One of their main proposals is that the US government spend 30 billion a year for 10 years funding research into clean, renewable energy, something they say often meets with hostility from enviros (while everyone else thinks it's a great idea.)
Fuel cell trains <http://polizeros.com/2007/11/12/fuel-cell-trains/> that run on waste hydrogen are becoming a reality and are a perfect example of how technology can provide solutions.
As you mention, they also say we need to make the whole thing attractive, make people want to do it, rather than scaring them and being gloomy, sort of opposite of the view James Kunstler<http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/>takes (whose writing I also appreciate.)
I was involved in Viridian Design <http://viridiandesign.org> since it started in the 90's. It was a net-based listserv started by sf author Bruce Sterling as an early warning about global warming. He disbanded it this year after global warming went mainstream, saying, we won, now it's going to be a job that will require massive amounts of money and technological chops to solve. It also needs to be worldwide. If somehow the US bans new coal plants and China builds 300 of them, well, things will be worse not better.
Their website is at Breakthrough <http://www.thebreakthrough.org/>.
On Nov 17, 2007 7:31 AM, <bitch at pulpculture.org> wrote:
> These guys sound like they should be on your show, Doug. anyone pay
> attention to them? Nordhaus was just on Morning Edition and spoke about
> the
> negativism and fear generated by current environmental politics and also
> argued that we aren't going to deprive ourselves to a solution. I don't
> know how much they go into it in the book, but the angle on a politics of
> possibility, rather than negative imagery, sounded intriguing. Their lit
> review section might be worth the trip to the library at any rate.
>
> Break Through: The Death of Environmentalism and the Politics of
> Possibility
> by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger
>
> didn't find a website on the first 10 hits.
>
>
> oh and speaking of which, what about Ehrenreich's new book? I read the
> review in the NYRB. It's about the role played by dance and what the
> sociologists call "collective effervescence" in politics. Anyone up for a
> group read of that book or, as I proposed under another nome de plume, a
> read of Hofstadter's work?
>
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Streets-History-Collective-Joy/dp/0805057234/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195302754&sr=1-3
>
>
>
> "You know how it is, come for the animal porn,
> stay for the cultural analysis." -- Michael Berube
>
> Bitch | Lab
> http://blog.pulpculture.org (NSFW)
>
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>
-- Bob Morris