Really, you don’t think so?

No, I really don’t. I think it’s a ‘human’ thing. Think of all the gaZILLIONS of school children (myself included) who’ve gone through school since the mid-60’s and survived in a pseudo-normal fashion, while EVERY decade has had it’s fervent fads and followers. (And I’m not talking polyester.) In the 50’s, it was the Beat Generation, right? In the 60’s it was the ‘hippies’ ~ peace, love and happiness ~ and morphed into a virulent anti-war movement in the 70’s. And they’ve always been pretty much fringe groups, with, of course, the requisite college kid experimenters buying in for a while, but the core group ~ the weeping, pain-rent screamers ~ remains a minuscule fraction of the general populace.

And the original comment blamed Al Gore for the wood folks ~ now we’ve backed THAT up to Rachel Carson. Whatever the legacy as far as DDT goes ~ and I’m not well-versed enough to even begin to comment ~ the book itself was a watershed moment for waking up and watching what was going on around us. And what WE were doing and allowing to be done to our environment, which is not at ALL a bad thing. If the environmental education I received from 1963 on consisted of “pick up your frickin’ trash, sewage shouldn’t be discharged directly into the watershed, don’t let your chemical/gasoline/dry cleaning tanks leak and leach into the soil, etc” ~ which it DID ~ that’s definitely a worthy result.

But we’ve been so fat, dumb and happy for so many years, so lulled into a sense of complacency by the ease of our lives, so privileged in our great way of life, that it was less hassle to let the more radical wailers have their way, instead of put a foot down. (”We’ve got boatloads of power, so who gives a whoop if we don’t get that reactor/refinery.”) It’s going to be hard to hammer home the commonsense approach. (Look at the drilling squawking coming from the Left! DUH, Laurie ~ you need fuel for that private jet!) Where we ARE ahead is in the technology and THAT point should be the banner flying. What was worthy of skepticism in the 70’s and 80’s is safely DOABLE now.

But no, it’s not Al Gore. {8^P It’s the simple-minded fools who follow a drum as if their lives depended on it, whether it’s beaten by the Fox sisters in 1848, Ginsberg in 1959, Leary in 1968…you get my drift. Hell, throw the Beetles in there, too ~ that group in the forest sounds a lot like the chippies losing their minds at JFK.

The rest of us?

Not so much.

tree hugging sister on September 7, 2008 at 6:05 PM

give back to the earth a lot more than these whackos.

Smaller carbon footprint for sure. How much GAS did they burn getting into the woods to moan and groan? It sure doesn’t look like anyone rode a horse int.

tree hugging sister on September 7, 2008 at 6:27 PM