that you can examine and use to regulate your body and what you put into it.

Pork and beef are generally bad, because, in different ways, they help clog your intestines. So try to cut down those, try to eat only the lean and healthy stuff, and in between it eat stuff that helps flush out your system. Like for example Spinach salad. With a healthy dose of olive oil (very healthy for you), some good vinegar, squeezed lemon, a bit of spice, perhaps grated cheese, maybe even diced apples, and you have a rather delicious and very healthy meal which you can whip up in no time flat. Or use Romaine lettuce. Apparently Boston or Ice salad does not have much nutritional value. Go to your local health food shop and start asking lots of questions. Eat long grain brown rice rather than white processed rice. Sure, it might take 40 to 50 minutes to cook, but if you do it properly it requires no maintenance. Just throw it on the stove, during which time you can do lots of other stuff. Oh yes, throw sesame seeds on practically everything (soup, salad). There are very easy ways to eat healthy and not spend hours and a thick wallet doing it.

You can also try the intestinal flush < once in a while. Like plugging your garden hose into an outdoor faucet and turning it on full blast. Really clean out all the dead leaves accumulated over the winter. Your body works on the same principle as your car and your kitchen sink. So just give it an equal amount of attention and you will find yourself getting much healthier in ways you might not have dreamed of. Which will allow you to enjoy life much more, and that blasted car, if you really need it.

Olive oil, olive oil, and more olive oil. Apparently you can have as much as you want. Actually cleans and unplugs your arteries. Don’t waste your time with the extra virgin stuff, which sounds good but is further processed and has fewer nutrients. Cook with it, pour it into your salad, and drink it with disgust during your annual liver cleanse, ha ha.

What kinds of exercises help to increase bowel movements and bowel frequency?  First, the exercise must be regular. Occasional exercises better than none at all but regular exercise works best. Intensity counts also.

Here from a survey of existing research are the 5 best exercises that increase bowel movements:

1. Jump rope. Jumping rope for 20 minutes to half an hour every day helps to increase blood flow to the entire body, including the intestines. The up-and-down movements can be hard on your legs in you are out of shape, and hard on your knees if you are overweight.  Try jumping without the rope just a little bit off the floor on a carpeted floor r exercise mat. This will soften the impact on your knees.
2. Brisk walking. Briskly walking 35 to 45 minutes a day was cited by most of our readers as the single best exercise for bowel movements. The emphasis is on brisk walking. Strolls help our general health, helping to lower blood pressure and sugar levels as you know from other articles we have done, but brisk walking helps most to move the intestinal tract. Stride out long and strong, shoulders back and arms swinging. You don’t have to hit the ground hard. Just glide briskly.
3. Yoga.  Two poses in particular are effective in moving the bowels. The first is the cross over leg stretch. Lie on your back. Raise your left leg and cross it over the right leg.  When you finish your left leg should form a big “T” with your right leg.   Don’t worry if you’re not flexible enough to make a true T. Just start.  You will feel a slight stretch in your hip. Now. Do the other leg.  Repeat 5 times on each leg.

The other pose which helps bowel movement and also erectile dysfunction is the warrior pose.  The reason it works is that it is form of squat.   

4. Lunges.  Lunging principally works your thigh muscles. Bu a secondary benefit is that they also move your intestines as you dip lower into the lunge.  Remember, the intestines are over 25 feet long in an average adult, and when you bend deeply, you are stretching about a third of your intestinal tract. So, do at least 5 deep plunges every other day.
5. Squats. There’s a reason we go to the bathroom while in a natural seated position. Squatting aligns more of the intestinal tract downward. However, merely sitting in this position is ineffective. You have to do “three-quarter squats” to move your bowels. To do a three-quarter squat, bend down half as far as you would bend to sit in a chair.

Bonus Tip 6. Bicycle Crunch. The bicycle crunch is an intense crunch which works your entire abdomen. It also gently moves your intestinal tract from side to side and facilitates bowel movements.

As I teach ESL (English as a Second Language)I rely on research to structure the content of my classes for adults. Here are some interesting articles:
————————————————-
There has been a longstanding interest among second and foreign language educators in research on language and the brain. Language learning is a natural phenomenon; it occurs even without intervention. By understanding how the brain learns naturally, language teachers may be better able to enhance their effectiveness in the classroom.

Brain Development: Can Teaching Make a Difference?

It has long been known that different regions of the brain have specialized functions. For example, the frontal lobes are involved in abstract reasoning and planning, while the posterior lobes are involved in vision. Until recently, it was believed that these specialized regions developed from a genetic blueprint that determined the structure and function of specific areas of the brain. That is, particular areas of the brain were designed for processing certain kinds of information from birth.

New evidence suggests that the brain is much more malleable than previously thought. Recent findings indicate that the specialized functions of specific regions of the brain are not fixed at birth but are shaped by experience and learning. To use a computer analogy, we now think that the young brain is like a computer with incredibly sophisticated hardwiring, but no software. The software of the brain, like the software of desktop computers, harnesses the exceptional processing capacity of the brain in the service of specialized functions, like vision, smell, and language. All individuals have to acquire or develop their own software in order to harness the processing power of the brain with which they are born.

A number of studies support this view. However, all were carried out on animals, because it is not possible to do such research with humans. Caution is called for when extrapolating these findings to humans. The studies discussed below reveal the incredible neural flexibility of the developing (and aging) brain. (See Chapter 5 in Elman et al., 1997).

Cortical tissue transplanted from its original location to a new location in the brain of young animals takes on the structure and function of its new location and not those of its original location. More specifically, neurons in the visual cortex of rodents have been transplanted to regions of the brain that are normally linked to bodily and sensory functions. The transplanted tissue comes to function like somato-sensory neurons and loses the capacity to process visual information (O’Leary & Stanfield, 1985). Likewise, if input from the eyes is rerouted from what would normally be the visual area of the brain to what is normally the auditory area of the brain, the area receiving the visual input develops the capacity to process visual and not auditory information; in other words, it is the input that determines the function of specific areas of the brain (Sur, Pallas, & Roe, 1990).

Greenenough, Black, and Wallace (1993) have shown enhanced synaptic growth in young and aging rats raised in complex environments, and Karni et al. (1995) have shown expansion of cortical involvement in performance of motor tasks following additional learningin other words, the cortical map can change even in adulthood in response to enriched environmental or learning experiences.

