Adapting our Education

Today's Greenbuzz article on their being less concern about environmental issue amongst American consumers makes an interesting read, and prompted this posting.http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/11/07/are-smarter-consumers-less-green?page=0%2C0
The studies referenced in the Greenbuzz article:
GFK Roper Report on Environmental attitudes:
http://www.scjohnson.com/Libraries/Download_Documents/SCJ_and_GfK_Roper_Green_Gauge.sflb.ashx
The American Climate and Environmental Values Survey (ACEVS)http://ecoamerica.org/sites/default/files/press/ACEVS%20Report%20Final%20Web.pdf


For the last few years I have enjoyed reading the news in national security and energy circles about the arctic fossil fuels rush that is beginning. Those of you that know me personally know my dark sense of humor. Yes, "enjoyed" is the correct term. As you know the rush is the result of the anthropogenic caused warming through fossil fuel use reducing the Arctic icecap, thereby providing access to new deposits of fossil fuels.


Reminds me of a day on the White River Ashland County, Wisconsin years ago. I was a fly fishing person going through my trying to tie flies stage. I was collecting aquatic insects to later copy. I mistakenly kept dropping them all in a 35mm film can filled with water. Hours later when I got home, the oxygen poor water in that little can contained one, suffocated, fat dragonfly nymph with a half consumed mayfly nymph in its jaws.
It is kind of cool how all life shares some of the same values, is it not? But I digress.
This morning I was listening to a Morning Edition piece on the TransCanada plans to build the Keystone XL pipeline for transporting oil from Canadian oil shale deposits to refineries in Texas. The reporting was about the politics concerning the pipeline. On Realclimate there is an examination of the debate going on among some climate science folk as to whether or not the Keystone XL shales will be the last straw for mitigation http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/11/keystone-xl-game-over/  
The continued inability of folks to address the warming problem is, from my view of the behavioral evidence, not likely to end. I am now of the opinion that the domination of human thought/behavior by seeking short term reward will continue to trump steps to organize a sufficent mitigation response by us. Actually, this is not surprising since no other animals plan and expecting long term planning from us is perhaps a bit much to ask.
This underscores the importance of climate change adaptation education. The less mitigation the more adaptation that is necessary, and will be necessary over the coming centuries.
The science indicates that we have never faced a climate change of this degree and rapidity. When we worked around and through the last string of ice ages there were not a lot of us and our life and society was comparatively simple. This time, we cannot just "head South" like back then. There are now 7 billion of us involved into a complex web of interdependence. It is all hands on deck folks. Adaptation is necessary in every aspect of our endeavor.