Sunday, August 31, 2014

IF ONLY!





For the book, see HERE.

From D.J. Rivenburgh's review of the book:

Jonathon Porritt's fascinating book takes us on a journey looking back from the year 2050 to paint vivid images of what we got right, what we missed and how different life can (and will) be in the future. "The World We Made" is written as if from the perspective of 50 year old Alex McKay, a community college history teacher describing the changes he's seen in the world over the previous 30 plus years. (McKay would be in middle school today.) Far from science fiction, this book tells of innovations, experiences, successes and failures built on systems, discoveries and power structures in existence today. Images throughout the book help us visualize possibilities. The interconnectedness of global economic, environmental, social, religious and political forces cannot be denied.

One of my favorite parts was reading about the 2018 Enough! movement, where young people throughout the world rise up to rebel against high unemployment, climate-induced disasters, war, poverty and the growing wealth gap to demand change and create "A Manifesto for Tomorrow." There isn't a country or industry left untouched by the future. This book should be read by executives, teachers, students, advocates, community leaders and politicians.

While some might be quick to label this book in a "green" category, I see it as being highly useful for business, governments, education and leaders in all sectors. Porritt's examples, made personal through a college professor's story, explore banking, agriculture, water, energy, wellbeing, health, education, democracy, capitalism, religion, population growth, innovation, communities and more.
(About Jonathon Porritt)
Also HERE.

11 comments:

mike said...

Well, Alex McKay was very resourceful and productive with the ashes and toxic gasses.

Twilight said...

mike ~ Not following you - sarcasm? There isn't any detail in the little video, which I guess is really an advert and taster for the book. I've now added more detail. At least the thoughts put into minds from the video lift the doom and gloom we're under, if only for a moment or two.

mike (again) said...

LOL...yes, only the video was posted when I first tuned-in. Now that I've read your post, I see where you're going with this. It's said that visualizing the desired result is paramount to creating the result, so perhaps this book will assist the effort. I certainly haven't read the book, so I have no basis for commenting specifically about it.

We always differ as to HOW the future needs to adjust. You want government and corporations to modify their methods...I believe that the average citizen has the burden of power to change their ways, eg personally implement major conservation, purchase earth-friendly products and only solicit businesses that support the planet; become active in local, state, and federal government.

The dollar always gets in the way with your perspective or mine. The long-term evaluation of our current path is that it will require major dollars to correct and, therefore, it's cheaper in the long-run to inconvenience ourselves now. Government, corporations, and individuals are all feeling impoverished right now and not wanting to invest the dollars to save our future. Greed and profit considerations are ubiquitous to all factions. We've had our "Walmart" discussions in previous posts...LOL.

It's speculative to discern the climate-change tipping point. I think we've gone over the edge already and it may be futile to even believe that we can correct our errors. Wisdom would provide that we immediately correct what we can, but I see minimal indication, complicated by denial of the beast's existence. Sadly, there are too many trade-offs that we aren't willing to sacrifice in the name of comfort, cost, or convenience.

The Saturn-Pluto, grim-reaper moment awaits us all...January 13, 2020.

Twilight said...

mike ~ I haven't read the book either. My post title indicates my thoughts - a massive "IF ONLY!" - which isn't really very helpful, and probably a sign of my Cancerian ascendant leaking through.

The video gives us an idea what could have been, and perhaps a tiny part of it still could be for a few, though certainly not for all, in the fairly distant future.

Yes, you and I come at the problem from different angles. As I read your comment I glanced to the right - to the quote from a poem by Robert Frost in the sidebar, its last two lines and I smiled:

It rains into the sea
And still the sea is salt.


That kind of describes, for me, what difference our individual choices, however sincerely made, can make to what is. That's not to say being even more profligate than some of us already are isn't wrong. It is.
Cutting back is good for many reasons, but done individually it'll solve nothing of climate change IMO.

Let's not say it's probably too late. Let's just say it's probably too late for some. I do think a small proportion of humanity will survive. Let's hope that they'll carry forward the memory of what happened, and act accordingly in the far future.

mike (again) said...

