[Music]
SMIL ar-rahim salazar-mota see my dad in
Osaka said this in Korea in the name of
God the merciful the compassionate
person peace be upon all of our prophets
the little caveat before I start I want
to thank Mayor Greg Fischer who I met
him after 9/11 I actually came to
Louisville and spoke that and we spent a
day together and I really envy in a good
way the Arabs have two types of envy and
envy where you want the person you envy
to lose everything and in Envy where you
want the same thing that that they have
so it's the second type of envy that I'm
talking about they actually have two
different words for the meaning but I
envy the City of Louisville that it has
a mayor like Greg Fischer who's
committed to compassion and
reintroducing compassion as an idea
political idea a lot of people might be
familiar with Aristotle's theory of
stacy's and the reason why revolutions
happen and we're living in revolutionary
times places like the Middle East
Crimea other places the the reason
revolutions happen according to
Aristotle is that Celia breaks down love
breaks down in a society and and people
lose the compassion for the other and
this is one of the reasons why
Philadelphia which was the original
capital of the United States is the city
of Celia it's the city of brotherly love
and so to reintroduce that into politics
I think is really important it's not
spoken
enough the I want a little caveat this
if anybody's on Prozac they might feel
better leaving I don't want to depress
anybody but I I want to book before you
can really talk about healing you have
to look at the Diagnostics to understand
what's going on a very influential
author for me is Arnold Toynbee and he
wrote a book over fifty years ago called
change and habit the challenge of our
time and in that book he argues and and
he's worth listening to because in 1947
he wrote an essay about a civilization
when it's up against the wall against
another civilization has certain
strategies and one of them is gsella
tree and fanaticism
and he warns about the Muslim world and
actually identifies three places where
he felt in 1947 that he felt serious
problems would emerge in the future
Afghanistan Yemen and Saudi Arabia and
that was in 1947 one of the gifts that
historians bring is that they look at
the future with hindsight because they
know the past so well they can see and
prognosticate about what's what's going
to happen but he wrote this book change
in habit arguing that as humans we have
certain habits that are very dangerous
and they're not instinctual they're rich
they're literally habitual and and and
the worst he felt was the habit of going
to war that this is it's a choice that
there are other alternatives and peoples
have done other things war is not the
only solution it's actually always a
failure it's the last refuge of the
incompetence violence so and but he also
felt there were other aspects one of
them was tribalism or nationalism and
this idea of not seeing us as a human
family as seeing us as us and then
and and this is a very dangerous habit
of the mind and if we're not praying to
change these habits and this is why
virtue theory is based on altering
habits
it's adopting new habits and the human
being can change so and it's not nature
versus nurture the to work together so
this idea of nature versus nurture is is
something also that's problematic so I
just want to say that I'm going to talk
about is is it ok but another one of my
favorite people is Soren Kierkegaard who
was another visionary somebody who
really saw the future if you haven't
read Kierkegaard he's incredibly
humorous writer wonderful wit he says
that he said things to make people laugh
while he was crying inwardly but he one
of the things that he said was that one
solitary person cannot help or save an
age he can only make it clear that it is
on its way to a downfall and this is the
cassandra' problem because his people
know Greek mythology cassandra warned
not in the Iliad but but in a play
warned the Trojans not to bring in the
horse but she had the gift of prophecy
but she was cursed with that nobody
would believe her so in terms of this
isn't switching here maybe were meant to
contemplate this a little longer
technology is such a okay now okay
thanks so the purpose of human existence
I'm going to speak from my tradition
this is the festival of face so I want
to speak from my tradition but I think
this could be shared by many people's
the there's a there's a verse in the
Quran that tells us that one of the
reasons why we were created was for the
cultivation of the earth that the the
verse says that it was God who brought
you into the being from the earth and
settled you there into cultivated stock
monochrome feeha so Amara is cultivation
and it's it indicates a lot of different
things that humans do and this is why
anybody who's involved in cultivation of
the earth in a positive way is
fulfilling a divine purpose whether they
believe in the divine or not that they
are fulfilling a divine purpose and this
is often lost on religious peoples that
are working from a provincial tradition
and not recognizing that everybody is
