The coming environmental collapse?
Filed in archive Sustainable Development on October 23, 2006
Via Gristmill, an essay by Bill McKibben, much of it about James Lovelock, that will appear next month in the New York Review of Books:
The technology we need most badly is the technology of community -- the knowledge about how to cooperate to get things done. Our sense of community is in disrepair at least in part because the prosperity that flowed from cheap fossil fuel has allowed us all to become extremely individualized, even hyperindividualized, in ways that, as we only now begin to understand, represent a truly Faustian bargain. We Americans haven't needed our neighbors for anything important, and hence neighborliness -- local solidarity -- has disappeared. Our problem now is that there is no way forward, at least if we're serious about preventing the worst ecological nightmares, that doesn't involve working together politically to make changes deep enough and rapid enough to matter. A carbon tax would be a very good place to start.
The technology we need most badly is the technology of community -- the knowledge about how to cooperate to get things done. Our sense of community is in disrepair at least in part because the prosperity that flowed from cheap fossil fuel has allowed us all to become extremely individualized, even hyperindividualized, in ways that, as we only now begin to understand, represent a truly Faustian bargain. We Americans haven't needed our neighbors for anything important, and hence neighborliness -- local solidarity -- has disappeared. Our problem now is that there is no way forward, at least if we're serious about preventing the worst ecological nightmares, that doesn't involve working together politically to make changes deep enough and rapid enough to matter. A carbon tax would be a very good place to start.
Permalink: The coming environmental collapse?
Tags: Bill McKibben social development enterprise social+enterprise environmental+collapse coming+environm
Vote for The coming environmental collapse?:
|
Rating: 6.50 out of 2 vote(s) cast.
|
| RSS |  |
 | |
| Yahoo! |
|
| Addthis |
|
| Bloglines |
|
| Follow us on Twitter! |
Most Popular
Audeamus Elsewhere
Best of
Books and Tools
CSR
Ethics in Question
General
Global Philanthropy
Go Green
Information about
Int'l Development
Microfinance
News
Personal
Quick Introduction
Social Enterprise
Social Entrepreneurs
Social Venture Videos
Sustainable Development