DAVID HOULE: Desperately seeking new ideas, visions, plans, and goals – Sarasota Herald-Tribune

David Houle| Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Columns here over the past few months have dealt with all the changes to Sarasota and Bradenton and that many of them are causing concern. Concern that paradise is no longer. Much of this change is the perpetuation of the way things have always been done.

Frequent readers of this column know the term I use for this is legacy thinking." Thoughts from the past. Meaning doing today what was done yesterday. Therefore today is never new but just a continuation of yesterday. New visions never get developed as the old ones are perpetuated.

That is why the climate crisis is such a good metaphor for how we should look ahead to the future we want.

The climate crisis, simply put, is something that has never happened since homo sapiens have been alive on Earth. The rate of CO2increase in the atmosphere occurring today has not happened for 50 million years. This means that we have no history or experience with what is going on. This provides the cover for both the people who used to be called deniers and all climate scientists. Neither group had any background for what was ahead.

The deniers, at least up to 2000, could be granted a partial pass as something that has never happened is hard to believe will happen. The scientists underestimated the rapidity of global warming, and the consequences as there has never been something that has happened so quickly.

The deniers couldnt understand something that had never happened, and the scientists were winging it on the speed that it would happen. We now know that global warming is incredibly and dangerously real, life-threatening, incredibly costly and that it is happening much much faster that even the top scientists had predicted.

Simply stated, what has happened to the Gulf Coast the past 100 years will not be what will happen this century. Actually, relative to Sea Level Rise, the amount that has occurred on the Gulf Coast since 1900 will be doubled by 2050.This means that new ideas, visions, plans, investments, initiatives and goals need to be new, for this new future.

The climate crisis was not something that had to be factored into future plans last century but is essential for the decades ahead. Whatever the reasons for denial, resistance, and the lack of initiative to face what is clearly ahead, must be set aside.

Unfortunately, people like to be led rather than think independently. For some reason, hard to fathom, the climate crisis has become a political issue.The climate crisis is about everything. Literally everything. There is not a species or a place that will not be affected. Yet so much of what could be done is not occurring, simply due to politics. At this time in our countrys history that is a disaster!

I have spoken about global warming all around the world for decades, mostly in the U.S. I have written a column for this newspaper for the better part of 10 years. Back in 2015, when I published the first of two books on climate and co-founded a Sarasota-based nonprofit to create crew consciousness, I started to write more columns in this space about climate, clean energy, sea level rise and what might be ahead. I received numerous emails from readers, the vast majority positive.

Yet I knew, and know, that anytime I write about some climate-related topic, I will get some highly negative comments that simply doubt both the reality of crisis and malign me personally. None that set forth any intellectual or scientific arguments. I have received a number of emails from readers stating that the only explanation of my comments was thatI was an ultra-liberal, a socialist, and one man called me a communist.

The point here is that communism and democracy have nothing to do with global warming, yet people still think that it does. We have to stop this politicization of what is simply the biggest challenge facing our species.

If we want Sarasota, Bradenton and the Gulf Coast communities near usto thrive, adapt, and continue to be places where we want to live, we must let go of what is clearly dated and replace with new visions that adapt to the new realities coming our way in the 2020s, 2030s and 2040s.

As I referenced in recent columns, will it not be better to accept that all barrier island beaches may be gone in the 2040s and plan for a redefined economy, than to simply do nothing and then panic, react and move when this becomes a reality?

To think that the next 30 years in Sarasota will be like the last 30 yearsis insanity. Do we want insane thinking to guide us? So far the answer seems to be yes.

Do we want our children, our grandchildren and all those yet unborn to look at us with disgust that we sleepwalked when we could have mobilized to create our paradise in the future? I dont think so.

Sarasota resident David Houle is a globally recognized futurist. He has given speeches on six continents, written 13 books and is futurist in residence at Ringling College of Art andDesign. His websites aredavidhoule.comand the2020sdecade.com. Email him at david@davidhoule.com.

Continue reading here:
DAVID HOULE: Desperately seeking new ideas, visions, plans, and goals - Sarasota Herald-Tribune