Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: 2005 Summation
Record warmth in 2005 is notable, because global temperature has not received any boost from a tropical El Niño this year. The prior record year, 1998, on the contrary, was lifted 0.2ºC above the trend line by the strongest El Niño of the past century.

Global warming is now 0.6ºC in the past three decades and 0.8ºC in the past century. It is no longer correct to say that ‘most global warming occurred before 1940’. More specifically, there was slow global warming, with large fluctuations, over the century up to 1975 and subsequent rapid warming of almost 0.2ºC per decade.
(Via Slashdot)

I read the above news this morning. Amazing how NASA can have the facts while all our politicians seem to stick their fingers in their ears and sing I can’t hear you!

Anyway, the news seems to dovetail nicely with some of what I learned this week regarding Native American ways to view the world. Roshi Joan Halifax allowed me to attend seminars at Upaya this week, even though I was not able to take part in the whole intensive.

This retreat is a powerful way to explore the core teachings of the Buddha and indigenous perspectives in relation to the contemporary world. It includes daily meditation training and practice, morning samu (service work), afternoon seminars exploring historical and engaged Buddhism, as well as indigenous perspectives on the natural world and the mind.