| > Hysterical articles about sticking our heads in the stand honestly don't really help at this stage, they just perpetuate the sense of controversy without contributing positively to the debate. See, this is problematic. If we don't have articles documenting the problem, no one will care. Right now the possibility of the Keystone-XL pipeline is on the president's table, and for those of you who don't know, the Keystone-XL pipeline will double imports of tar sands oil, thus bringing climate change to even a bigger problem than before [1]. If we stop this, we have a chance of improving the problem. I realize that you said we should "[cut] back judiciously on fossil fuel usage", but when things like the Keystone-XL pipeline are a serious consideration, not being alarmist is a problem. The idea that the fossil fuel industry's thinly veiled "jobs creation" argument (when in reality, the pipeline would create very, very few jobs in the larger scale [2]) could be one that gets this pipeline built, puts us in extreme jeopardy. It's time that people are scared about the world changing, because there are certainly too many people who don't really care. > I also don't think anything we do at this stage could slow down or stop the process, other than banning modern civilization. This is just wrong, and part of why we're experiencing a problem now. Germany is installing tons of solar panels [3]. Buenos Aires is switching to LED lighting to cut down on electricity costs by as much as 50% [4]. We should also be investing in sustainable technology, because this is going to be a serious problem. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/23/tar-sands... [2] http://www.livescience.com/38735-putting-keystone-pipeline-j... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/business/energy-environmen... [4] http://www.treehugger.com/energy-efficiency/buenos-aires-swi... |