I’m a primary school teacher writing to you from Luxembourg (unfortunately one of the worst per capita climate polluters in the world), and i totally share your feelings about nature and your goals for a greener society. I’m happy and thankful that talented and devoted people like you invest their resources in the promotion of holistic action for the benefit of our precious and irreplaceable planet. But i also have two tricky questions concerning the general stance of ecologically oriented groups:

1) On the one hand these groups favour systemic thinking, but on the other they often seem to ignore the systemic, incredibly complex nature of the Earth’s biosphere (as postulated by the Gaia hypothesis and other creative scientific interpretations). We cannot know, at this time, how the planet as a whole is going to react and adapt to the threat posed to its stability by greenhouse gases. I therefore think it is irresponsible to spread panic and irrational behaviour in the context of climate change, especially with respect to the Copenhagen summit (as if one meeting decided forever on the fate of the world). Am i wrong?
[The Greenius: Yes Georges, you are wrong. You do not grasp where we are in the timeline. We needed to start taking drastic action 12 months ago. I'm afraid it's you people who are afraid of telling people the cold, hard truth who are hurting us most. I believe it is irresponsible in the face of what's happening to urge more caution and kid gloves. It's time for a slap in the face and a kick in the ass. We've tried your method of motivating people. It doesn't work and it dooms us.]

2) I wonder if it’s wise to support the notion that concerning the philosophy of life there are just two monolithic blocks: the good altruistic green guys caring about the future and the bad selfish profit makers (‘evil empire’). Again, reality is presumably more complex. Even the managers of the carbon-based economy have families and think about the future; [Greenius: I have seen very little evidence of this] many of them are probably open to new ideas concerning healthy investment, and some of them are already adapting their activities to the needs of a holistic economy. Those people should be sought out and encouraged, shouldn’t they?
[Greenius: How much longer will you allow the coal and oil industry workers to put their own paycheck against the health and well being of the rest of us? Should I be equally worried about the fate of mercenaries who want to drive trucks in Iraq for a big payday too? These greenhouse gas spewing industries and their workers have known for decades how lethal the impacts of their products are. They have never cared. They have ALREADY sold out their families for money. You can seek them out and encourage them if you want. I would rather put them out of work and force them to stop killing people. You just don't understand the stakes or the sense of urgency necessary here in 2009 Georges. We have already used up the time you want to spend worrying about the wrong people.

You seem like a nice person, but nice people will not save us. Until people like you wake up and recognize the reality of the situation we're in, then you're just wasting our time with words when you should be out in the streets doing something that will reverse the course we're speeding down.]

Dear Joe, i wish you all the best with your incredibly important work, and i hope that many other gifted human beings will be inspired by what you do and follow suit.

Georges

[Greenius: If only wishes could save us now, Georges. But we need to be working full time now, not wishing on a star. 20 years from now the primary kids you're currently teaching will not accept that when you had your last best chance to do the right thing - you were urging caution.

We do not need another Neville Chamberlain we need a Winston Churchill and we need him today.]

What we need is what the only candidate for President that I know of that ever talked about this, former Gov. Jerry Brown of CA, now CA Atty. General:

To Retrofit America or a Retrofit America Program!

Houses, Buildings and Hotels, that should be demolished or re-done!

We haven’t really ever had program as such in this country!

Not just a Mimi Eisenhower Program, that destroys historical landmarks as we have seen with boondoggles here in the recent years,

Shutting down libraries and re-building them in places that are loud, etc. etc. putting money in politicans and developers pockets!

But programs that preserve historical landmarks by retrofitting them and hotels, etc.

Not just limited to Federal Buildings.

We have all kinds of decrepit buildings such as homes, old business buildings, apt. buildings and old hotels, that have needed to go down for years and years and even decades now, but have not because of real estate ventures that only involve the buyer of property to exploit.

Typical buyers do not put or invest money into these types of things. They merely get into them for fast profit and make terrible landlords as in slum lords.

Cities, Counties, and States, cannot afford to pay for to demolish buildings that have already way past depreciated in value, and thus bring down the value of the whole area.

Thus, making Malls the next target for another mega church!

Nothing wrong with churches but this is what is happening.

Unless cities, counties and states get major funds to develop plans that best suit the interests of the people in terms of cleaning up neigborhoods and re-building, America will continue to slowly crumble due to same old business as usual real estate rookies, etc.

It takes groups of investors to go in on business deals for organic food stores, etc. etc.

Not lone business people trying to get rich off of being terrible landlords who don’t want to invest in the best interest of the building or who can’t come up with new ideas.

They have no ideas!

So the continual trend leads to a crumbling America that not everyone can even see or realize.

These types of people don’t see the picture of what is happening.

We don’t have new apt. complexes because they are to busy buying up the old decrepit ones!

So it continues down this recycling destructive path!

That leads to a crumbling America within it’s cities.

Patrick S. Tanner
Owensboro, KY

From the Greenius:

Thanks Patrick, Appreciate you weighing in from the Bluegrass State of Kentucky.
Since the bulk of all buildings people use are those already existing and not brand new buildings, I am also a very big fan of retrofitting those buildings to be be more energy efficient in all the possible ways. We need to get our electric companies to decouple their profits from sheer kilowatt use alone or they will never encourage their customers to use less energy. Here in California we’ve done that and it’s been a tremendous success for many years now.

Greenius,
Well, sleeper, I’m afraid helping “magically” just isn’t going to cut it. But perhaps you’ve got some mojo I’ve not yet experienced… Wanting to help is good, but actually helping has that beat by miles. Thanks for checking in.

You’re a visionary; honest and skillful.

Hope you can help in this solar endeavor for Tribal Nations we spook about last Thursday at the South Bay Environmental Services Center event.
Nat

Greenius:
Thanks Nat. I’m currently in San Diego doing a solar install for GRID Alternatives on a Habitat for Humanity house here in El Cajon. But I look forward to talking to you about solar for the Tribal Nations upon my return.