Seven Ideas Lost on Americans

Americans aren’t stupid. I have come to the conclusion that we are either in a state of perpetual denial or in a fog of permanent confusion. Whatever the case, we are overlooking some pretty important ideas that contribute to the current environmental crisis.

Jerald Schnoor, the editor of Environmental Science and Technology and the author of those words is going pretty easy on us. A reasonable person probably couldn’t rule out the possibility that we Americans are stupid. However, he makes up for it in his list of seven ideas lost on Americans. I’ll summarize here, with my own perspective, but the article should be read on its own merits (go ahead, it’s not behind the firewall).

1. Our unsustainability is immense. It’s true. You have to be seriously deluded to believe otherwise. Unless you living at a subsistence level, you’re not really helping (spare me about how green you really are). We really don’t have a clue, and many of the solutions we’re working on, such as biofuels or hybrid cars, provide only little benefit, or actually make matters worse.

2. Tipping points are irreversible. His closing point is educational – people don’t really believe a severe storm or a fire is going to destroy their home, yet they invest in insurance against that possibility. Why can’t we do the same with climate change?

3. Time lag bites. Another thing we don’t get is that the atmosphere doesn’t turn on a dime, even if we summon the will to reduce greenhouse gases. The effects, even if we begin in earnest today, won’t be apparent for over a century.

4. Species matter. This doesn’t involve getting misty-eyed about endangered species. I think that people tend to forget that beyond being beautiful and wondrous, Nature is also FUNCTIONAL.

5. Free markets aren’t free. This should be tattooed mirror-wise on the foreheads of every idiot libertarian, neoconservative economist, nitwit pundit. . . and maybe all Republicans, for that matter. Ecosystem services cost something, even if you don’t want to acknowledge they exist.

6. Inaction can be more expensive than action. There’s money to be made in energy retrofits, carbon sequestration, building mass transit, restoring habitat, rehabilitating soils, etc. etc. Global warming deniers and uncertainty manufacturers are agents of chaos and disinformation in the service of those economic interests who will are fighting a rearguard action to avoid being the big losers in the climate change economy. The fact that a large fraction of us are listening makes us idiots by default.

7. Technology can’t do it alone. We’re going to need a new worldview for how we regard nature in addition to the mother of all Manhattan Projects. I wonder if we’ve got it in us – the current worldview in the US advocates human domination of nature.

Note to self: next time, write the post before cracking open the wine. You’ll sound less cranky that way.