A new study bolsters the importance-of-place arguments made by people like Wendell Berry: the strongest way to get people to engage with the problems and to act responsibly for the global environment is to focus on the threats to their own place).
This doesn't really surprise me -- but it does prompt me to change my signature line to "Save your community -- cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year."
Appeal To Americans By Making Global Warming A Local Issue - Study
Results from a recent survey conducted by a University of Missouri professor reveal that the U.S. public prefers to act locally and nationally on environmental issues and that may be why appeals to global warming are not more successful.
"The survey's core result is that people care about their communities and express the desire to see government action taken toward local and national issues," said David Konisky, a policy research scholar with the Institute of Public Policy. "People are hesitant to support efforts concerning global issues even though they believe that environmental quality is poorer at the global level than at the local and national level. This is surprising given the media attention that global warming has recently received and reflects the division of opinion about the severity of climate change."
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wiscidea Posted 2:58 pm
27 Mar 2008
Details aren't necessary.
There is nothing like an immediate threat to everything a person values to motivate him or her to change their habits and, indirectly, save the rest of the Earth's organisms at the same time.
Enough said.
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LGT Posted 4:03 pm
27 Mar 2008
Without a complete change of direction in human activities, the economy and lifestyles ...
http://feww.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/giga-trends/
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amazingdrx Posted 4:50 pm
27 Mar 2008
People do identify with it.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/5/3 ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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LGT Posted 6:28 pm
27 Mar 2008
http://feww.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/hotter-and-drier/
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NiraliSherni Posted 7:59 pm
27 Mar 2008
The bad news is that US emissions not down but up nearly 3% in 2007 over the last year!
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LegumeSam Posted 11:52 pm
27 Mar 2008
Yeah, let's cut "emissions" 5% per year. (It's a hallmark of capitalist ideology that even its so-called "environmentalism" cannot distinguish between out-of-control fossil fuel burning and respiration, both of which count as "emissions.") Then some other economy can use the fossil-fuels we're not using!
Big contradiction: infinitely-hungry growth economics, finite planet.
From Paul Prew's "The 21st Century World Ecosystem":
The question to be asked, really, is whether we proceed with capitalism until we reach an ecological bifurcation point that leaves the habitability of the earth in question for the vast majority of the population, or we reach a social bifurcation point that leads us to a social system of production that is dissipative, nonetheless, but does not threaten the flowing balance of nature.
Sorry! Them's the breaks!
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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