Hippies vs. Activists

I totally empathize with Ms. Maldonado when she argues, ""I don't like any of this new age thing, that we need to be in touch with the earth and that."

I see this as an argument between the haves--that is, the privileged, pampered people from the cities and the industrialized West, the ones who want to return to nature-- and the have-nots, that is, the inhabitants of the Third World, many of whom are poor and who already are quite brutally in touch with the earth because their very subsistence depends on it. And I have to say the argument of the poor carries the day. They have every right to be righteously pissed. The spectre of climate change affects their lives with such immediacy.

The hearts of the hippies are in the right place, but they have to realize that for people like Ms. Maldonado, climate change is not a political abstraction but a tangible, day-to-day thing that profoundly affects their ability to eat, drink and breathe. It makes them incredibly fearful.

in reference to: Meanwhile, At the Other Climate Summit... | Mother Jones (view on Google Sidewiki)