"Do you think the 'human game has begun to play itself out,' or do you believe we will avert the worst imaginable outcomes of climate change in the century ahead? If so, how? If not, why not?"

Me: We are at a crossroads right now, and i would like to have hope in humanity, but it is hard to see us all making the right choices.

Jahren: “I am hopeful because history teaches us that we are not alone. During centuries past, women and men railed helplessly against overwhelming forces that poisoned the wells, spoiled the crops, and robbed them of their loved ones.” (135)

Jahren: “We are troubled, we are imperfect, but we are many, and we are doomed only if we believe ourselves to be.” (136)

McKibben: “The human game is a team sport. If the anti government conservatives are right instead, and individuals are all that really matter, if “there is no such thing as society,” then we do not stand a chance. We won’t be able to mount a real common effort against climate change.” (242)

Attfield: “If too little is done, the next generation will have to undergo yet worse disruption and their successors worse still.” (119)

Me: People are too selfish to think about those who don't even exist yet, how can we expect them to make a change for something they don’t even acknowledge?

Attfield: “If we care about human well-being in the present, we can hardly be indifferent to that of our children and grand-children after our own life times, as if our deaths would obliterate the moral universe.” (29)

Attfield: “Even if it were ever possible to disregard future generations, climate change makes such disregard not merely imprudent but positively perverse.” (121)

Me: I see your point but our entire culture is centered around consuming, I just don’t see how we can recondition a whole world of people into consuming less. 

Jahren: “Despite the fact that we are working, eating. Driving, and consuming more than ever before, our increasing consumption of food and fuel over the last decade has not made us happier.” (133)

Jahren: “It's no use pretending that conserving resources isn't at direct odds with the industries that helped to write our Story of More and that increasing consumption over the last fifty years wasn’t tightly coupled to the pursuit of more profit, more income, more wealth.” (134)

Mckibben: And it is these industries and their leaders that will determine the fate of the planet unless we can stop them. “I don't think their rule will last forever, but as I've said they currently possess a savage leverage, perhaps power enough to end the human game.” (243)

Jahren: “We still have some control over our demise.” (126)

Jahren: “Each one of us must privately ask ourselves when and where we can consume less instead of more , for it is unlikely that business and industry will ever ask on our behalf.” (134)

Attfield: “The people capable of affecting future generations turn out to be most of those currently alive” (30)

Attfield: “Both sustainable development and ecological preservation depend on strong action, both individual and governmental, local and global, in matters of climate change.” (121)

Jahren: “The good news is that there is no reason to think that energy conservation will necessarily reduce our quality of life.” (132)

Jahren: “There's only one problem: driving less, eating less, buying less, making less, and doing less will not create new wealth.” (134)

Me: It seems like we all will have to make some sacrifices, some of us more than others. 

McKibben: “We’re the only creature who can decide not to do something we're capable of doing. That’s our superpower.” (254)

McKibben: “We can build our replacements in the form of ever smarter robots and we can try to keep ourselves alive as digitally preserved consciousness or we can accept with grace that each of us has a moment and a place.” (254)

Jahren: “We, the 20 percent of the globe that uses most of its resources, must begin to detox from this consumption, or things will never get better.” (135)

Me: How can you have so much faith in people when so many of us are motivated by greed. 

McKibben: “I do not know that we will make these choices. I rather suspect we won't- we are faltering now and the human game has indeed begun to play itself out.”

 Jahren: “Do not be seduced by lazy nihilism. It is precisely because no single solution will save us that everything we do matters.” (136)

Jahren: “I do believe that there is hope for us, and you are very welcome to take some and keep it for your own.” (135)

 

Sorry about page numbers i’ve been using pdfs to read $$

Semester points: 35