Comments on: Alison Cassandra Barcelona http://www.diamondcutlife.org/alison-cassandra-barcelona/ Sustainable Living: The Heart Of The Matter Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:24:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Grnpwrguy http://www.diamondcutlife.org/alison-cassandra-barcelona/comment-page-1/#comment-23992 Grnpwrguy Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:02:15 +0000 http://www.diamondcutlife.org/?p=1494#comment-23992 It's interesting to speculate on the effect of harnessing all of the energy/political capital that Senator Inhofe and other "climate change deniers" put into their efforts to unveil what they see as a "hoax". If all that energy were to go into forming a consensus around identifying the true costs of releasing greenhouse gases, we could arrive at some wonderful and very beneficial outcomes for the planet and its people. Sorry to be such an optimist, it's the only defense I have against despair. It’s interesting to speculate on the effect of harnessing all of the energy/political capital that Senator Inhofe and other “climate change deniers” put into their efforts to unveil what they see as a “hoax”. If all that energy were to go into forming a consensus around identifying the true costs of releasing greenhouse gases, we could arrive at some wonderful and very beneficial outcomes for the planet and its people.

Sorry to be such an optimist, it’s the only defense I have against despair.

]]> By: Lou Grinzo http://www.diamondcutlife.org/alison-cassandra-barcelona/comment-page-1/#comment-23922 Lou Grinzo Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:46:38 +0000 http://www.diamondcutlife.org/?p=1494#comment-23922 Alison, You mentioned one detail in passing that I think deserves to get much more attention than we normally give it: None of us researching and writing about and working on this stuff like the bad news. I, for one, would dearly love to see evidence that climate chaos, water issues, peak oil, etc. are all gigantic mistakes, or even "the greatest hoax" as Senator Inhofe would say. I would love to find out that we can let the free market rule all, with very little intervention from the government and no need for collective, focused action. The problem is that what I and so many others want is irrelevant. Reality does its thing with stunning indifference to our needs, wants, and desires. Unless an incredible volume of hard data is wrong, we really are facing all these problems. We have a choice of going through a painful, accelerated maturation process as a species (and you're right--we're not mature enough yet to deal with these looming problems) or paying one heck of a price for refusing to do so. Excuse me, for I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to hug my three nieces and apologize to them for what my generation and those that came before it have done to the planet they'll inherit. Alison,

You mentioned one detail in passing that I think deserves to get much more attention than we normally give it: None of us researching and writing about and working on this stuff like the bad news. I, for one, would dearly love to see evidence that climate chaos, water issues, peak oil, etc. are all gigantic mistakes, or even “the greatest hoax” as Senator Inhofe would say. I would love to find out that we can let the free market rule all, with very little intervention from the government and no need for collective, focused action.

The problem is that what I and so many others want is irrelevant. Reality does its thing with stunning indifference to our needs, wants, and desires. Unless an incredible volume of hard data is wrong, we really are facing all these problems. We have a choice of going through a painful, accelerated maturation process as a species (and you’re right–we’re not mature enough yet to deal with these looming problems) or paying one heck of a price for refusing to do so.

Excuse me, for I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to hug my three nieces and apologize to them for what my generation and those that came before it have done to the planet they’ll inherit.

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