While I long for the Beyond Zero Emissions 10 year plan off fossil fuels to be enacted immediately, I can't help but disagree with some of the sentiments above as tarnishing green energy with hippie philosophy?

"A renewable-energy economy will only be built through the renewable energy of free and self-organised citizens and communities."

So China is not currently MANDATING from the top-down some of the largest wind farms and THE largest hydro dam in the world? In many ways I think China will adapt to peak oil faster and better than we will simply BECAUSE it can COMMAND certain things to happen, NOW, and projects will not get stuck in endless COAG meetings.

EG: Can we all say "Murray-Darling?"

I don't really care if the world leaves fossil fuels bottom-up or top-down, as long as it does so. I think we need activism in both areas.

Yes rpg, I am intolerant to dumbnuts and wingbats, but as we have seen, some are tolerant (fungo, Col and the Dalai Lama come to mind).

My other undergrad was chem eng, so I understand where you are coming from. I would assert that engineers have as much ego as scientists, and it is sheer folly (for wont of a better word) to imply scientists don't deal with facts.

I agree, some people just seem to be slow learners as to cause and effect.

Oh yeah, that "open mind thing" ... it goes both ways - but the dumbnuts and wingbats can't see that.

"Open your mind too much and your brains will fall out." - someone said it

Yep, this piece is "too hippie" even for me, and I'm a New Urbanist committed to fighting overpopulation, peak oil, global warming, biodiversity loss, "peak everything" and acting for general sustainability.

But as I said, if China can legislate more renewable energy than Western Countries can, then why does it have to be back to voluntary communities? Many voluntary communities, pardon the technical language, "suck!" Do you want us to wait for your redneck hillbilly gun-toting tobacco chewing Moose shooting Sarah Palin & Joe Sixpack types to deal with climate change VOLUNTARILY!?

I'm sorry, but that's just too much pipe weed, can I have some? ;-)

Or are we going to wait for the "people's choice" of the so called "free energy market" to decide to fix it for us? Oh, that's right, with all the disgusting subsidies to the fossil fuel giants I don't know who still really thinks there IS such a thing as the free energy market!

Or are you just like "Neil" off the 1980's "Young Ones" saying, "Yeah, lets all go live in a teepee!" Broomshanka!

Sorry, I'm a greenie. I want the world off fossil fuels and in particular, off oil.

I want worldwide adequate standards of living to enable "the demographic transition"... which results in empowered educated women that generally have careers, a say in society, and *less children*.

I want "bright green" cities that are beautiful, modern, but *more* (not completely) car free, with highly disciplined use of motor vehicles.

But the only way we're going to save species and the planet is through a "bright green" Industrial ecosystem, NOT through everyone reverting to hunter-gatherer lifestyles where we'd wipe out entire ecosystems, still not have enough to eat, and finally just dieoff.

Ain't gonna happen!

Eclipse Now, your seeming admiration for the Chinese dictatorship's ability to "get things done", as it were, sends shudders down my spine.

Read a political history of the 1920s: a great many people were tired of democracy's seeming inefficiency and paralysis, and greatly admired the new political movement, fascism, and its abilitiy to "get things done".

Even in Australia.

Prominent conservative politician Sir Wilfred Kent Hughes declared that Fascism was the "spirit of the age", and publicly proclaimed his admiration for fascism, in articles written for the Sun newspaper, with such titles as "Why I am a Fascist" and who declared "I am a Fascist without a shirt". Kent Hughes was no fringe looney either; he went on to be a founding light of the Liberal Party, and a minister in the Menzies cabinet.

So, the next time you grow tired of democracy, and voluntary communities' ability to "get things done", think for a moment about the alternatives.

Clownfish

Things have moved on since 1920, the rest of the world acknowledges this.

Sure, there are political, economic and socio-cultural differences in adrressing the issues of climate change, but they must be addressed.

It may be provocative, but the dumbnuts and wingbats do not want to address these issues ... they don't even want to acknowledge there is an issue.

Fwiw, China is doing far more to adapt to climate change and mitigate GHG emissions than we are, notwithstanding their sheer numbers make this task difficult. China knows this, as does the US Administration.

India is another story.