Quote:
Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate
Like I said, it's a starting point. If people don't start somewhere then they never start. And then the whole thing is pointless. People don't go from not caring about the environment to Sierra Club members in a day. This serves as an on-ramp, to get people involved.
While I may have foregone a vehicle in lieu of public transportation and pay a premium for Bullfrog Power, you are right that many would not do those things. But you can't start to cultivate that desire for change by dismissing all attempts to get people involved.
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But "getting involved" solves nothing and in my opinion only serves to entrench our overconsumption because it fools people into thinking that they are contributing to a solution in a meaningful way. If people really wanted to cut consumption, they would elect a government that would jack the price of non-renewable energy way up (i.e. double or triple), giving the market and people the incentive they need to make real change.
Ignoring the effect this would have on our disposable incomes or whole sectors of the economy, the amount of bitching you hear when the price of gas goes up by 8 cents before the May long weekend tells me that people aren't ready to make a change.
I believe that the only thing that will force a change is when we run out of cheap energy (i.e. when we burn half of our remaining oil stocks in 10 years, 20 years or whenever that happens), and the price spikes naturally and the price change suggestion I made happens without people choosing it.