Its a non-simultanious universe---sure your mind can take its measure, stop time and index matter/energy's spatial distribution and state but the show goes on.

Invisible lethal limits are crossed daily, each depleted species makes this manifest.

There is no going home again,you do not step in the same river twice.

We are on a bike, peddling full tilt toward a cliff, well past the point where we could execute a decent stop, past the point, in fact, where if we ditched we could be sure of not falling over the edge, We are past the point of no return.

But not to worry, there are all these safety lines tied 'round our neck (god/science/luck/belief,etc.)...and we might fly if we just peddle fast enough,{ you get that camel through by holding your lips just right, a special squint (darn close to closed eyes) and a headlong plunge.}

I worry! The global epiphany is long overdue! Each minute counts, that flowing river is falling/felling trees (in the Amazon, Siberia, North America, your own back yard),

We need to change engines. It would have be easier to do it on the ground, hard but maybe possible in smooth flight, but no, we need a crisis to spur action so we get to try to change engines while in a crash. Too Freaking much Fun!

*sigh* as the lady says.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Answers

David,

I indentify with your concerns, but on the Environmental "Atomic" clock equalivent, just don't think we're at midnight yet... or past the point of no return. At least I "hope" not. Close, yes.

Personally, I just have to have faith in the human spirit to meet a challenge once it's "in their face." That's beginning to happen now, after 30 years of warnings.

If one looks, the signs are out there, that more and more people are waking up and impacting their lives, their choices, their companies and their communities. Will it be "in time." Who knows?

Time appears more flexible that we think it is.

One can only try. (Or go down with the ship).

Miracles do happen.

Diane

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Diane,

I am not trying to play the defeatest, not saying quit the fight or abandon hope. But it does us little good to pretend that things are other than they are, that the author has a good grip on the plot or a happy end planned.

We do not know if life is developmental or evolutionary, i.e. if there is direction or only a random walk. It does make a differnce. Evolution, change in time, is value/event free in the sense that failure does not matter. In fetal development, at every stage events have outcomes that determine viability and the price of failure high.

If we keep on with busness as usual, a result of not acknowledging how grave the consequences of this century's activities have indeed been there is no good outcome!

Only when we admit that we are indeed past the point of no return will we quit looking for easy answers and trying solutions that do not fit the circumstances. If that means miracles, wonderful! If that means getting our thinking in line with our knowledge, wonderful.

I've watched my planet trashed for as long as I can remember (about age 5 on) and it has only accelerated and gotten worse, and nothing I have been able to do stops it. (indeed I know that I just add to the problem by being). Given my belief that man is rational the only explaination that makes sense is a collective failure to correctly assess what we are and where we are and are going.

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2000

David,

Don't disagree with you at all. However, I suspect that many of our common solutions will be found "outside-the-box."

People tend not to embrace change until the need is perceived at crisis level. If you go back and look at the Gallup Poll down on this thread...

Earth Day Report Card --We Still Care, Sort of: Experts assess the state of the green movement (San Francisco Chronicle)
http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 0031Rc

... it's is pretty distressing.

Earth's volunteer PR and Marketing team are doing a monumential job with few dollars. What makes Earth/Gaia important in the public mindset? Really don't know.

But... I pledge to try and find out... then communicate it. (Have this idea, that maybe I'll explain a bit after it "gells" more).

Diane

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2000

Dave: Given my belief that man is rational the only explaination that makes sense is a collective failure to correctly assess what we are and where we are and are going.

I have a problem with terminology here. I'm not convinced that rational has ever been adequately defined or used in the context of Earthcrisis. As religion codifies or justifies those elements that contribute to survival of our species (taboos, customs, mythology) so to, I feel, does rationality actually rationalize and enforce our genetic directives. I guess I agree with E. O. Wilson on this.

I'm not wild about Richard Dawkins' genetic imperitive, as proposed in the "selfish gene," but I'll be damned if I can counter with a simpler more elegant explanation of which Occam might approve.

As for our "...collective failure to correctly assess...": observation and assessment is at the root of rational thought (GIGO). But it may not be as linear and directional as we latter day sophists might like it. The religionists' apprehension of reality adequately makes this point. In a way, we all see things through the perceptual filter of our genetic inheritance---even more so than cultural.

Our modern Gaian perspective seems so rational to those of us imbued with the ethos. But is it not counterintuitive, running against the instructions of our genes? No other animal---and only a vanishingly small percentage of our species---thinks this way, as Reg Morris explicates at length in The Spirit in the Gene.

Sorry, didn't mean to quibble about semantics. But as long as language is the only way to communicate these feelings, I guess we're stuck.

Hallyx

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." --- Douglas Adams

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2000