Rev. Danny Fisher

The Associated Press released a striking story today about the ways Burma’s sangha has mobilized following the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis.

In helping others, Myanmar’s saffron-robed Buddhist monks have helped themselves.

The monks’ critical role in providing relief after Cyclone Nargis has galvanized their ranks and strengthened their political voice — just months after the junta quashed the democracy uprising spearheaded by the monks last fall.

The monks have channeled aid materials into stricken regions and turned monasteries into soup kitchens and refugee camps since the May 2-3 storm.

Their outreach to survivors — many of whom received little or no government help — highlighted the monks’ power and the possibility they could clash again with Myanmar’s ruling forces. Some monks are even building secret stashes of makeshift weapons, clerics say.

While Buddhism orders its clergy to shun violence and politics, monks in Myanmar and elsewhere in Asia have a history of militancy. The monk Saya San became a national hero in the 1930s by leading a revolt against the British colonialists who hanged him after fielding 12,000 troops to suppress his peasant army.

Read the full story here.

Via the U.S. Campaign for Burma: The news service Reuters is reporting that more than 138,000 people are dead or missing following the cyclone that hit Burma on May 2nd.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu informed a meeting of government and foreign aid workers the official death toll from the May 2 disaster had risen to 84,537 from a previous figure of 77,738, the diplomat told Reuters.

The number of missing fell to 53,836 from 55,917 announced by the government in its last casualty update on May 16.

Nearly two months after Cyclone Nargis left up to 2.4 million people destitute, a joint assessment team has recently completed its work and a new appeal for foreign aid is expected in July.

That’s a direct quote from James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences at NASA, who testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming this morning.

[He told them] that the world has long passed the “dangerous level” for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth’s atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

[...]

“This is the last chance,” [he said].

As the article explains, Hansen was crucial to bringing knowledge of global warming into the public consciousness twenty years ago. On this day in 1988, he spoke to a Senate hearing about the climate crisis during a Washington heat wave. He marked the anniversary with his testimony today.

To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don’t capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn’t be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants.

Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth’s atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10 percent higher: 386.7 parts per million.

[...]

The year of Hansen’s original testimony was the world’s hottest year on record. Since then, 14 years have been hotter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Two decades later, Hansen spent his time on the question of whether it’s too late to do anything about it. His answer: There’s still time to stop the worst, but not much time.

“We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes,” Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. “The Arctic is the first tipping point and it’s occurring exactly the way we said it would.”

Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.

Get involved in addressing the climate crisis at the We Campaign and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Sign the petition to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney at http://impeachment.kucinich.us/petition/.