Why We Haven't Yet Taken Action

I’ll have a lot more to say about global warming (GW) / climate change itself over the next few weeks and months, but first I want share some insights about why we as a nation haven’t yet taken truly effective action.

Looking at the big overview, there are at least three ways to act to help reduce the impact of GW.

The first is the choices we make as individuals. We bicycle to work instead of drive. We stop using plastic bags, put solar panels on our roof, buy local foods, turn down the thermostat, and turn off the lights when we leave a room. We become much more conscious of what increases or decreases our carbon footprint and try to keep that footprint as small as possible.

The second is what we do as a city, town or county. For example, as a community we might encourage the county offices to put up solar panels, re-insulate its ancient buildings, assist low income families to retrofit their homes, or institute county wide recycling.

Then there’s what we do as a nation. It’s here that I believe we can have the greatest impact if only we would act. But it’s also here that we seem to get stuck, and so far, the little bit of action taken seems like we’re using a feather to stop a hurricane.

My next entries will be attempts to address what I hope are some fresh ideas about this problem: why haven’t we as a nation acted in ways that would be truly effective? What is it about the nature GW and about we as human beings that, so far, have blocked us from effective group action.

At this point I am only laying out what I see as some of the problems for effective action. I do this, not to discourage us - far from it - but rather to have a clear vision of what we may be up against. I have always felt that good solutions to problems can only come when we understand each problem in sufficient detail. Or to put it another way, the enemy we know and understand is the enemy we can defeat.