Bill McKibben: This is how the earth works now

[AverageJoe90]

51. Only problem is, too much emotion doesn't help us stay focused.

Frankly, the people who take the greenhouse meme to the Venusian extreme are not under our control. But, the expression of those possibilities should never be forbidden. I regret far more the people who try to keep us from exploring the outer corners of the envelope, than I do those few who sometimes go over the top.

But those few people have become to be a significant liability to our cause, although mostly not thru a fault of their own, it can be said(and I certainly wouldn't ever advocate throwing people in jail!). Rather, the real root of the problem still lies with Big Energy and their lobbyists.

In fact, I'll gladly make the case that a certain amount of "Chicken Littleism" is essential if we are going to generate the emotion required drive urgent change.

I wouldn't have disagreed with this, except for the fact it's been used as bludgeon against us by those who wished to do this planet harm. A little ordinary pessimism may be warranted, though.

The cool, rational presentations of the skepticalscience crowd - or those of actual working scientists - simply do not create the sense of urgency that I think we all agree is warranted.

This may be true for some, but it worked for me, though.

Only emotion generates urgency, and the more emotion the greater the urgency.

Sadly, it didn't quite turn out that way in this case. Some emotion may not have hurt, and may have actually helped in certain cases, but too much of it actually turned people away; I can speak from personal experience on this end.

I agree that collapsing into paralytic despair isn't helpful - I tried it, and it doesn't work - but if we are to generate any movement it's essential that people understand the realities of the situation. And those realities are dire to the point of catastrophe right now.

True, but the problem is, people saying that climate change can't be fixed, mitigated, etc. is, too, a form of paralytic despair, and that attitude sadly hasn't at all generated the understanding or support we so desperately need right now.

I consider the act of walking away from "environmentalism" - the conscious refusal to clap for Tinkerbell and go do something else instead - to be worthy of great praise.

How do you define walking away, in this case?

I can sincerely sympathize with those who may feel a degree of hopelessness & despair, and frankly, things aren't looking too good right now. But even if we may feel hopeless, we have to try and do what we can. Because the one sure way for things to get worse is for us to do nothing.