Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumRedefining Hypocrisy For The Age Of Global Warming - Orion
THE LIST OF REASONS for not acting on climate change is long and ever-shifting. First it was theres no problem; then it was the problems so large theres no hope. Theres China burns stuff too, and it would hurt the economy, and, of course, it would hurt the economy. The excuses are getting tired, though. Post Sandy (which hurt the economy to the tune of $100 billion) and the drought ($150 billion), 74 percent of Americans have decided theyre very concerned about climate change and want something to happen.
But still, theres one reason that never goes away, one evergreen excuse not to act: youre a hypocrite. Ive heard it ten thousand times myselfhow can you complain about climate change and drive a car/have a house/turn on a light/raise a child? This past fall, as I headed across the country on a bus tour to push for divestment from fossil fuels, local newspapers covered each stop. I could predict, with great confidence, what the first online comment from a reader following each account would be: Do these morons not know that their bus takes gasoline? In fact, our bus took biodieselas we headed down the East Coast, one job was watching the web app that showed the nearest station pumping the good stuff. But it didnt matter, because the next comment would be: Dont these morons know that the plastic fittings on their bus, and the tires, and the seats are all made from fossil fuels?
Actually, I do knoweven a moron like me. Im fully aware that were embedded in the world that fossil fuel has made, that from the moment I wake up, almost every action I take somehow burns coal and gas and oil. Ive done my best, at my house, to curtail it: weve got solar electricity, and solar hot water, and my new car runs on electricityI can plug it into the roof and thus into the sun. But I try not to confuse myself into thinking thats helping all that much: it took energy to make the car, and to make everything else that streams into my life. Im still using far more than any responsible share of the worlds vital stuff.
And, in a sense, thats the point. If those of us who are trying really hard are still fully enmeshed in the fossil fuel system, it makes it even clearer that what needs to change are not individuals but precisely that system. We simply cant move fast enough, one by one, to make any real difference in how the atmosphere comes out. Heres the math, obviously imprecise: maybe 10 percent of the population cares enough to make strenuous efforts to changemaybe 15 percent. If they all do all they can, in their homes and offices and so forth, then, well . . . nothing much shifts. The trajectory of our climate horror stays about the same.
EDIT
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7378
Anonymousecoview
(225 posts)Al Gore's insight was that we have the technology to change, what we need is the motivation.
We did it before, New England in 1941 took 6 months to shift from an auto industry to a war industry to save us from Nazi tyranny. The world together can unite under one cause in a shift to restore human harmony with our ecosystems.
We need the motivation
The Ojibwa 7th Fire Prophecy states: "Look for an island shaped like a turtle that will be an instrument in the purification of the earth." Now google maps Easter Island - and come and see why:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/127636924/Finding-Turtle-Island