Climate Crisis

Inflammation, Anxiety and Climate Change

In our era of climate crisis, Chinese medicine can not only offer healing on the small-scale of the individual it also has a vital role in helping address the large-scale ecological imbalances that now confront us. And rather than being separate issues, what’s happening within us is being reflected in the warming and destabilizing of the climate around us. Over thirty years of climate science indicates conclusively that the planet is warming and the weather has become unstable from what we’ve been emitting. Called greenhouse gases because they hold warmth in the atmosphere in a way similar to greenhouses, they’re released into the atmosphere from the burning of oil, gas, coal and other fossil fuels. We burn them for warming and cooling our homes, clinics and schools. We burn them to create electricity. We burn them when we drive and fly. We burn them to manufacture the clothes we wear,…

Climate Change and Chinese Medicine

The latest science on climate change warns that the Earth is in serious trouble. Sea levels are rising, biodiversity loss is accelerating, and extreme weather events—from the polar vortex to summer typhoons—are wreaking havoc. If we are to survive, we must change our lifestyle so that the Earth can regain its natural balance and return to equilibrium. The idea of restoring balance is an integral part of traditional Chinese medicine. Recently practitioners of this art have been applying their expertise to the problem of climate change, examining it in a holistic way and taking into account the relationship between individual well-being and the global environment. The Yin and Yang of Climate One of the best known books on this topic is The Yin and Yang of Climate Crisis by Brendan Kelly. Kelly, a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, explains how the contrasting opposites of yin (contentment and coolness) with yang…

Yoga, Yin and Climate Change

Does Body Health Echo Our Planet’s Climate Crisis? What’s happening within us is intimately connected to what’s happening around us. Rather than being two separate issues, our health and the well-being of the planet is the same issue happening on different scales. With the climate crisis that now confronts us, internal practice like yoga are crucial to addressing the root issues of our rapidly warming planet. Our usual western view encourages us to see the world through the lens of separation where what happening to us personally is distinct from what’s happening ecologically. From a more holistic, eastern perspective, we can see that what’s happening within us is mirrored in what’s happening around us. Several decades of climate science demonstrate conclusively that the planet is warming. There is a continuous stream of news stories about how global warming is creating droughts, floods and more severe storms. There’s also research that…

The Gary Null Show – 04.14.16 Featuring Brendan Kelly from Personal As Ecological

Gary introduced his guest, Brendan Kelly. Here is Brendan’s bio: Brendan Kelly is the co-founder of Jade Mountain Wellness center in Burlington Vermont where he currently has a Chinese medical practice established. For the past 25 years Brendan has been nationally involved in environmental issues, lecturing on Chinese medicine, Western herbalism, personal health, climate change and sustainable lifestyles, including at the University of Vermont, Yale, Goddard and other universities. He also teaches at Johnson State College and the Academy of Five Element Acupuncture. Brendan is the author of the recent “Yin and Yang of Climate Crisis: Healing Personal, Cultural and Ecological Imbalance with Chinese Medicine”, which explores the underpinning imbalances that exist between our own busy modern lives and the outer effects of climate change due to anthropocentric causal factors based upon the principles of Chinese medicine and philosophy.  His websites are PersonalAsEcological.com and JadeMtWellness.com Video: Smoke And Fumes: An…

The Yin and Yang of Climate Crisis Review by William Martin

Here’s an enthusiastic review of The Yin and Yang of Climate Crisis by William Martin, author of The Activist’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for a Modern Revolution. The Yin and Yang of Climate Crisis: Guest Post by William Martin “I am familiar with the overwhelming data over the past fifty years that makes the idea of “debating climate change” much like holding a town hall forum on the possibility that the earth is round and that gravity may pull things downward… I found it therefore a welcome relief to sink into the single most helpful book I’ve come across in twenty years of reading on this theme. Brendan Kelly’s marvelous book, The Yin and Yang of Climate Crisis, blends a clear-eyed understanding of the extreme dangers we face as an out-of-control materialistic society, with a rational understanding of the traditional practice of Chinese medicine that results in a serious but profoundly optimistic perspective on the future…

From the introduction of The Yin and Yang of Climate Crisis: Healing Personal, Cultural and Ecological Imbalance with Chinese Medicine

  Often we’re like fish in water. Because it’s continuously all around them, there are stories about how fish aren’t able to recognize the environment in which they live. For us, rather than not seeing the water all around us, we’re often unable to see the assumptions that shape our lives. How we see the world affects everything. It influences what we do, what we value, and how we define a good life. It is also the basis of our cultural institutions, including our economy, our medical system, and modern sciences like biology. Like fish in water, we’re swimming in a sea of assumptions that are everywhere and affect all parts of our lives. Because they are all around us and permeate throughout our culture, we often accept without question our shared beliefs. It is these assumptions and our views of the world that are the deeper causes of our…

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