Be sure to check out Elizabeth Kolbert's excellent piece on extinction
in the New Yorker last week
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/25/090525fa_fact_kolbert
(today's New York Times also had a short redux of it, but it missed the
point). This audience may not be Joe and Jane, but if a certain number
of schoolteachers (or GE college students) read it, it could get to Joe
and Jane ultimately.
As for what advocates "do," at a personal level, about CO2? Remember,
Hollywood loves the Prius, and Biden takes the train. And there's a
garden at the whitehouse. There is some hope.
The "new urbanist" developers are also actively /*building */smaller,
more dense housing around here...but much of it stands empty. One
question is whether those who can /*afford not to */are willing to live
there? The answer is sometimes yes: in Paris, New York City, San
Francisco, etc. Amenities must outweigh costs, though. Read Paul
Krugman today for some insight as to why urban amenities are
deteriorating and why the wealthy (including Gore) in this country are
going to be living in ever larger, more distant compounds, unless we all
get active:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1&em
We have plenty more work to do.
Rachel O'Malley
Paul Cherubini wrote:
What I don't understand is why hardly anybody mentions
mass extinctions when they warn of global warming. Can
you imagine an Earth with 95% of its species lost? I can't.
For many decades a sizable fraction of the worlds population
hasn't seemed to mind living in very low species diversity
urban and agricultural environments; e.g. Los Angeles
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/smog.jpg
Iowa: http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/squ.jpg
I'm still left wondering why no one TRIES to communicate
this [mass extinction] threat to the public.
Perhaps you might ask yourself whether or not
the high profile people and organizations delivering the mass
extinction message have been willing to sacrifice their own
material standard of living, comfort and safety for the sake
of climate change?
Examples: Are any enthusiastically embracing known carbon
solutions like nuclear power? NO! Are any enthusiastically embracing
a return to the national 55 MPH speed limit and radically downsized
cars and engines to quickly cut vehicle related carbon emissions
50%? NO! Are any ethusiastically embracing a return to building
and living in 1,000 square foot homes on 5,000 square foot lots
as was typical 40-50 years ago? NO! And certainly not Al Gore
who lives in this mansion:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/gore.jpg
Are any enthusiastically calling for environmental and ecological
organizations to merge and consolidate to save energy and
natural resources? NO!
So if the people and organizations delivering the mass
extinction message are not willing to voluntarily make
major changes to their own material standard of living,
comfort and safety for the sake of preventing mass future
extinctions, how can they reasonably expect to convince
the public that such changes are urgently neccessary?
Paul Cherubini
El Dorado, Calif.
