Quote:Top Green Admits: “We Are Lost!”


Walter Russell Mead
George Monbiot of the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian has a must-read column in which he admits that because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.

Read the whole piece for a thoughtful and brutally clear expose of the intellectual bankruptcy of the green movement from one of the smartest people in it. This is what I’ve been getting at for more than a year here: regardless of what is happening to Planet Earth, the green movement does not have coherent and workable solutions.

Greens like to have it both ways. They warn darkly about “peak oil” and global resource shortages that will destroy our industrial economy in its tracks — but also warn that runaway economic growth will destroy the planet through the uncontrolled effects of mass industrial productions. Both doomsday scenarios cannot be true; one cannot simultaneously die of both starvation and gluttony....

read more here:

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/w...-are-lost/

G, thanks for posting. Very enlightening stuff. Enjoyed reading it.

haha! i was actually going to start a thread similar to this based upon this enlightenment of mine. i had been having a hard time trying to balancing nature v. man. i admit, i still do. there was a time where i thought it perfectly acceptable for the government to use force in these matters. curb emissions, protect wildlife, f*ck oil, more public transportation, yada. i still have trouble assuaging thoughts such as: what if oil was found in yosemite, or any other protected for a beautiful reason zones? are we to be a nation without nature? are parks going to become a luxury? is anything sacred? i don't know if you know this, but big fan of hiking and wilderness here. i love driving unperturbed throughout these states on back roads without seeing as much as a scantily clad hillside. i feel for the indigenous folks and animals who's livelihood could become threatened due to drilling their homes. man, after typing that, i feel hard pressed to continue. but it's not greed or insensitivity that are driving the issue. oil and other forms of energy are products, sensible products. products which we do in fact need. all forms of energy have their faults. with that said, i am prepared to tuck my tail between my legs and concede also that i cannot have it both ways. having my cake and eating it too, inherently has a flaw. i am lost, but i think i see a trail marker.

(05-06-2011 11:04 AM)Lush Wrote:  i love driving unperturbed throughout these states on back roads without seeing as much as a scantily clad hillside.

'nuff said.

(05-06-2011 12:22 PM)gruehls Wrote:  

(05-06-2011 11:04 AM)Lush Wrote:  i love driving unperturbed throughout these states on back roads without seeing as much as a scantily clad hillside.

'nuff said.

help me out here g-man. is that a good or bad thing? i wasn't even sure if that sentence made any sense. i feel like i should be saying this with my neck leaning back over a couch with g-man standing stoically behind. chatter, feel free to make a gay joke. i can't recall you making one. but it seems like a new hobby for you.

(05-06-2011 01:56 PM)Lush Wrote:  

(05-06-2011 12:22 PM)gruehls Wrote:  

(05-06-2011 11:04 AM)Lush Wrote:  i love driving unperturbed throughout these states on back roads without seeing as much as a scantily clad hillside.

'nuff said.

help me out here g-man. is that a good or bad thing? i wasn't even sure if that sentence made any sense. i feel like i should be saying this with my neck leaning back over a couch with g-man standing stoically behind. chatter, feel free to make a gay joke. i can't recall you making one. but it seems like a new hobby for you.

I think g was pointing out that you said you "love driving" through these areas. Kind of a cake and eat it too moment.

Was my thought, too.

All this makes sense if you view it from a single perspective:

Greenies hate civilization.

They would prefer if we all lived in mud huts and ate bugs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner...

In fact, they fantasize about an Earth without mankind....

My question to them is simply this:

Why not lead by example?

hey Lush.

Billy and Rath hit it. i do know from your prior posts that you do plenty of hiking and communing with nature, and that's great.

just struck me that you posted about enjoying the ride where oil and gas were issues.

no offense intended.

g

At one end of the spectrum you have people that say % the planet, let's do what we want. At the other end, the greenies described here.
You can be green AND realistic. Do what you can, respect your planet. Just do what you can. Is that so horrible?

By the way, driving in the country I would rather see scantily clad women than scantily clad hillsides.

ps Please recycle[/u]

(05-07-2011 08:01 AM)beck Wrote:  By the way, driving in the country I would rather see scantily clad women than scantily clad hillsides.

amen to that.

(05-07-2011 07:32 AM)gruehls Wrote:  hey Lush.

Billy and Rath hit it. i do know from your prior posts that you do plenty of hiking and communing with nature, and that's great.

just struck me that you posted about enjoying the ride where oil and gas were issues.

no offense intended.

g

that's what i figured you meant, but thought i qualified that statement a few sentences below with my realization of the essentiality of oil. i realize the dichotomy if my post wasn't clear.