These findings may have implications for language educators: for one thing, that teaching and teachers can make a difference in brain development, and that they shouldn’t give up on older language learners.

Learning Through Connections

The understanding that the brain has areas of specialization has brought with it the tendency to teach in ways that reflect these specialized functions. For example, research concerning the specialized functions of the left and right hemispheres has led to left and right hemisphere teaching. Recent research suggests that such an approach does not reflect how the brain learns, nor how it functions once learning has occurred. To the contrary, “in most higher vertebrates (humans), brain systems interact together as a whole brain with the external world” (Elman et al., 1997, p. 340). Learning by the brain is about making connections within the brain and between the brain and the outside world.

What does this mean? Until recently, the idea that the neural basis for learning resided in connections between neurons remained speculation. Now, there is direct evidence that when learning occurs, neuro-chemical communication between neurons is facilitated, and less input is required to activate established connections over time. New evidence also indicates that learning creates connections between not only adjacent neurons but also between distant neurons, and that connections are made from simple circuits to complex ones and from complex circuits to simple ones.

For example, exposure to unfamiliar speech sounds is initially registered by the brain as undifferentiated neural activity. Neural activity is diffuse, because the brain has not learned the acoustic patterns that distinguish one sound from another. As exposure continues, the listener (and the brain) learns to differentiate among different sounds and even among short sequences of sounds that correspond to words or parts of words. Neural connections that reflect this learning process are formed in the auditory (temporal) cortex of the left hemisphere for most individuals. With further exposure, both the simple and complex circuits (corresponding to simple sounds and sequences of sounds) are activated at virtually the same time and more easily.

As connections are formed among adjacent neurons to form circuits, connections also begin to form with neurons in other regions of the brain that are associated with visual, tactile, and even olfactory information related to the sound of the word. These connections give the sound of the word meaning. Some of the brain sites for these other neurons are far from the neural circuits that correspond to the component sounds of the words; they include sites in other areas of the left hemisphere and even sites in the right hemisphere. The whole complex of interconnected neurons that are activated by the word is called a neural network.

The flow of neural activity is not unidirectional, from simple to complex; it also goes from complex to simple. For example, higher order neural circuits that are activated by contextual information associated with the word doggie can prime the lower order circuit associated with the sound doggie with the result that the word doggie can be retrieved with little direct input. Complex circuits can be activated at the same time as simple circuits, because the brain is receiving input from multiple external sourcesauditory, visual, spatial, motor. At the same time that the auditory circuit for the word doggie is activated, the visual circuit associated with the sight of a dog is also activated. Simultaneous activation of circuits in different areas of the brain is called parallel processing.

In early stages of learning, neural circuits are activated piecemeal, incompletely, and weakly. It is like getting a glimpse of a partially exposed and very blurry photo. With more experience, practice, and exposure, the picture becomes clearer and more detailed. As exposure is repeated, less input is needed to activate the entire network. With time, activation and recognition are relatively automatic, and the learner can direct her attention to other parts of the task. This also explains why learning takes time. Time is needed to establish new neural networks and connections between networks. This suggests that the neural mechanism for learning is essentially the same as the products of learninglearning is a process that establishes new connections among networks and the new skills or knowledge that are learned are neural circuits and networks.

What are the implications of these findings for teaching? First, effective teaching should include a focus on both parts and wholes. Instructional approaches that advocate teaching parts and not wholes or wholes and not parts are misguided, because the brain naturally links local neural activity to circuits that are related to different experiential domains. For example, in initial reading instruction, teaching phonics independently of the meaning of the words and their meaningful use is likely to be less effective than teaching both in parallel. Relating the mechanics of spelling to students’ meaningful use of written language to express themselves during diary writing, for example, provides important motivational incentives for learning to read and write. Second, and related to the preceding point, teaching (and learning) can proceed from the bottom up (simple to complex) and from the top down (complex to simple). Arguments for teaching simple skills in isolation assume that learners can only initially handle simple information and that the use of simple skills in more complex ways should proceed slowly and progressively. Brain research indicates that higher order brain centers that process complex, abstract information can activate and interact with lower order centers, as well as vice versa. For example, teaching students simple emotional expressions (vocabulary and idioms) can take place in the context of talking about different emotions and what situations elicit different emotions. Students’ vocabulary acquisition can be enhanced when it is embedded in real-world complex contexts that are familiar to them. Third, students need time and experience (“practice”) to consolidate new skills and knowledge to become fluent and articulated.

Are All Brains the Same?

Brains are not all the same. Take the early research on left-right hemispheric differences with respect to language. For most individuals, the left hemisphere is critically involved in most normal language functions. We know this because damage to the left hemisphere in adults leads to language impairment, which is often permanent. However, approximately 10% of normal right-handed individuals have a different pattern of lateralization; their right hemispheres or both hemispheres play a critical role in language (Banich, 1997, pp. 306-312). Males and females have somewhat different patterns of lateralization, with males being more left-hemisphere dominant than females. In the domain of reading, brain maps of students with dyslexia demonstrate that there are very large individual differences in the areas of the brain that underlie their difficulties (Bigler, 1992).

We also know that the areas of the brain that are important in specific domains of learning can change over the life span. There is increasing evidence of right hemisphere involvement in early language learning but less in later learning. Young children with lesions to their right hemisphere demonstrate delays in word comprehension and the use of symbolic and communicative gestures. These problems are not found in adults with right hemisphere lesions. Stiles and Thal have argued that there may be a link between the word comprehension problems of children and the right hemisphere, because “to understand the meaning of a new word, children have to integrate information from many different sources. These sources include acoustic input, but they also include visual information, tactile information, memories of the immediately preceding context, emotionsin short, a range of experiences that define the initial meaning of a word and refine that meaning over time” (Stiles and Thal, as cited in Elman et al., pp. 309-310). We know from a variety of sources that integration across domains of experience is a right-hemisphere function.

By implication, brain research confirms what we know from education research: that educators must make provisions for individual differences in learning styles by providing alternative grouping arrangements, instructional materials, time frames, and so on. Instruction for beginning language learners, in particular, should take into account their need for context-rich, meaningful environments. Individual differences in learning style may not be a simple matter of personal preference, but rather of individual differences in the hardwiring of the brain and, thus, beyond individual control.

