Alex Steffen of Worldchanging puts his finger on one of the more damning aspects of the politics of climate change, the vast chasm of perspective between the generations, Copenhagen and the War for the Future:
To be young and aware is to know you’re being lied to; to know that a bright green future is possible; to know that we can reimagine the world, rebuild our cities, redesign our lives, retool our factories, distribute innovation and creativity and all live in a world that is not only better than the alternative, but much better than the world we have now.
To be young and aware is to suspect that, in the end, the debate about climate action isn’t about substance, but about rich old men trying to squeeze every last dollar, euro, and yen from their investments in outdated industries. It is to agree with the environmentalist Paul Hawken that we have an economy that steals the future, sells it in the present, and calls it GDP. It is to begin to see your elders as cannibals with golf clubs.
(via No Right Turn)
Comments
Only problem is:
http://www.infowars.net/articles/april2008/210408Yahoo.htm
Interesting Nangas. Although think of some of the biggest and most profitable companies in the world: General Electric, Royal Dutch Shell, Toyota Motor, PetroChina, Gazprom, ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron. These companies don’t make their profits from emerging green commodities markets and most almost certainly never will. They make them in outdated industries, the most obvious of which is the digging up fossil fuels and selling them on for a pittance to be burnt and pollute the planet.
Despite Alex Jones’ suggesting as much somehow I doubt they’re outgunned by startups and Yahoo’s green news section.
Alex Jones — a far right radio host and author — promulgates the view that climate change is caused by variations in the sun’s activity. This despite the fact that the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC states that the measured magnitude of recent solar variation is much smaller than the effect due to greenhouse gases. But a person like Alex Jones doesn’t let facts get in the way of a good story. He’s got books to sell.
He also falls into a nasty group of sociopaths who push the idea that man-made climate change is a conspiracy by scientists to get grants for their work. The same line of attack used against scientists when they were showing us that smoking causes cancer, CFCs lead to ozone depletion and that certain pollutants cause acid rain.