[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '
')That is just a matter of time Rock. The public runs from pillar to post and it only takes a few events to change popular opinion 180.

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'C')ommon public opinion is pretty well just what has been laid out:

it is Their fault
why should I be a martyr?
doesn't matter anyway

dd I miss anything?

[radon1]

Let's say I am sitting at a high office, read this petition, totally agree with it and want to act in the best interest of the people who signed it.

But I am totally lost - the question is, what exactly do you want me to do? Like specifically?

[Newfie]

LEAD!
Open your mouth and say "Houston, we have a problem."

I don't know where that would eventually lead, that's not the point.

The point is to start.

"look Ma, the Emperor has no clothes!"

Maybe there is no answer, quite likely. But maybe there is. Don't know.

I'd still like to have the discussion start.

[Newfie]

On a side note, that is my personal both with O. He has the bully puppy and could have used it to start discussion.

The Pope has done a far better job.

"All the above."

Ass hole.

[ennui2]

Newfie, what can your activist idea accomplish that, let's say, Bill McKibben's 350.org hasn't? What would be your definition of success if you got everyone all fired up? How much breathing room really is left to soften the blow at this late stage in the game? Don't bother getting angry because it's just sliding back to an early stage of grief.

[dohboi]

Ignore the grumblers, Newf.

Get angry!

If there was anything worth getting angry about in the history of life on earth, this is it!

I'll cosign your letter.

We have to do as many things as we can think of. No one knows ahead of time which one will work. Just keep lobbing spitballs and hope some of them start to stick!

[Newfie]

Doh,

I think you are right about expressing anger, which also answers Ennui2.

What this might accomplish that organizations can't is to express the anger of the populace.

350 or any other organization ( save perhaps Sea Shepard) exist by contributions. Thus they have to be careful to not make radical, or angry statements. Folks won't contribute money to angry organizations. They filter and dampen the anger, and by doing so provide cover for the leadership, political or commercial.

Think of the civil rights movement. Things didn't happen until people got angry.

The irony is McKibben himself understands this and advocates civil disobedience.

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '
')Think of the civil rights movement. Things didn't happen until people got angry.

[dohboi]

"So MLK's peaceful approach didn't accomplish anything?"

He didn't say violent, he said angry. And MLK was certainly angry. Listen to many of his speeches!

We're talking about direct action, not necessarily bombs (they have a lot more of those than we do ).

"Should we throw bricks through the windows of Hummers?"

Something like that has crossed my mind.

But we do have to stop being tolerant of people who think it's cool to blatantly waste resources of any sort.

In the civil rights struggle, ordinary Americans were also the enemy (still are) as well as laws, law makers, businesses...

But in this case, most ordinary Americans don't get up planning to cook the planet. They get up having to get to work, cook food, and keep warm. If they can do those in ways that don't harm the planet, most would be more than happy to.

It is only heads of ff companies and the minions they bribe to do their will who are dead set on making sure that the only way people can fulfill these basic needs is by depending on burning up their fossil-death-fuels.

The people who are making the decisions that are damning us and our children and most complex life on earth to suffering and oblivion all have faces and all have addresses.

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')But we do have to stop being tolerant of people who think it's cool to blatantly waste resources of any sort.

[dohboi]

Yes, carbon tax would be good, but at this point probably doesn't go far enough.

"We all make decisions"

Well, duh.

And I've made decisions to not do any long-distance travel, to not eat meat and dairy, to have only one child, and that late in life (and she's also vegan and bikes everywhere)....

But my personal decisions don't amount to a hill of beans compared to what a billionaire chooses to do with all the influence his money can buy. The difference is so many orders of magnitude apart, they're not really comparable.

But some prefer to primarily, for example, blame junkies rather than the pushers and drug lords that got and keep them hooked....

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')what a billionaire chooses to do with all the influence his money can buy. The difference is so many orders of magnitude apart, they're not really comparable.

[dohboi]

"per-capita energy consumption caps"

Sounds good. Though it is ff consumption that needs to be capped even more immediately.

America has been inundated with anti-socialist/communist propaganda (and of course direct witch hunts, etc) for many many decades. Never the less, the younger generation, at least, are more and more open to radically different ways of structuring the economy. Most see that, to the extent it ever had, the economy is more working against them than for them.

And of course the change is not just at the level of the youngest generation. Look at the crowds showing up for openly socialist Bernie Sanders.

So attitudes can change rather quickly, even apparently deeply entrenched ones. Whether such a massive attitude change could actually change power structures is another question, of course.

[Newfie]

What I was proposing was a radical idea.... a simple statement of fact. Plain and simple.

We will have no carbon tax nor even a fair discussion of the issues until the talking heads recognize the truth, out loud in public.

Kinda like the Pope did. Bully for him for doing it. I think the French President may have done something similar?

Unless we ourselves state the truth, and tell the lying bastards we know the truth, and expect recognition of the truth, then why should they proclaim the truth?

That is my modest proposal....a simple and plain statement of the truth... That we are cooking our planet and our kids future.

Why is that so radical? So controversial?

[Newfie]

Take Obama, for example. He likes to SAY he understands climate change, he gave his big speech on climate change, he gives it a head nod every now and again.

But recently he said not being able to enact reasonable gun control laws was his biggest regret. They may or may not be important, but relative to the threat pose by climate change they are minuscule. The relative order of the threat is important.

Also, if you truly "get" the threat of climate change then you understand that you can't be talking BOTH climate change AND "all the above" energy development, GDP Growth, and increasing global trade.

These concepts are mutually exclusive. So he is either lying, dishonest with himself, or disconnected from the reality. It is simple.

Obama is easy o pick on because he is so visible. But none of the other presidential candidates are any better. Why?

Because we the people require them to lie to get elected.

Thus my simple statement and petition/open letter. By making a simple statement of the facts it lays them bare and, maybe, starts an open dialog. If we want honesty in our leadership we need to demonstrate honesty among ourselves.

Maybe.

[ennui2]

Leaders are not wired to deal with dilemmas, only problems that they think they can solve. I don't think Obama or many others who care about AGW have connected the dots all the way to know what a worst-case-scenario looks like, nor do they realize there is no easy technofix that enables BAU to coexist (hence Obama talking about clean coal).

[Newfie]

Not very bright then are they.

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'N')ot very bright then are they.