Conclusions

Our understanding of the brain is continually evolving, thus our interpretation of the implications of findings from brain-based research for teaching and learning should also continually evolve. Brain research cannot prescribe what we should teach, how we should organize complex sequences of teaching, nor how we should work with students with special needs. Educators should not abandon their traditional sources of insight and guidance when it comes to planning effective instruction. They should continue to draw on and develop their own insights about learning based on their classroom experiences and classroom-based research to complement the insights that are emerging from advances in brain research. Fred Genesee, McGill University

———————————————————— What was highlighted in our previous article is the need for language to be meaningful at all times, and this is common ground for both children and adults alike. A quick look at present-day language courses clearly shows that this is not the case at all. You will see from the very first lesson, that the students have laundry lists of words to master and memorize, grammar, vocabulary, grammar and more vocabulary to make them feel they can even “touch” the language, those pretty “tangible” patterns they learn lesson after lesson that make them feel so secure and confident. The truth is, in the vast majority of cases, that whenever presented with a REAL situation in which they have to use the language, more often than not they dry up and are unable to utter two coherent phrases altogether. Are they to blame for their “failure?” Of course not. If what you are trained to do exclusively is grammar, repetitions and drills, you cannot be expected to produce something different, something communicative. The magic “click” that is supposed to take place in the students’ brains after constant hammering and repetition apparently never takes place or if it does, in the best of cases, it is in less than 2 per cent of the learners. What does this show? Clearly it is an indicator that must make us reflect on the importance of our teaching practices. Just because we as teachers learned things in a certain way does NOT mean that it is THE way. Pragmatic results clearly show that a grammar based approach to teaching a language is highly ineffective since language per definition entails communication. Until we come to understand this simple fact, we will keep seeing students dropping out of their language studies because “they are too hard for them, they are not cut out to learn a second language” and statements like these. And they may be true… They do NOT need to learn a second language. Then need to acquire it in all the senses of the word.  Julio Foppoli ————————————————————————————————- The Older Language Learner

by Mary Schleppegrell

Can older adults successfully learn foreign languages? Recent research is providing increasingly positive answers to this question. The research shows that:

• there is no decline in the ability to learn as people get older;
• except for minor considerations such as hearing and vision loss, the age of the adult learner is not a major factor in language acquisition;
• the context in which adults learn is the major influence on their ability to acquire the new language.

Contrary to popular stereotypes, older adults can be good foreign language learners. The difficulties older adults often experience in the language classroom can be overcome through adjustments in the learning environment, attention to affective factors, and use of effective teaching methods.

AGING AND LEARNING ABILITY

The greatest obstacle to older adult language learning is the doubt–in the minds of both learner and teacher–that older adults can learn a new language. Most people assume that “the younger the better” applies in language learning. However, many studies have shown that this is not true. Studies comparing the rate of second language acquisition in children and adults have shown that although children may have an advantage in achieving native-like fluency in the long run, adults actually learn languages more quickly than children in the early stages (Krashen, Long, and Scarcella, 1979). These studies indicate that attaining a working ability to communicate in a new language may actually be easier and more rapid for the adult than for the child.

Studies on aging have demonstrated that learning ability does not decline with age. If older people remain healthy, their intellectual abilities and skills do not decline (Ostwald and Williams, 1981). Adults learn differently from children, but no age-related differences in learning ability have been demonstrated for adults of different ages.

OLDER LEARNER STEREOTYPES

The stereotype of the older adult as a poor language learner can be traced to two roots: a theory of the brain and how it matures, and classroom practices that discriminate against the older learner.

The “critical period” hypothesis that was put forth in the 1960’s was based on then-current theories of brain development, and argued that the brain lost “cerebral plasticity” after puberty, making second language acquisition more difficult as an adult than as a child (Lenneberg, 1967).

More recent research in neurology has demonstrated that, while language learning is different in childhood and adulthood because of developmental differences in the brain, “in important respects adults have superior language learning capabilities” (Walsh and Diller, 1978). The advantage for adults is that the neural cells responsible for higher-order linguistic processes such as understanding semantic relations and grammatical sensitivity develop with age. Especially in the areas of vocabulary and language structure, adults are actually better language learners than children. Older learners have more highly developed cognitive systems, are able to make higher order associations and generalizations, and can integrate new language input with their already substantial learning experience. They also rely on long-term memory rather than the short-term memory function used by children and younger learners for rote learning.

AGE RELATED FACTORS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING

Health is an important factor in all learning, and many chronic diseases can affect the ability of the elderly to learn. Hearing loss affects many people as they age and can affect a person’s ability to understand speech, especially in the presence of background noise. Visual acuity also decreases with age. (Hearing and vision problems are not restricted exclusively to the older learner, however.) It is important that the classroom environment compensate for visual or auditory impairments by combining audio input with visual presentation of new material, good lighting, and elimination of outside noise (Joiner, 1981).

CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Certain language teaching methods may be inappropriate for older adults. For example, some methods rely primarily on good auditory discrimination for learning. Since hearing often declines with age, this type of technique puts the older learner at a disadvantage.

Exercises such as oral drills and memorization, which rely on short-term memory, also discriminate against the adult learner. The adult learns best not by rote, but by integrating new concepts and material into already existing cognitive structures.

Speed is also a factor that works against the older student, so fast-paced drills and competitive exercises and activities may not be successful with the older learner.

HELPING OLDER ADULTS SUCCEED

Three ways in which teachers can make modifications in their programs to encourage the older adult language learner include eliminating affective barriers, making the material relevant and motivating, and encouraging the use of adult learning strategies.

Affective factors such as motivation and self-confidence are very important in language learning. Many older learners fear failure more than their younger counterparts, maybe because they accept the stereotype of the older person as a poor language learner or because of previous unsuccessful attempts to learn a foreign language. When such learners are faced with a stressful, fast-paced learning situation, fear of failure only increases. The older person may also exhibit greater hesitancy in learning. Thus, teachers must be able to reduce anxiety and build self-confidence in the learner.

Class activities which include large amounts of oral repetition, extensive pronunciation correction, or an expectation of error-free speech will also inhibit the older learner’s active participation. On the other hand, providing opportunities for learners to work together, focusing on understanding rather than producing language, and reducing the focus on error correction can build learners’ self-confidence and promote language learning. Teachers should emphasize the positive–focus on the good progress learners are making and provide opportunities for them to be successful. This success can then be reinforced with more of the same.

