Follow Mohamed by all means, but tether your donkey first, as the old Sufi saying goes.
A lot to what you said there, M.
You mention drastic cuts across the whole world's trajectory, and I don't think it is enough yet, but a lot of useful changes seem to be occurring all ready. Even in my little back water town I'm seeing more and more environmentally conscious people coming into the grocery store I work, the BYOB movement is kicking it off around the U.S. The store I work at has never had more than a couple of organic, nature and health food items but now I see that selection growing. So public opinion is being swayed. China is even aiming to cut back their use of plastic. Hopeful if the U.S. and China do it others will fallow suit. But, the U.S. needs to redefine what it means to be a superpower in the world to being an environmental superpower, and I think that could take a long time to sink in for everyone. Obama got the G20 on his side, it still stands to see whether or not everyone will continue to work as a team, but I think this is a sign that Al's wish for a politic shift is occurring.
Of course even the whole world working together could easily just screw themselves over without even meaning to, all our good intentions could backfire on us. Definitely a high risk game, but to do or not to do anything?
Our attempts may not even work since we cannot with certainty predict the future. Still somethings can be reasonably guesstimated, we aren't totally blind to the future, or we wouldn't even know that there is problem or be able to predict that it is likely to get worse. Also we know that even though the game plan can change pretty quickly we have good reason to believe it isn't likely at this point to change for the better without some significant help. If we are not totally blind to the future it seems to me we could even find a way to improve our lens through which we attempt to see the future.
There are people doing some awesome things, like William Mcdonough with Cradle to Cradle design, Cameron Sinclair with open source architecture, Saul Griffith is designing kites that collect solar and wind energy more efficiently than current methods. Kamal Meattle found out how to clean the air inside your house or work space by placing three plants in certain spots. The areca palm (living room), Mother in laws tongue (bedroom; turns CO2 into Oxygen at night), Money plant (specialist plant;removes formaldehyde and other volatile chemicals). Supposedly these three plants, if you have the right amount of them they will produce all the clean fresh air you need to survive even if you are in an air tight container with them. I just read in the paper today that various Industrial leaders are now working hand in hand with environmentalists. Then you've got the team meeting at the 2009 State of the World Forum. And this is just a very small sampling of what all good is going on out there as we speak.
So yes, fallow Mohamed but tie the donkey first. To sit back and do nothing esp. because of some sort of "warriors nihilism" seems like a waist even if we are properly tending to our own salvation. There seems to be this mind set of the world is pretty much doomed so lets tend to ourselves. Which isn't really bad, it should be the priority to tend to yourself, in the end I face my fate alone, but it seems even our work on ourselves could fail if we don't take the rest of the world's plight into consideration and into our actions.
The environmental crisis has people thinking about the earth, thinking about nature, thinking about their environment, thinking about their inevitable death, and thinking about their own survival as if it is linked to that of everyone else...which it is. I see some potential here for a positive change in the consciousness of the world's people, don't you?
