Global warming is a problem that we can and will have to tackle in near future. The question is only what price we will pay when sustainability is finally achieved. As I see it, the key to tackling this problem will have to be a careful balance of knowledge, technology, and inspiration. We will need all three to solve this problem. Without technology we will be unable to act on our inspiration and knowledge. Without knowledge our technology and inspiration will have no guide. Without inspiration our knowledge and technology will have no goal or drive.
In his writings Thoreau offers us inspiration. By taking things to the extreme as he did at Walden pond he constructs an ideal of communion with nature which the reader might aspire to achieve. Thoreau was no environmentalist. He did not imagine a time when the ability to enjoy the kinds of experiences that he did would be undermined. As Bill McKibben argues, Thoreau is especially worth reading at this point in time because he was not preoccupied with notions of preservation and conservation. Many environmentalists messages today can be summarized as: Òyou have to give up your material things for the planet's sake.Ó Thoreau is telling us however: Òyou have to give up your material things for your own sake.Ó He argues that by appreciating the natural and wild parts of the world we can gain intellectual and spiritual values that are unattainable otherwise. This is a viewpoint that compels us to action in the present since the kinds of natural places that Thoreau experienced are disappearing rapidly. By contrast, if we only value the artificial things in life we will not be compelled to action until the natural systems that provide them for us eventually fail. Thoreau never imagined that human activities could cause global warming, but the kinds of lifestyle choices which he looked down for different reasons represent much of the contributions to it. Thus, the more people embrace Thoreau's world view, the further away from a global warming crisis we will be.
The agricultural technology section of Focus The Nation was educational but had serious flaws. The first two speakers obviously had important knowledge about the effect of global warming on agriculture but their solutions focused on response to the immediate effects without regard for long term issues. One wanted to institute a $7 tax to monitor pest migrations. The other wanted to divert a water source to avoid contact with a rising level of salt in waters near the coast. I was pleased that neither of the speakers gave a doom and gloom speech, but their complacency left me unsatisfied. I certainly would trust these individuals to help guide the state safely through next five years or so but they demonstrated a lack of interest in defining the kinds of actions we will need to take in order to ensure that the state's agriculture's needs are met in the next 10, 20, or 40 years. The third speaker, an organic farmer, provided very little technical information but his presence by itself put a spotlight on an important problem. It is from small organic farms like his that we can expect to see the use of the most sustainable farming practices and lowest use of the petroleum based products which contribute to global warming. At the same time, it is these farmers who are most vulnerable economically and to effects of global climate change on their crops.
I doubt that any number of uninspired speeches about global warming will reduce the overall momentum towards solutions. Everything ÒgreenÓ is hip these days. We have reached a point where all companies working in the environment have to at least appear committed to sustainability. Just yesterday I saw an TV advertisement for British Petroleum conveying the message that the company was doing what it could to decrease dependence on petroleum by re-labeling the companyÕs name to ÒBeyond Petroleum.Ó Given these trends it is only a matter of time before most experts with relevant knowledge will shift their focus from maintaining the status quo to defining a long-term sustainable path. Of course, the ideas of these experts will ultimately be limited by how well the average person comprehends them. Only an educated public can tell which companyÕs ÒgreenÓ image is genuine and which is a facade. Students of Cal Poly demonstrated a deficiency in this area at the end of the agricultural technology section of Focus the Nation when most of them left at the moment the question and answer section began, missing an opportunity to initiate a dialog between experts and the public. I suspect with age their curiosity about these issues will increase. For some it will be because of mounting fears about the future generated by flashy news programs. For others it may be due to experiencing first hand, as Thoreau did, the other kinds of resources that the natural world can provide -- those that fuel the mind and spirit rather than just the automobile, computer, and television.
Neils Nesse