This is What Global Warming Looks Like

[The Grand Nudger]

I think it's far more likely that we would find a way to slow ACG than to stop it. If we're looking for honest debate and practical solutions we have to set reasonable goals. We are not going to be able to exist in "equilibrium with nature" -as it were, I can't see that as anything more than a pipe-dream. I don't even know why we would want to -consider that once upon a time we did just that, and our situation has since greatly improved-. This is obviously a personal opinion, but there will always be some issue where we will need to prioritize ourselves or our environment, and in those areas I will always side with us. So, seems to me, that the best course of action would be to mitigate damage in those areas where the compromise is bearable so as to shift the weight of damage across the aggregate of all of our activities.

Slow food, tighter city planning, more expansive public trans, stricter regulations, sustainable building codes (passive solar and appropriate materials), better comms networks (telecommuting). I mean, this obviously only applies to the US (but I assume that there are analogs wherever anyone is from) but as far as our energy grid is concerned.......We can, and have in the past, spent massive amounts of resources and manpower to create a system of energy production and dispersal with no immediate prospects of profitability..and it worked out fantastically for us. Rural Electrification and The Tennessee River Valley Authority anyone? Granted, we had less than stellar motives for part of that, but we did do it once. Sustainable alternatives don't have to remove the necessity of fossil fuels to be a viable alternative, they only have to mitigate it. I see alot of "all or nothing" from both sides on this issue (and I deal with this particular issue day in and day out as part and parcel of the folks I find myself surrounded by). My grandmother likes to relate the story of how we were first introduced to electricity. One line, one lightbulb, one lightswitch. Amusingly no one told my Grt Grandfather that he would have to pay for the electricity so he had some sticker shock and immediately banned its use for a long time. My Grt Grandmother used to store her perishables in a crockpot buried in the ground by the river...lol. They burnt wood to stay warm, they had kerosene lamps for light, and a water based radio (no shit). The moral of this story being that such a project need not be immediately useful, it need not be immediately practical. If we're in it for the long term here (and I hope we are) we have to start thinking and planning long term. No magic bullets, no room for idealogues on either side (they just stall the process with incessant bickering).