My issue with Earth Day is, it promotes the inaccurate association between environmentalism and having less, less energy, less prosperity, etc.
Don't get me wrong - I fully believe that environmental concerns like global warming are potentially catastrophic. But our civilization is going to live or die as as a high-energy-using one.
I have basically _zero_ confidence that people will voluntarily reduce their energy usage. OK, maybe 5% of the population will. But what the environmental movement needs to focus on is that the technology to be carbon neutral, for example, already exists. It's not a matter of inventing anything new. All the problems are economic and/or political.
Giving the message, on any level, that environmentalism means making due with less, makes the political problems worse.
Well, I don't have confidence in people as volunteers to do anything that's not very very appealing to them or makes them tons of money, but I think that if it were possible to have people reduce the amount of energy they spend that it would greatly help pur environment. I strongly believe that we waste sooooo much of everything, and I don't agree that making due with less makes political problems. We've been living with less in the past and we got this far. One could always have more, of course, but do we really need it??
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Don't get me wrong - I fully believe that environmental concerns like global warming are potentially catastrophic. But our civilization is going to live or die as as a high-energy-using one.
I have basically _zero_ confidence that people will voluntarily reduce their energy usage. OK, maybe 5% of the population will. But what the environmental movement needs to focus on is that the technology to be carbon neutral, for example, already exists. It's not a matter of inventing anything new. All the problems are economic and/or political.
Giving the message, on any level, that environmentalism means making due with less, makes the political problems worse.
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