12 Rules for Life #3 Make Friends with People Who Want the Best for You (Summary)

This is a chapter-by-chapter summary of a book by Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) series. One chapter, one article. Read this summary, buy the book. Enjoy!

“If you have a friend whose friendship you wouldn’t recommend to your sister, or your father, or your son, why would you have such a friend for yourself?”

(Jordan Peterson)

Almost every person has two kinds of families, says Peterson: #1 The one that he is born with; and #2 The one that he chooses by himself – friends. The selection of these important people is not to be taken lightly as they often have an impact on our lives. It is your obligation to keep away people who are making your life worse or hurting you. It is your right to decide who should be close to you and who shouldn’t. Peterson affirmed, “There are no ethical dilemmas about that.” If you have a friendship that you wouldn’t recommend to someone, then why are you still keeping it? End it, NOW!

So why many people are not making good choices? That’s because “surrounding yourself with good and healthy people is harder than the opposite.” Being good and healthy requires strength, daring and the determination to choose the difficult but right paths. Willing to take a risk. Consequently, standing up near such a person you have to be a strong, daring and determined person, ready to accept some harsh criticism from time to time which would benefit you. Good friends will do these things to you.

On the other hand, being around bad and unhealthy people is much easier to choose. Being on the bottom is much more convenient than being on top. Bad people will make you adopt laziness, easy unhealthy lifestyle, self-pity, tolerating being hurt or even hurting others for your benefit. So choose your friends wisely.

It’s Your Choice.

12 Rules for Life #0 Introduction: The Important of Personal Change (Summary)

This is a chapter-by-chapter summary of a book by Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) series. One chapter, one article. Read this summary, buy the book. Enjoy!

“If you fulfill your obligations everyday you don’t need to worry about the future.”

(Jordan Peterson)

According to Jordan Peterson, society's present ill(ness) can be cured by firstly healing the individuals that it's made of. "Clean your room," is Peterson's famous advice. In fact, if someone can't even manage to deal with a simple everyday task in his life, then how is he supposed to dictate to others to fix the whole society? Personal change may seem difficult for some people to apply but it's surely possible.

Changing yourself will lead you to become and feel better than you were yesterday. You may think that these 12 Rules will not really have an impact on your life but according to the author: "Small changes can have disproportionately large positive results." Moving towards goodness will constantly increase the value of your life and "find its way out of dead ends and take it out of hell in a much shorter time than you could expect." Life is hard. For some people, it might be tragic, full of suffering and malice. But although we can't fix everything in the world, we can fix things that are within our power to do so and this is more than enough to make us live a much better life.

You Can Change… Start Small

7 Climate Facts You Need to Know #6 Wildlife is Already Hurting

Climate change spells trouble for far more than just the Arctic’s iconic predator, the polar bear. In 2016 scientists announced that the last Bramble Cay melomys, a ratlike rodent found on one low-lying island in Australia’s Torres Strait, had vanished, the victim of forces including rising seas. It’s being called the first documented case of mammal being driven to extinction by climate change. More will surely follow.

Rising temperatures are depressing some plant and animal populations, driving species toward the poles, shifting migrations and behaviour. Populations of Adelie penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula have plumed. An Arctic shorebird called the red knot is getting smaller. Ice loss is forcing walruses by the thousands onto land in Alaska. Entire regions are being transformed: Alpine ecosystems from the Rockies to the Swiss Alps are being squeezed off mountaintops. The exceptional ocean warmth of the past few years has triggered coral bleaching and die-offs at reefs around the world.

There will be winners. For now, humpback whales are striving in newly ice-free waters off Antarctica. Sea urchins too are proving to be resilient. But climate change isn’t the only threat that spreading human populations impose on other species; we’re also fragmenting and destroying natural habitats. Some species will adapt to the jarring changes in their world – but how many, and for how long?

