---- Steve Young <[email protected]> wrote: > Lawren et al., > Unfortunately, I think you may be preaching to the choir. I'm not trying > to be pessimistic, but if every ESA member were to follow through and > commit to the 'doing something', instead of just 'talking more', what > would that accomplish? Just going by the numbers, conservatively speaking, > ESA membership is around 10,000 and according to the Census Bureau, the > current population in the US is 312,718,825 ( > http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html) So, what do we do > about the other 312,708,000? > I'm in the education arena and it is a question that I've been trying to > figure out how to answer for a long time. I know advocacy is one way and > something I work on all the time. Maybe this should be part of the focus > of the 'doing something' approach. > Steve
I believe when we help to educate others we are doing something. I'm funny that way, I guess. The difficulty comes when our educational efforts fail, as they seem to be doing on this matter. So, I need help in knowing what to do that will actually work. So far as individual effort, I already try to buy only what I need and to use old stuff. I minimize my fuel use by driving a Toyota Prius, walking for local transportation when I can, not using air conditioning though I live in a very hot climate, wearing warm clothing and keeping the house cool in winter ................ . But I have not been able to persuade many others to engage in the same actions. Reading and understanding the data that come in seems unconvincing to so many. Science is only trusted when it reinforces already held beliefs, even if less than 1% of those claiming to be scientists provide the claims that reinforce. So, what can I do? David McNeely
