Lord knows we have tried, Al Gore has tried, so may have tried to sell climate change as the big issue of the day. Unfortunately, poll after poll now shows that the price and availability of fuel has taken over. Peak Oil, Peak Food, Peak Everything are immediate concerns, while the climate crisis is sometime in the future. So how do we convey a message to people who care more about other things? Who are we talking to out there?
The new Alfred E Neumans
It is the boomer mantra- What, Me Worry? We might as well drill, drill, drill every inch of the continental shelf and the Arctic because the real effects will happen after we are gone, and in the meantime we won't need to look for our sweaters. We are what Joe Romm calls Climate Delayers, waiting for the "real science" to be settled, by which time we will have filled up our Escalades and died.
The New Narcissists
It's all about me. If gas is expensive I will complain about it and demand cheaper gas. If the roads are clogged I will demand transit- to clear the roads so that I can drive. If my monster house is too expensive to heat and nobody wants it, I want subsidies and my mortgage recalibrated. None of this was my fault, and the American way of life is non-negotiable.
The New Apocalypsians
The end of the world is actually a GOOD thing, and the Middle East is a big part of it. So let's just keep driving, pray that Saudi Arabia pumps more gas, and hope that this brings us to a dramatic rapturous conclusion.
The New Survivalists
Time to find our little piece of real estate, stake out the territory, grow our own vegetables and oil our gun. According to the New York Times, "People should "assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food," It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down." Just make sure that your land won't get flooded out or turn to desert. And that you have a high-speed internet connection.
The New Frugalists
They compete to see who can re-patch their underthings and wear them the longest. To use less of everything. Role models are the WW2 British stalwarts with their victory gardens; Elizabeth Renzetti writes in the Globe and Mail: "It's easy to see why wartime thrift is enjoying such a vogue: It's virtuous, it's green, and you're going to lose weight eating soup made from parsnips that you pulled from your victory garden. There's a great appeal to Keira Knightley's Atonement wardrobe of skinny evening gowns and noble nurse's uniforms."
The New Jacobins
Its pointless to change your lightbulb or stop using plastic bags, they are irrelevant and won't make any difference. "Spending too much energy on relatively marginal changes "is a diversion from greater acceptance of the need for more radical environmental change in our democracies." We have to man the barricades and start a revolution. Except revolution is messy and dangerous, so we will build a website instead.
The New Rationalists
We can go on (and did) about McMansions and SUVs and even compact fluorescents, but when electricity costs double and fuel hits four bucks a gallon, the market quickly does what four years of green whining couldn't. The New Rationalists are not moved by pictures of stranded polar bears or concerned about climate change, but know when it's time to ride a bike, get a smaller place closer to work, install a solar panel and insulate the attic. They are not going green to get rich as David Bach suggests, they are going green to survive.
The New Hippies
As we noted in our review of Alastair Gordon's Spaced Out, Past is prologue; Once again people are growing their own food, practicing voluntary simplicity, thinking about how to build with recycled materials, setting up modern versions of communes. Except instead of growing marijuana, they are making cheese.
Follow Lloyd Alter on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lloydalter
Loading comments… 
http://nob
There's what 'the father of the green revolution
Want a field guide, Mr. Alter? But why? When die-off starts, and the bodies are stacked like cordwood, and the cities are uninhabita
Global oil production is now declining, from 85 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. At the same time demand will increase 14%. This is like a 45% drop in 7 years. No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastroph
We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenanc
This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded
Back in the seventies the vast majority of the population had no interest in conservati
So that's the ticket? everyone has gotten their very own GROUP? I guess that means I have to add one....
CLUB OF ROME GROUP
They wrote 'The Limits to Growth' back in the '70s and everyone told them they were crazy. OVERPOPULA
Every 'environme
Every Family in America could do this:
if they have no kids they can have 2 cars
one kid one car
2 or more kids no car.
See there are solutions. It's just that no one has the guts to actually tell you what they are, except of course for me, because I don't count :-)
Oh, and by the way, America is still a democratic republic with a constituti
I have nothing against those people who work for a cleaner environmen
sweet
there is no population problem?
then why stabilize?
why use contracept
why not just let the third world continue to grow like mad?
you know Mexico's population in 1910
when the revolution started was aout 12 or 15 million
about the same as it was during the conquest (10 million)
now it's about 100 million
think mexico needs more people do ya?
i don't
my father came from mexico (1950s) and so did my mother's family (1914)
trust me, mexico was a better place 50 years ago
if you like growth so much, wait until the U.S. looks like china or india and lets see if you're still so fond of growth
green revolution exists because of fossil fuel (natural gas fertilizer
remove fossil fuels and the green revolution goes
if we truely put poeple first, would the third world be so poor (please don't call it the developing world -- it will never develop)
ever hear fo the words depletion?
or Peak Oil?
sustainabi
the problem with this world is ignorance, and stupidity
we waste too much time trying to educate the lame and
not enough time trying to manage the transition
Government should start a crash program to develop and build new alternativ
Solar and wind are pretty much limited in potential and are highly land inefficien
A gradual weaning off of fossil fuels should be begun now,while they are still relatively abundant, in a manner that does not make for economic disaster and its concomitan
Instead of passively expecting the worst, government
This may sound like a pipe dream, but what is the alternativ
Except that it has already been tried and failed. Failed at least in the sense that the only way it is even marginally viable is to provide massive government
As for solar energy, which you so blithely dismiss, we could spend a few thousand dollars and have some electricit
And we wouldn't be looking around for some place to stash our red hot garbage for the next 250,000 years or so.