Tom Friedman, in the Sunday NY Times, found a star to articulate words I've been reaching for. Ford is one of the narrators in the current Showtime series, "Years of Living Dangerously", dealing with the questions and concerns of climate change.
"I asked Harrison Ford, a longtime board member of Conservation International, whether working on the documentary left him feeling it was all too late. “It isn’t too late; it can’t be too late,” he said. “Is it too late to teach our kids the difference between right and wrong? If we are not ready to redress something happening on our watch, how can we expect our kids to do something about it?”
Exactly. Our generation's time is nearly up. Not all the wealth in the world or fame (cf. Ted Williams) can change the fact: we all go out with a last breath.
So the human response to man-made climate change is a matter of ethical conduct. Coming generations will be dealing with a shit storm we simply can't imagine, except through science fiction.
Republicans of the far right -- which pretty much describes the GOP -- are shifting, ever so imperceptibly, from a majority of deniers to a majority of: well ok, there is climate change but we can't do anything about it.
The GOP surrender-ism goes hand-in-glove with isolationism. The problem for voters who believe global warming is a very serious issue (the majority, by the way) is that the surrender-ists are dissolving, fading, disappearing just like ole Rush, the blowhard multi-millionaire and worst of this generation's snake oil salesmen (at least Glenn Beck had the guts to recant). Why even the Miami Herald, WLRN and WPBT believe that climate change is a serious threat to South Florida. Amazing, after all the years of refusing to even raise the topic.
The problem with surrenderism is that it -- literally -- hands over our collective fate to corporatists who will cling to the status quo to their last breaths. Damn the rest of us.
What will our children and grandchildren do, with that worst-ever-in-the-history-of-civilization legacy? A recent IPCC report suggested that unless we get our acts together, we can soon expect the erosion of the world's economies on the order of a half percent per year. That adds up, very fast, and like most climate predictions, could be far on the short side.
Ford told the NY Times, “Nature will be just fine without us. Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature. That is why we can’t save ourselves without saving nature.”
Ford is right. Friedman is right: "We can still do this. We are closer to both irreversible dangers on climate and scale solutions on clean tech than people realize. Just a little leadership now by America … would make a big difference."
"I asked Harrison Ford, a longtime board member of Conservation International, whether working on the documentary left him feeling it was all too late. “It isn’t too late; it can’t be too late,” he said. “Is it too late to teach our kids the difference between right and wrong? If we are not ready to redress something happening on our watch, how can we expect our kids to do something about it?”
Exactly. Our generation's time is nearly up. Not all the wealth in the world or fame (cf. Ted Williams) can change the fact: we all go out with a last breath.
So the human response to man-made climate change is a matter of ethical conduct. Coming generations will be dealing with a shit storm we simply can't imagine, except through science fiction.
Republicans of the far right -- which pretty much describes the GOP -- are shifting, ever so imperceptibly, from a majority of deniers to a majority of: well ok, there is climate change but we can't do anything about it.
The GOP surrender-ism goes hand-in-glove with isolationism. The problem for voters who believe global warming is a very serious issue (the majority, by the way) is that the surrender-ists are dissolving, fading, disappearing just like ole Rush, the blowhard multi-millionaire and worst of this generation's snake oil salesmen (at least Glenn Beck had the guts to recant). Why even the Miami Herald, WLRN and WPBT believe that climate change is a serious threat to South Florida. Amazing, after all the years of refusing to even raise the topic.
The problem with surrenderism is that it -- literally -- hands over our collective fate to corporatists who will cling to the status quo to their last breaths. Damn the rest of us.
What will our children and grandchildren do, with that worst-ever-in-the-history-of-civilization legacy? A recent IPCC report suggested that unless we get our acts together, we can soon expect the erosion of the world's economies on the order of a half percent per year. That adds up, very fast, and like most climate predictions, could be far on the short side.
Ford told the NY Times, “Nature will be just fine without us. Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature. That is why we can’t save ourselves without saving nature.”
Ford is right. Friedman is right: "We can still do this. We are closer to both irreversible dangers on climate and scale solutions on clean tech than people realize. Just a little leadership now by America … would make a big difference."
5 comments:
Ah yes, the leadership, this perennial quest for somebody with understanding and conviction to stand up, like decades ago!
Maybe putting the solar collectors back on the White House would be a tine gesture in the right direction.
All tiny gestures are welcome. If we do not even try -- the deniers win. This morning the Herald informed us that climate change is here - duh. Late - but maybe not too late.
Driving a Prius and trading carbon tax credits? is not shoveling sand against the tide, it's shoveling against the Tsunami.
Assume we have contributed but the causality is irrelevant at this point and what if we're wrong? What if this is a normal shift in earth's climate dynamic. (Why do ice ages being and end?) Clearly trying to cool the planet with recycling is like trying to melt the polar Ice caps with a bic lighter.
So what would you do if you KNEW you had no significant control over the process?
First thing is cancel the federal flood insurance program.. Let Rush keep his Palm Beach compound but don't have the taxpayers on the hook.
South Beach? Back to a sand bar at low tide.
Then. see you in Asheville
Siri
Show support on April 25 at the Pinecrest Gardens Banyan Bowl. Join Senator Sheldon Whitehouse as he closes out his Climate Change tour!!!
It snowed yesterday here in NW Chicagoland. Is that due to global warming too?
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