I think on your final point that we should combine those features and I can see no reason why not. I think we underestimate people's interest in the issue of global warming. As you find so often in the activist biz, the people who you think are clueless, not only understand, but are leaving you behind.

Recently one of our hyper consevative columnists in Cleveland did the usual blather of global warming denial. Much to my surprise, the response in the letters to the editor section was like a tar and feather lynch mob. There was not one letter that came to his defense, and the letters filled an entire page. I think it is a very smart idea to sell on the positive side, but people do respond to danger (it is natural) and will respond to the global warming threat.

The Democrats are not going to do anything for us without having our foot firmly planted up their asses. We have to organize, organize, organize, and then organize somemore. One thing I would like to do is take a page from gay politics, where gays have organized into gay democratic clubs. A friend of mine just got elected to the state legislature with the support of a local gay democratic club. He got gay baited by a rival, and it blew up in his opponent's face and sank his campaign. I want to organize a Bob Marshall Democratic Club in the area, leave behind the non-profit castration syndrome, and get into the bare knuckles of it. In politics you are either a participant or a victim. Environmentalists need to lose their political chastity and become players.

randino

Randy Cunningham

I strongly feel the issue of global warming should be taken out of the hands of politicians.

Did you read Monbiot's book Heat? I thought it should be subtitled "Why Al Gore Will Never Be Elected President". His solutions are just too unpalatable for most people. A platform of cutting 90% of jet flights, for instance, won't get you elected. Except maybe in Africa, where most people would rather eat than fly.

Randy - you're dead on.

Kathy - Al Gore will never get elected? He DID get elected as VP, remember (and perhaps as Pres). Did he enact any of his "radical" thinking? Rather, did he even really try? Did he take his case directly to the people? Apologists too often say "the VP has no real power". Tell that to Cheney. What's more, Gore could have, had he found it more important to 'save the planet' than advance his policial career - called a press conference at any time to decry both parties' lack of action on the most significant task that faces humanity. Sure, it may have been political suicide - but it would have been the right thing to do. Leaders do what is right, not what is good for them as an individual. Gore is not the leader you are looking for.

"Because the world doesn't matter if you don't have the strength to go ahead and choose something that's really true." - Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch