Friday May 18, 2007

Global warming is the new cold war

peakoil.com -> hamiltonspectator.com :

For many children and young adults, global warming is the atomic bomb of today. Fears of an environmental crisis are defining their generation in ways that the Depression, the Second World War, Vietnam and the Cold War's lingering war games etched souls in the 20th century.

Parents say they're searching for "productive" outlets for their eight-year-olds' obsessions with dying polar bears. Teachers say enrolment in high school and college environmental studies classes is doubling year after year. And psychologists say they're seeing an increasing number of young patients preoccupied by a climactic Armageddon.

The environment is becoming their galvanizing force: Thirty-seven years after the first Earth Day in the United States, the topic is more than an issue. It's personal. "For, like, the whole history of the environmental movement," begins David Bronstein, 19, a freshman at St. John's College in Annapolis, "we've been saying: 'Do it for your children. We have to protect the Earth for them.' But that argument has shifted. I'm fighting for MY future."

Gore is this generation's Bob Dylan; Truth is its Blowin' in the Wind. There was also last spring's effort by David Bronstein - before he graduated - to do 20-minute presentations on "the problem of global warming and how it's the challenge of our generation and what we need to do about it" to about 20 of Sherwood's government, English, social studies and philosophy classes. "This message about global warming is so powerful," Bronstein says. "It gives me hope for the human race because people are responsive to it." He compares enviro-fears to "any suffering in your life: The first step is denial, and then there's a sense of doom, and then you have to get up and shake it off and change something."

(2007-05-18 12:32:13 SGT) [Env] Permalink

Most popular blog postings on lowem.log :

1. Singapore MRT rail network length to double by 2020
2. 2010 Nissan Leaf electric car specifications : 107hp, 24KWh lithium-ion batteries, 100-mile range
3. Live spot gold price quotes chart on COMEX
4. 2010 Toyota Prius specifications released : 50 mpg, 1.8L, 134hp, Ni-MH, solar roof option
5. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2011 direct download link
6. Real-time live gold and silver price quotes chart on COMEX
7. Singapore electric vehicles : Government agencies EMA and LTA to study EV introduction
8. Book review : Shut Down by William Flynn

Featured articles on lowem.log :

1. Book review : Shut Down by William Flynn
2. Singapore electric cars testing starts with 9 electric vehicles
3. Honda, GS Yuasa JV to make lithium-ion batteries for 2010/2011 Honda Civic Hybrid
4. 2010 Honda Civic Hybrid preliminary specifications released
5. 2010 Honda CR-Z hybrid, 2010 Honda Fit/Jazz hybrid models confirmed
6. 2010 Toyota Prius specifications released : 50 mpg, 1.8L, 134hp, Ni-MH, solar roof option
7. NYMEX crude oil recovers from $32.40 low after 2.2 mbpd OPEC production cut announced
8. Singapore : Nuclear power not ruled out