Big bad bogeyman
Lester BROWN --FROM GRIST Is it frustrating to you that people seem to need human enemies, human bogeymen?
To a very substantial degree that's a cultivated anxiety. It doesn't exist in Europe, or elsewhere, the way it does here. They're concerned, but they're not preoccupied with it. And if I had to make a list of the top 10 threats to our future in the world, terrorism would be on the list, but it would be in the lower part of the list.
All this leads me to sense that we're moving toward one of those thresholds that are hard to define, at least until you cross them. Among the manifestations are the 100 mayors -- maybe more than that now -- who've signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. This is a grassroots political revolution.
I don't think we realize yet what Katrina is. Most of us had assumed the first climate refugees would be from Tuvalu and the Maldive Islands. But it's the U.S. Gulf Coast. There are a few hundred thousand environmental refugees there -- climate refugees.
One of the lessons of Katrina is how grossly unprepared we were for something that could easily be worse next time, or happen two places simultaneously next time.
The interesting thing about this current administration is they don't seem to be interested in governing, in trying to make things work. FEMA's a classic case, symbolic of this entire government.
To a very substantial degree that's a cultivated anxiety. It doesn't exist in Europe, or elsewhere, the way it does here. They're concerned, but they're not preoccupied with it. And if I had to make a list of the top 10 threats to our future in the world, terrorism would be on the list, but it would be in the lower part of the list.
All this leads me to sense that we're moving toward one of those thresholds that are hard to define, at least until you cross them. Among the manifestations are the 100 mayors -- maybe more than that now -- who've signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. This is a grassroots political revolution.
I don't think we realize yet what Katrina is. Most of us had assumed the first climate refugees would be from Tuvalu and the Maldive Islands. But it's the U.S. Gulf Coast. There are a few hundred thousand environmental refugees there -- climate refugees.
One of the lessons of Katrina is how grossly unprepared we were for something that could easily be worse next time, or happen two places simultaneously next time.
The interesting thing about this current administration is they don't seem to be interested in governing, in trying to make things work. FEMA's a classic case, symbolic of this entire government.
posted by Malleebull at 5:55 PM
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