(05-07-2011 08:01 AM)beck Wrote:  At one end of the spectrum you have people that say % the planet, let's do what we want. At the other end, the greenies described here.
You can be green AND realistic. Do what you can, respect your planet. Just do what you can. Is that so horrible?

By the way, driving in the country I would rather see scantily clad women than scantily clad hillsides.

ps Please recycle[/u]

As with almost everything in life, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. The only reason I would love to see the huge jump in hybrid technology that I think we are all waiting for is so that we can say adios to the clusterf**k that is, always has been, and always will be the Middle East.

(05-06-2011 11:04 AM)Lush Wrote:  i still have trouble assuaging thoughts such as: what if oil was found in yosemite, or any other protected for a beautiful reason zones? are we to be a nation without nature? are parks going to become a luxury? is anything sacred?

Many years ago during my college days, I spent a summer working in Yosemite. A summer in the midst of nature? Kinda, but not really.

I lived in the squalor of a tent cabin village filled with other college students, who were hired from around the world to help run the business that is the valley floor.

The valley is its own city, complete with grocery store, bank, restaurants, hotels, gift shops. It even has its own bus system that runs from morning until 10pm.

I remember holiday weekends where the road would be clogged with traffic jams. Somewhere I have a picture of a friend, Maria, posing next to the long line of cars outside our tent cabin village.

I worked the the park's luxury hotel, The Ahwahnee which had a high-end restaurant, pool tennis courts, etc.

Yosemite, of course, is best known as one of the world's premier places for mountain climbing. Those cliff are constantly being chipped at. All summer, we'd hear the sound of helicopters rescuing the inexperienced off the side of the cliffs (the summer I was there, a UC student died tried to scale the cliffs).

Yosemite is a sacred place, and it should be off limits to drilling. But it has already been defaced.

I get a kick out these buildings that are "green certified." The building behind the north endzone of Nippert is such a place. I ask how.

UC brags that they recycle rain water from the building and use it for watering plants. But the building has a lazy river. How is lazy river "green"? Doesn't make sense to me. Isn't that a waste of water? And energy? And a variety of materials?

(05-09-2011 02:08 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  But the building has a lazy river. How is lazy river "green"? Doesn't make sense to me. Isn't that a waste of water? And energy? And a variety of materials?

Sounds like a Democrat to me

(05-09-2011 02:08 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  I get a kick out these buildings that are "green certified." The building behind the north endzone of Nippert is such a place. I ask how.

UC brags that they recycle rain water from the building and use it for watering plants. But the building has a lazy river. How is lazy river "green"? Doesn't make sense to me. Isn't that a waste of water? And energy? And a variety of materials?

Sounds like the same kind of posturing that a lot of greenies engage in--passing rules and judgements that apply to everyone but themselves.

The next time you see a Vegan I want you to look at their shoes and their belts and/or purses and wallets. I'll bet you over half of them are made of leather.

Or Al Gore who spouts off about energy consumption while flying around on a private jet.

That's the kind of hypocrisy in which a lot of Greenies take part.

(05-11-2011 12:03 AM)converrl Wrote:  

(05-09-2011 02:08 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  I get a kick out these buildings that are "green certified." The building behind the north endzone of Nippert is such a place. I ask how.

UC brags that they recycle rain water from the building and use it for watering plants. But the building has a lazy river. How is lazy river "green"? Doesn't make sense to me. Isn't that a waste of water? And energy? And a variety of materials?

Sounds like the same kind of posturing that a lot of greenies engage in--passing rules and judgements that apply to everyone but themselves.

The next time you see a Vegan I want you to look at their shoes and their belts and/or purses and wallets. I'll bet you over half of them are made of leather.

Or Al Gore who spouts off about energy consumption while flying around on a private jet.

That's the kind of hypocrisy in which a lot of Greenies take part.

I wouldn't cast all vegans as hypocrites, even if they wear leather clothing. There are a variety of reasons why people don't eat meat.

As far as Al Gore's hypocrisy goes, he also lives in a rather large mansion in Tennessee; hardly a place of minimal energy consumption.

My feelings are that the "Green" movement, at least in America is really about money and control. Why on earth (pun intended) would the Federal Government see it as part of their mandate unless to raise more money (taxes) and to exert control. It is, and has always been, a really bad joke played at the expense of the American tax payer.

As an architect, and old enough to have been hugely interested in passive solar design in the 80's, LEED infuriates me for way too many reasons to go into here...