Mr. Wizard, there is always middle ground but we have to willing to seek it. None of us has the market cornered on objective truth but we all have a piece of it. For what it’s worth I am often characterized as a “climate denier” (I don’t know what it is I am supposed to be denying so that is meaningless to me) because I no longer accept that the Earth is experiencing catastrophic human-induced warming. I’ve examined the evidence and it doesn’t convince. Too many failed predictions, too much hyperbole and hysteria. And I don’t really have a dog in this fight, I live very simply, drive very little, don’t waste anything, and have reverence for life. Justice and Kindness to all living things is my operative philosophy. Once I was convinced of the AGW concept, I was an ardent tree-hugging environmentalist (still am actually) and after a series of non-winters in the 90’s I thought our time was almost up. I blamed Newt Gingrich and the Republicans. And of course Big Oil. Then I changed my mind, at least about AGW. So if the AGW folks have their way, with all the lifestyle changes that you describe, it won’t effect my life significantly. I agree, by the way, with you re: debt, both personal and sovereign. An unexploded bomb, and I don’t see any way out of it other than flipping the monopoly board and starting over. Also agree with you about unrestricted growth, which in an economic context is intended to mean growth of profits. One of my favorite quotes is from the environmentalist and author Edward Abbey who said, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.” I think he nailed it. Anyway, in the interest of finding common ground, lets just say that our interpretation of the evidence differs. And continue to talk about it. Ontological intersubjectivity as it were.
