I just want to leave a followup that TalkingStick needs to read the book. Bill in no way sugarcoats what we face. As I quoted, “There’s nothing that looks good for the Southwest.” and “Climate change is not a ramp. Its increments will not necessarily be linear and smooth. More often than not, its effects will be choppy and chaotic.”

I want to thank everyone, especially Bill, for joining this book salon! I hope it’s given everyone a taste of how good A Great Aridness is.

Unfortunately, that’s not true. Exxon Mobil has a clear record of funding deniers even after it claims to have stopped. http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/exxon-continued-to-fund-climate-denial-in-200/blog/26100/

And Exxon Mobil is actually funding more powerful climate deniers than it used to, like the Republican Party and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Unfortunately, I expect Salazar’s legacy, notwithstanding his work to accelerate the development of renewable projects, will be that of continued expansion of fossil-fuel drilling and thus increased carbon pollution. There’s still a little time to forestall Shell’s exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea, though as each week goes by it’s looking like it’s going to get final approval.

Denial is a very human response to the climate crisis — it’s extremely hard to face the truth that we have poisoned the future, so it’s no surprise that people rush to accept the false comfort offered by the “large cast of senatorial ideologues, right-wing bloviators, and modern-day Iagos lobbying for Big Coal and Big Oil” that Bill so eloquently describes.

I nominate William deBuys…

A practical suggestion for people in the region — run for local office! There are too many Tea Partiers who were mobilized by Glenn Beck to seize local positions, and fueled by the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory, they’re trying to dismantle local systems that allow for community control of resources and planning. They’re so afraid someone’s going to take away their exurban golf-course retirement communities that they’re actually accelerating their destruction!

There was a great passage in Taylor Branch’s biography of Martin Luther King (2nd volume, Pillar of Fire) that talks about how to deal with inexplicable calamity without falling into nihilistic despair or depending on false hope:

What brought King and Heschel together was a prescription for the dilemma that plagued the Chicago conference. Most of the delegates searched for ways to overcome a stubborn avoidance of race in religious discourse. To break such a barrier, nearly all the theologians felt the need for a calming approach that labeled racial prejudice a feeble anachronism, a holdover of premodern irrationality, but this very impulse to soothe and minimize opened them to charges of false engagement from realists such as Stringfellow and Campbell. Yet, the realists’ tinge of fatalism reminded Heschel of a ghostly legacy from the Jewish past — the defiant urge to abandon hope of any divine presence in the face of inexplicable calamity . . .

As proof that human beings could engage the most deadening crises without falling into either of the classic polar traps — nihilism or blandness — Heschel held up the ideal of the Hebrew prohpets. While facing, even welcoming, the destruction of themselves and their own people, the prophets remained suffused with redemptive purpose. Far from soaring off in to saccharine self-persuasion, however, they made biting symbols out of daily pains and predicaments. “Moralists of all ages have been eloquent in singing the praises of virtue,” wrote Heschel. “The distinction of the prophets was in their remorseless unveiling of injustice and oppression…”

Although there are Mormons who accept the science of climate change — like climatologist Barry Bickmore and the contributors to LDS Earth Stewardship — there doesn’t seem to be much if any leadership from the church to deal responsibly with the issue. Certainly Mitt Romney’s embrace of the far-right fossil-fuel interests that have a stranglehold on the Republican Party does not bode well. As Bill says, it’s likely that leadership is going to have to come from the grassroots.

To buy Salt Dreams: http://www.collectedworksbookstore.com/book/9780826324283

My understanding is that, if we seriously address greenhouse pollution starting now, we can have a Southwest landscape of the future that resembles that of northern Mexico of the past. That means that at the local level, that’s what people of the region should be designing towards. One problem, of course, is that the level of human habitation and agriculture that northern Mexico used to sustain is inevitably in long-term decline, which means that immigration pressures will continue to increase.

In my opinion, one of the first steps to surviving change in the Southwest is — as Bill gets at in the conclusion of his book — recognizing that we can’t survive if we refuse to help our neighbors.

People like me on the outside (though I have family in Tucson) understand that the Southwest is famously a place for individualists and loners. But is there also a tradition of community?

Is the scale of climate change in the Southwest just too great for our institutions — political systems, legal systems, engineering, etc. — to grapple with honestly? You talked with Brad Udall. Do you know if the Udalls in the Senate are working on this?

We’re already seeing a very early and aggressive start to the wildfire season. http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/03/21/448988/winter-that-wasnt-fuels-deadly-wildfires/

One of the most powerful lessons of Bill’s book is the idea that “drought” is something of a misnomer, since it implies less humidity than the norm — but global warming means that we’re headed to a drier norm in the Southwest.

A followup — in the midst of the drought, hydrofrackers are actually outbidding farmers for water access at public auctions… http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/04/05/458478/frackers-outbid-farmers-for-water-in-colorado-drought/

Great question!

Bill — Why do you think there’s a disconnect between the evident wisdom, passion, respect for history and care for the future from the people you profile in your book and the seeming lack of concern from society writ large?

William’s book is a great read. Welcome everyone!