Older adults studying a foreign language are usually learning it for a specific purpose: to be more effective professionally, to be able to survive in an anticipated foreign situation, or for other instrumental reasons. They are not willing to tolerate boring or irrelevant content, or lessons that stress the learning of grammar rules out of context. Adult learners need materials designed to present structures and vocabulary that will be of immediate use to them, in a context which reflects the situations and functions they will encounter when using the new language. Materials and activities that do not incorporate real life experiences will succeed with few older learners.

Older adults have already developed learning strategies that have served them well in other contexts. They can use these strategies to their advantage in language learning, too. Teachers should be flexible enough to allow different approaches to the learning task inside the classroom. For example, some teachers ask students not to write during the first language lessons. This can be very frustrating to those who know that they learn best through a visual channel.

Older adults with little formal education may also need to be introduced to strategies for organizing information. Many strategies used by learners have been identified; these can be incorporated into language training programs to provide a full range of possibilities for the adult learner (Oxford-Carpenter, 1985).

CONCLUSION

An approach which stresses the development of the receptive skills (particularly listening) before the productive skills may have much to offer the older learner (Postovsky, 1974; Winitz, 1981; J. Gary and N. Gary, 1981). According to this research, effective adult language training programs are those that use materials that provide an interesting and comprehensible message, delay speaking practice and emphasize the development of listening comprehension, tolerate speech errors in the classroom, and include aspects of culture and non-verbal language use in the instructional program. This creates a classroom atmosphere which supports the learner and builds confidence.

Teaching older adults should be a pleasurable experience. Their self-directedness, life experiences, independence as learners, and motivation to learn provide them with advantages in language learning. A program that meets the needs of the adult learner will lead to rapid language acquisition by this group.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Picasso

These days, with the graying of a large portion of the population, we read many articles about how to stay young and nimble minded. This blog reflects another suggestion for adults in maintaining a sense of spontaneity and fun in their life.

A while ago I was at the seaside in Central Italy, living in a small bungalow in a seaside village. We were only a few steps from the beach and in the evening, sitting on our porch; I could see the full moon reflecting its silver glow on the water.

In these villages there are the young families and we middle aged to older adults. Down our little avenue there were about twenty small bungalows. All were occupied by young families with the usual crowd of small children running and playing and exploring everywhere when the families were not at the beach. Then, in other sections, there were the older adults who came to the village to relax, get some sun and generally enjoy the beach environment – constant breeze, cool nights and seeing different friends and distractions.

One of the contrasts in this village was the activities of these two groups. The children were in constant motion, laughing, occasionally bickering or crying, playing, drawing, exploring, digging, inventing games, meeting new friends and chattering with one another. They really enjoyed the opportunity to safely run outside and have new experiences. While the adults did crosswords, sat in chairs, watched the small TV they brought from home, read a book, slept as they tanned, played bocce ball and kept mostly to themselves and their families. Rarely to never did I see the adults smiling, giggling, laughing, tickling, playing or being creative and spontaneous as the children.

What would have happened if the adults began playing hide and seek, go around collecting small pretty stones just because it seemed like a good idea, build sand castles or talk to other people out of interest of possibly meeting someone new? How would their experience of life be different if they colored some coloring books, danced in a silly manner to some music and, in general, laughed and smiled?

What impressed me in observing this dichotomy of living was how the adults, when compared to the children, were just not having “fun”. Perhaps habits, routines, rules, embarrassment, and other considerations, which I am not sure of, has come to restrict the life experiences of adults, taken away their creative, fresh ways of living life and, therefore, their fun and enjoyment of spontaneity in life.

After this stay for a few days, the next time my wife and I went to another beach, I told her, “let’s go run and jump in the big waves” on that windy day. We did and it was easy to laugh and smile and have fun with each other. Not unexpected the only other people laughing, doing silly screaming and jumping into the big waves were the children.

I learned a lesson from the children of the beach village. To really have some fun in life, don’t forget spontaneity, creativity and just silly, nonsensical behavior. Since as one gets older the impulse for spontaneity reduces (for whatever reasons), the best course of action is to do. To act creative and spontaneous and, then, the feelings and experience accompanies the action. Now I could end by going into the biology of the brain and how the brain is changed through interaction/action or even point out healthy body tips regarding laughing and spontaneous physical activity but I think the most valuable thing, provided by the children, I noticed at the seaside was enjoying life through spontaneous fun.

I’ve looked at life from both sides now 

From up and down and still somehow

It’s life’s illusions I recall

I really don’t know life at all -Joni Mitchell

This is the true question that the Buddha’s teachings really address – ‘Do I Really Know Life At All?’ And in investigating the question, the answer becomes quite clear- for the uninvestigated mind, No…I don’t. All existence is much too complex, interrelated and deep for us prideful humans to truly comprehend and indeed mystery is the result. But this is not a defeat but an affirmation of our embeddness and interrelatedness with All of other existence. Not the folly, alienation and separateness of the conceit of being the supreme being of the universe or even earth but the authentic identification of the true ecological, co-arising nature of all things. You will hear people say, ‘I am trying to find myself.’ But if you want to find yourself, then transcend yourself. When we transcend our-self, we truly find each other and our interconnection with all. We are not alone! Just look around you, there are creatures of life everywhere. If we feel alone, that is our blindness to life all around us, our suffering of alienation created by the illusion of separateness and ‘I’.

This blog presents my putting several pieces of a puzzle together regarding the teachings of the Buddha. A fuller examination of this discussion you will find in my book, The Buddha’s Teachings: Seeing Without Illusion. However, in this blog the overarching framework is provided by Sue Buddhist scholar Hamilton from her book, Early Buddhism: A New Approach. While, of course, these pieces from her book are only a part of her discussion, they are exciting to me in that they provided the framework with which a couple of other ideas that I have thought pertinent can be integrated into Hamilton’s work with which I think strengthens the comprehensibility of all.

So I begin with Hamilton’s ideas as represented by quotes from her book.

‘In his teachings the Buddha consistently directed the attention of his listeners to the understanding of cognitive processes. Objects, be they concrete or abstract, are subjectively reified: that their characteristics conform to and are correlated with the way cognitive processes operate and that further aspects of the structural framework, of the objective world are similarly subjectively reified.’

‘The heart of the teachings of early Buddhism: that there is a correlation between the entireties of the structure of what is experienced as the world about us – all objectivity- and the way it is subjectively processed.’

