I disagree for many reasons. Among these are;

1) The weak warnings of the IPCC are convincing the general public that the most serious results of global warming are going to happen after their children's lifetimes, mostly to people in the global south, and will only result in a few feet of sea level rise in about a thousand years. This pushes the crisis so far beyond people's immediate lives that they will be able to rationalize not taking any serious action. (They will instead put their hopes in totally destructive and technophilic neo-liberal responses like clean coal, carbon sequestration, carbon credits, hydrogen, hybrids, nuclear power, atmospheric and orbital mitigation, and biofuels.) However, if the general public realizes that the climate crisis could result in extreme consequences to their own lives, and possibly tens of meters of sea level rise in a matter of a couple of decades, they will be forced to face reality and act. We must remember that this is not an either or question. The sooner and more dramatically we respond, the better our results will be. The public has shown time and time again that it will not make dramatic change unless it recognizes immediate danger. So letting people know that their own children will live in a virtual hell unless we take immediate drastic measures, will get them motivated enough to allow us to at least meet the IPCC's warnings, if not our own.

2) The IPCC process was totally undermined by very heavy handed political maneuvering, which drastically toned down the process and results. To accept those results would be a clear signal to those that demolished the process, that they got away with it and should continue to engage in such manipulation. (This is exactly why Kyoto should have been soundly rejected -instead of foolishly embraced- by the environmental movement.)

3) Rachel Caron's 'Silent Spring' was extremely alarming and depressing. Did its dramatic truths cause paralysis. Absolutely not. On the contrary, it triggered the massively successful world wide environmental movement.

4) In my own case, I know the full depth of the problem and I am not pessimistic at all. Seeing the whole scope of the thing, I also see that we have an excellent chance of averting a major crisis if we dramatically reorganize our global civic infrastructure and energy use now. However, we have no chance of doing so, if a sufficiently alarmed public is not convinced to join us right away.

The public does the right thing when it has the best information. (Jefferson recognised this long ago.) When give half truths however, it tends to dangerous apathy, and reliance on hopes that around the corner technologies will solve our problems.

Knowing the real danger, is the first critical step to doing something about it.

peace

Eric

Jeanne wrote:

I presume you have read the post by Gelbspan, which says about what you are saying. Don't you think that pushing this extremely depressing point of view makes people want to give up? I would prefer to go with the IPCC recommendations - which we will probably not reach anyway - rather than argue about how hopeless it is.

Here's the link to the Gelbspan, if anyone has missed it.

http://www.energybulletin.net/38315.html

Jeanne

Eric Brooks wrote:

Hi all,

I just discovered a really good audio interview with coral reef 
scientist Thomas Goreau on reefs and global warming, in which he also 
details why the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) reports on 
the predicted severity of human caused global warming are far too 
optimistic and that the problem will be much worse, more quickly, than 
the IPCC predicts.

The entire two hour interview is important and I recommend listening to 
the entire program; however if you just want to hear the section 
critiquing the IPCC go to the 32 minute mark of the first hour of the 
program.

The first hour is at:

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=25824&nav=&

The second hour is at:

http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=25825&nav=&

cheers

Eric

-- 
Jeanne Rosenmeier
415 751-0901


_______________________________________________
Sustainability mailing list
Sustainability@sfgreens.org
https://list.sfgreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainability

-- 
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara