"The Climate Swerve"

[applegrove]

The Climate Swerve

By ROBERT JAY LIFTON at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/opinion/sunday/the-climate-swerve.html?referrer=&_r=0

"SNIP.............................



AMERICANS appear to be undergoing a significant psychological shift in our relation to global warming. I call this shift a climate “swerve,” borrowing the term used recently by the Harvard humanities professor Stephen Greenblatt to describe a major historical change in consciousness that is neither predictable nor orderly.

The first thing to say about this swerve is that we are far from clear about just what it is and how it might work. But we can make some beginning observations which suggest, in Bob Dylan’s words, that “something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is.” Experience, economics and ethics are coalescing in new and important ways. Each can be examined as a continuation of my work comparing nuclear and climate threats.

The experiential part has to do with a drumbeat of climate-related disasters around the world, all actively reported by the news media: hurricanes and tornadoes, droughts and wildfires, extreme heat waves and equally extreme cold, rising sea levels and floods. Even when people have doubts about the causal relationship of global warming to these episodes, they cannot help being psychologically affected. Of great importance is the growing recognition that the danger encompasses the entire earth and its inhabitants. We are all vulnerable.

This sense of the climate threat is represented in public opinion polls and attitude studies. A recent Yale survey, for instance, concluded that “Americans’ certainty that the earth is warming has increased over the past three years,” and “those who think global warming is not happening have become substantially less sure of their position.”




...............................SNIP"

[G_j]

1. and it will only become clearer as time goes on

K&R

[NYC_SKP]

2. I fear that even if we all accept Anthropogenic climate change, we're too stubborn to change.

People, even progressives, at least in this culture, seem too addicted to their water and their energy and their consumer goods to adequately change their behaviors.

Too many of us think that our numbers can continue to grow, that all we have to do to fix the drought is build desalination plants, and that GMOs are necessary to feed people.

SMH, I worry that even if every single one of us did a 180 on our behaviors and attitudes that it will still be too late.

K/R for the discussion.

[applegrove]

3. Matt Damon did the ALS ice water plunge with toilet water to highlight how

wasteful we are with water. And how our toilet water is cleaner than what many people on the planet get to drink. Got me thinking. One thing for sure, this generation of GOPers are going to have to answer for all their bread and circus to hide the climate change issue. People were activated by Al Gore. Then the right shut it down. I hope it sticks this time.

[NYC_SKP]

5. I hadn't heard about that, we need more leaders like Matt Damon to step up.

Not only do we use drinking water to flush toilets, we spray dog poop off sidewalks with it and wash our SUVs.



We use far more than our share of water, and I'd hate to think of how much we are indirectly responsible for using.

How Much Water Does it Take?

• 2,072 gallons to make four new tires
• 20 gallons of water per glass of beer
• 101 gallons of water to make one pound of wool or cotton
• 2,110 gallons of water for one pair of leather shoes
• 900 gallons of water for one pair of blue jeans
• 36 gallons of water per egg
• 60 gallons of water per serving of corn
• 18 gallons of water per apple
• 3 gallons of water per tomato
• 2.6 gallons of water per sheet of paper
• 37 gallons of water per cup of coffee
• 11 gallons of water per slice of bread
• 32 gallons of water per glass of wine
• 1,083 gallons of water for one cotton shirt
• 468 gallons of water per pound of chicken
• 616 gallons of water per 4 oz. hamburger
• 1,232 gallons of water per 8 oz. steak
• 39,090 gallons of water are used to manufacture a new car, including tires

How Much Water Do We use?

• Taking a bath or shower: average is 9-12 gallons per person
• Americans combined use each day for showers: more than 2.7 billion gallons of water
• Watering the lawn:180 gallons
• Washing dishes by machine: 13-19 gallons
• Washing clothes: 35-50 gallons
• Washing the car: 50 gallons
• Brushing your teeth: 2-5 gallons
• Cooking: 5-10 gallons
• Flushing the toilet (once): 4-7 gallons
• Leaking toilet (per day): 60 gallons

http://www.ocwd.com/ConservationEducation/WaterFacts.aspx

[stupidicus]

4. I've thought and argued for many years now

that climate change will be the end of the right as we curently know it.

It's obviously likely gonna require "socialistic" solutions they can't/won'tprovide in their current form/extremist state.