Holy hickory-smoked pole beans, did you just see that? That's what happens when the messaging on climate shifts from scare tactics — which studies show only work on about 10 percent of the population — to a totally honest, positive but not Pollyanna-ish attempt to get people excited about real change.
Carbon Nation is the logical next step after An Inconvenient Truth: We know there's a problem; now, how do we get everyone to do something about it?
Carbon Nation also, not incidentally, sidesteps the issue of whether or not you believe in climate change. I don't think it's ever a good idea to stop talking about the insane, dinosaur-extinction level of change that is coming at us like a freight train on account of all the greenhouse gases we already pumped into the atmosphere, but the fact remains: From a near-term perspective, climate change is the least good reason to get off of fossil fuels.
Mostly because the others are so compelling: our trade deficit (due in no small part to all the oil we buy), our foul air and poisoned fish (thanks, coal and automobile exhaust), and the fact that we're going to run out of fossil fuels eventually anyway, and it will take us a huge amount of time and effort to wean ourselves, so if we want to leave the black stuff before it leaves us, we better get cracking.
(For more clips from Carbon Nation, check out this cameo by Grist's very own Sean Casten, as well as these segments, which include Stoneyfield Farms and Texas' only one-armed wind baron.)
