I'm sorry, but I've been reading the wonderful content of Salon for years, and never felt the need to post until now. This is one of the most ridiculous articles I've read on here. Weird ramblings about how environmentalists who try to prove the existence of a problem (to those millions who still don't believe it - witness the recent attack on Rachel Carson's book) is not an article. The criticisms in here are misplaced and askew. And then, after complaining about the lack of solutions offered (I seem to remember Gore offering several), they offer a "don't worry, be happy" answer? Stopping "blaming" and finding solutions IS a good idea, but equating waking people up with "sadness" is unbelievable.

This is a truly bizarre, anti-science, anti-liberal rant that devolves into hilarious psychobabble. Why is it on Salon?

While I agree that some (not all) environmentalists appear to hate their own species with disproportionate (and antievolutionary) force, I only see the barest hint of a positive direction in this essay apart from "quit hating on us, eco-freaks!" Perhaps they are expanded upon in the book; but this isn't overly encouraging, contrary to their very point!

Some solid points were made, however. Motivation is essentially movement towards a goal, not away from it. Speaking as a motivational psychologist, I agree that trying to force people against their emotional drives is difficult, though it is of course also a definition of adulthood when you do the same to yourself. What they almost seem to capture is the idea that we need to harness our instinctive natures, not battle them or celebrate them unreservedly. Let's harness the "will to power," which sounds evil in English but in its most basic form is simply wanting to make an impact. This is the appeal of Boy Scouts "cleaning up a community" as much as it is the environmentalists wanting to wake up us poor, wasteful human beings.

The values we choose -- yes, choose, if not in Jared Diamond's sense -- can channel the immense energy of human motivation in a positive direction. We have won victories: the Thames River in London and the Charles River in Boston both have fish in them again. Some (including the Wall Street Journal) have dubiously claimed that hybrids are as ultimately wasteful as SUVs, but that misses the larger point that hybrids are at the beginning of their development, and the more rewarding they are, the more people will work to make them better, even as we did the original internal combustion engine -- harnessing capitalism to environmentalism. If GE plans to make money from being "green," they probably have good reason, and we should encourage them!

To that end, I agree that we must celebrate victories, but in the context of them being only battles in a larger war, that ultimately we can and must win, for the long-term viability of our species. Further, we must try to bridge the gap between the doomsayers and the Pollyannas. As long as we are driving a rift between people who ultimately have the same positive goal -- to preserve a positive balance of nature to sustain a happy and content humanity -- briding that gap will be increasingly difficult and politicized. Using Michael Crichton's works as implicitly superior to E. O. Wilson as regards science and nature is enormously ironic in this context, as Wilson has repeatedly tried to bring the wonder of science to the common man, including challenging the way we see ourselves in the world, whereas a reading of Crichton's work from the very beginning will show a deeply entrenched cynicism about science, technology, progress, and human beings' ability to do anything right. I think we can do better than that.

You know, for liberals, criticising environmentalists is equivalent to conservatives criticising Gen. Petreas. I am sure there will be lots of critical letters to follow, so let me say it is about time this issue got away from guilt and blame and rather got people to talk about how we are going to deal with what is happening and will happen.

I agree, Eric.

What a stupid point of view this article expresses, sort of like, oh, don't worry that you've set your own house on fire through your own stupidity, just be happy and don't learn anything and do it again to somebody else's house.

Yeah, those Easter Islanders were so clever, cutting down every last tree on their tiny island for the stupidest of reasons, while also wiping out all the species of birds that once nested there and leaving them with nothing to feed on except one another.

We're slowly but surely doing the same thing to the entire planet and those twits Nordhaus and Shellenberger think we should celebrate how wonderful we all are???

Geez, if we do wipe ourselves out, we'll deserve it. And the universe will be laughing at us.

...that Salon has no place for idiotic, uninformed, self-serving right-wing drivel.

...if I wanted sophomoric contrarianism, I'd read Slate.

Dang, that was horrid stuff. Comment troll much, Salon?

Even if the Earth heats up to such an extent that every last vestige of humankind disappears, there may still exist living systems, just not ones that can sustain us.

Yeah, enviro-losers! Suck on that! CELEBRATE!!!!!

Wow.

I think I just lost faith in Salon. What an awful article. There were some valid points made but instead of focusing on positive methods of changing the debate over the environment in order to concentrate on a better way to effect change, it relies on sweeping statements to discredit environmental visionaries.

A couple of points in the article deserve serious attention: (1) that we humans are part of nature and, like other organisms, seek to control our environment for good or ill, and (2) that our evolutionary history goes a long way toward shaping, if not determining, our behavior. Science offers no magic exit from these realities.

Given the fundamental ambiguity of human nature, then, I find the authors' rather extreme optimism quite puzzling and certainly not supported by the rest of their argument. Perhaps it is better, on their own terms, for the authors to wallow with the rest of us in the swamp of our own deeply creative and flawed nature.