Imagine my surprise when someone actually talked about it in a more-or-less national blog! We tecnofantasists here are DailyKos, and pretty much all over the blogosphere, always carefully avoid the hard truth that there aren't five more earths out there to raise the standard of living of six billion people to the material levels that the First World enjoys. So this is welcome:
I won't go so far as to say that, to stabilize the climate, we're going to have to contrive a global new deal. But I will say that, soon, there's going to have to be a global accord, and that this accord will have to be consistent with a global new deal, one in which not only the international climate regime, but the international trade regime, the international property-rights regime, the international governance regime and a whole lot of other international regimes are bent, if not broken, to accommodate the realities of the climate challenge. And I will say that today's defining silence about this overarching challenge is inconsistent with any true crash program.
Just how realistically are YOU thinking, and even acting, about global climate change, and all the regimes listed above?
I see that Hugo Chavez has announced Venezuelan state takeover of another huge chunk of large "idle" estates, and intends to put state ownership of collective farms into the Venezuelan Constitution. Hurray for him! That's bending and breaking international governance regimes!
Maybe an oil-rich country with Latino attitudes can make it work better than a gloomy nation of oppressed serfs could. My little hippie commune heart goes out to him.
Than I wonder about whether the communalistic aspects of Islam that make it such a successful recruiter of the poor will break out into an Islamic communist state. There's no necessary connection between atheism and communism except the brainwashing we all endured in the aftermath of World War II.
Don't presume a lack of economic sophistication in my attitude. I'm just as much a fan of Jerome á Paris as anyone, and I note when he slips in something like this, but only a little because he'd lose his readership, as he well knows, if he actually said what he thinks.
The concept of "momentum" in the article linked above is a very subtle one, and I wonder if our woodwork geniuses could flap their fingers on the keyboard a bit, and explain exactly what meme is lurking in it. I suspect it will turn out to be a key meme in the successful fight for a better world for our kids.