(With thanks to Guy McPherson on TransitionVoice.)
From “The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future” (Daedalus, Winter 2013) by Oreskes and Conway (who you may know from their seminal book Merchants of Doubt):
By blocking anticipatory action, neoliberals did more than expose the tragic flaws in their own system: they fostered expansion of the very system of government that they most abhorred.
This is the part about the free market fundamentalist point of view that I really just don’t get: picture a deregulated highway/ freeway/ motorway. What happens when each and every individual has the ‘freedom’ to choose on which side of the road to drive, and the ‘freedom’ to ignore all speed limits?
O.K. I can see why you think it might be too late…People really do not want to hear about our climate future. Thank you for the video by Paul Beckwith.
It’s worse than that: it might be too late simply because not enough people realise the urgency of the multiple crises we face, and so believe that there is no need to move fast on it. Which is especially ironic since in every other aspect of life, it’s all rush, rush, rush…
That closing rhetorical invitation is powerful*… but so is Oreskes and Conway’s new book. Thanks for bringing both to my attention.
* Maybe it inspired this:
Thank you for choosing a great clip to illustrate what happens when those evil, vicious, freedom-inhibiting regulations <spit> are thrown to the wind
How about a letter to David Cameron including your rhetorical invitation and my link tot the Bourne Identity car chase clip on You Tube? If you don’t send it, I will.
I vote you: you are, after all, the expert when it comes to communicating with them polytickle types. I’d just get all sarky and passive/aggressive, which I’m well aware is no bloody use at all.
OK, will do.