‘We feel that we are separate objects, albeit also experiencing subjects, in a separately existing plurally comprised world of other objects. And we take it that that what we are what there is. However, we cannot actually ever get outside of ourselves to check whether this is in fact the case.’

‘The problem with expressing views, ontological or in fact otherwise too, is that they can be only expressed within a conceptual framework. And the only conceptual framework with which we are familiar, that has any meaningful reference for us, that is, indeed, conceptual as we mean the term, is one which is appropriate only from the standpoint of ignorance as to the nature of Reality. Specifically, talking in terms of things and nothing, existence and non-existence, is within the conceptual framework of manifoldness and permanence. What is more, when associated with the nature of Reality, it is talk that in fact assumes transcendental realism: that the structural framework of the experiential world is external to and independent of us. But in fact its meaningfulness is wholly limited to the world of experience understood not as it really is but as it seems to us in our ignorance to be.’

‘Transcendental idealism: what we take to be external world-in the cosmic sense- about us, with us in it, only appears to us like that because that is the way our cognitive apparatus presents it to us, not because Reality is in itself really like that. We are unable to see Reality as it is in itself because we cannot transcend our cognitive apparatus. But we only experience the world at all because Reality is there: what we are experiencing is our interpretation of a transcendentally existent reality. In fact, being transcendent of the entire framework of our conceptual categories, Reality itself can properly be indicated only apophatically- even the notion of existence being problematic in this respect in that the properties so predicated are meaningful only within our conceptual framework.’

‘The experiential world as a whole, in which all subjectivities and the whole of objectivity are as it were parts of what is dependently originated, is dependent- period. And it follows from this that there must be something else. There must be a Reality which is transcendent of experience on which the experiential world is dependent.’

‘Voidness or emptiness of the world is understood as regarding permanence, of the independence we erroneously assume it to have. This is related to the sensory process as it does, the point is not that something does not exist, but that the notion of independence is a product of the subjectively dependent cognitive structuring of the world.’

‘The correlation of the structure of the empirical world with subjective cognitive processes informs us that the limits of the empirical world as we know it are associated with the limits of cognition as we know it.’

‘This is what experience is: neither the world nor ‘I’ in it are other than experience. Cognitive processes are experiences as a whole subjective/objective correlation.’

‘The status of the world is dependently originated and therefore not understandable in terms of existent or non-existent. The reality of experience is experiential. The reality of Reality is unknowable in –normal- experiential terms.’

‘Earthly or worldly existence is characterisized according to the name and form structure. …those who have achieved enlightenment still see, know and so on. That what is different about them is not that their cognitive structure no longer operates, but they have achieved insight into what is happening, are are no longer affectively responding to their experiences in a binding way. Such statements as ‘the cessation of consciousness’ should…be taken metaphorically to refer to the cessation of ignorance.’

‘…if the structure of the world of experience is correlated with the cognitive process, then it is not just that we name objects, concrete and abstract, and superimpose secondary characteristics according to the senses. It is also that all the structural features of the world of experience are cognitively correlated. In particular, space and time are not external to the structure but are part of it. …there is no such thing as experience as we know it that is not characterized by space and time.’

‘If the entirety of the structure of the world as we know it is subjectively dependent, including space and time, it follows that the very concept of there being origins, beginnings, ends, extents, limits, boundaries, and so on, is subject dependent. The entirety of temporality and special extension are concepts which do not operate independently of subjective cognitive processes. The entirety, that is to say, of dim and distant history, and of the furthest flung regions of outer space – the entirety of whatever is knowable in temporal and special terms – is not independent of subjectivity. The framework within which is meaningful is in a very real sense a conceptual one.’

‘In regards to the classical unanswered questions of the Buddha, the questions of is the world eternal or finite, presuppose that space and time are transcendentally real- that is, that they operate externally to subjective cognitive process. As with the questions on the self, they seek to find a permanence or immortality. However, if space and time are part of the structural characteristics of the experimental world, and that that is cognitively dependent, then one can see that the presupposition of the transcendental reality of time and space is false, and that the fundamental premises on which the questions rest are therefore also false and unanswerable.’

Now, in support of her point that the experiential world as a whole, in which all subjectivities and the whole of objectivity are, as it were, parts of what is dependently originated, is dependent- period, is found in F.J. Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch’s book, The Embodied Mind. They wrote: ‘Embodied action- cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various sensorimotor capacities, and second, that these individual sensorimotor capacities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context. By using the term action we mean to emphasize that sensory and motor processes, perception and action, are fundamentally inseparable in lived cognition. Indeed, the two are not merely contingently linked in individuals, they have also evolved together.’

‘Since local situations constantly change as a result of the perceiver’s activity, the reference point for understanding perception is no longer a pregiven, perceiver-independent world but rather the sensorimotor structure of the perceiver – the way the nervous system links sensory and motor surfaces. This structure – the manner in which the perceiver is embodied- rather than some pregiven world determines how the perceiver can act and be modulated by environmental events. Thus the overall concern of an enactive approach to perception is not to determine how some perceiver-independent world is to be recovered; it is rather to determine the common principles or lawful linkages between sensory and motor systems that explain how action can be perceptually guided in a perceiver-dependent world.’

‘The neuronal network does not function as a one way street from perception to action. Perception and action, sensorium and motorium, are linked together as successively emergent and mutually selecting patterns.’

‘Color categorization in its entirety depends upon a tangled hierarchy of perceptual and cognitive processes, some species specific and others culture specific. They also serve to illustrate the point that color categories are not to be found in some pregiven world that is independent of our perceptual and cognitive capacities. The categories red, green, yellow, blue, purple, orange – as well as light/warm, dark/cool, etc- are experiential, consensual, and embodied- they depend upon our biological and cultural history of structural coupling.’

‘We can now appreciate how color provides a paradigm of a cognitive domain that is neither pregiven nor represented but rather experiential and enacted. It is very important to note that just because color is not pregiven does not mean it does not exhibit universals or that it cannot yield to rigorous analysis by the various branches of science.’

Now regarding Hamilton’s analysis of space and time from the Buddha’s perspective we see concurrence from physicist Wolfram Schommer’s in his book, The Visible and the Invisible: ‘The physiological apparatus has an influence on space as it appears to us. The constancy of space and also time, which results from direct experience, is not due to the fact that space exists absolutely and independently of all things and processes, but that the physiological apparatus has developed a constancy mechanism.’

