Word Of The Moment: Global Weirding

Thomas Friedman turned me on to a new term today:

[from The People We Have Been Waiting For - New York Times.

[...] sweet-sounding “global warming” doesn’t really capture what’s likely to happen. I prefer the term “global weirding,” coined by Hunter Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, because the rise in average global temperature is going to lead to all sorts of crazy things — from hotter heat spells and droughts in some places, to colder cold spells and more violent storms, more intense flooding, forest fires and species loss in other places.

Yes, exactly.

And why the hell aren't people up in arms about the ecosphere going sideways? Why isn't there rioting in the streets, demanding that our governments actually step up and do something? Why are people so complacent?

Tom Peters, back in May of 2005, said that global warming was being badly marketed:

[from Issue Most Poorly Marketed?]

Why is an issue that is so grave and so real so poorly understood? Why has the issue of global warming been so poorly marketed? Why is the brand called "The Global Warming Catastrophe" such a weak brand?

Well, I think Global Weirding is a better brand.

Thomas Freidman -- in the same article today -- goes on to suggest that some people have stopped waiting for large centralized and powerful entities -- multi-national corporations, the governments, and other powerful agents -- and have decided to be the change we need in the world:

I got together with three engineering undergrads who helped launch the Vehicle Design Summit — a global, open-source, collaborative effort, managed by M.I.T. students, that has 25 college teams around the world, including in India and China, working together to build a plug-in electric hybrid within three years. Each team contributes a different set of parts or designs. I thought writing for my college newspaper was cool. These kids are building a hyper-efficient car, which, they hope, “will demonstrate a 95 percent reduction in embodied energy, materials and toxicity from cradle to cradle to grave” and provide “200 m.p.g. energy equivalency or better.” The Linux of cars!

They’re not waiting for G.M. Their goal, they explain on their Web site — vds.mit.edu — is “to identify the key characteristics of events like the race to the moon and then transpose this energy, passion, focus and urgency” on catalyzing a global team to build a clean car. I just love their tag line. It’s what gives me hope:

“We are the people we have been waiting for.”

This is exactly the sort of thing I have been talking about when I say that what is happening on the web -- web culture -- will have to be the path toward saving the world. We, the edglings, the denizens of the Web, we have to do it. Open source design for hyper efficient vehicles is just one such path, one instance of what we have got to do.

If we wait for the crowned heads to take action, the whole world might become an ecological cesspool. The US government can't even rebuild the levees in New Orleans (leaving aside for the moment whether we should or not), so we shouldn't look to them to save us when we are confronted with a situation a millions times more devastating.

Comments

[Mark Scrimshire]

Stowe,

I love that tag line: “We are the people we have been waiting for.”

When you transpose that on to the web then you can define Web 2.0 as

"Empowering us to be the people we have been waiting for"

[John Kellden]

Stowe, great post. We should look into how to coordinate self select social pioneers to apply some trimtabbing. What could we do, beyond going on about the crowned heads not getting it?