VincentRJ

1 hour ago, bristolboy said:

First off, that was 2013. Second, extreme weather events are one thing. Average temperature increase quite another.

Extreme weather events are very noticeable and obvious. Global average temperatures measured with modern instruments are reasonably accurate, but still present problems. How many thermometers would you need in your house to get an accurate average temperature, considering that one part of a room is exposed to sunlight through a window, another part gets a cool breeze through a window, other parts such as cupboards are well insulated, and so on?

Getting an accurate, average, global temperature is enormously complicated, requiring thousands of temperature stations and many adjustments to compensate for biases such as the Urban Heat Island effect.
Getting equally accurate, average global temperatures of the distant past, from proxy records, in the absence of modern thermometers and satellites, in order to make accurate comparisons and make statements that the current rate of warming is faster than ever before, during the past million years or more, is impossible.

25 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

It's all about the increase in rate of change not the fact of change itself.

Really! So you think that the current rate of increase in warming is greater than has ever occurred in the past? You just believe everything you are told?
Do you really think we can compare the rates of temperature increases, over a few decades, using modern thermometers, with rates of increases over similar periods in the distant past, using proxy records such as ice cores?

The 2013 IPCC technical report (Working Group 1) admitted in their summary that they were not confident that extreme weather events had been increasing during the past 50 years, on a global scale, due to a lack of reliable evidence and differences in measurement techniques.

If the scientific community is not certain that extreme weather events have been increasing in recent times (except heat waves and precipitation), then how can they be certain that the current rate of warming is greater than any period in the past? Use your nous.

On 1/18/2019 at 11:18 AM, bristolboy said:

And the economic benefits of renewables should also include the positive health and environmental effects of reduced pollution. It's bizarre how denialists don't even acknowledge that.

It's not bizarre at all. This is the nature of denialism. It's what one would expect from a denier.  To quote:
"In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth."

I've never actually had any discussion about climate with a 'climate change denier'. I assume such a person would either be very ignorant of the history of past climate changes on our planet, and/or would have their life savings placed in coal and oil shares.

Although I'm very skeptical that small increases in very small levels of CO2 have any significant effect on climate, I'm very much aware of environmental pollution and degradation. There are environmental problems with oil spills, contamination of underground water from fracking, destruction of the landscape from open cut mining, whether mining of coal, iron ore, or lithium for batteries.

There are also health problems due to pollution from cheap and obsolete coal-fired power stations, petrol-driven vehicles with inadequate emission controls, and agricultural burn-off which produces particulate carbon which can be damaging to lungs. At present, Bangkok has a high degree of particulate carbon. Such pollution can be transported by winds across countries. Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant.

The economic drive towards renewables, especially solar power and electric vehicles, is very sensible. I would like to see a situation in the future where all new houses would have a flat roof, sloping towards the sun, completely covered with solar panels, and a small room in the house for battery storage with cheap and durable batteries. The electric car, with similarly cheap and durable batteries, could be recharged every night from the battery storage in the house.

As technology advances, the electric cars could also be painted with a 'solar paint' which acts like a solar panel, but with less efficiency, so the car batteries are continually being slowly charged whenever the car is in the sun, whether driving or parked.

Now this is all fine. The problem is, extreme weather events such as cyclones, heat waves, floods and droughts, which have always occurred in the past, regardless of human emissions of CO2, and will continue to occur in the future, regardless of CO2 levels.

In Australia at present, we are experiencing some 'record' heat waves. What does that mean? It means we are experiencing heat levels which are very similar to record heat waves in the recent past which were recorded with thermometers, but are currently slightly higher. This is not surprising, because we are in a warming phase. The previous warming phase was around a thousand years ago, the MWP. We didn't have thermometers then, and temperature records rely on less accurate proxy methods such as ice cores, tree rings, sediment analysis, and so on.

During the past 2,000 years there could have been a significant number of years in Australia that were hotter than present. We simply don't know. The science is definitely not settled.

2 hours ago, amexpat said:

Of course they aren't. But they and climatologists use scientific methods unlike your rectal extraction system.

 

The point is, they don't use the same scientific methods. Are you not aware of the distinction between 'hard' science and 'soft' science?

Oh, you mean politicians gain favor by telling the public they must consume less, re-use more, carry canvas bags, etc?

You seem to be confusing environmental pollution and degradation with CO2 emissions. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential for almost all life and most plants thrive on increased levels of CO2.

5 hours ago, amexpat said:

Well, for example one can believe that scientists dropped a probe precisely, exactly, where they wanted on Mars which is 44 million miles away and spinning at about 800 feet per second. 

So I think I'll go with their opinions on environment rather than yours.

 

Where did you get the idea that scientists and engineers who design and test rockets are also climatologists? Rockets, and planes that carry millions of people every day, have to be tested very thoroughly, in real time, before they are used.
Those testing procedures, which eventually result in a reliable product, cannot be applied to the effects on climate, of minuscule increases of CO2, because we only have one Earth and we cannot simulate the complexity of the Earth's Biosphere in a laboratory.
 

And why is it naive to believe there is consensus?

Just as it would be naive to take a new medical drug which had not undergone the usual testing procedures on mice, rats, or chimpanzees, and finally groups of humans.
Of course, such a drug would not be allowed to be marketed before it had passed certain rigorous testing procedures, and for very good reason. It would be naive to think there could be a 97% consensus among biologists and chemists that such a drug would be effective and safe based only on computer models and experiments in petri dishes and test tubes.

The 97% consensus on the dangers of rising CO2 levels is obviously a fabrication for political purposes.

On 1/7/2019 at 5:09 PM, amexpat said:

Reevaluation based on new evidence is called progress in science.

In religion it is called heresy. 

 

Good point! However, my impression is that most people do not have sufficient understanding of the 'methodology of science' in order to apply skepticism when skepticism is appropriate.

If the situation is very complex, and even chaotic, involves long time periods before a consistent trend can be observed, is unable to be repeatedly tested under controlled conditions, changing one variable at a time (such as CO2 levels) and observing the effects on climate, then a degree of skepticism is justified.

Perhaps the greatest threat to the planet and our future well-being, is the general gullibility of the masses who lack a basic education in science, and who treat science as a type of religion.
In other words, the naive belief that there is a 97% consensus among all scientists that CO2 is the main driver of climate change and that such a change in climate will inevitably be bad for the planet. If one can believe that, what else can one believe?? Oh, my God! ☹️

10 hours ago, bristolboy said:

Do you have any independent scientific evidence that food production has increased because of higher CO2 levels.  You might want to look up a certain person named Norman Borlaug before you makes such an uninformed assertion again.

 

Yes, of course. There's lots of 'real' scientific evidence that can be verified in 'real' time, as opposed to the dubious computer models which attempt to predict future climatic conditions, and which don't meet the rigorous requirements of the methodology of science which has resulted in all the marvelous products of science and technology which we all appreciate.

There are many, many uncertainties regarding the processes of climate change, but there are a few issues that we can be certain about.
First, climate is always changing in some respect and to some degree, whether favourable or not to human habitation in a particular area. 

Second, carbon dioxide is essential for all life on earth, if not directly then certainly indirectly. Plants cannot grow without it and therefore, without CO2, the entire ecosystem would collapse.

Thirdly, for many years, farmers have injected CO2, from gas bottles, into their greenhouses to increase crop production. The effect of increased CO2 levels alone, on plant growth, can be observed. In other words, one can change just one factor, and observe its effect in a relatively short period of time, such as one growing season.

Using 2 or more greenhouses in the same area, growing the same species of plants, using the same amount of water, the same amount of fertilizers in the same quality of soil, at the same temperatures and with the same amount of light, we can observe the effects of just one variable in just one of the greenhouses. That variable is a change in the percentage of CO2.

This is the nature of 'true' science, rather than the hogwash and parroted, political nonsense that 97% of all climate scientists claim that CO2 is the main driver of climate change and that such human emissions of CO2 will be disastrous.

Just as there is no sound scientific evidence that the current, very tiny percentages of CO2 in the atmosphere, and even moderate increases in the future, will be catastrophic, there is also no sound scientific evidence that 97% of all climatologists are of the opinion that the effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions will be disastrous. Only the scientifically illiterate members of the public believe that 97% consensus.

25 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

To say that rate doesn't matter is like saying you don't care if your investments get a 1 percent return or a 10 percent return. As long as the return is positive, it's basically the same. 

Good point. ????

150 years ago we were getting about 0.028% return on our investment. Now we're getting about 0.0404%, and possibly a few decades into the future we might get as high as 0.05%. Still very small, but better than nothing, especially considering its effect on food production.

It's difficult to accurately calculate, but the total value of the increased food production world-wide,  since the industrial revolution, resulting from the additional CO2 factor alone, would be in the trillions of dollars.

If we were able to magically funnel all the accumulated human emissions of CO2 to outer space, and bring atmospheric CO2 levels back down to pre-industrial levels, there would be unprecedented world-wide food shortages.

Fortunately, CO2 hangs around in the atmosphere for a long time, so even if we were able stop further CO2 emissions immediately, there would be no catastrophic food shortages, so we can all relax, as long as we don't act foolishly and build our homes on flood plains, or on the coast close to sea level and in areas subject to hurricanes.

1 hour ago, Credo said:

More than just people are affected by Climate Change.

There's nothing necessarily bad about climate change. It's always changed in the past and will continue to change in the future. In any given location, over a given period of time, climate will change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse from the human perspective.

It's misguided arrogance and pure folly to think we can stop climate changing, or make climate change in a benign way to suit our purposes, simply by using CO2 levels as a sort of control knob.
 

55 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Yes we know dirty energy is cheaper.

Do you also know that all coal-fired plants are not equally dirty and that the latest Ultra-Supercritical coal-fired plants have negligible emissions of pollutants, and burn coal more efficiently, which is why sensible countries such as China continue to build them and prosper as a result?

As Bill Clinton used to say, "It's the economy, stupid".

Countries such as China understand the importance and the absolutely essential role of cheap energy in economic development.
Countries such as Australia, that force up the price of energy for political reasons, make themselves less competitive in the global market. Energy is the foundation of all activity in a modern civilization. Nothing happens without the expenditure of energy.

To some extent an increase in the cost of energy can be offset by an increase in the efficiency of the use of that energy, but that increase in efficiency is limited. Countries that use cheap energy with maximum efficiency will tend  to triumph, economically, over countries that use expensive energy with the same efficiency.

China is a major manufacturer of solar panels because it has access to cheap power, mainly from coal. While it's true that China is reducing its vast number of small, old-fashioned, pollution-emitting, domestic coal plants, which have been largely responsible for the significant haze and smog in its cities, it's replacing them with large, modern, low-emission, ultra-supercritical coal plants which enable it to manufacture solar panels at a very competitive price to sell to countries who are deluded that reductions in CO2 levels will protect them, and the rest of the world, from the effects of extreme weather events and rising sea levels.

The reason for the claims that renewable energy is now as cheap as energy from coal is not just because the technology of renewable energy has improved and the manufacturing cost has come down, but also because the cost of energy from coal has risen.

Why has the cost of energy from coal risen? Because the coal power plants are not being used to the capacity they were designed for. They are increasingly being used only as reliable back-ups when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. The wholesale price of the energy from the coal plants must therefore rise proportionally, or the company goes bankrupt, in the absence of government subsidies.

This is another form of delusion. We kid ourselves that the cost of renewables has now reached parity with the cost of fossil fuels because we have forced up the wholesale price of fossil fuel energy by using those fossil fuel plants inefficiently. As a result, the average cost of energy, nation-wide, has risen. We're shooting ourselves in the foot.

In 2007 Australia was among the countries with the lowest energy prices in the world. Now it is among the countries with the highest energy prices in the world. The State of South Australia, with the highest proportion of its energy coming from renewables, has actually the highest electricity prices in Australia, and by some reports, the actual highest in the world.

https://stopthesethings.com/2018/09/08/south-australias-50-renewable-energy-fail-worlds-highest-power-prices-caused-by-subsidised-wind-solar/

I'm really dismayed that a country like Australia, with massive reserves of coal, gas and uranium, now has among the highest electricity prices in the world. How stupid! China is laughing all the way to the bank.

The Dr. Jason Fung video makes some valid points. The reason why the 'calories in/calories out' model can be wrong is because it doesn't take the varying metabolic rates into consideration.

If everyone's metabolism was the same, whatever their age and genetic characteristics, then the 'calories in/calories out' model would be correct and consistent.
However, the metabolic rate varies, not only within an individual's life span, but from individuals to individuals of the same age, eating the same food.

This causes much confusion. For example, two friends who perhaps live together, might eat the same quantity of food and do the same amount of exercise (approximately), but one is clearly overweight and the other is not. The person who is overweight might then deduce that he/she is not overeating because the other person is not overweight, and that the reason he/she is overweight is because of her genes.

The reality is (as I understand it, of course), is that both people are overeating, but the person who is not overweight has perhaps a faster metabolism and a genetic condition which prevents the body from turning excess food into fat. In other words, the excess food is flushed down the toilet.

Converting excess food into body fat is a normal and healthy condition. It would have helped our distant ancestors to survive during periods of famine and drought. Those who were unable to convert excess food, during times of plenty, into body fat reserves, would have been at a survival disadvantage.

The message here, is that it is possible to overeat and not put on weight, but it is not possible to put on weight without overeating. Overeating has to include the metabolic rate, or metabolic efficiency.
Metabolic rate usually changes as one gets older, and in particular, can change significantly for women when they reach the menopause stage. That is, the metabolic rate slows down, which results in weight gain despite the fact that the woman is eating the same quantity of food as she's always eaten, and does the same amount of physical activity (approximately).

However, I gather that the processes in the body going on here are not fully understood. For most people who are not 'exercise fanatics', it seems that the greatest proportion of the energy used by the body is for maintaining the bodily functions, digesting food, keeping the heart pumping, keeping the body temperature at a constant, and so on. The relatively minor activities of short walks in the evening, climbing in and out of the car, washing the dishes, cleaning the house, and so on, consume a relatively small proportion of the total energy intake from food.

It is therefore possible for a person who goes on a lower-calorie diet to not lose weight. Perhaps the body has got used to being overweight. After overeating for 20 years or more, the body has gradually accumulated fat in order to prepare itself for a future famine which has never occurred. Maybe the body is then tricked into believing that its obesity is a normal state of affairs. When the person goes on a diet with lower calories, the body resists any weight loss, and lowers the metabolic rate.

However, proper fasting, eating no food whatsoever, and drinking only water, sends a clear message to the body to consume the fat reserves. Just as you cannot put on weight without eating too much, you cannot not lose weight when you eat nothing.

 

Good call.

 

 

Glad at least someone agrees. ????

1 hour ago, rockyysdt said:

Regarding ignoring the wild dog which may in the future take life, it depends how much of a concern it might be to you.

You could do a crowd funding exercise to establish a home for wayward canines, where such animals would be safe from society and in which they could receive kind treatment. Maybe they could be run by people who wish to explore their brahmaviharas, Metta, Upekkha, Mudita, & Karuna.

Or, you could adopt it and eventually retrain its distemper.

Or, even establish whether it is lost and return it to its owner.

 

Hi Rocky,

The number of stray or feral dogs in Thailand appears to be a huge problem. There are hundreds of thousands of them. It would seem to me to be a huge waste of resources to establish homes for them, especially considering how many homeless humans there are on the streets in Thailand.

Here's a story of a New Zealand teenager who is now struggling with her ambition to become a vet, as a result of the fear generated by an attack by feral dogs.

"A Kiwi teen's idyllic holiday in Thailand turned to a nightmare after she was set upon by pack of stray dogs while running alone at a popular beach.
Sarah Calley, 16, narrowly escaped a mauling at the teeth of 12 feral dogs and only escaped by diving into the sea, where she was forced to tread water until the animals lost interest.
Taken to a nearby hospital, Calley was given several painful injections, including rabies shots.
Her skin had not been torn open but she had deep puncture wounds on the back of her leg.
A week before Calley was attacked in January, the dogs also bit five other tourists, according to a report in the Phuket News."
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/thailand-terror-kiwi-teen-attacked-pack-dogs

Also, a major concern is not just the physical severity of the bite, but the risk of getting rabies.

"Every year, in Thailand, there are a couple of hundred deaths from rabies, as well as thousands of people getting treatment for dog bites."
https://tastythailand.com/what-to-do-if-you-are-bitten-by-a-stray-dog-in-bangkok-thailand/

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

I think some dogs get mistreated, that's why they become aggressive.

I see 'karma' in a Western way, as the 'law of action and reaction', we have a choice, do we want to feed love, or will we succumb to fear ?

I have been bitten by dogs in the past, but i don't hate those dogs, it just had to happen.

Hating anything, for whatever reason, is against the fundamental principles of Buddhism. A perhaps justifiable reason to kill, or euthanase a stray or feral dog, is compassion for the potential victims of that dog if or when it bites someone, and compassion for the dog itself, which has probably been abandoned by its owner, is suffering and struggling to find enough food to survive, or is maybe the offspring of abandoned dogs and is therefore truly feral or wild.

I don't think being bitten by a dog has to happen. It's not like sticking your bare hand in a fire.
 

22 hours ago, rockyysdt said:

The thing about Karma/Vipaka, is that it will continue to operate whether the subject is deluded or not.

 

Just like our genes I suppose. ????

Monks rules:  Pacittiya Rule Number 61. Should any bhikkhu knowingly deprive an animal of life, it is to be confessed.

Considering the situation in the original post, the significant point is that the dog was annoying and considered to be potentially dangerous. As I recall, only once in my entire life have I been bitten by a dog, and oddly enough, that was in a Buddhist temple (in Loei, Northwest Thailand).

The temple seemed to have a number of 'resident' dogs, frequently barking. I ignored them, and whilst standing upright, photographing a stupa, with my eye glued to the camera, a dog crept up behind me and bit me on the calf muscle of my leg.

I immediately turned around, and saw the dog scampering away as the other 'temple-resident dogs' chased it. It seemed that the dog that bit me was an outsider that had crept into the temple; an annoying and dangerous dog like the one mentioned in this thread.

This type of situation raises a moral dilemma. Let's say the Buddhist, although realizing the dog is dangerous, refuses to kill it because of the imagined effects of karma on his own life. He has the opportunity to kill it, but doesn't, and nobody else kills it.

Some time later, a very young child wanders out of her parent's house and garden, curious about the outside environment, and encounters this dangerous dog which viciously attacks the young child.  The child is unable to defend herself and eventually dies, perhaps bleeding to death before her body is eventually discovered in a ditch.

How would that Buddhist man feel, who had refused to kill the dog when he had the opportunity? Would he justify the death of the young child as the result of her own bad karma, and perhaps reason if he had killed the dog, the child would still have died from some other cause, because of her karma.

Sorry to choose such a sad and unpleasant example, but bad things do happen.
 

19 hours ago, rockyysdt said:

Hi Vincent.

 

Ajahn Po personally taught us his technique.

 

He indicated regular exercise was frowned upon at the Retreat, but advised that arm swinging was permissible.

