[Twig6]

Originally Posted by Paradox

I for one believe we must react --- whether out of fear, panic or duty.

But what if we just reacted because it was the smartest thing for us to do personally? I believe that only by personally increasing demand and investment int a different culture do we ever find it. I think the more environmentally-friendly, progressive, democratic areas of the world will do the best in the future. This includes people in what we think of as third-world countries. They are investing in alternative energy, water collection, desalination, irrigation, alternative agriculture systems as we speak. These are people that are preparing for climate change. The truth is that the "West" is falling behind—the E.U is doing much better than the U.S., but neither are doing what they need to be. But there are local pockets everywhere that are doing what they need to be.

Originally Posted by Paradox

We may need a lot more fences.

I don't think so. Dealing with refugees by building fences is a bad idea on many, many levels.

I think we need to do what we can to support and sustain global environments, and share technologies that show that crappy environments can be improved—permaculture growing crops in the desert, water collection and reuse, alternative energy, etc.

Today, we have the technology and knowledge available to us so people can make the most out of where they are and not be forced to migrate. It's just an issue of applying it.

Originally Posted by Paradox

I believe climate change will be something that brings about the changes that we, as a race, have failed to realize on our own.

I completely agree with this statement. Things will probably be worse for awhile, but I really think that they will be better at some point in the future.

Originally Posted by Paradox

In typical 'wait-until-the-last-minute' form we will certainly roll out new technology...This will take time -- which we may not have.

The funny thing is that there is all this technology that's already been invented out there, just waiting for investment.

For instance, this invention called the Delbuoy is this cheap, wave-powered, low-tech desalination system that would be perfect for ocean-dwelling locations, the inventor, to my knowledge, has not found the investment to market this as a commercial product. If demand increases because of water shortages, this technology is just waiting.

And I'm sure there are other technologies just like it—but they will rarely advertised to us on TV. Inexpensive, local production is not what corporations want us to buy into.

Knowledge technologies like permaculture, water collection & reuse systems, etc., etc. are already invented as well, they just lack being broadly applied. That won't change until we apply them.