Nonetheless, new evidence about climate change trickles out every day. It can be hard to keep track, especially 'cause of the dreariness. So Tom Engelhardt has done a real public service by gathering all that evidence into one essay.
He also addresses, toward the end of the essay, why it is that most Americans seem so unwilling to think about climate change, even when they know it's real -- i.e., he addresses the dreariness, and has some interesting stuff to say:
Instead, it's quite clear that, faced with various scary scenarios, we've become a can't-do nation; that conservatism has really meant a kind of conceptual hunkering down when it comes to anything but the present moment; and that an increasingly fierce imperial holding-on when combined with a sense of futurelessness and helplessness has consigned the environmental movement to the antlers of a dilemma.As they say, read the whole thing.
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cguitar Posted 12:45 am
10 Feb 2005
My question is, then, what happened to the "Cradle-to-Cradle" discussion? If we know that the average American is not going to act quickly to reduce their intake of stuff and therefore output of carbon dioxide, then why don't we try to focus on new technological advancement (terms that conservatives can get into) to try to produce smarter. Is the cradle-to-cradle idea still a feasible one and perhaps one that we should spend more time promoting and looking for R&D funding for? Wouldn't it help stimulate the economy without sounding as scary as the word "regulation"?
I'm really interested to hear other's ideas about this topic because if we have as little time to make sweeping changes as the latest numbers suggest, then don't we need to actively address the problem of American apathy toward consumer habits and try to beat it if we can't sway it?
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David Roberts Posted 5:09 am
10 Feb 2005
www.grist.org
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