 

Hi rocky,
If one is doing just a 7 day or 10 day retreat now and again, a lack of exercise for such brief periods is not a major issue. However, if one is an ordained monk leading a lifestyle with little exercise for many decades, that would very likely have negative health consequences. A good long walk each day with an alms bowl should be very beneficial.

If the walk is very short, then some additional exercise would be advised. Swinging one's arms is better than nothing, but doing exercise which is also productive in additional ways is surely better, such as using one's arms to pull up weeds, or push wheelbarrows full of mulch or carrots. ????

When visiting Mae Hong Son in northern Thailand a few years ago, I got up very early one day to take photos of the monks climbing up and down the hundreds of steps which lead up to Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu, which is situated on a hill overlooking the city of Mae Hong Son. I'd already walked up those steps during the day to take photos of the view, and I thought it would be very interesting to see a line of monks with alms bowls walking down those steps, then back up again.

Alas! I discovered there is a small road which meanders up the hillside at the back of the temple. The monks, or at least the vast majority of them, are collected in vans and driven down to the city where they do a brief walk with their alms bowls, then climb back into the vans to be driven up to the temple.
I saw only one monk climbing up the steps.

I guess we've strayed off topic. Apologies to the moderators.
 

It seems you'll have to rely upon an internet search. I came across a place called POP House near Pathum Thani, but I've no personal experience of the place.

https://mmipeace.org/blog/meditation-retreat/

11 hours ago, rockyysdt said:

The Monks at Wat Suan Mokkh also exercise by rapidly swinging their arms  backwards and forwards, above neck height, several hundred times.

Their regime includes regular walks through the forest (bushland).

Physical activity is definitely a good practice.

 

That's interesting. I've never observed ordained monks doing such exercise as swinging their arms backwards and forwards hundreds of times. Are you referring to the permanent residents at Wat Suan Mokkh who live in little huts in the forest, rather than the visitors who pay for 10 day retreats?

By the way, how do you cope with the hard beds? Checking their site, I came across the following:

"The private room for your use is small, con­tain­ing just a hard bed with a simple straw mat, a blanket, a mosquito net, and a wooden pillow".

I've slept on a hard floor before, but never used a wooden pillow.

2 hours ago, rockyysdt said:

 

Hi Vincent.

My understanding is that the average requirement for a Monks meditation practice might involve 8 hours a day.

This would progress for longer periods up to perhaps 20 hours or more in the final stages.

Meditation is something very difficult to carry out if the subject is tired, as one would end up experiencing marathons of sleep.

 

Oh my gosh! Sitting for 8 to 20 hours a day! Haven't you heard, Rocky, that too much sitting is bad for the health? ????

Perhaps this is the main reason for monks walking each morning with their alms bowls. It's the only exercise they get. However, they probably need more exercise than that, and a bit of gardening might help them live longer and healthier and give them a better chance of achieving enlightenment. ????

3 hours ago, kwilco said:

Do you seriously think that climate scientists haven't taken these "mini ice ages" into consideration and only you know about them?

Of course not. Why would you think that only I know about them? Now that is something that is really crazy.

All my knowledge about climate comes from climate scientists. Do you think I just invent stuff?
I consider all sides of the arguments and all opinions. There's nothing that I have written in this thread that is not supported by scientific evidence.

Do you imagine that I claim to be a time traveler, who can visit the Sahara Desert 10,000 years into the past, and claim that it was a lush grassland with lots of wildlife, or visit Greenland a thousand years ago to observe that it was actually green, and observe the Vikings growing crops and grazing cattle on the southern shores?

This information comes from reputable scientific studies. Have you even bothered to read the links to the IPCC reports I've provided at least 3 times in this thread, in relation to the claimed increase in extreme weather events? Obviously not.

You must have a very deluded sense of self-importance....and of all the climate events we know about you have fixated on that one.... and drawn a very non scientific conclusion...... daft enough for you?

Which one have I fixated on. I've mentioned frequently that climate is changing all the time, by different degrees in different parts of the world, in big cycles and in small cycles. I'm not aware of any fixation on my part, but I'm very much aware of a fixation on rising CO2 levels by the non-scientific alarmists.