here for a reason the second is the the
purpose is actually to worship to adore
the Creator and this is obviously from
the Abrahamic traditions that I only
created unseen beings and human beings
to worship me and then finally
stewardship the idea of being caretakers
of what we've been given this is called
the khalifa and the Haditha is one who
stands in place and the quran tells us
that god said i'm placing in the earth a
steward and a steward is one who acts on
the behalf of another and so this is
divine stewardship and then david we're
told in the in the jewish tradition that
david we have made you a steward over
the land judge fairly between people do
not follow your desires it is a really
important point about this because
stewardship is corrupted by following
desires and lest they divert you from
this divine plan
and so the question is how are we doing
as stewards of the earth if this is
really one of the reasons why we're here
so just to look maybe at some of the
signs I trained in the medical
profession and we always take vital
signs and we also assess orientation so
you ask somebody what I was working at
the time when we didn't have a president
there was that little interregnum period
where we didn't know who was president
was at bush or Kerry so we couldn't
really ask them who's president but you
ask a patient who's president you ask
them where are you who are you so you
orient them to time and place so they
you can see do they do they know one of
the verses in the Quran says that
corruption and the word is facade has
appeared on land and on sea because of
what people have earned by their acts to
make them taste some of what they have
done that they might turn back so the
idea of when when when we do things in
the world that are that are dangerous
and negative then we get this
repercussion and the reason for that
repercussion it's actually a mercy
because it's letting you know that you
need to turn back that you're doing
something wrong and so you cannot go out
and so corruption without having the
corruption come back at you in what in
economic terms is this these
externalities for people that know that
term these are the negative consequences
of economic production so if you have a
factory the factory doesn't intend to
pollute the river because it just wants
to produce whatever it's producing but
that's a negative externality you also
have positive externalities so one of
the signs of these latter times when
it's gotten too much the Quran says that
men will cry out and say what is
happening to the earth on that day it
will tell you all because your Lord
inspired it
do so so the word in Arabic that's used
in the plan which is facade in is
rottenness spoiled nurse corruption
decay decomposition putrefaction
depravity wickedness so it has it's used
for like when food goes bad the Arab say
sasada it's gone bad but they also use
it for a person when they've gone bad so
something is is has gone wrong and
pollution is the undesirable state of
the natural environment being
contaminated with harmful substances as
a consequence of human activities so the
state of being polluted it's also
defilement and this is also
traditionally a religious term that was
used now the traditional interpretation
which is from the seventh century of one
of the great quran interpreters abdullah
bin Abass about this he said the signs
of corruption of facade on land are
fires soil degradation the lowering of
the water tables and among the signs of
corruption in the sea is the dim unit
the diminution of the fish so the fish
begin to disappear so this is seventh
century and you will actually find in
chinese manuscripts from over 2,000
years ago the problems of pollution
these aren't new problems and and
societies have had negative effects on
the lands that they were in but in my oh
and i'm coming from the west coast one
of the things that we've seen is a lot
of fires and and i don't know if people
know about the fires that are happening
all over the planet spain europe has a
tremendous problem with with fires but
we see a lot of fires and you can see
the increase that's happened over time
here just from from 1980 to 1989 to 2000
2010 and we lose firefighters people go
in one of the reasons is because of the
climate change that's happening so it's
increasing this risk and then wildfires
are projected to burn more land as
temperatures continue to rise so you can
see the projected increase here on
on the west coast of on the west side of
our country another aspect is the air
pollution and it's extraordinary how
many people suffer around the globe from
from air pollution Mexico City has a
huge problem with asthma we have
actually high mortality rates in in
major cities because of the pollution
we're actually finding also a lot of
contamination in our bodies so this is a
major problem
this is China where a lot of people are
forced to wear masks because the
pollution gets so bad and then another
aspect here is soil degradation which a
lot of people are unaware of this I
think people here I mean I'm not easily
speaking to a lot of people that are
aware of these things but a lot of
