Optimistic or Pessimistic?
Actually, at the Qualicum Institute we don't believe there's any room for either optimism or pessimism when it comes to dealing with climate change, biodiversity loss, and the host of other environmental and social justice issues that are confronting us today around the world.
What we need is a good dose of realism. Any thinking person that reads the news even occasionally will soon realize that how we've been living as a global civilization is not, in any way, sustainable.
The three big issues that will soon be confronting us head-on are climate change, peak oil, and an issue that's only being discussed peripherally (e.g., endangered species, declining fisheries), and that issues is biodiversity loss. Of the three, we believe biodiversity loss is the one issue that will be the most difficult to recover from, assuming we keep on our present direction, business as usual. And assuming we can recover from it at all.
So we can choose to be optimistic and continue with business as usual, and make little tweaks here and there as we're now doing. We can be pessimistic and think there's nothing we can do, so become self-fulfilling and do nothing. Or we can choose to be realistic and act. Now!
One more thing. If your sink is leaking, would you call a carpenter? If your car needs a tune-up, would you call a plumber? How about your sick dog ... would you believe anything an airline pilot would have to say about your pet's illness? Well, we're just wondering out loud why, when the atmosphere is unhealthy, when the ecosystems of the biosphere are unhealthy, when many of us around the world are unhealthy, why we would look to conventional economists, politicians, and the corporate world to cure these problems. Just wondering ... that's all.