‘Events occurring in the cosmos are presented inside a biological system only as symbols in a picture. The difference between reality and its picture can be as large as the difference between a cinema and a cinema ticket. That reality corresponds to what appears in front of our eyes is a view which has shown itself to be more or less untenable. The picture in the mind contains aspects of reality only in symbolic form, i.e. the elements in reality are not identical with the pertinent elements in the picture. Moreover, the elements of which a picture is composed do not occur in reality at all.’

‘The picture and also its frame, space and time, is located in the head of the observer. We know from experience that space-time arises only in connection with objects and processes i.e. an empty space-time cannot be perceived.’

Also he wrote: ‘Basic reality, i.e., reality which exists independently of the observer, is in principle not accessible in any DIRECT WAY. Rather, it is observable or describable by means of pictures on different levels, i.e., levels of reality. And ‘Everything is located in the head, not only the products of fantasy and scientific laws, but those things which we understand as “hard” objects. This is because we do not have the “hard” objects actually in front of us but “only” their pictures.’

Regarding this same point, B. d ‘Espagnat wrote: ‘The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment.’

Also, H.R. Maturana wrote: ‘The observer as an observer necessarily always remains in a descriptive domain, that is, in a relative cognitive domain. No description of an absolute reality is possible. Such a description would require an interaction with the absolute to be described, but the representation which would arise from such an interaction would necessarily be determined by the autopoietic organization of the observer, not by the deforming agent; hence, the cognitive reality that it would generate would unavoidably be relative to the knower.’

These are not the only modern writers supporting these insights but for now they are examples. Also, of course, for one to “know” what the Buddha wanted us to understand we must have insight through the meditative training and experience as described in the Noble Eightfold Path.

Therefore, the Buddha was not concerned with trying to understand ultimate reality because he understood that and similar metaphysical questions were unanswerable. The Buddha was, therefore, as David J. Kalupahana characterizes, a radical empiricist. Kalupahana wrote in his book, The Principles of Buddhist Psychology: ‘ For the pragmatic Buddha, the search for ultimate causes and conditions ( as well as the conceptions of self or substance) is as futile as the search for the unseen beauty queen (janapada-kalyàni).’

The first Noble Truth of the Four Noble Truths of the teaching of the Buddha is Dukkha-ariyasacca. This is often translated as The Noble Truth of Suffering and it has been interpreted to mean that life is nothing but suffering and pain. For example, from the 2002 Oregon State website on philosophers, it uses the following, in a discussion on Schopenhauer, to describe the Four Noble truths: “Sidhartha also taught a fundamental lesson about the problem of living, known as the Four Noble Truths. They are:

The translation, ‘Life is Suffering’, is unfortunate and misleading. It has led many to regard the teaching of the Buddha as pessimistic because the concept of suffering has been understood either in terms of the conception of tragedy so familiar in Western philosophy and literature that goes back to the Greeks or ‘universal suffering’.

Actually, the teaching of the Buddha is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. Instead, a better way to describe it is realistic, non-substantialist, non-absolutist and pragmatic. The insight of the First Noble Truth is that, “There is suffering” and the rest is: “There is an Origin of Suffering”; “There is a Cessation of Suffering” and “The Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering”-which is the Noble Eightfold Path”.

As Ajahan Sumedho reminds us, “The First Noble Truth is not a dismal metaphysical statement saying that everything is suffering. Notice that there is a difference between a metaphysical doctrine in which you are making a statement about The Absolute and a Noble Truth which is a reflection. A Noble Truth is a truth to reflect upon; it is not an absolute. This is where western people get very confused because they interpret this Noble Truth as a kind of metaphysical truth of Buddhism – but it was never meant to be that.

You can see that the First Noble Truth is not an absolute statement because of the Fourth noble Truth – which is the way of non-suffering. You cannot have absolute suffering and then also have a way out of it, can you? That doesn’t make sense. Yet some people will pick up on the First noble truth and say that the Buddha taught that everything is suffering.”

So we see that the Buddha’s teaching is recognition that there is suffering in life and the way to end suffering which does not make the life of a Buddhist melancholy or sorrowful. Instead, the true Buddhist is happy. He/she has no fears or anxieties. They are calm and serene and don’t become upset or dismayed by changes or calamities, because they see and take things as they are. They are positive, compassionate, gentle and realistic because of their mental and ethical training.

There are two ancient Buddhist texts called the Theragàthà and Therigàthà which are full of happy and joyful expressions by the Buddha’s disciples, both male and female, who found peace and happiness in his teachings. The king of Kosala remarked to the Buddha that contrary to other religious systems, his followers were ‘joyful’, ‘free from anxiety’, ‘serene’, ‘peaceful’ and ‘light-hearted’. The king added that he believed these attributes were so because the Buddha’s disciples ‘had realized the great and full significance of the Blessed One’s teaching’.

Buddhism recognizes that melancholic, sorrowful and gloomy attitudes are hindrances to the realization of the Truth. Actually, how could a system that teaches the development of compassion and wisdom be sorrowful?  That is why a devote Buddhist, while intelligently and wisely understanding things as they are, is full of compassion and kindness for all beings, not only human beings, but all living beings. Compassion and wisdom are linked together in a Buddhist way of life.

So truly the Buddhist way of life supports and develops happiness. Not a foolish apparent happiness based on greed, ignorance and anger but happiness based on wisdom and kindness and compassion for all living beings including, of course, our own personage.

The Planetary Perfect Storm

This blog (originally written in 2010) is about the obvious convergence of two planetary “storms” that together are going to have obvious and predictable catastrophic consequences for all living beings on planet earth. However, as different from the forces of nature, these two “storms” are not created by the forces of nature but by human beings. Therefore, if corrections are begun in earnest now, the “Perfect Storm” configuration can be avoided. However, if ignored or minimized, the consequences will be much, much worse for planet earth and its inhabitants then by a single act by Mother Nature.

What are these two trends? The first is mass consumption with increasing population and the second is global warming. These two trends which can be scientifically shown to exist will create in the not too distant future the “Perfect Storm” of destruction of the present habitat and resources of the earth leading to catastrophic consequences. Let’s look at some of the projected consequences of these two trends.

