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【週末午後閱讀】
動態圖表︰封城真的有用嗎？如果疫情擴大，台北也封城怎麼辦？
Many cities and municipalities worldwide have initiated lockdowns in response to COVID-19. But are these lockdowns actually effective in slowing the pandemic’s spread? And if community spread were to break out in the greater Taipei region, what could be done to effectively contain the pandemic’s spread in such high risk areas?
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📌Read our latest stories on the COVID-19 global pandemic to get more details: https://bit.ly/3b8TIaJ
Climate Change Emergency
每年我參加氣候會議時，只要時間可以，都會參加一場由各個宗教團體在氣候會議會場聯合在一起的祈福許願或遊行活動，不同宗教會用不同方式來祈禱，希望能影響更多人，雖然我不是天主教徒或是基督徒，但幾次的活動中，可以感受到不同宗教界的平和與憂心，都會透過各種方法來提醒世人。
一早收到世界基督教協會，看到這個 Climate Change Emergency 氣候變遷緊急的宣言，Emergency 在我們風險管理中很重要，也有應急管理 Emergency Management ，不只是救護車上的 Emergency 而已，我們真的要非常體認重視這問題了。
幾年前我曾訪問過吳偉立神父，大家可以從 Podcast 聽這段聲音
https://open.spotify.com/show/1ryyVpjRt6faqRT1YfsWif…
彭啟明
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Statement on the Climate Change Emergency
25 November 2019
World Council of Churches
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Bossey, Switzerland
20-26 November 2019
Doc. No. 04.3 rev
Statement on the Climate Change Emergency
But the earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants, for the fruit of their doings.
Micah 7:13
Recent extreme weather events of increasing strength and frequency around the world together with further studies conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have jolted many into belated recognition that the climate crisis is not a distant prospect, but is upon us today.
From Hurricane Maria, Tropical Cyclone Idai, Hurricane Dorian and Typhoon Hagibis which caused loss of lives and left widespread devastation in Puerto Rico, in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, in the Bahamas and in Japan respectively, to ongoing bushfires in Australia and California, to unprecedented flooding in Bangladesh and in Venice, and to the very recent landslide following exceptionally heavy rains in Kenya, the impacts on our communities - especially the poorest and most vulnerable among us – and on the bountiful Creation that God has entrusted to human beings as stewards – are now all too tragically real.
The latest IPCC special reports on climate change, land, oceans and cryosphere confirm that climate change has become a top driver of hunger all over the world, and project rising sea levels of up to 1 metre by 2100 due to melting glaciers, water scarcity affecting nearly 2 billion people and more intense sea-level events such as storms and flooding, if warming is not kept at the safer limit of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Moreover, exceptionally destructive fires and the encroachment of industrial agriculture and mining, have greatly increased concern about runaway deforestation in the largest remaining rainforest ecosystems – the earth’s lungs, the home and heritage of many Indigenous Peoples, and a critical resource in confronting the threat of climate change. Especially in the Amazon, in the Congo Basin, and in West Papua and elsewhere in Indonesia, this resource is, often deliberately, being squandered at a perilous rate.
Children, young people and ordinary citizens have made public demonstration of their outrage at the lack of any adequate response by governments to the gravity of this global crisis, and against the backsliding by some governments. Children have been obliged to mobilize and to raise their voices to demand what adults have failed or refused to deliver – fundamental changes to our economic and social systems in order to preserve God’s Creation and their future.
Indeed, a recent research report shows that governments are currently projected to produce 120% more fossil fuels by 2030 than can be burned if the world is to limit warming to an increase of 1.5°C
In particular, the United States’ formal notification of its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement – despite the increasingly disastrous impact of extreme weather events in the US itself – seriously undermines the best hope the international community had secured for a multilateral global response to the climate crisis. This is an abject failure and abdication of global leadership, at precisely the historical moment when such leadership is most needed. It will embolden other backsliding states. It impoverishes and imperils all of us.