Got it?

11 hours ago, kwilco said:

Do you realise how daft a question like that is...... all it demonstrates is your total lack of understanding of the issue.

 

No, I don't realize how daft it is. If you can explain to me why and how it is daft, I will consider your explanation and consider its validity.

There are many people who have no knowledge of climate matters and assume that climate is naturally and normally static over the relatively short periods of a few hundred years. They might be aware of the last ICE AGE several thousand years ago, but not much else. Such people are very vulnerable to the uncertain scientific claims that the current slight warming period is mainly due to mankind's emissions of CO2.

They are also very vulnerable to the uncertain claims that the slight warming will be bad, in terms of extreme weather events.

I'm simply trying to unravel the nonsense.

That's all fine, Rocky, but the subject of the thread is the morality of a Buddhist lay person asking a non-Buddhist to kill a problematic and dangerous dog, in order that the Buddhist could avoid the consequences of negative karma.

The issue is not really whether karma exists and is an actual process, but is the moral issue of someone who believes and accepts that karma is real, but who seems willing to pass on what he believes are the bad effects of karma, to another person..

This is one reason I raised the analogy of Buddhist monks refusing to do any gardening in case they kill worms and insects, and are 'effectively' passing on the bad effects of karma to others who might be Buddhists of a lower order, or even non-Buddhists.

If the actual or main reason that monks are not allowed do any gardening is because they don't have the time, and because they are advised to sit down and meditate most of the day, then the problem is solved. Karma is not an issue regarding the inadvertent killing of such lowly creatures as worms and ants.

However, the other reason I raised the issue is because the Santi Asoke monks, who are willing to face charges of heresy in order to reform the traditional Thai Sangha, and who do spend a lot of their time working, rather than sitting doing essentially nothing, are still unwilling to work in the garden in case they kill creatures that live in the soil.

I have therefore assumed that this prohibition of monks working in the fields is very deep-seated, and is related to a belief that killing even lowly creatures like worms and ants will produce negative karma.

1 hour ago, attrayant said:

You've played this card before, and now you're playing it again: you seem to think that since solar irradiance was the primary driver of past periods of climate change, that it must be the only thing that can be a driver of climate change.  That's simply not true.

 

You seem to have misunderstood everything I've written. As I've mentioned before, the subject is enormously complex and chaotic. There are so many, many influences on climate that it is currently impossible to quantify the role of any one contributing factor, such as mankind's emissions of CO2.

I have no problem with the concept that mankind's activities in general are one of those contributing factors, but separating and accurately quantifying the contribution of each of the many factors, whether natural or manmade, is currently beyond the scope of science.

If you insist that the rise in average global temperature is natural, what's the driver?

Who knows! However, here's one study that suggests submarine volcanoes might be a major cause of the current warming.

"A new study shows that undersea volcanoes flare up on strikingly regular cycles, ranging from two weeks to 100,000 years -- and, that they erupt almost exclusively during the first six months of each year. The pulses -- apparently tied to short- and long-term changes in earth's orbit, and to sea levels -- may help trigger natural climate swings."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150205142921.htm

And here's a more recent study.

"The most productive volcanic systems on Earth are hidden under an average of 8,500 feet (2,600 m) of water. Beneath the oceans a global system of mid-ocean ridges produces an estimated 75% of the annual output of magma. An estimated 0.7 cubic miles (3 cubic kilometers) of lava is erupted. The magma and lava create the edges of new oceanic plates and supply heat and chemicals to some of the Earth's most unusual and rare ecosystems.
If an estimate of 4,000 volcanoes per million square kilometers on the floor of the Pacific Ocean is extrapolated for all the oceans then there are more than a million submarine (underwater) volcanoes." 

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/submarine
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/book/export/html/138

Can you imagine the difficulty, and perhaps impossibility, of monitoring a million volcanoes on the sea floors?