Dave Richards for December 4th….…………
--The 2019 Milk Fund Appeal is now officially under way. Auction, events, and the coupons to accompany your donation printed in The Call. Look for paper Milk Bottles to appear in your local restaurants and stores in a few days. Our daily Milk Fund Radio Auction has taken to its new afternoon timeslot (4 to 5pm) like a duck to water. Bid calls are more than double the numbers seen in the previous morning time slot. We are grateful and enthused. Stay tuned for further developments……
--Just to finish up on a common topic of the last two weeks, I mentioned that nobody had contacted me to tell me they disagreed with my position on the proposed Massachusetts law, now passed by the state senate, which would outlaw plastic shopping bags and force shoppers to pay a 10 cent per bag tax on all paper bags. Well, one email did arrive after I wrote those words.
A well-spoken lady referred me to some videos which show graphically how destructive carelessly discarded plastic can be, bags or otherwise. I’ve seen them. Heck I know one of the producers. And from my work aboard ship sailing the seas, I’ve seen the damage first hand, too. But I think the point was missed.
My point is you can make a case on either side of the issue. But as usual, the truth lies between the two extremes. And I am against extremism. I was taught, and I truly believe that a moderate course will engage more people to act together in a unified effort to solve the really big problems all of us face. Facing them together is the best way, I say. Dividing people with extremism is not the most effective way to success.
Think of it this way. You’re driving down the road at average highway speed. Your car naturally drifts a little to the left and a little to the right. You gently apply a mild corrective pressure on the steering wheel and the result is you appear to be moving in a perfect line with no loss of fuel or time. But suppose you twisted the steering wheel to the right sharply when you drifted to the left. Overcorrection, right? Right.
It’s the same way with people. If you want to correct societal errors and you apply to radical a push in the opposite direction you will increase push-back from those who disagree with you and you’ll fail to gain the assistance of those who might have been persuaded by your cause, but not your rhetoric. Here’s an example.
Global warming. It’s been going on since the Ice Age, thank goodness, otherwise Rhode Island would still be under a huge sheet of ice. Scientists know the planet is warming up too fast. They are correct. But they just cannot get the general public to be as concerned about the negative effects of global warming because they just can’t make enough regular people believe that it’s an emergency. So they waste time yelling “we’re all gonna die!”
It’s not that we don’t see or don’t care, it’s that scientists just cannot sell us on working together by clanging the ‘bell of doom’. Well, most people, anyway. The people they CAN sell are the radical political people. It didn’t take much persuasion to get alarmists to join in clanging the alarm. But most of us regular folks know a con when we see it. And when radical political people and professional activists get going on any topic, they know no limits of sensibility.
And they seem to forget, or never were around to experience the ‘cons’ we’ve had hoisted upon us in the past. We remember the alarmist movement of the 1960s and 70s declaring the over-population of the world was at crisis point and will be our short term doom if we didn’t change our lives and follow the activist leaders.
Then there was the one where the world was nearly completely out of oil. Remember that one? There’s “no more oil in the ground and we’re all gonna die”. Right. This time its ‘global warming’ and “we’re all gonna die.”
Spoiler alert. We ARE all gonna die. Sooner or later. I’m tired of everyone’s political agenda being dramatized as “the end of the world and we’re all gonna die if you don’t agree with me and do what I say”. That’s where they lose me. They also lose me when they start pasting labels on me as a retaliation for expressing myself for not agreeing with them.
There are answers out there. Let’s gather them, vet them, debate them, and choose a course of action the majority of us can support and help implement without the activist political drama. We don’t need drama, we need calm and deliberate action.
And in case you hadn’t noticed……….
The population of the world is no longer at crisis point. Advances in food production and the general increases in the cost of raising a family have done their work naturally. The increases in cost of fossil fuels has made it financially viable to harvest the oil which was always there but not cheap. And the cost of renewable energy is now coming into line with reality. The masses are embracing it. Without the drama.
We will find an answer to global warming. We’re already on our way. Emissions limits in cars and manufacturing are already making a difference. There’s an acceptance and enthusiasm for reusing and recycling materials which can continue their existence in another form or for another purpose.
Be smart, be engaged, and care. And remember, the ‘sky really wasn’t falling’, but there really was a ‘wolf’.
Keep up the good work, America. And don’t stop now.
--That's what I think. What do you think? Comments to: dave@onworldwide.com or postal mail to Dave Richards, WOON Radio, 985 Park Avenue, Woonsocket, RI 02895-6332. Thanks for reading.
--30--