people are not aware of the real crisis
that we're seeing in soil degradation
soil is a very thin layer it takes
millennia to produce topsoil and it can
be lost very easily and I mean obviously
we have hydroponics we have other ways
of growing plants plants actually don't
need soil to grow and hydroponics they
began studying hydroponics in the 17th
century but it would be an immense loss
to to our species because we have
incredible problems with water as well
and this is another aspect of the death
certification which I saw firsthand in
the Sahara I lived in saara
desert and I saw firsthand literally at
the encroachment of the Sahara Desert
it's pretty overwhelming to see it to
see whole cities engulfed in sand so
overall this is this is what we're
seeing and this is what our scientists
are telling us we don't need apocalyptic
prophets now to talk about these things
we have our scientists telling these and
it's it's a it's an important reminder
that the earth is not just for human
beings one of the verses in the Quran is
that it's God who spread out the earth
for all living creatures that literacy
says a.m. and the UNAM are it literally
means all those that sleep so it's all
sleeping creatures it's a place
where you should feel safe and secure
it's a place of repose you can't sleep
unless you feel safe or secure and many
of the animals are suffering and I've
mentioned this before but one of the
intriguing things to me about endangered
species is it it's not the cockroaches
that are going extinct it's not the rats
or the mice they're actually thriving
but what's going extinct are these
animals that historically in many
traditional cultures they use them as
names for their children
they're they're the animals that embody
noble spirits the Eagles the the Lions
the Tigers the wolves one of the real
tragic aspects I don't know people might
know about the doctrine of signatures
but there's a traditional belief in
medicine that things that look like
things are good for them for instance in
the Arab tradition cashews are very good
for memory according to the Arabs if you
look at a cashew it looks almost like a
hypo calamus which is where memory is
located in the brain so if something
looks like if you if you cut a carrot
you can see an eye in the carrot so
carrots are considered good for eyes
well there's a Asian believe that the
rhinoceros you can use your imagination
is good for for people that are would
otherwise use viagra and so
unfortunately the rhinoceros
extraordinary animal is literally being
wiped out because of this desire for
people to use this aphrodisiac Virginia
gray Henry published a wonderful book
which was written in the 10th century
about the animals having a lawsuit
against humanity
so they actually come to court and and
demand that the human be taken to task
for wreaking so much havoc in the
natural world it's worth reading but
then we move from the land to the sea
and I could talk there's a lot of other
things happening and many of you aware
of that you know about the mountaintops
in Kentucky and and many many other
things but I don't I don't want to I
just want to give an overview here but
the oceans also
amazing what we're seeing in the oceans
the Gulf of Mexico the the repercussions
of that are just overwhelming the the
people that are suffering to this day
there's a lot of immune diseases that
are that have occurred a lot of people
really suffering and and the BP cleanup
is far from from over I mean the the
effects of that are massive on the
planet so oil is another major problem
and then this is obviously again the
animals just really suffer when it comes
to this so and then burning off a lot of
the oil which is also another real
source of pollution it's interesting
that right now sorry that we just this
literally is May 13th at a glacial
regions melt is past the point of no
return
according to Nassau so these things are
happening right now and our scientists
are confirming these things and it's
overwhelming for people people is very
difficult to process these things when I
first read that 90% of the fish were
gone I thought that was so it just seems
so crazy and I sat next to a man on an
airplane happen to be a marine biologist
and we started talking I asked him about
the I said listen I read this in the
Guardian is this true he said well it's
between 85 and 95 percent so we kind of
took a middle number in there I said
well what do you think about that he
said keeps me up at night now one of the
things and this is really important
about the acidification so I want you to
just see what's this it's going to work
for me okay so I'm not getting the the
actual video because this had video
because they didn't hook up the video
for anyway the ocean acidification which
is a result of the pollution we have
acid rain we have our oceans are became
more and more acidic which is very
interesting and I'm going to get to that
why
our emissions of carbon are causing our
climate to change and too much for you
to in the atmosphere will also alter the
very chemistry of our ocean when carbon
dioxide dissolves into the water it
forms an African small rise the
minneso