Carl Sagan on Religion and the Environment

[zebonaut]

Sagan starts at around 40 minutes in:

The entire Atmosphere of Earth: "A Coat of Shellac on a Library Globe"

[Buzz Clik]

1. I watched the whole thing, and it was excellent. circa 1990!!!

Great stuff.

[ffr]

2. Excellent points throughout. Here's just one.

"If a politician can take a presumed unpopular action which will in his or her estimation will benefit the politician while still in office, then that is a risk a politician is willing to make. If the benefit, however, happens 10 or 30 or 50 years in the future, to benefit some other office holder, then from the narrow perspective of getting re-elected, it's not nearly as attractive." - Carl Sagan

I think he's implying that either we need a different system of elections or as Jefferson would probably point out, a constitutional amendment(s) that force our politicians to raise the environment to a higher level, making the water, air and land we depend upon for our existence as important as national defense.

Home. I love that place. Is there anything more important than leaving it a better place than we found it?

[cprise]

3. Maybe a change in law is required

but a change in consciousness is just as important. People still want a high-consumption lifestyle, even if a "green" one.

My long attention to environmental issues tells me that America lags behind other developed nations in enthusiasm for scientific methods (i.e. thinking and discourse), support of science for its own sake (discovery instead of a way to make money or war), ability to discern between science and technology, and acceptance of major developments like ecology and evolution. Contrast with Europe, which has more scientists per capita and elects scientists to the highest positions of power (although one could argue the highest power in Europe is really the USA...).

I think the truly impactful aspect of Carl Sagan's career is that he popularized enough science history and got more than a few of us to actually identify with real scientists and the process of discovery; We weren't all totally taken with Star Wars and Star Trek (and the MIC's attempts to recast themselves in that light).