There is only one goddess Gaia and Al Gore is her only prophet...

[--Pete]

Hi,

I have a couple of thoughts here. Leading is best done from the front of the pack, and I want to instill the same values of citizenship into my children. I have tended to question the status quo, but I sense that most (95%) of people do not.

And there you have it. Perhaps five percent of the people might do the right thing simply because it is right. The remainder will not unless coerced. Five percent do make a difference, but not enough of a difference. So, coercion is necessary. The question is then simply one of what form the coercion should take.

So teach the children better citizenship, and raise our expectations of what each of us must do to "Save the Planet" and create a sustainable future.

That's a wonderful idea. It may help greatly to the acceptance (and observation) of laws mandating ecologically responsible behavior. But it will not substitute for those laws as long as self interest exists.

It would seem the intelligent action would be one where this sustainable future is planned, rather than driven by the profit motive or more primal urges.

Yes, it would. But as we've seen from the fisheries, from the timberlands, from the mines, and more recently from the tropical forests, when the choice is between immediate profit and future well being, the immediate wins every time. Your solutions might work if we were speaking of an intelligent species. We're not. We're speaking of humanity, which, at best, has a few intelligent individuals in a population of six billion.

It's hard to influence your children, let alone your neighbor, but the citizens of other nations would be even harder still.

Especially when the absence of ecological and safety regulations are a large part of their competitive advantage. It is going to take more than "Pretty please, it's the right thing to do" to convince them to give that advantage up.

But, then again, how many people really understand their actual "ecological debt"?

Once again, your words argue for the need for enforced laws.

--Pete