[Dialogue] The People We Have Been Waiting For

[Charles or Doris Hahn]

Thanks for posting this, Cynthia. It's heartening and
scary. Doris Hahn


--- FacilitationFla at aol.com wrote:

>  
> The People We Have Been Waiting For   
> By _THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN_ 
>
(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
>  
> Published: December 2,  2007 
> It was 60 degrees on Thursday in Washington, well
> above  normal, and as I 
> slipped away for some pre-Christmas golf, I found
> myself  thinking about a 
> wickedly funny story that The Onion, the satirical
> newspaper,  ran the other day: “
> Fall Canceled after 3 Billion Seasons”:Skip to
> next  paragraph 
> “Fall, the long-running  series of shorter days
> and cooler nights, was 
> canceled earlier this week after  nearly 3 billion
> seasons on Earth, sources 
> reported  Tuesday. 
> “The classic period of the year, which once
> occupied a  coveted slot between 
> summer and winter, will be replaced by new, stifling
>  humidity levels, 
> near-constant sunshine and almost no precipitation
> for  months. 
> “‘As much as we’d like to see it stay, fall
> will not be  returning for 
> another season,’ National Weather Service
> president John Hayes  announced during a 
> muggy press conference Nov. 6. ‘Fall had a great
> run, but  sadly, times have 
> changed.’ ... The cancellation was not without its
> share of  warning signs. In 
> recent years, fall had been reduced from three
> months to a  meager two-week 
> stint, and its scheduled start time had been pushed
> back later  and later each 
> year.” 
> You should never extrapolate about global warming
> from  your own weather, but 
> it is becoming hard not to — even for
> professionals.  Consider the final 
> report of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on
> Climate  Change (I.P.C.C.), which 
> was just issued and got far too little attention. It
>  concluded that since the 
> I.P.C.C. began its study five years ago, scientists
> had  discovered much 
> stronger climate change trends than previously
> realized, such as  far more 
> extensive melting of Arctic ice, and therefore
> global efforts to  reverse the growth 
> of greenhouse gas emissions have to begin 
> immediately. 
> “What we do in the next two to three years will
> determine  our future,” said 
> the I.P.C.C. chairman, Rajendra  Pachauri. 
> And sweet-sounding “global warming” doesn’t
> really  capture what’s likely 
> to happen. I prefer the term “global weirding,”
> coined by  Hunter Lovins, 
> co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, because
> the rise in  average global 
> temperature is going to lead to all sorts of crazy
> things — from  hotter heat 
> spells and droughts in some places, to colder cold
> spells and more  violent 
> storms, more intense flooding, forest fires and
> species loss in other  places. 
> While the Bush team came into office brain dead on
> the  climate issue and 
> will leave office with a perfect record of having
> done nothing  significant to 
> mitigate climate change, I’m heartened that our
> country is  increasingly alive 
> on this challenge.  
> First, Google said last week that it was going to
> invest  millions in 
> developing its own energy business. Google described
> its goal as “RE  < C” — 
> renewable energy that is cheaper than coal —
> adding: “We’re busy  assembling our own 
> internal research and development group and hiring a
> team of  engineers ... 
> tasked with building one gigawatt of renewable
> energy capacity  that is cheaper 
> than coal.” That could power all of San Francisco.
>   
> Its primary focus, said Google.org’s energy
> expert, Dan  Reicher, will be to 
> advance new solar thermal, geothermal and wind
> solutions  “across the valley 
> of death.” That is, so many good ideas work in the
> lab but  never get a chance 
> to scale up because they get swallowed by a lack of
> financing  or difficulties 
> in implementation. Do not underestimate these 
> people. 
> Last week, I also met with two groups of M.I.T.
> students  who blew me away. 
> One was the M.I.T. Energy Club, which was founded in
> 2004 by a  few grad 
> students discussing energy over beers at a campus
> bar. Today it has  600-plus 
> members who have put on scores of events focused on
> building energy  expertise among 
> M.I.T. students and faculty, and “fact-based
> analysis,”  including a trip to 
> Saudi  Arabia. 
> Then I got together with three engineering
> undergrads who  helped launch the 
> Vehicle Design Summit — a global, open-source,
> collaborative  effort, managed 
> by M.I.T. students, that has 25 college teams around
> the world,  including in 
> India and China, working together to build a plug-in
> electric  hybrid within 
> three years. Each team contributes a different set
> of parts or  designs. I 
> thought writing for my college newspaper was cool.
> These kids are  building a 
> hyper-efficient car, which, they hope, “will
> demonstrate a 95 percent  reduction 
> in embodied energy, materials and toxicity from
> cradle to cradle to  grave” and 
> provide “200 m.p.g. energy equivalency or
> better.” The Linux of  cars! 
> They’re not waiting for G.M. Their goal, they
> explain on  their Web site — 
> _vds.mit.edu_ (http://vds.mit.edu/)  — is “to
> identify the key characteristics 
> of events like  the race to the moon and then
> transpose this energy, passion, 
> focus and urgency”  on catalyzing a global team to
> build a clean car. I just 
> love their tag line.  It’s what gives me hope:  
> “We are the people we have been waiting for.”  
> P.S.  Do visit _vds.mit.edu_ (http://vds.mit.edu/)  
> This is an amazing site: 
>  See the global participants,  infrastructure and
> timeline for their plan.  
> Cyn.
>  
> Cynthia N.  Vance, M. A.
> Strategics International Inc.
> Miami, Florida Office:  305-378-1327
> Venice, Florida Office: 941-483-9165
> _http://members.aol.com/facilitationfla_ 
> (http://members.aol.com/facilitationfla) 
> 
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> in your own backyard? 
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> 2008
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> (http://www.iaf-world.org/) 
> 
> 
> 
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