The protests against widening inequality in Chile, triggering the move of the 25th Conference of Parties (COP 25) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from Santiago to Madrid, underscore the importance of holding together the goals of sustainability and equity, and ensuring that the costs of transitioning to a carbon neutral economy are not borne by those who already have few resources. In other words, there can be no real transition without socio-economic justice.
The time for debate and disputation of established scientific facts is long over. The time for action is swiftly passing. We will all be held to account for our inaction and our disastrous stewardship of this precious and unique planet. The climate emergency is the result of our ecological sins. It is time for metanoia for all. We must now search our hearts and our most fundamental faith principles for a new ecological transformation, and for divine guidance for our next steps to build resilience in the face of this unprecedented millennial challenge.
The executive committee of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Bossey, Switzerland, on 20-26 November 2019, therefore:
Joins other faith leaders, communities and civil society organizations in declaring a climate emergency, which demands an urgent and unprecedented response by everyone everywhere – locally, nationally and internationally.
Expresses its bitter disappointment at the inadequate and even regressive actions by governments that should be leaders in the response to this emergency, especially inaction to stop fires and deforestation, the destruction of Indigenous Peoples’ ancestral lands and livelihoods, and attacks on ecological defenders; the weak commitments made under the Paris Agreement; and measures that place additional financial burdens on poor communities.
Calls on COP 25, taking place in Madrid on 2 to 13 December 2019, to:
- set the groundwork for committing to more ambitious cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as part of Nationally Determined Contributions with a view to attaining carbon neutrality by 2050 and limiting warming to not more than 1.5°C;
- ramp up commitments by wealthy nations to provide sufficient, predictable and transparent climate finance to low-income nations for adaptation and resilience-building;
- strengthen the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage to include finance to support people and communities affected by the impacts of the climate emergency; and
- promote actions to engage and learn from Indigenous Peoples in and beyond the UNFCCC process, protect biodiversity, combat deforestation, encourage agro-ecology and construct circular and redistributive economies.
Invites UN system partners, consistent with the critical research and policy advice emanating from UN sources, to examine and divest from fossil fuel investments in their own banking systems and pension funds.
Calls on member churches, ecumenical partners, other faith communities and all people of good will and moral conscience to find the means whereby we can make a meaningful contribution in our own contexts to averting the most catastrophic consequences of further inaction and negative actions by governments – and may join in confronting this global crisis through concerted advocacy for climate change mitigation and adaptation, zero fossil fuel use and a “just transition”, as well as through local action, everywhere – in our fellowship, our churches, our communities, our families, and as individuals.
To the friends caught in the black hole of depression and anxiety, I dedicate this post to you.
Don't kill your self. Don't rob yourself of the precious life your parents bestow upon you.
No matter how excruciating it may be, the knots in your life can always be unraveled slowly, one at a time.
First written 21.07.2017
【差一點的緣份】
Honestly, I won't know.
8 months after his first message to me, he messaged me his donation receipt to Tzu Chi Foundation, seeking my service for Bazi consultation.
I asked what took him so long.
He was candid yet polite. He said he looked for me because his Brother and I were friends. He read all the reviews my clients and workshop students wrote of me and he liked that I would not hold back to tell a client if he did wrong.
(Yes, the reviews you guys wrote can really help another soul.)
The conversation tapered off, with no birth details given to me.
We didn't get to meet after all.
That was just 2 weeks ago.
Just before dinner tonight, I learnt that he was admitted to hospital for depression.
There were delusions and violent self-harm.
Could I have done more to initiate response from him, when he did not reply me?
I usually don't force things. Unless I know something's coming up.
I didn't ask for his Bazi or Chinese name, as per my usual practice. So I wouldn't have known.
There were many other messages that needed my attention and I left things as it was.
I won't know if I can made any difference, should we have met.
How powerful is my ability to bring hope to someone already in depression?
I had never measured.
Was I a shining beacon of light, for him to seek me out just 2 weeks before things worsen?