(Summarized from National Geography Magazine, April 2017)

Verdict: Plants, animals and natural habitats are poorly affected by climate change

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

7 Climate Facts You Need to Know #5 Weather is Getting Intense

In the crapshoot that is our weather, climate change loads the dice. It doesn’t cause a particular drought or storm, but it makes such events more or less likely – and in the case of heat waves, a lot more likely. The extraordinary heat wave that killed some 70,000 people in Europe in 2003 should have been a once-in-500-years event; at the current level of global warming, it has become a once-in-40-years event, according to a study published last year. In Paris alone, that analysis found, climate change caused 506 excess death in 2003. If it continues unchecked, another recent study said, by late this century people living along the Persian Gulf may face many days so hot that it will be unsafe to go outside.

It’s not just the heat: Global warming adds moisture to the air, removing it from land and ocean. Where rain is lacking, it makes the drought worse. When rain or snow falls, it’s more likely to be extreme; think of the 2016 floods in Paris or Houston. How climate change effects hurricanes and other tropical cyclones is less certain. But by heating the ocean – the storm’s energy source – it’s likely to make them more intense, if less frequent.

(Summarized from National Geography Magazine, April 2017)

Verdict: Most probably, climate change intense worldwide catastrophic events –
make it worse and frequently

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

7 Climate Facts You Need to Know #4 Ice is Melting Fast

Last June-September 2016 the Crystal Serenity, a large cruise ship, sailed through the ice-free Northwest Passage. Days after it passed, researchers off King William Island found the long-lost wreck of H.M.S. Terror, of Britain’s Franklin expedition – which had gotten trapped in the ice in 1846 while searching for the passage. The Arctic has warmed dramatically, and its ice cover has thinned and shrunk (graph, below). That loss speeds the warming, as sunlight is absorbed by dark ocean instead of reflected into space by ice.

Click to Enlarge

Melting sea ice doesn’t raise sea level – it’s already in the water – but melting land ice does. Mountain glaciers are in global retreat. The total sea level rise of 8 to 9 inches since 1900 has contributed to a sharp increase in flooding along coasts. During Superstorm Sandy, for example, floods and winds cause $68 billion in damage on the U.S. East Coast.

The big treat is the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica. The hold enough ice to raise seas more than 200 feet – and they’re losing it. When Earth was just a bit warmer, 125,000 years ago, they seem to have lost a lot: Sea levels were 20 to 30 feet higher. Such a rise today would swamp coastal cities.

How Fast Can Ice Sheets Fail?

Since 2002 Greenland has lost an average of 287 billion metric tons of ice a year, according to NASA satellites. Antarctica is losing less, but it’s vulnerable; much of the West Antarctica ice sheet sits on the seabed, and the floating ice shelves that buttress it are eroding in a warmer ocean – as the calving of a 44-square-mile iceberg into Pine Island Bay illustrates (above). A glacial collapse that would raise sea level several feet could take centuries. Or maybe just decades.

(Summarized from National Geography Magazine, April 2017)

Verdict: Ice is melting fast, so fast…

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

7 Climate Facts You Need to Know: #1-3 The World is Warming

#1 THE WORLD IS WARMING

The heat in 2016 broke the historic record set in 2015, which broke the one from 2014. Last year’s average global surface temperature, compiled from measurements made by thousands of weather stations, buoys, and ships, was 1.69 degree Fahrenheit warmer than the 20^th-century average. Satellites probing the atmosphere also have documented a clear warming trend.

#2 IT’S BECAUSE OF US

El Nino added to last year’s record by temporarily releasing heat from the Pacific. But no natural cause explains the half-century warming trend. The sun’s output cycles up and down every 11 years; volcanic eruptions sporadically cool the planet. Meanwhile human-emitted greenhouse gases from a steadily thickening blanket that traps heat at Earth’s surface.

#3 WE’RE SURE

More than 9 out of 10 climate scientists agree; Carbon emissions cause global warming. We’ve known about the greenhouse effect since the 1800s. Swedish physicist Svante Arrthenius even predicted in 1896 that carbon dioxide from coal burning would warm the planet. He saw it as a good thing – and just how bad it will be is debatable. But it’s real, and it’s dangerous.

(Summarized from National Geography Magazine, April 2017)

Verdict: Climate change isn’t a hoax or a scientific conspiracy, it’s a grand challenge!

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)