Global Warming

• A study by IISS found that reduced water supplies and hotter temperatures mean “65 countries were likely to lose over 15 percent of their agricultural output by 2100.”
• Global warming will turn already-dry environments into deserts, causing the people who live there to migrate in massive numbers to more livable places.
• A study by the relief group Christian Aid estimates the number of refugees around the world will top a billion by 2050, thanks in large part to global warming.
• A report called “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,” written by a group of retired generals and admirals, specifically linked global warming to increased border tensions. “If, as some project, sea levels rise, human migrations may occur, likely both within and across borders.”
• “Developing countries, many with average temperatures that are already near or above crop tolerance levels, are predicted to suffer an average 10 to 25 percent decline in agricultural productivity by the 2080s.”
• Global warming will cause longer, more devastating droughts, thus exacerbating the fight over the world’s water.
• In April, 2009, a report completed by the Center for Naval Analyses predicted that global warming would cause “large-scale migrations, increased border tensions, the spread of disease and conflicts over food and water.”
• “The World Health Organization has identified more than 30 new or resurgent diseases in the last three decades, the sort of explosion some experts say has not happened since the Industrial Revolution brought masses of people together in cities.” Why? Global warming “is fueling the spread of epidemics in areas unprepared for the diseases” when “mosquitoes, ticks, mice and other carriers are surviving warmer winters and expanding their range, bringing health threats with them.”
• Once confined to land near the equator, West Nile Virus is now found as far north as Canada. Seven years ago, West Nile virus had never been seen in North America; today, it has “infected more than 21,000 people in the United States and Canada and killed more than 800.”
• Greenland is melting at a rate of 52 cubic miles per year—much faster than once predicted. If Greenland’s entire 2.5 million cubic kilometers of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 meters, or more than 23 feet.
• The amount of ice in the Arctic at the end of the 2005 summer “was the smallest seen in 27 years of satellite imaging, and probably the smallest in 100 years.” Experts said it’s the strongest evidence of global warming in the Arctic thus far.
• In 2002, a chunk of ice in Antarctica larger than the state of Rhode Island collapsed into the sea. British and Belgian scientists said the chunk was weakened by warm winds blowing over the shelf … and that the winds were caused by global warming.
• In 2005, a giant chunk of ice the size of Manhattan broke off of a Canadian ice shelf and began free floating westward, putting oil drilling operations in peril.
•  “In Glacier National Park, the number of glaciers in the park has dropped from 150 to 26 since 1850. Some project that none will be left within 25 to 30 years.”
• Global warming may unleash giant “sand seas” in Africa—giant fields of sand dunes with no vegetation—as a shortage of rainfall and increasing winds may “reactivate” the now-stable Kalahari dune fields. That means farewell to local vegetation, animals, and any tourism in the areas.
• It sounds like a really bad sci-fi movie, but it’s true: The oceans are turning to acid! Oceans absorb CO2 which, when mixed with seawater, turns to a weak carbonic acid. Calcium from eroded rocks creates a “natural buffer” against the acid, and most marine life is “finely tuned” to the current balance. As we produce more and more CO2, we throw the whole balance out of whack and the oceans turn to acid.
• According to the U.N., the Great Barrier Reef will disappear within decades as “warmer, more acidic seas could severely bleach coral in the world-famous reef as early as 2030.”
• Italian experts say thanks to faster evaporation and rising temperatures, the Mediterranean Sea is quickly turning into “a salty and stagnant sea.” The hot, salty water “could doom many of the sea’s plant and animal species and ravage the fishing industry.”
• The sacred Ganges River in India is beginning to run dry. The Ganges is fed by the Gangotri glacier, which is today “shrinking at a rate of 40 yards a year, nearly twice as fast as two decades ago.” Scientists warn the glacier could be gone as soon as 2030.
• Geologists recently projected a 10 percent to 20 percent drop in rainfall in northwestern and southern Africa by 2070. That would leave Botswana with just 23 percent of the river it has now; Cape Town would be left with just 42 percent of its river water.
• What happened to the five-acre glacial lake in Southern Chile? In March, it was there. In May, it was … gone. Scientists blame global warming.
• Next on the global warming hit list: Rising sea levels linked to climate change mean we could lose half of the mangrove trees of the Pacific Isles by the end of the century.
• British scientists warn of another possible side effect of climate change: A surge of dangerous volcanic eruptions.
• Over the past century, the number of hurricanes that strike each year has more than doubled. Scientists blame global warming and the rising temperature of the surface of the seas.
• Hotter temperatures could also mean larger and more devastating wildfires. This past summer in California, a blaze consumed more than 33,500 acres, or 52 square miles.
• Global warming has also allowed non-native grasses to thrive in the Mojave Desert, where they act as fast-burning fuel for wildfires.
• Hurricanes aside, NASA scientists now say as the world gets hotter, even smaller thunderstorms will pose more severe risks with “deadly lightning, damaging hail and the potential for tornadoes.”
• Scientists believe sea levels will be three feet higher by the end of the century than they are now.

Mass Consumerism and population and resources

The consumption of the average U.S. citizen requires eighteen tons of natural resources per person per year and generates an even higher volume of wastes (including household, industrial, mining, and agricultural wastes). Some of these wastes are released to the atmosphere, rivers, and oceans; others are land-filled or incinerated; a small proportion is recycled. The standard conception of economic development envisions the rest of the world’s population as moving steadily up the ladder of mass consumption, eventually achieving levels similar to those achieved by the United States and some European economies.

Clearly, the environmental implications of the global spread of mass consumption for resource use and environmental waste absorption are staggering. Should not this promote some rethinking of economic theories of consumption, which for the most part have ignored resource and environmental implications? Jonathan Harris

While other factors such as technology and population growth are important, consumption levels play a key role as well. As such, technological change and population stabilization alone cannot save the planet; a complementary reduction of material wants is also required.

A Consumption and the Environment study of the international potential for reduction in fossil fuel consumption concluded that the entire world’s population could live at the level of West Europeans in the mid-1970s. This includes modest but comfortable homes, refrigeration for food, clothes washers, hot water, and ready access to public transit plus limited auto use. It does not include, nor could the world support, American lifestyles for all, with their larger homes, numerous electrical appliances, and auto-centered transportation. Even the European standard of the 1970s, if projected worldwide, may not achieve the global reduction in carbon emissions that is believed to be necessary to stabilize the world’s climate.

