You make it sound as if its a good thing that people have faith in, and follow, someone who offers no solution whtasoever to their problems, simply becuase the message is too hard to swallow. Got to give you this: At least that paints Gore for what he truly is: A snakeoil salesman, as is Flannery.

In the meantime, though, any chance of finding something that could work recedes ever further into the distance, since these nutcases take up all the media space.. And that is not exactly an innocent little feat. Think they don't know that?

I certainly share the skepticism about Al Gore and other MSM mavens. Even our own local Arctic-explorer hero in MN is indebted to biofuels folks for underwriting some of his work, and so shills for them.

Here's the Will Steger Foundation website:

http://www.globalwarming101.com/

Every writer, lecturer, and media persona has flaws and strengths. Yes, our media and culture is a strong filter which shuts down messages which oppose the dominant forces and premises of our culture.

The problem is essentially about bondage of the imagination. Walter Breuggemann wrote"The Prophetic Imagination" which does an admirable job of breaking down the ways in which cultures can be blind to their own oppressiveness or brutality, how radical prophetic critique from figures such as Moses, Micah, Jesus -- and Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others can bring about change only with great difficulty.

When we are comfortable, we do not want the boat rocked. When we are not comfortable, we can be manipulated to support the status quo even when that works against us. Fear and anger can be channeled for the benefit of those who maintain the status quo. The seduction of promised or immediate rewards helps as well.

It is pretty hard for people to step outside of our immediate experiences and analyze the way things are, and then to work from that basis. Especially when our culture makes doing that "swimming upstream."

So, yes, I am often disappointed by what Main Stream representation of PO and GW are out there, but not surprised.

Hope may be scarcer than oil in a few years and I am trying to pre-position myself for that.

Recent runs at the Millennium Institute give me greater hope and certitude. I am unsure if they want to wait till their Wednesday 1.5 hours at Houston-ASPO to release the exact #s BUT "Electrification of Transportation" certainly minimizes the post-Peak Oil pain :-)

Best Hopes for avoiding immobilizing Despair,

Alan

I think a more precise way of putting it, as if it really makes any difference, is that "you can only sell positive things to people."

People like to hear negative news as well. Our current catastrophe and fear driven media is a testament to this.

However, it is very difficult as such, to _sell_ things like reduction of consumption, powerdown, hardship and a not so positive future outlook.

People might listen to that, they might even emotionally respond for a while, but you can't _sell_ it to them in the sense that they want to start preparing for it and carrying it out.

And why would they? Nobody wants to works towards a less positive future outlook (that's how they see it).

The easier way out is just to discard the even more negative alternative. Problem solved!

This way one doesn't have to look at the data and to really think hard through all the ramifications.

Just believe, damn the data.

And sometimes, funnily enough, it actually works. Even if only for a while.