James Lovelock Says Live It Up: We've Got "20 years before it hits the fan"

If you & others " 'd rather enjoy a career of dispensing wise and bold solutions, not fight for the privilege to govern a state of emergency", why the "glad[ness] to see increasing use of the phrase "wartime" in a climate crisis context"? Please see my repeated taking to task this recourse to war analogies, on many grounds; eg at http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/3265, from which: "If English-speaking people can still only be largely motivated to great causes by warlike rhetoric, I truly think there is no hope for them in the end."

Grand green motivations must distance themselves from appeal to warlike matters, esp. of the past century. There are serious "parallels" to the period repeatedly appealed to, but not as most would have it. If the only intent is to draw attention to what is collectively possible on a large scale, that might seem benign enough. But aspirations via exploitation & despoilation similar to those of today ran as undercurrents in those wars, from financial manipulation to vicious jockeying for supremacy of resource access to mass sprawling deracination from connexion to the very basics of our sustenance that must form the basis of green understanding. It's like that reference in the GP Climate Plan criticized at http://www.green.ca/en/node/1873: "Yet also is there mention of Kennedy & the space program. This reference is in the same unfortunate boat as those about & around WWII. If, as some of us are inclined to believe, direct upper atmospheric harm has the gravest effect on climate, what sense could there be in such an appeal?!"

Don't inadvertently play into others' deeply ungreen & more immediate aspirations "to govern a state of emergency". Sweepingly "wise" solutions of greener varieties come in quiet form. You can call that "bold", but in politics of opposition language is sometimes almost everything, so close attention to rhetoric & symbolism is required.

"We have a common history around successfully responding to a world-shattering event: WWII (and WWI, but the former is far more recent and the evil clearer)."

The wars were long series of events; the suggested relative clarity is disputable, certainly from the viewpoints of participants & in consideration of the latter war being a continuation of the former; any "success" involved the most ungreen costs imaginable, from postwar reliance on destructive means stemming from then to actual poisoning by things like radioactive fallout. Where's the "success"? The collective wartime response in mass small actions of voluntary privation I understand is a sensible object of all this, but even that is most limited,. for no one was "doing without" without an eye to resuming more of the same thereafter, which they & we all did to the hilt, in terms of needless mass acquisition & consumption by dangerous earth-throttling means.

"Nothing else even comes close in our history."

You must have missed my remarks regarding a fortuitous bicentennial very salient to "our history": see the 2nd paragraph at the link above.

I do not see that we need "Victory Gardens" now, for as I noted above, this appeal implies a getting beyond them when we rather need a re-settling into a renewed connexion to such basics, the only victory needed being that over our own generally wayward history. "Massive and rapid retooling" seems fine, but this talk seems to risk slipping into implying ungreen centralism and overly industrial mindset. The "willingness to work for the common good" is very much to the green point, but esp. in a political & green context I rather think appeal to things like overcoming the slave trade are a much better fit.

The "wartime analogy applies here" and now already. It is going on all over the world, with cruel causes piggybacking on or masquerading behind juster ones. We need appeal via a reverse kind of rhetoric, not more assimilation to the same. I don't know how detailed or specific we can get just here, if it's useful I could go in discussion this way. But the main & general point is about language & symbolism & cultural lucidity. As one discerns how deeply wrongful the main currents of "our history" are, hard to discern because learning outside the mainstream must be sought, then discomfort of association should set in, and language more consonant with green ideals might flow.

"50' western cedar pole" --- if hydro pole must be had, would you prefer a concrete one, into creation of which you'd better figure destructive energy expenditure?; or cable burial, which might be encased in some other destructively created & enduring material? I do agree that something like war is being waged now, and forests are a casualty. The suggested tactic is to shift & slip away from such activity, rather than with cognate un-creativity confront in some kind of battle. The shift should question the premises requiring so many transmission lines, so hydro pole need not be had, and "50' western cedar" can stand not as a pole to horizontally transmit mostly entropically among humans, but receive as branched & foliate from on high & transfer to all.

So we like the analogy for what's going on, but the issue is the appropriateness of more of the same as prescription for Green inspiration. Do you like, say, the American (phony) "war on drugs"?

Tell me, Martin, why would it be inappropriate to decry war talk as inspiration & to demand clearer expression? War-talk is useful in some contexts, but our civilization has been through too much of that already. A Jewish holiday coincides today, Purim -- see the Book of Esther for older source material on such unfortunate use of trees. But take care to not misunderstand, because one traditional trope has it that that which you decry as Green is ongoing to this day and must be confronted or otherwise dealt with, at one time via war (see older Bible references to Amalek), later by turning things around back onto a world-oppressor (Purim story & trees), these days (for some 2000 rabbinic years) via learning good words for right action, which words for here & now I insist exclude war analogy.

Yours is just a wonderful way to not discuss the main contentious point, isn't it. My objection regards use of language, a concern of your own while suggesting focus on "public safety". Your method of defending your support of war-talk, how is it useful? You've suggested focus on "sustainability, precautionary principle and public safety". The first term I now counsel leaving mostly to others, lest it turn into meaningless pap (see eg http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/3053#comment-2275 near the end, http://www.partivert.ca/en/node/3076 ). The second I've spoken strongly in favour of as most useful as cultural offset (see at http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/2337 , esp. comment http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/2337#comment-1540 ). The third we can leave to another party, but I think it can be a useful trope, logically cohering with the second. You have legitimate concerns about language & presentation before a general public, I am rebutting some your self-confessed penchant for defence & military analogy. In return I do not think high-sticking is useful. I make a careful distinction between what's for mostly insider versus more general consumption. But both should include respect & responsibility in argument.

So the challenge, if you'd like to bother, is to "defend" yourself by means other than sarcasm. I've shared your primary concern regarding deforestation for decades. But I think that a "war" against the mechanically-minded warring on forests is misplaced rhetoric that risks playing into more mechanical-mindedness. And there seems to be no good reason to avoid in all venues recourse to any sources, including traditional religious, that can buttress good green cause. If American public discourse is woefully anti-intellectual, I understand also that Canadians tend to the non-intellectual; but that doesn't make the intellectual dispensible, just (tolerably) lonelier. Do discuss, no need to raise your stick in self-defence.