Lifting the Veil

This quote leads me to reflect on the distinction between the muddled climate change debate going on in our country and our very real need for a sustainable future.

The billboards posted recently by the Heartland Institute inferring that only crazy people like Unabomber Ted Kacynski still believe in climate change demonstrated how polarized our country is when it comes to the climate change debate. But the unspoken truth is the debate over climate change is just a diversion.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter how we feel about things like melting polar ice caps, rising levels of water and air pollution, mono-crop agriculture, or increasing global temperatures. What matters is that our world is undeniably becoming increasingly more resource constrained, and it will take all hands on deck—from all walks of life—to shift debate into action.

Sustainability is not about a standoff between scientists. It’s about implementing intelligent solutions.

If we’re getting stuck on semantics, then we need to transform our lexicon to prove that we can create a more comfortable, profitable, enjoyable, colorful, and livable world through sustainable solutions.

Where is the nexus between adaptation and mitigation, hope and despair, politics and innovation? How do we create a shared vision for our future that creates change, not distance?

Have ideas about how we can collaborate to create a greener future? Write to me at sara@greenbuildermag.com, follow me on Twitter @SaraGBM.

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