Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Long term sustainability

[Sterling Newberry (sterling.newberry]

Dear Ronald and Lisa,
I agree that Brian's statement that Ronald "wants" a large number of people
is in essence saying what his motives are without supporting evidence beyond
a logical extension of his words.  At the same time, in his post Ronald
refers to "magical thinking" without any supporting evidence himself.  Lisa
goes on to say that "Eternal optimism is a great quality.....unless it
serves to blind people to hard facts and keeps them from facing very real
challenges in a clear headed and serious manner.  We seem to be in an era of
maximum 'fantasy indulgence'
here in the U.S. where denial and magical thinking are epidemic."  What is
the fantasy indulgence you are talking about?  What is your supporting
evidence?  I think it would be more helpful to talk about specifics than
these generalities.  I believe that honest people have different views of
the situation facing us with regard to the limits to carbon fuel resource
and to global warming.  I've watched "An Inconvenient Truth" and read
Lomborg's "The Sceptical Environmentalist" as well as "Is the Temperature
Rising" by S. George Philander, all representing different views of these
subjects.  Personally, I'm not convinced that we are heading for imminent
disaster.  I do agree with Lisa's statement that "I am optimistic that
people can be amazingly creative and resilient in the face of tremendous
changes and challenges."  I look upon cohousing as a grand experiment, and I
think the surest way to attract more people to cohousing and other human
social experiments is through 1) creating results that demonstrate you are
on a successful path, and 2) being the invitation.

In my own experience when people get involved because they think there is a
disaster looming, they inevitably burn out unless there is a true
disaster. People have been predicting that we would run out of various
resources, including oil, for many years, and they've been wrong every
time.  I take this from Lomborg's statistics, and I'd be interested if
you've read his book, and what you think of it.  If his statistics and
historical retelling are accurate, we are not faced with an imminent
disaster, and in fact have the time for the creativity you speak of to solve
our foreseeable problems.

What are your thoughts?
Sterling