It is fine with me to disagree. But I do agree with you that people change slowly, and I think that is the major flaw to making solutions happen. The thing is we can't expect sustainability if change is slow. Either population has to drop significantly, or we all need to use significantly less resources. The longer we wait to make a combination of those two things happen, the harder it will be to attain sustainability. I know that forcing population regulations is going to be almost impossible for a while, but it is very feasible for people to change to a lifestyle of using far less resources (& energy) now.
So to drive to an event which promotes consumerism and cars seems like a terrible idea to me. If we want change, sure we can change to alternatively powered vehicles, but it does very little to make a change that really matters. We are running out of time to become more sustainable, and the longer we wait the harder and it will be. We are beyond the point, I believe, where we can let people change slowly and expect a good outcome. What we need is to support things like the Ithaca Carshare program. The ability to reduce 15 personal vehicles for every carshare car is a huge change compared to going from a 25-30mpg car to a 50-100mpge car. Even that may not be enough, but if 50% of people actually ditched their current cars and were involved in a carsharing program, than we would actually see change happening on a level that matters. And that is exactly why I applied to be a carshare member and am planning a lifestyle that doesn't require me to own a car ever again. Andy Goodell _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