“Even assuming rapid progress in stabilizing human numbers and great strides in employing clean and efficient technologies, human wants will overrun the biosphere unless they shift from material to nonmaterial ends.

• The ability of the earth to support billions of human beings depends on whether we continue to equate consumption with fulfillment.” Alan Durning
• …This suggests that some limits to consumption are advisable and eventually inescapable. If, as Daly argues, the scale of the macro economy has expanded to the point where natural resources and environmental waste absorption, rather than human-made capital, are the scarce factors, then consumption itself needs to be rethought. Rather than maximize consumption in the pursuit of welfare, we need to seek ways to maximize welfare with minimum consumption. Hitherto the market system has been better at the former goal than the latter, and economic theory has measured success primarily in terms of greater consumption (or greater investment today in the cause of increased consumption tomorrow). This does not mean that the market system is not up to the new challenges; but it does suggest that it needs new direction.
• Durning’s primary point is the impossibility of global “development” as conceived by economic theory. The resource and environmental demands of bringing all the world’s people up to “consumer class” standards of living would be catastrophic. This is all the more true in the context of planetary population growth up to an eventual eight or ten billion, which would nearly double resource and environmental requirements even with no increase in living standards.
• Lest one might think that Ponting and Durning are over generalizing or exaggerating the problem, the World Resources Institute biennial report provides a wealth of specific detail to support these assertions. The problem is not, as originally conceived in the Club of Rome’s 1972 Limits to Growth report, foreseeable shortages of specific nonrenewable resources— at least for the next fifty years or so. Rather, it is the impacts of industrial growth on renewable natural resource systems, including the atmosphere, that poses the greatest dangers.
• Global inequality accentuates environmental impacts at both ends of the scale: The rich damage the environment through their high consumption levels, and the poor damage the environment by being forced to utilize marginal and fragile ecosystems. If indeed it is impossible for all to ride the escalator up to mass consumption, then some form of development that will reduce inequality while lessening environmental impacts seems essential. Jonathan Harris

——————————————————————–

A growing share of the global consumer class now lives in developing countries. China and India alone claim more than 20 percent of the global total with a combined consumer class of 362 million, more than in all of Western Europe. (Though the average Chinese or Indian member consumes substantially less than the average European.)

Developing countries also have the greatest potential to expand the ranks of consumers. China and India s large consumer set constitutes only 16 percent of the region s population, whereas in Europe the figure is 89 percent. Indeed, in most developing countries the consumer class accounts for less than half of the population suggesting considerable room to grow.

What About Population?

At least part of the rise in global consumption is the result of population growth.

• The U.N. projects that world population will increase 41 percent by 2050, to 8.9 billion people, with nearly all of this growth in developing countries. This surge in human numbers threatens to offset any savings in resource use from improved efficiency, as well as any gains in reducing per-capita consumption. Even if the average American eats 20 percent less meat in 2050 than in 2000, total U.S. meat consumption will be 5 million tons greater in 2050 due to population growth.
• Then there is Peter Farb who came up with a paradox: “Intensification of production to feed an increased population leads to a still greater increase in population.”
• If the consumption aspirations of the wealthiest of nations cannot be satiated, the prospects for corralling consumption everywhere before it strips and degrades our planet beyond recognition would appear to be bleak.

Despite rising consumption in the developing world, industrial countries remain responsible for the bulk of the world s resource consumption as well as the associated global environmental degradation. Yet there is little evidence that the consumption locomotive is braking, even in the United States, where most people are amply supplied with the goods and services needed to lead a dignified life.

The U.S. Consumer

•          The United States, with less than 5 % of the global population, uses about a quarter of the world s fossil fuel resources burning up nearly 25 % of the coal, 26 % of the oil, and 27 % of the world s natural gas.
• ·         As of 2003, the U.S. had more private cars than licensed drivers, and gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles were among the best-selling vehicles.
• ·         New houses in the U.S. were 38 % bigger in 2002 than in 1975, despite having fewer people per household on average.
• If the levels of consumption that…the most affluent people enjoy today were replicated across even half of the roughly 9 billion people projected to be on the planet in 2050, the impact on our water supply, air quality, forests, climate, biological diversity, and human health would be severe.

Today s human economies are designed with little attention to the residuals of production and consumption. Among the most visible unintended by products of the current economic system are environmental problems like air and water pollution and landscape degradation. Nearly all the world s ecosystems are shrinking to make way for humans and their homes, farms, malls, and factories. WWFs Living Planet Index, which measures the health of forests, oceans, freshwater, and other natural systems, shows a 35 percent decline in Earth s ecological health since 1970.

Environmental Impacts of Consumption

• Calculations show that the planet has available 1.9 hectares of biologically productive land per person to supply resources and absorb wastes yet the average person on Earth already uses 2.3 hectares worth. These ecological footprints range from the 9.7 hectares claimed by the average American to the 0.47 hectares used by the average Mozambican
• The failure of additional wealth and consumption to help people have satisfying lives may be the most eloquent argument for reevaluating our current approach to consumption.
• Individuals often face personal costs associated with heavy levels of consumption: the financial debt; the time and stress associated with working to support high consumption; the time required to clean, upgrade, store, or otherwise maintain possessions; and the ways in which consumption replaces time with family and friends.
• Aggressive pursuit of a mass consumption society also correlates with a decline in health indicators in many countries, as obesity, crime, and other social ills continue to surge.

Social Impacts of Consumption in the U.S.

•       An estimated 62 % of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, leading to an annual loss of 300,000 lives and at least $117 billion in health care costs in 1999.
•       In 2002, 61 % of U.S. credit card users carried a monthly balance, averaging $12,000 at 16 % interest. This amounts to about $1,900 a year in finance charges more than the average per capita income in at least 35 countries (in purchasing power parity).

The economies of mass consumption that produced a world of abundance for many in the twentieth century face a different challenge in the twenty-first: to focus not on the indefinite accumulation of goods but instead on a better quality of life for all, with minimal environmental harm.

———————————————————

So the gist of this blog, which gives only some highlights of the Planetary “Perfect Storm” problem, is that unless the global community comes to grips with both global warming and the new quickly evolving consumption patterns with increasing population, there will be a catastrophic “Perfect storm” in which all inhabitants of Earth will needlessly suffer greatly. These issues need to be discussed and then acted upon. Some of the authors of this blog were found in the GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE, Tufts University, papers.