[onlooker]

Well, let us Cassandras of doom now commemorate this Earth day by leaving here some hopes for what humanity realistically at this late stage can still do to prevent further harming of Earth and its life support systems. I hope, humanity will forsake the consumerism creed, I hope all people especially young people will in mass make it their sworn duty to be good stewards of the Earth, I hope our leaders stop giving lip service to the environment and bring into policy and law what actions they can to prevent further harming. So this is my hope for this Earth day. What about yours?

[Hawkcreek]

I hope the world comes to realize that real global change will only come from individual actions.

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

[GHung]

I hope for world economic collapse so horrible, sudden, and dramatic that humans will be back to the dark ages, unable to damage their biosphere at such extreme levels. The big reset. I hope we learn our lesson in a way that it gets burned into our collective memory at a cellular level. I hope whatever groups of humans remain "does the tell' every night, and 'members. I believe that's the only hope humanity and other Earthlings have. Anything else is bargaining.

This you knows. The years travel fast.
And time after time
I've done the Tell.
But this ain 't one body's Tell.
It's the Tell of us all.
And you got to listen it and 'member.
'Cause what you hears today,
you got to tell the newborn tomorrow.
I's looking behind us now,
into history back.
I sees those of us that got the luck
and started the haul for home.
It lead us here and we was heartful
'cause we seen what there once was.
One look, and we knewed
we'd got it straight.
Those what had gone before had knowing
of things beyond our reckoning. . .
. . .even beyond our dreaming

Time counts and keeps counting.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1KZvzXpKI

[onlooker]

GHung, thanks for being so honest. We need more humans who are honest with each other and especially within themselves.

[Hawkcreek]

Do not expect simple personal/family actions to mean much at all. It has failed.

I disagree. How can it have failed if it has just barely even gotten started?
Most people have never even considered that their actions can make a difference. Instead, they are constantly being told that they can do nothing unless they have a massive organization behind them.
I realize that most people already have this mindset, and individual actions probably won't be enough to stave off the final disaster, but Gandhi's attitude can't possibly hurt more then the existing hopeless attitude that most people have today.
Anyway, I consider the possibility of individual actions helping, to be orders of magnitude greater than the possibility of any governmental action or edict helping the situation.
Neither has a high probability of saving civilization, but in my view, a solution coming from big government, crony capitalism, or the uniting of all world citizens, has a probability of near zero.
So, if you have two chances of saving your life - slim and none - I'll stick with Slim.

[GHung]

GHung, thanks for being so honest. We need more humans who are honest with each other and especially within themselves.

Thanks onlooker. It doesn't make me particularly popular in my social circles. I went with my wife to her company's big end of tax season party this week. Hundreds of adults, many dressed up and playing Star Wars. To say I didn't fit in is an understatement, so I just sat there and smiled and nodded at folks. At some point, I grew nauseas. Was a shame since the food was pretty good. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry....



Anyway, the (much needed) rain stopped. Need to go do the chores and make the matzo ball soup. Earth day starts passover this year. Funny that. Shalom! (hmmm.... maybe if I smear some charcoal over my door...)

[Peak_Yeast]

Im on par with GHung - however, I hope for a etnospecific or genome specific biological war. This will rescue nature from the rampaging hordes of hungry killer apes and at the same time not touch anything else but THE PROBLEM.

But who knows - maybe nature will fix that disease all by itself - there is certainly signs that its going to happen by itself within some decades... Just sad it will be too late for a lot of higher lifeforms, but then - they will come back in new forms and we will be gone. All in all very positive developments from nature.

[ennui2]

I think the world is now entering into a 10-20 year deathbed conversion to AGW acceptance. I don't think we're there yet, but the process has begun where the denialists voices are slowly being marginalized as the train goes ahead and leaves the station without them.

There are some bellweathers here to indicate that this is taking place.

-The Pope (religious right concedes to science)
-The Rockefeller family (money interests concede to the financial risks of agw doom)
-China (conceding that AGW risks will eventually trump their desire to become the world's biggest superpower)

It all has to do with risk. Once those who thought they had the most to defend with BAU realize that if they win the battle they lose the war anyway, then they will throw in the towel.

It's a death-bed conversion, though. In other words, they aren't turning the corner until they feel the frog boiling in the pot, so it's pretty ominous.

[Rod_Cloutier]

It's not all bad. I saw a wonderful documentary about life on the sea coast of Norway. People living a peaceful, slower life.

https://youtu.be/B25DbSNoyRs?t=55s

After the global economy collapses, I fully expect the worst of the go, go, go rat race to disappear. It will be followed by a slower pace of life. Slow money, more time, more time outdoors obtaining what we need from nature. It could be good to slow things down quite a bit?

[snoopdog]

According to data from the Pew Research Center, organized and prettified by FiveThirtyEight’s DataLab, nonwhite Americans are significantly more likely than whites to think global warming should be a top priority for the U.S. government. The gap is now over 20 percent.

http://grist.org/article/americans-of-c ... n-climate/

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the- ... l-warming/

[Subjectivist]

Poor people are more adversely impacted by existential threats like like global warming or unrestrained immigration.

[onlooker]

Plus poor people are less inundated by propaganda and misleading information. And they are probably less willing to believe what "official" sources tell them.