Monday, March 10, 2008

SOFTENING THE MESSAGE A Monster is Loose But We're Less Afraid of it than Panic

“(William Rees believed) that the truth was so shocking that he and Wackernagel felt a more moderate story might not turn off the audience completely.” John Feeney

Kind of reminds me of that Japanese horror flick I saw when I was a kid, “Gorgo”. It was about a gigantic reptilian monster who emerged from the Sea of Japan and rampaged from one continent to the next destroying everything in its path. Nothing could stop it. Planes, tanks, artillery, flame-throwers. Much like economic growth and development.

When after blazing a trail of devastation through the mid-west, it threatened to enter the Buckeye state of Ohio, one foremost herpetologist warned the Governor of the true state of the menace. Then an aide interjected emphatically, “We can’t leak this to the press, Governor—why if the people of Cincinatti knew that Gorgo was coming to town there would be a widespread panic!”

Well Gorgo did come to town and he laid it to waste, presumably killing everyone in the process. I remember wondering then, as a ten year old, what advantage there was to the population being kept in a state of ignorant calm, and I am still of that view.

We walk toward the abyss with the serenity of somnambulists. Yet William Rees, David Suzuki, David Attenborough and the celebrities of environmentalism are whispering warnings about symptoms when they should be shouting about root causes in order to wake us up. When Gorgo is approaching the gates of the city, they should be more afraid of him than of shocking us. The monster of population and economic growth will consume us all because too many of us opted to become politicians rather than truth-tellers.

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