Light is in the eyes of the beholder, no?
This reminds me of the husband's Malaysian cousin, who studied and worked in Singapore on a government scholarship. Let's call him Tim.
Tim called my Husband one Tuesday night at about 830pm.
We were at the movies and only saw the missed call at about 1130pm.
Thinking it was too late, the Husband made a mental reminder to call Tim the next morning.
The next morning, we collected his dead body from the mortuary of SGH. His grieving parents, who drove all the way from KL overnight, crumbled into wails as Tim's body was wheeled out for identification.
Tim jumped down from his flat, about 2 hours after he called. Apparently, he only called my husband and none of his family.
12 years on, we still do not know what Tim wanted to tell my Husband.
Could it be:
"Sorry, Gor. I have to break my scholarship bond because I cannot take the stress. Thank you for being my guarantor all these years."
?
None of his family knew what Tim was undergoing, prior to his suicide.
He was only 25.
(If you think it's okay to hurl sarcastic words at foreigners on local scholarships, who may be living all alone in a strange land, this is food for thought for you.)
When we teach our children the alphabets and hanyu pinyin.
When we tell them to remember their thank-yous and pleases.
When we get them to hustle for their academic achievements and be a all-rounder.
Please remind our little ones that it's okay if they are not good enough.
Please also teach them a path to seek solace in the Higher Beings, no matter what religion you are. It's okay if they opt for another faith. As long as it's orthodox.
Like in judo, don't forget to teach them how to fall right and overcome that fear of falling, before learning how to kick fast and high.
If you are a Tibetan Buddhist like me, please master the skill of demarcation from your Root Guru and impart that knowledge to your loved ones. Always invoke the protection of your Vajra Protectors to guard you from negative energies and afflictions. I do that every day at least twice.
For when you get depressed for too long, your mental frequency goes down down down. When it matches the low frequency of spirits, this is where the real trouble begins.
You hear voices people can't hear, you see things that people can't see, you get "sixth sense" that doesn't make any sense.
You get sucked deeper and deeper into your make-believe world, that you lose all touch with the real world.
👋 Come back, my Friend. 👋
Don't go there. There's only cold darkness and terrifying despair.
🤝 Come back, where there's love, light and hope. 🤝
Strength is where the Sun is. All is not lost.
Don't cut yourself. Don't smash yourself.
Suicide is not liberation and will only create a level of Hell for you to commit suicide again and again, in the same manner every day at the same time. You will feel the exact fears and doom each and every time you kill yourself.
Say you kill yourself when you are 30 years old, but your destined lifespan was to end at 70 years old, that means for the next 40 years in hell, every day, you are going to kill yourself once. 40 x 365, you do the Maths.
In the netherworld, suicide ghosts are of the lowest class and are often despised by other ghosts. Your death will be worse than your living days.
If you are reincarnated as a human, your body will be incomplete, either as a handicap or born deaf, mute or blind. Or all of the above.
While we all have our own karmic debts, this too shall pass. We are all Buddhas inside and have infinite potential.
Your time is not up yet. Keep your mind open. Keep your heart going. Keep your body healthy. Don't let this monster of a darkness eat you up. I love you. Your friends and family love you. You love yourself. You are worth more than this. Hand to heart, all will be well. This too shall pass.
天無絕人之路，你千萬不要絕了自己的路。
.........
If there is any merit in writing this, I dedicate it to the people who are fighting everyday for their sanity beneath the heavy cloak of depression and anxiety.
May you emerge stronger and wiser. May the Light of Buddhas always be on you. Amitabha.
蓮花童子心咒、長咒∶
༄༅༎ཨོཾ་ཨཱ༔་ཧཱུྃ་གུ་རུ་པྷྱཿ་འ༔་ཨ༔་ཤ༔་ས༔་མ༔་ཧ༔་པདྨ་སམ་སིདྡྷི་ཧཱུྃ།།
嗡啊吽。古魯貝。阿訶薩沙媽哈。蓮生悉地吽。
