We also need healthy food to eat and water to drink, very little of which has to do with global warming.

This isn’t about the survival of our planet. It’s about our survival and future generations. It’s about humanity. If you’re against humanity, then so be it. But you should be aware of what you’re for and what you’re against. When you side with those who pollute your water and squander your natural resources, you’re against humanity and your own self interest.

The point is, just because I don’t believe that man has induced or is adding to global warming doesn’t mean it’s not possible. There is some evidence that it may be. So it’s worth having an honest discussion.

Unfortunately, many people are knee-jerk reactionaries who react in one of two ways on the subject, both with equal religious fervor:

1) Global warming is a solid fact and anyone who doesn’t believe we should reduce the human population to living in caves with nothing more technological than a bicycle is an elitist Republican idiot.

2) Global warming is a crock of shit and anyone who even mentions it is obviously a liberal, commie jackass that deserves to be shot.

Neither of these reactions is truthful or helpful. Global warming, of course, isn’t the only debate into which this type of reaction happens. It just happens to be the one on this message board right now.

Location: Why not boot the UN from their building in New York and hold it there? They aren’t doing anything useful anyway, might as well kill two birds with one stone here.

Limits: All input must be in writing and speeches are strictly limited to 2 minutes or less as introductory statements for **scholarly** papers. NO grandstanding, NO emotional outbursts, NO “green washing” and definitely NO political appeals to force in the name of “green.” Everything MUST be based on ACTUAL science and debates are limited to the science itself, not the emotional heart-string appeals often used in the name of “green.” NO pictures of “drowning” baby seals, polar bears on tiny slivers of ice, etc.

Other Limits: No agreements are to be considered binding by all nations, states, or independent peoples. The point of the congress is only to create proposals for realistic and science-based plans for global change in environmental policies. It is then up to the nations and their peoples to decide whether to implement these proposals.

One last thing: THE UN IS NOT INVOLVED IN THIS AND SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN THIS. They can’t even stop genocide, what makes you think they can figure out climatology? Screw those petty dictators and grandstanding idiots. Let’s try for something REAL here.

But we disagree about videophone being just as good. It’s a good alternative, but there’s nothing quite like being there to see someone speak. We didn’t hear of anyone fainting at home when they watched Obama on TV.

Great stuff.

On watering down, I’d say that is usually the output of big leaders (Poznan for example – politics as the art of compromise). I’d have more faith in the people to come up with something radical because they are not protecting vested interests. What politicians support is free trade exploitation. What large amounts of people support is fairtrade, because they dont like the idea of people suffering. If people drew up a statement of global governance objectives then their values would be more along the lines of ‘no child goes hungry’ I suspect. What you need is thought leaders, visionaries, innovators hanging out directly with the people, exciting them about the world we could build together. Some of those innovators wont be the usual suspects.

Anyway I get your points. It’s probably heading for a debate about “and”. Except for one thing, I tend to believe that radical, mass, engaged democracy is the only path to sustainability and resilience. Cleantech and all of that is secondary. It is the world in our worldview that needs redesigning most. Not everyone’s going to agree (it sounds like you might not) but god bless the bloggosphere for allowing us all to have our say

:J

ps for an example of what the grassroots up approach looks like check out something I was involved in putting togther recently – www(dot)we20(dot)org (ie ‘hold your own G20 meeting’) and in particular the manifestos that ordinary people around the world came up with. Some of them are pretty awesome.

This is why the first Green Congress ought to consist of the greatest of leaders, those who are the most wise and learned in terms of sustainability, policy, science, law, psychology, technology, and economics. Above all, they need to be critical thinkers with a vision that is not limited to the next few years or decades. The Founding Fathers were thinking in terms of centuries. They were thinking in terms of universal truths, yet they had a keen sense for mankind’s weaknesses and constructed a government that balanced these many competing forces.

This is what we need for the Green Nation. Greenwashing will be solved by the very act of drafting this document, just as it was for taxation in ratifying the U.S. Constitution. But that’s just the first step. From there we have an entire nation to build.