One quibble about Twitter and Iran.  Yes, Twitter helps get news out that otherwise would get lost. However, one still has to put the events into context, and most Americans are not able to deal with the complexity of stories like Iran. We tend to think of heroes and villains, a comic book view of the world.

This is the truth of Idealism (e.g., the quote from the Buddha at the beginning of the essay). Ideas, context and framing matter.

One of the advantages of alternate media is that we are able to develop the ideas which are taboo in the mainstream media.

Bart Anderson / Energy Bulletin

I'm also reminded of a piece Joseph Romm wrote, that I read recently, savaging Nordhaus and Schellenberger whose writings only aid the Deniers and Delayers.

Tks for really interesting post. As someone involved in communicating natural resources conservation issues to the public and the media, I found many of your comments helpful furthering of this topic.  Couple of additional thoughts. Strikes me we're still speaking too esoterically. My husband has a struggling small business. While he is avid outdoors person, he can't mentally focus dealing with a declining planet and all the complex ramifications. He conceptually understands change is needed, but he's having issues with gov spending gobs of money on large corporations/systems, and what he perceives as a problem we have some time on (climate), while the here and now employment systems of the U.S. seem to be unraveling.

He, I think, like a lot of people, need to have the transistion solutions communicated in simpler practicable 'real world' terms.   At the same time - lots of PR on how the new jobs are starting to emerge, so that people can "see" the path forward, and that change is going to be a positive thing. Maybe a Hollywood producer can translate this into a movie of how we shifted successfully into a new future.

A more practicable approach might force the 'opinion media' programs to shift to a more professional and helpful discussion of how we might go about this, and perhaps reduce their penchant for brawling for infotainment sakes.

Thoughts on messages/approaches below, with emphasis on the fourth leg of the solutions stool - conserving landscapes, since that's my focus.

1. We don't have luxury of waiting to fix the detiorating planet. We need to start now on the planet, while we're also fixing the immediate financial mess.  Unfortunate, yes. Get over it. 

2.   Shift to a simplified, broad message of how we're going to "fix it' : 
Fixing both climate (and detiorating nat resources) and new employment needs can be summerized as a 4-legged stool approach - (Princeton/Socolow/Pacala):  

a) energy production b) transporation c) building efficiency d) natural landscape conservation.  All these areas offer jobs, jobs, jobs in a way that will allow people to have good salaries and improved quality of life, AND save planetary systems, too.  

Simplifying and keeping things focused into these 4 areas can help people have hope and that there's a solution coming.

 3).  Communicate that a certain mass of natural landscapes (aquatic and terrestrial--forest,grasslands, wetlands, oceans, etc) are necessary for life-support systems of air, water, rainfall patterns, and food production (self-sustainable fish and wildlife populations), and that taxpayer money devoted to conserving natural landscapes is in our human financial and physical benefit. This includes paying farmers, builders and other land owners for development rights to NOT convert publicly important natural areas .

4. ). Preserving a connected biological world (fish, wildlife, insects, land and water ) is more than a nicety for wacky  tree-huggers or people rich enough go on hunting and fishing trips. Ensuring self-sustaining fish and wildlife is critical to sustaining people, because millions of people here in the U.S. rely on fish and wildlife for jobs and food.

5). Show a continual stream of examples of how people and businesses are changing, so the bulk of media communication is shifted to ways change is already happening,  and for the better. Emphasis on new ways to earn money for people who currently make a living off activities that convert natural areas to built areas, or extraction for minerals, energy, whathaveyou. People will come around if offer them a way  forward  (job/business) that respects their skills and experience, and asks them to use that experience to contribute to solution.

- Ex: tobacco farmers in SW VIrginia shifted from tobacco to organic farming and having a better quality of life.

- Builders shifting to high density green residential buildings downtown, with help of revised county codes,  and helping to set aside natural areas to protect watersheds and wildlife, air and water quality.

6) Make the shift as easy as we can for people.  Look at county, state and federal regulations.

7) Focus on educating  county government officials and staff. A lot of political leaders and county staffs don't understand the critical state of planetary condition, and the connection between conserving natural areas and public health, and/or have strong political constituencies that rely on converting land to built areas.

8) Get people who can speak about shifting sources of jobs on Opera, Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley and the financial shows.  Sheer mass of info coming out from more mainline shows which are moderated by professional hosts will help reduce influence of the 'brawl for brawl sakes ' media.

9) Don't forget small businesses. Lots of political capital and PR is currently focused on big corporations. But I'm concerned we're losing millions of people who own and work at small businesses because they feel left out in this massive upheaval.

Since you're discussing language and concepts: two concepts from Econ 101 that summarize most of what I see contributing to the environmental degredation, including climate change:

- underinvestment in the public good by for-profit organizations.

- externalization of costs shifted towards taxpayers (or perhaps not dealt with yet) and away from an individual business (ie, pollution, waste, health care in some cases, many aspects of oil including supply wars, carbon emissions is now nearly considered another)

I try to convey these conepts to those I can because they describe why and how the degredation occurs at the most conceptual level.  Once an individual can see that the costs are being shifted onto them from an institution that makes record profits they begin to see the changes that need to be made.

I actually think there is a whole 'nother article there, which brings me closer to my critiques of our commercial structure and the economic theories (idea cluster) in which it is embedded. Frankly, I think it is in some sense wrong.

I can't quit my day job either. Even though I'd be doing the world more service as a nonfiction writer (at which I am pretty good) than as a scientific programmer (at which I am burned out and getting too old), the world doesn't have any obvious way to pay me to do what really adds the most value.

But in the grand scheme of things this is the wrong way to think about it. In the grand scheme, we ought to be looking for ways to reward actually productive activities and discourage activities that use resources pointlessly. On the whole, that might amount to say 50% unemployment, not 10%. We'd have to reorganize ourselves pretty significantly to make that palatable.

So "putting our attentions into fixing the economy" makes sense to avoid anarchy and confusion, but in the long run it is a bad idea. Let's fix something besides "the economy" the way it is usually discussed.

To tie it back to my main point here, what we think of as "the economy" and its "healthy" state of "growth" is an example of a habitual state of mind that made perfect sense 150 years ago or 50 years ago, but started to become crazy in the last couple of generations. We have to come up with new ways of thinking about it, and not just intellectuals and activists; everybody.We need new habits of thought about the economy.

Dave Scott's brief comment is a good place to start.

Like I said, in the end we have no choice. The sooner we get around to it, the less pain it will cost. And it is too late to get out of this unbruised already; the best we can hope for the next couple of generations is more or less unbroken.