ERD50:
You said:
I am saying that we need to accept small improvements for what they are (small!). I don't want people to over-estimate the benefit and get lulled into a false sense of security. Fine if we uncover many,many of them, but the math needs to work.
And, I keep falling back on the IPCC's own words (as I understand them). If we make *large* improvements regarding fossil fuel usage, we are still left with 80% of the problem. So we better plan for that 80% (at least), and/or seek out-of-the box solutions. We probably should be doing the fossil-fuel reduction thing also, but we should realize that it solves only a small part of the (GW) problem.
IMO, that is not defeatist at all. It is an attempt to be realistic, and the route to real solutions, not 'feel good' solutions.
Greg, I think that some of your optimism may stem from a lack of understanding of the scope of the problem. Sorry if that sounds condescending, I don't know quite how else to put it, but please let me make a point or two regarding this. A few posts back you discussed a ban on incandescent lights as a 'Wow!' kind of thing. In reality, we found very solid numbers that say 100% adoption cannot reduce energy consumption more than about 2% (and there may be some unintended consequences there also - more to come). Maybe well worth doing, but 'Wow!' overstates it a bit, no?
I know my head has seemed a bit asskew regarding this subject. But I think for good reason. Many of the arguments on these boards end up basically nowhere after significant go round. And it usually breaks down into a political battle between right and left with such huge fundamental perceptual differences that everyone ends up frustrated and stifled. Then the walkaways start or the anger bubbles up. (And in the worst case about 10-20% of folks turn into libertarians.)
I truly believe that we are currently in a political/childish age sort of, and right now we are at the very bottom of this cycle, compounded by an irrational TV spin that distorts everything and prevents us from focusing on solutions in a mature fashion. But I may be wrong. By example, social security and health care: We, as adults, all know these are in serious trouble, yet are unable to make even minor changes--much due to our possible immaturity and inability to elect rational, cooperative folks (currently our politicians don't get rewarded for being reasonable; they get rewarded/elected for being extreme).
And we just fight back and forth over who is spinning up the most spin--off the real topic/solution many times. Sad and disappointing--to my mind.
Again, by analogy/example: when a young child does some small chore for mom or dad, we, as parents, tend to 'praise up' the accomplishment out of proportion to the actual significance. This is good. We do the same with new employees oftentimes, praising up out of proportion to the accomplishment a new hire's work that if done by a veteran employee would almost be ignored.
So, yes, I'm suggesting a sort of general cheery attitude toward the GW issue and a praising of, and focus upon, the more minor accomplishments that improve things. I see a sort of political negativity in this country that has reached its nadir, with cynicism toward gov't that I have never seen before or could have even imagined ten or twenty years ago. (And, again sadly, much of the cynicism appears justified.) I think I recognize, as you do, the importance of doing something significant and immediate in the near future, not just beating at the edges of it with a stick. But to my mind, these are delicate times. And we need to start accomplishing small, positive things first, before we tackle the larger ones; we have sort of share with others our accomplishment in small before we move on to share in the accomplishment of the medium. I'm worried that we end up doing nothing in our bickering over the large factors and new government just comes in and erases all that the previous gov't does. We need to start sharing and building on what the previous administration and congress do, not just rip up and start anew every four or eight years, which is what I see going on lately. Our politics needs to be feel good AND it needs to accomplish things. It should not be either-or. I don't want things breaking down into a stagnant, putrid mess as so many other important issues have.
So, as I said elsewhere but less explicitly, I see a need for at least some psychology, be it child or adult psychology, to be applied to our current political situation, and GW seems to be a good place to start a transformative, new style of politics of consensus--which is really a politics of a former generation . . . and a conservative approach
. And more conservative than Dick Cheney
So there!
