Here’s an enigma: you come across an environmental campaign which, on the surface, looks well meaning, but on closer inspection is so weak in its “solutions†and so diluted in its ambitions that you actually start to question the motivation of the people running it. We Can Solve It (or “we†for short) has both of these attributes, and looks extremely polished to boot…all the hallmarks of an Astroturf. Could it be that “We Can Solve It†are a front for an industry lobby group?
No, in fact it’s worse than that.
We Can Solve It is:
“a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection — a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. The goal of the Alliance is to build a movement that creates the political will to solve the climate crisis — in part through repowering America with 100 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources within 10 years. Our economy, national security, and climate can’t afford to wait.â€
So, it’s an Al Gore project, or rather a project run by people who slavishly follow the Al Gore principles, basically meaning that they will always push for “solutions†that sit firmly within the orthodoxy — lots of local “campaigning liteâ€, no civil disopedience, no sabotage, no radical life changes, politicians and businesses being politely asked to change and being heartily applauded for shuffling in their seats a bit…that sort of thing.
What makes it even worse (if that’s possible), is the list of “successes“, proudly displayed on their own page. Here’s a sample:
– We Members Forward National Dialogue with Letters to the Editor
– Thousands Urge the Press to Ask Questions on Global Warming
– Stunning Response to Calls for a Global Treaty
– State Department Feels Public Pressure in Run-up to Climate Conference
– How a Climate-conscious County Official Is Helping Arlington County
– Florida Governor Taking on Climate Change
– Colorado Voters Pass Renewable Energy Standards; Governor Doubles Them!
– Ceramic Tile: A Handcrafted Art Form Drives an Eco-revolution
– Trucking Goes Green!
– Pennsylvania Entrepreneur Follows Her Passion for Solar Power
– Wind Energy Is Replacing a History of Oil in One Texas Town
– US-Based Company Helps Denmark and Israel Get Behind the Wheel of Electric Cars
They range from the utterly symbolic (letter writing and “questionsâ€) to the trivial (someone deciding to go into the solar energy business) to the superficially interesting, but ultimately disappointing (â€Florida Governor Taking On Climate Change†– actually a piddling 40% cut by 2025, which I managed in a year in my house!) These are the kinds of changes that are apparently saving the world; yet the vast majority of them are (as I said) simply kow-towing to politics and big business.
[Read the rest at The Unsuitablog]
While I agree with you that more and faster change is better, don’t underestimate the power of moderate change done by a majority of the people. Change builds up in aggregate, and someone has to push the moderates. I am not sure most people even consider this a big problem yet, let alone something that requires life changing choices to be made… For better or worse I support any and all movement (big or small) towards the end goal of a sustainable world.
Can’t argue with that, mate, but these guys are trying to pretend they are actually achieving something far more than they are. Modesty goes a long way, and that’s certainly not something you can accuse Wecansolveit of.
One person doing something like changing their diet or giving up their car is significant and I applaud them for setting a good example – far better than holding hands with big business or spurious politicians.
K.
Now is the time to shed some light on a need for economic changes,
with the hope of assuring a substantial, sustainable global economy and a good enough future for our children.
How is adequate, sustained attention to be drawn to the greedy kings and self-proclaimed masters of the universe who are responsible for the perpetration of such a colossal, fraudulent and patently unsustainable scheme as we see in the rampant process of seemingly endless economic globalization?
At least to me, it appears that the huge scale of unbridled global economic growth is a canker threatening to overspread and eventually ruin Earth as a fit place for human habitation.
Changing from an unsustainable world economy {the one constructed as a perpetual motion machine and managed as a pyramid scheme} to a sustainable one has got to be made the goal, does it not?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
Watching the commercial the soleits people run you don’t know what they are up to, but go to their site and be forced to agree with them or go away. I went away! No place for a second opinion there. They are absolutely right! World economies are under the danger of collapse because the price of energy is so high. It is so high because the environmentalists have stopped every project that might have helped us get away from foreign oil. Build more electrical power plants using American coal? No way!, Drill for oil here in America? No way. Build nuclear plants? No way! Use an infinite number of solar cells to make huge a milliwatt array to supplement firefly lights? Right on. With loons like this controlling our press and government, what kind of future do we have? Pretty dismal.