This was interesting, but what bothered me was the fact that he spent more than 1 hr making his case for the status of the world economy and environmental situation and 2 minutes on any proposed ideas on how to fix this. I don't believe any one person knows how to solve the global problems we face, but I am pretty sure that collectively we can develop some solid and possible ideas.
Professor Sachs said it was a political problem, a problem with the media and that corporate money flowed into politics. I believe he's right, but didn't Al Gore state similar problems in "An Inconvenient Truth." I'm sorry, but the political will and power argument may be true, but it isn't getting us anywhere.
We can do a whole lot better. Yes, we need leaders and politicians to give us a vision to work toward. We also need people talking about these issues who are not in the government, who are connected to their neighbors, their community and are connected to a larger vision of what we can accomplish together. We can't legislate our way out of an environmental crisis. We need a vision, hope, and a sense of possibility. The bible says "Without a vision the people will perish." A vision of upcoming disaster is not very inspiring.
Some ideas:
-Use the massive database from environmental orgs. to connect people locally to work on a regional or national issue (think Obama's campaign network)
-Hold monthly days of service for the environment in communities Nationally (if the media isn't raising awareness, we sure can.)
-Have a contest for the most compelling environmental short film and use that video (after it spreads virally) as a call to action
-Broadcast and celebrate positive environmental companies and trends, so we can support them as consumers and citizens
Cool organizations:
What do you think?
How can individual citizens be mobilized or engaged with solving our environmental crisis?
