Everything is manifested by the mind and altered by the consciousness. In other words, with our thoughts we create the world.
As Buddhists, we learn that our thoughts of craving and greed result in floods. Angry thoughts result in fires, and ignorant thoughts are the cause of disasters involving wind.
Causality: every cause will have a result. As we continuously crave more material goods and experiences, the results will likewise intensify. As we become more frustrated and upset by our failure to gain all these objects and experiences that we want, we become more angry.
Look around. What are you seeing more and more? Recording-breaking floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, drought.
The other way?
It's another way of seeing the causality. The more electronic gadgets and more exotic goods we want, and the more we travel looking for new experiences, the more we're impacting the environment.
Negatively.
We buy more "stuff." This "stuff" comes from nonrenewable resources, which are being rapidly depleted. Producing "stuff" creates toxic waste that seeps into the earth, works it's way into our rivers and oceans, and is spewed into our air. The exotic foods have to be shipped halfway around the world on ships, planes, and trucks that belch toxic fumes and pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Non-Buddhist cause and effect. The more we buy, the more we destroy what is natural and in it's place leave our garbage and waste.
Thanks to our greed, we're destroying our world. We. Together. All of us. With our greed, whether you look at greed from the Buddhist perspective or from the scientific facts.
Either way you look at it.
It's us.