What solutions are /you/ looking for?

[c9]

"In my travels, I have noticed a disturbing theme among the educated minority of eco-advocates: they are every bit as dedicated to the status quo (in their own way) as the NASCAR morons and shopping mall developers. The eco-advocates want cars, too, and all the prerogatives (like free parking and country living) that go with them, just like the WalMart shoppers. If this were not so, then why do the eco-advocates cream in their jeans whenever somebody presents a snazzy new vehicle that runs on a fuel other than gasoline? Indeed, why are some of the eco-friendly pouring all their efforts into the invention of such things instead of into walkable communities and the reform of our stupid land-use laws?

I encountered this ethos most strikingly a few years back at Middlebury College in Vermont, where angry biodiesel advocates assailed my lack of enthusiasm for their particular "solution" -- which seemed geared mainly to allow them to continue to drive their dad's old cast-off SUVs to the snowboarding venues of that progressive little state. But the wish to keep running all our cars permeates what little public discussion there is of the global warming / energy crisis issues at all levels. Even the elder statesmen of the eco-movement talk it up incessantly. The first great victory will come when they shut up about it and put their minds to other tasks."

James Howard Kunstler
(also available on jhkunstler)

Comments

[canuckotter.livejournal.com]

I find I agree with environmentalists as long as I don't actually listen to them. :-)

People like the dude you quoted annoy me because he's so fixated on his one little thing that he seems to be ignoring the real world. On the other hand, he's right, simply switching to biofuels doesn't really solve the problem... We've created a lot of our own problems through idiotic land-use laws and failure to plan for any sort of mass transit. I'd always thought it was really obvious that any long-term solution would have to be many-faceted and encompass a broad variety of partial solutions to achieve the overall goal, but so many environmentalists get fixated on a single facet that they ignore or even deride other views. Since I always look for multiple viewpoints, people like that frustrate the hell out of me. And, of course, the more passionate someone is the more likely they are to fixate on a single facet, and most environmentalists are very passionate about environmentalism... which means that most serious environmentalists tend to annoy the hell out of me, even when I mostly agree with them.