I'm definitely feeling the powerful reverberations after watching Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth.
It came at a confluence of a few other items that heightened my awareness of the challenges around global warming.
In Scientific-American, I read Why Grassroots Initiatives Can't Fix Climate Change, which profoundly impacted me, particularly as a father:
Or think about it this way. Imagine you are living in the year 2108, and you are keenly aware that the political dislocations all around you were preventable catastrophes. Decades of turmoil caused by vast migrations of people who could not find enough food or clean drinking water; the crop-destroying volatility in the weather; the drying up of capital as investors withdraw whatever they can from unruly markets; the scourges of insects and disease set loose by the poleward advancement of the tropics—all of these are the legacy of your forebears who should have known better.
Wouldn’t you look back and shake your head at the feeble attempts at mitigation by the present age, the endless dithering over the reality of climate change, the head-in-the-sand policies that assumed addressing the problem could be put off for another day and that the future would be clever enough and rich enough to take care of itself?
Combine that with the powerful 20 minute (but well worth it) video of The Story of Stuff, showing how our consumption is digging us a hole from which we can't escape.
Put it all together and you are looking at a scenario where Surging Food Prices Mean Global Instability and where countries may have to engage in a Blood for Oil? or for food? foreign policy.
Not wanting this type of future for my kids, as Gianni sits here next to me, I am reflecting on the conversations I've recently had with some of my more liberal friends, challenging the Republicans for their lack of concern for environment/global warming. Fair, I might add.
What I realized is that there are different perceptions on the left and right about which pending disaster will get to us first.
The left thinks global warming.
The right thinks radical Islam.
Granted, the first destroys the earth and the second "only" Western Civilization, but I think we can agree that there are some good things to Western Civilization.
I wonder, then, if the opportunities for common ground, namely eliminating our dependence on (foreign and fossil) fuels in favor of cheaper, renewable energy are so great that the other differences can be put aside.
I'm not the first to realize this, of course, and you should take a look at Gal Luft's work at IAGS to see some areas of overlap, but is there enough folks who (for the most part) agree on these as core issues and don't care as much about secondary issues to create a true movement?
In some respect, as Jeff commented on the oil post previously (the most commented on post in Jer979 Blog history, btw), the best thing we can have right now to save the planet is $4/gallon (and rising) gas prices, since market forces will compel us to find other ways, but the "moral imperative" as Gore describes is there as well (full disclosure: I endorsed Gore in '88 when he ran for President; ok, I was a teenager, but still)
I know the steps/awareness is happening. Met with the folks at Discovery Channel the other day and they now have 100% recycled biz cards (they do feel a bit flimsy), but they are making a statement in another way. And it's consistent with their Planet Green efforts.
The question is: how much time do we have?