My Thanksgiving Row

I didn’t actually leave town to end up in an argument about the environment with a family member, well argument is too strong, my brother and I had a lively discussion about Michael Crichton and his novel State of Fear. On a slightly strange side note, did you all know that he just died, I mean like a month ago from throat cancer, he lived in Los Angeles so I guess there must be something to breathing in pollution all day long. Anyways, as I said it was not so much of an argument as my brother defending one of his favorite authors. He claimed that the novel wasn’t anti-environment at all, just making the anti-environmental arguments look ridiculous. I said that even if that were true, it wasn’t working. Bush had Crichton to the White House for a pow-wow and he is constantly being used by the right-wing media as a really smart guy who also doubts the severity of the problem.

As the semester is coming to an end, and I am reflecting on all I’ve learned about environmental issues, the big take away may not be that we all need to do our little part to change things, the SC or Social Change part of the Trinity of Despair, but what we can do is talk and talk to everyone around us, if we can push towards that critical mass stage where, whatever it is 50-51% of people are on board with the big changes needed then, hopefully, we can begin to begin to truly change.