The Big Chill (James Kunstler)

[Tace]

James Kunstler -- Clusterfuck Nation

snip

No, I blame the Democrats. The Democrats are supposed to represent the reality-based faction of the general public. They should be able to do the math without getting sidetracked by Jesus-haunted visions of WalMart running on biodiesel. They should be willing to tell the public the hard truth before it's absolutely too late to make some collective decisions that would lessen the hardship in the circumstances we face -- like allocating some federal funds to passenger rail, or reforming codes, incentives, and subsidies that favor suburban sprawl, or replacing the FICA taxes with a gasoline tax (as proposed by oil man Jeffrey Brown of Dallas), or by aggressively promoting local agriculture.

Most of the university professors in the USA are liberals or progressives or Democrats, or at least not Republicans trafficking in magic. University professors in the so-called "hard sciences," especially, have to lead reality-based lives which encompass such ideas as cause and effect and conclusions derived from facts. They ought to know that we are not going to run the interstate highways on any combination of "alternative" fuels. Why are they not challenging the politicians who would pander to the public's delusions?

How about the policy wonks in the progressive foundations? Why is Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute still trying to sell the snake oil of a "hyper-car," when its chief effect is to reinforce the mistaken idea that we can continue to be a car-dependent society?

This may be the Democrat's last chance to get their shit together. The Republicans are already done. You can stick a fork in them. But the Democrats have an opportunity to lead America back into a reality-based channel of history's stream. They can tell the truth about climate change, about oil-and-gas, and about the terrible misinvestments that we have to put behind us. They can prepare the public to deal with the new facts of life.

My guess is that this may happen with Al Gore emerging as the party's candidate for president. The 2008 election campaign has started way too early and the candidates who have announced so far, whatever their merits or demerits, are liable to exhaust themselves. If Al Gore intends to step up to the plate -- and I think he will -- he would be wise to chill out and wait until at least next fall. That seems to be what he is doing anyway.

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[OneBlueSky]

1. how serious is our environmental crisis? . . . serious enough to . . .

the internal combustion engine? . . .

serious enough to do away with commercial air travel? . . .

serious enough to prohibit long distance transport of food? . . .

serious enough to ban mammalian meat? . . .

REAL solutions to global warming and the host of other environmental crises facing the planet can only be found in the most drastic of actions . . . all of the above (and more) are eventually going to happen anyway as conditions deteriorate more and more . . . is it smart to wait until conditions are SO bad that these solutions (and others) MUST be implemented? . . .

the environmental crisis we face trumps everything else -- because nothing else will matter if the planet can no longer support life . . . either we start addressing it now -- seriously -- or it will address us -- seriously . . .