Well reasonsed and written colinsett. With you on our side I know we will succeed.

It is not just Jared Diamond, Barney Foran and Duncan Brown who are writing without the doom-and-gloom. There are many others, but you are right - the tide of lifestyle change and government action does not seem to be changing. In fact, in Australia we are trying to increase our population and increase our consumption of non-renewable resources. I don't discount Diamond, Foran, Brown and Associates efforts just yet, though. These are difficult to grasp issues and it is taking some time to get the message through, but I think there is some progress. Maybe I am a silly optimist.

The difficulty of the message is probably an indication that one Rachel Carson is not going to do it. There will need to be many. I find Ross Gittins, the Economics writer for the Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Sheehan (SMH political writer) and some other non-greenie types, write very sensibly about resource depletion and population impacts. These kind of voices are probably easier to understand for many sections of the population, than hearing the same old type of rehashed greenie talk.

In answer to your main question "Is it possible to get the approach right?" I don't know, but I am quite hopeful. Comments like yours make me more hopeful. I probably should not have implied that these two approaches (less doom and gloom, more mainstream consideration) were the only magic bullets. To make the big changes to sustainability we might need a hundred new approaches. With champions like you and the others your mentioned pushing forward, hopefully we will get there.

It seems to me that the central point of the article reflects back on "The Boy who Cried Wolf" story. The concept behind that story seems to be missing in a lot of public debate.

I can get caught once by those who cry wold when there is no wolf, do it too often and I'm not likely to show up to help at the working bee to build a wolf proof fence around the sheep pen. Convince me that there is a population of sheep eating wolves in the area and that there is reason to believe that a better fence is wothwhile and I'll be there.

I think you make a good point R0bert. Your analogy about the wolves and the sheep is especially poignant. Some commentators try to make it sound like the wolves are right outside the door, but after people hear that a few times they say "well this is the tenth time they have said the wolf was at the door, why should this time be any different."

I'm interested in your feelings. When geologists and environmentalists say “Oil production will start to decline in the next five years causing significant price increases and we will run out of oil in 30 to 40 years,” does that that make you think:
• The wolves are not in the area, they are 30 to 40 years away so lets keep moving forward and see what happens.
• The geologists and environmentalists are wrong we have plenty of oil for much longer than that.
• We should start slowly building some parts of the wolf fence, so we are ready if something happens.
• If we run out of oil, we will replace it with something just as good.
• Some combination of the above
• Or something else

Do you believe we are living sustainably at the moment and if not, are the wolves so far away, that it is just not worth building the fence yet?

Thanks, Eric