#5 The Yin and Yang of Climate Crisis: Chinese Medicine Understanding of Science: Global Yin Deficient Heat, Part 2: The Personal

I believe a very accurate diagnosis of what’s happening with the climate is in deficient heat. The heat has gone up and the ability of the planet to sequester greenhouse gases, the whole greenhouse gases has gone down. Not surprisingly that same diagnosis is extremely common in our culture and is extremely common individually. In fact, in the treatment room with the patients that my wife and I treat, I would say yin deficient heat on an individual scale is one of the most common diagnoses between. So that’s not a coincidence. That just didn’t happen. There’s reasons why that happens, those reasons why our internal condition is being mirrored in what is happening with the climate.

So on an individual scale, the yin deficient heat means that we’re over stimulated, the heat has gone up and our coolant has gone down. So what that can feel like individually is basically being amped up, being over stimulated physically, mentally and emotionally and that over stimulation is not just an individual condition, it’s really a cultural condition. We’re encouraged to be over stimulated. We’re encouraged to overwork or encouraged to be too busy. We’re encouraged to over-consume. We’re encouraged to want more than we need. All of that is an excess of yang and a deficiency of yin. And also in terms of physical symptoms, yin deficient heat is night sweats with hot flashes, the bite, the mind being over stimulated, the inability to rest, the inability to relax, the desire for more than we want, all of that is yin deficient heat. And not only do we experience that individually, we experience it culturally. We are encouraged to live yin deficient heat life, we’re encouraged to constantly be busy, to be constantly stimulated, to constantly be doing things, to be constantly engaged with electronics. We’re encouraged to think that rest and relaxation can be laziness, rest and relaxation is not being productive. We’re also encouraged to want the newest gadget, the newest thing rather than being content with what we have. We’re encouraged to look too far off exotic places for the things that we need, for our food and our sustenance rather than looking lovely.

So the same dynamic that’s happening in the planet, the increase of heat, decrease of coolant is happening within us and it’s happening within our culture and that’s not a coincidence and the reason in particular is not a coincidence is because the United States has five percent of the population of the planet, but we create over twenty percent of the greenhouse gases. So we culturally, we as a society in the US are a major producer of greenhouse gases for medium and large-sized countries per person, per capita by far. We create the most greenhouse gases and again that’s not a coincidence because we’re encouraged to live that way, we’re encouraged to do over non do. We’re encouraged to want more things rather than be content. We’re encouraged to be busy rather than relaxed. We’re encouraged to think doing is better than not doing. All of that speaks to the overemphasis on Yang and the devaluing of yin. And that’s the very same dynamic that’s happening in the culture and that’s the very same dynamic that’s happening in the planet.

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