wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Think for a moment of who our grandparents and great grandparents were, how they lived their lives, and the efforts and sacrifices that they made to make a better world for themselves and their descendents. We can think of them and imagine saying to them, “As a result of the good works and the sacrifices that you made, I have many good things and a comfortable standard of living”. Their “motto” might have been called “Duty before pleasure.”
Now, imagine the world that your grandchildren and great grandchildren might be living in.
• Grandchildren: 2022 – 2132 (14 to 124 years from now)
• Great-grandchildren: 2055 – 2165 (47 to 157 years from now)

Now:

• Write letter to your great grandchildren in which you write down specifically what, based on the best information science can offer, you know about what may happen to climate and the environment in the future and what changes (and sacrifices) you have made in your life to change the course and insure the sustainability of the biosphere.
• Will you be able to say, on this specific issue, that you placed duty before pleasure. Or, are you just going with the “greed and less se faire self interest is good, the engine of progress” crowd. You might still be a “good person” but not go the extra distance / put in the extra effort necessary to make the future what it needs to be.

100 YEARS IS NOT REALLY A VERY LONG TIME!!! THE FUTURE IS HAPPENING NOW!!

Brian, I wish you had not selected Andrew Revkin to comment on this issue. He is a well-known apologist for the Bush administration's foot-dragging approach to global warming policy. A much better choice would be climate scientist Joseph Romm, who writes the "Climate Progress" blog.

superf88
so USA consumers should demand USA corporations build green in china when planning on importing into the USA?

usa 25% of world energy use, 5% of population
do the math

This meeting is held in the last days of the Bush dark age, when we know for a fact that the outgoing administration has no serious intention of taking any action that does not produce high yields for the very largest conglomerates. Why, then, are we placing so much weight on the resulting agreement? The US is key to any global action, and we know that US policy will probably change very soon, at least to a measurable extent. It seems that the next meeting will be the one to watch.

if we build our factories in china, since they have no enforced environmental rules -- isn't it out of loyalty and self-interest that we would drag the regulation process? Let's not blame the countries which established "pollution-based economies" on our behalf.

Our US government has always been about Denial or Despair. It's either NOT been a problem and the minute it IS a problem, because of the growing economies of China, Russia, Brasil and India, there's nothing to be done about it.

What a crock.

Did anyone see the menus at the G8 summit? It's absurd.

Based on the BAU, it seems that the policymakers just DO NOT believe that the science is fact. What will it take for people to accept the science and its policy legislative implications?

2050 wow!

nyc will be under water by 2050!