How green is your valley?

The G8 nations are locking horns on greenhouse gases. Again. At the ongoing meetings in Italy they are failing to reach any sort of consensus on climate change. Again. It all boils down to this: “you big, fancy developed nations can’t sit there now atop all your prosperity and tell us poor, little developing nations that we can’t do exactly what you did to get where you got.” Now to be fair, realize that the poor, little developing nations are China and India. The two most populous nations in the world. One-third of the world citizenship.

Do you want to know why the G8’s can’t agree? Because people don’t care. Well, let me rephrase that. Not enough people care enough. I mean, hey, I care about global warming. But not enough to put off that plane trip for my Tahoe vacation this year. I care about global warming, but not enough to carpool to work. I care about global warming, but not enough to buy goods produced in globally-responsible economies.

Ah. There’s the real currency of climate change. Money. So the China’s and India’s of the world – literally – don’t want to be economically disadvantaged by the cost of climate friendly production. [As a side note, I’m not sure America wanted to be economically disadvantaged by the low cost of labor in China and India, but that’s another blog for another time.] So I say, let the people sort this out.

Specifically, I say you people sort this out. I know that I continually harp on this stark-raving mad idea of personal responsibility and individual action… and here we go again. Let’s say you don't like the way China operates their pollution policy. Stop buying things made in China. Easier said than done, yes, but possible to do. So put your money where your mouth is. If you don’t like poor little orphans in sweatshops making your running shoes, buy different shoes. Rather than try to change the way China or India behaves, change the way you behave. That’s personal responsibility and individual action, baby!

That’s the real inconvenient truth isn’t it? All of a sudden you've got to research the products you buy and the stores you buy them in. Do a little homework. Go out of your way. Well, but you’re already stretched pretty thin. I mean, you’ve got to work all day, get the grocery shopping done, keep the house clean, get the kids to soccer practices and dance recitals. I mean, when are you going to find the time to be environmentally responsible? You’re not. You care more about your job, your groceries, and your kids than you do about whether or not the average world temperature goes up one degree in the next one hundred years. And so does the G8.

So don’t put all this pressure on the G8 to do something that we’re not all willing to do ourselves. If enough of us cared enough, the G8 could spend a little less time disagreeing on climate change and little more time agreeing on other stuff. Like which of them is going to step up to buy the next round of US debt...