Civilization’s Last Chance

Bill McKibben, one of the great thinkers and do-ers of our time, has written an Op-Ed in the LA Times. His point: we have only a short time to make a change, to turn things around. Far from seeing this as doon-and-gloom, I see this as building momentum toward making the change we need, toward a cleaner, fairer, more just world.

From the post:

It’s not just the economy: We’ve gone through swoons before. It’s that gas at $4 a gallon means we’re running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It’s that when we try to turn corn into gas, it helps send the price of a loaf of bread shooting upward and helps ignite food riots on three continents. It’s that everything is so tied together. It’s that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the “limits to growth” suddenly seem … how best to put it, right.

All of a sudden it isn’t morning in America, it’s dusk on planet Earth.

The country we most need to get moving is the United States. And the perfect storm of human and natural ‘motivators’ is coming together to do just that, with one exception: Canada.

The perfect storm:

• There are widespread movements to take action on climate change. Jim Harris and I are part of one: The Climate Project, Al Gore’s trained presenters of the Inconvenient Truth. There are many others, and Mr. McKibben mentions his latest group in the article.
• Al Gore is running $300,000,000 worth of ads to force a debate on the climate crisis during the presidential campaign. That is a lot of ads, and they will have an impact.
• The scientists are ramping up their warnings as the data, models, and consequences become ever clearer.
• The religion of market fundamentalism is on the decline, and if we slide into a recession or even depression, it will be killed.

Here’s a video stream I put together than starts with Al Gore’s ads, then moves to the brilliant Story of Stuff (7 parts, 20 minutes), and finishes up with a little video I made about rebuilding the trans-Canada railway. (Click once in the video to get controls to pause, change volume, etc.)

http://newgreeneconomy.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/al-gores-save-the-planet-ads/

All that’s missing is Canada’s positive influence on the world scene. Right now, we’re enabling the United States, rather than being honest and courageous and pointing out that we do not agree. If we had not stalled at Bali, that would have left the U.S. largely alone. If we had not publicly abandoned our Kyoto commitments, if our government was not backing the Americans at every turn, our influence could be enormous.

We could be the tipping point.

Bill McKibben’s editorial: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-mckibben11-2008may11,0,2392815.story