I read the whole thing, and I can't believe that anybody who is not a doubletalking corporate agent would fall for such obvious yuppie shuck and jive. What a preposterous laffer! These Yalie suits are the enemy.

The "Yalie suits" merely hosted the conference. The report is written by someone at Yale, but it is simply a summary of the analysis and recommendations of the conference participants.

Conference participants were drawn from a broad swath of culture -- journalists, politicians, business executives, advertising and marketing people, religious figures, educators, and environmentalists.

Are they all "the enemy"?

www.grist.org

Enemy?  I'm a slow reader with slow Internet connections, but Gerald has convinced me that this must be a must read...

Unfortunately and ironically, universities -- including if not especially elite ones like Yale -- are among the last bastions of truly progressive thinking in the U.S. (Of course, at the same time they're also shot through with corporate and DoD cash.) I say ironically, because too often the academic left fails to speak in a public idiom and insists instead on addressing only itself. Sounds like these Yalie suits are addressing a public audience. Soon as David comes up with the goods, I'll give them a listen.

I married a person who is currently researching climate at Columbia University.  Two things strike me about this community of researchers.  One, they primarily share their (dense and often difficult to understand) research with each other while there is only a handful of spokespeople assigned to reach out to the public.  

Two, and not surprisingly, many of these scientists, people with whom I've spoken and who have expressed their deep concern about our impact upon the environment, are engaging regularly in the very behaviours they find so alarming.  If the people actually DOING the science are not so alarmed by their findings that they are dramatically changing their own behaviours, why on earth should the rest of America, much less the world, feel alarmed?  Why should we change our behaviours?  Why stop driving, flying, leaving all of the lights on in the house, letting water faucets drip, buying excessively packaged (or packaged at all) goods, and so on?  

I'm looking forward to reading this study because I need to know that scientists recognize that they are ambassadors to the world of sorts.  The whole world is watching them and watching to see what decisions they will make in their personal lives to offset the damage we are doing to the earth as a species.  I certainly don't claim to be perfect.  I know that quitting one's car can be harder than kicking a smoking habit.  I just wonder if we prefer to keep driving or if we're ready to dig in and do the hard if unglamorous work of changing our deadly habits in honour of future generations.    

There's a whole section of the report detailing the results of the science working group: its diagnosis of why scientists haven't been more effective reaching the public, and what can be done about it. Stay tuned!

www.grist.org

One might just ask these very questions about the conference itself.  Why should non-scientists avoid flying all over the country when the scientists convinced that stopping such global-warming causing activities is essential still fly themselves to Aspen to meet with each other?  I can understand the value of a good conference, but such a nationwide conference does raise some questions about how important it is to minimize flying and other high-impact activities...

I can't speak as one who has given up flying or fuel consumption totally, so I don't want to overly criticize the conference or the people running it, but I'd be interested to hear what people think about this.  

I read about half the report, and skimmed parts of the rest.  

David and Tom are right -- this is an important report, with some excellent thinking.  There was not an attempt to reach a consensus, so the disparate viewpoints remain in the report.  As a result, the report is much more interesting than the usual conference summary.

I notice that the tone of the report is
intellectualized
reasonable (overly reasonable, perhaps)
cautious
bureaucratic (action to proceed through formal organizations, along defined processes)

However, we're told  on page 1 that: Reverend and former Congressman Bob Edgar brought the house down at our Conference in Aspen when he recited the arresting Martin Luther King, Jr. quote that opens this report. Ironically, when the group was looking for vision, they did NOT turn to the many academic reports about race relations from the 50s and 60s.  They turned to a stubborn individual who said, "No more."  

This brings to mind the quote from G. B. Shaw:A reasonable man adapts himself to his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

I think the disconnect between the science and the responses undertaken so far are attributable to many factors--as is usually the case--but this is the most fundamental factor in my view: Most people do not believe that any other way of life is really possible, and don't believe that changing their own  behavior will make any real difference. They cannot believe this because they hold in their heads--whether consciously or unconsciously--the assumption that our destructive actions are driven by human nature. They assume we are behaving shortsightedly, greedily, selfishly, and destructively because people are inherently shortsighted, greedy, selfish, and destructive. As long as you hold that assumption to be unquestioned truth, why would you change your behavior? Even if you are somehow so enlightened as to somehow be able to rise above "human nature,"  hardly anybody else will join you and the destruction will continue. Why make your own life more difficult if it's not going to make any real difference?

Until enough people understand that we are not humanity, that it is possible for human cultures to live without destroying the world, and without perpetual growth, I'm convinced we will not be able to solve our ecological crisis.

The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.

  I have read the report, and it is nicely written, but it tiptoes around what are some of the main problems.

  Where do people get their information?  From radio and (mostly) television.  What do radio and television tell us?  Radio is dominated by extreme right wing humorists (pretending to be commentators) who tell us to ignore the whole thing.

  Television is about the same (except that they pretend to be reporters).  Most of the time, they give equal or greater play to the idea that global warming isn't 1) real 2) serious 3) understood 4) known yet.

   Why do they do this?  Because automobile, gas and oil companies give them billions of dollars to do so (called advertising).

   When will they tell the truth?  When the money to lie stops coming, or the government orders them to do so.

   When will most Americans start believing in the seriousness of global warming?  When they start hearing the truth.

patrick