I think that we would both agree that it will take an individual-collective effort along the lines of Rivenburgh's comment, "One of my favorite parts was reading about the 2018 Enough! movement, where young people throughout the world rise up to rebel against...".

A 1:40 minute segment of "Network":
https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=im+mad+as+hell+and+im+not+gonna+take+it+anymore&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35

Twilight said...

mike ~ Oh yes indeedy, we can agree on that! The paragraph of the review, about the 2018 "Enough" movement struck me at once as most important too. I almost highlighted it in fact. :-)

I love Peter Finch's rant in the link - one of my favourite video clips of all time!

Twilight said...

mike ~ Have watched the Dorothea Lange PBS show - excellent! I've passed a link to it to anyjazz, who should enjoy it too, being keen on photography himself.

Unusual lady - driven and vastly talented. She had two super husbands too - I admired 'em both, for different reasons. I'll look into doing a post on Maynard Dixon on Friday.

mike (again) said...

Lange was a contrast of adjectives: sturdy, simple, and basic, performed with an elegant and refined demeanor. She has a power-chart, so it's no surprise she is the subject of an American Masters' episode. Interesting to me was her role as a mother...her Gemini planets overpowered the Cancer planets...LOL. A number of her planets in Gemini and Cancer fall on planetary nodes ( http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000452.html ). I'm looking forward to your post on Dixon!


----
On one of the internet "news" sites this evening, there are three headlines. The first is regarding China's election intervention in Hong Kong, which isn't going over well. The third is Kerry's comment about a USA coalition against the Islamic "cancer". Sandwiched between these two headlines is: "New Leaked iPhone 6 Photos!". It would make for an interesting study to tally the hits for each headline.

Twilight said...

mike (again) ~ Lange's mothering skills were a bit sparse. As you say, Gemini planets beat Cancer planets in her case.

To be honest, although I love her photographs, I didn't warm to her, personally, on that showing. Odd, because I do usually like Gemini-types. We watched the film again tonight, and on the TV screen. Anyjazz bought a Roku thingie a few weeks ago, in preparation for our dumping of cable (still pending). I'm not sure exactly what Roku does apart from making films and programmes from Netflix, Amazon etc. available if one pays dues for that kind of thing. There are various free channels available via Roku though. On investigation we found PBS American Masters programmes - some of them - available and the Dorothea Lange prog. was one - so we watched it together. I enjoyed it as much 2nd time round as first viewing.

.......................

China/Hong Kong could get nasty! It's all Maggie Thatcher's fault for giving HK back to China. ;-)

Kerry and Islam - groan!!!! don't they ever learn?

I know nothing about i-phone 6 or 5 or 4 or 3 or 2 or 1. :-)

mike (again) said...

Ooooooh...Roku! I'm envious. A Netflix and Hulu account will give you everything and more, at a very reasonable price...less than $20/month for both. You can view youtube and Vevo...an infinite quantity of music and video for free. Lots of free channels from around the globe. I think BBC is a free channel...you'll be able to watch the re-run of season 2 of "The Paradise" and all of their new programs that I've heard about.

I think you and I have discussed the national differences in the "news". When I was in Europe, the topics were presented distinctly more objectively than when I left the states.

Local programming is available by switching to your TV's built-in antenna for air-wave reception.

Twilight said...

mike ~ We haven't found a lot on Roku free channels that satisfy us both - anyjazz likes repeats of Seinfield - and other old shows, most of which I don't like at all, so he watches with ear-buds while I compute. We found a series of some good stand-up comedy from a Canadian annual festival of some kind. But really we're still experimenting with Roku before paying Netflix or others for movies and shows...most of which will cost extra anyway. I'm not too thrilled about paying again for movies after paying a monthly or annual subscription. I can go to Family video and get 2 DVDs for a dollar, keep 'em 5 nights - which is a better deal (until we exhaust their supply).

I'm sure we'll eventually get into some kind of a groove with Roku. It does seem to be the coming thing.

We waited to dump cable because our provider promised a parcel of new channels (implying it'd be for same price) including BBC America - we now find that it'll cost extra to have most of them including BBC.
So dumping cable is imminent again.
Darn cable!