We Aren't Stupid

Be forwarned...I'm about to sound like a cheesey Coke commercial.

When I read blogs and articles and posts and comments about Peak Oil/Global Warming/Climate Change/The Economy I find a common theme that I find seriously disturbing. The main idea from the author seems to be, a lot of the time: "I can see how screwed we are, but the rest of the world is too stupid/selfish/retarded to stop consuming/driving SUVs/buying houses they can't afford/emitting carbon to care."

It's a very holier than thou position that I, as Peak Oil/Climate Change aware as I am, find so off putting that I have to remind myself to look for the actual message the author is trying to get across. My one real pet peeve (shut up, Kevin) is pretension and this is pretension at it's worst.

It's ridiculous to say that people can't stop consuming. There is so much conflicting information out there, and the whole message is so fucking scary, that it isn't any wonder that some people stick their fingers in their ear and scream "charge it!" whilst flinging cheap Chinese plastic goods into their cart at Wal-Mart.

No one in power has sat us down and said, "Our energy source is about to get scarce, and we're heating up the world with our consumption. We have to make a change. It has to be done now. Technology won't get us out of this one. Here's what we can all do to get through this and adapt to a new America."

Until that happens, it isn't any wonder that so many of us are blindly living like nothing has changed. As long as they can say, "why would they be building more SUVs if Global Warming was real?" or, "the president says we'll just run our cars on corn," the organization needed for mass change isn't there.

One huge step in the right direction, IMO, would be for the bloggers and journalists and commenters to bloggers and journalists, to stop telling us that, while they're willing to make the sacrifice, the rest of us are too stupid or lazy or greedy to do anything different from what we're doing now. We here that enough, and it starts to feel like the truth. Then the people who might have changed can't figure out how to do it, because they honestly believe everyone else is too lazy/stupid/greedy to do it, too. And how much damage could their little SUV really be causing, in the face of so much mass idiocy?

If all the people who get it, who understand and believe, would put their energy into believing that the people around them care as much as they do (or would, given the chance and understanding) the shift would be amazing.

We are reaching a tipping point on several fronts. It's time to really start believing that it's possible to weather the changes, and learn to live a different way.