Reply To: The Coming Great Disruption

[Trace One]

The end of the oil age is here – as Bill McKibben’s campaign against the tar sands pipeline points out, it doesn’t matter if that oil is burned on site or piped to China, it’s use does nothing but increase global warming, past the 350 ppm tipping point.

so for islands in the pacific, victims of Manila’s typhoons, Bangladesh floods, for the  many many thousands of species who are disappearing with their evolutionary secrets going with them, it’s past zero hour..

I think that is the starting point for understanding..It’s over, and it’s obvious.

but the path forward has also been well charted, with available technologies and human strategies already in use. Japan is sitting on one of the best geo-thermal sites in the world..It was political corruption and money that made them look towards nuclear power.

Past that, it is hard to see a way forward, in the face of human nature..I walk around San Diego, everyone so happy, enjoying the day, driving to malls, movies, swimming in the ocean which every month experiences millions of gallons of raw sewage dumps (oops, again!), and just can’t see how we can turn people away from that, to taking the earth more seriously.

I know what I have done – bike to work, no kids, don’t eat meat..and on every  project work for reducing watere use, promoting alternative methods of transportation..

But when you see how humanity has consistently wrecked every eco-system it has taken over – the Cedars of Lebanon were depleted, vanished by the Phoenicians, so there are none left..there are so many examples….I just don’t see how human nature can be changed..Put me in the pessimist apocalyptic camp – I am going to head for the hills, find a place to live with it’s own source of clean water..and continue to do what I can for the actions that I think could help the earth….