The Super Friends

Yesterday, aside from spending waaaaaayyyyy too much time on Flickr (I have no idea why I never checked that out before... I guess I'm just a crumudgen), I spent some time sorting trough my bookmarks -you know, all the stuff I am going to come back to and read later.

Well, I actually did read some of those yesterday. One of them was Warriors & Heroes Twenty-five leaders who are fighting to stave off the planetwide catastrophe, a Rolling Stone article about the most visible and politically astute defenders of the environment, including CEOs of a "company [that] is one of the world's biggest polluters", as well as anenergy company, NASA scientists, vice-presidents, prime minsters, church ministers, barbarians, and more.

Aimed at people who don't really spend much time reading about this stuff, it was high on drama and low on specifics, relying mostly on some great one-liners. For some reason though, I found myself reading through all of them. Maybe it's because it almost make it sound like the good guys are winning....

My favorite to read was about former CIA director Jim Woolsey. Partly because, since watching Alias last year, I have been wondering what, if anything the CIA is doing to prepare for the "business as usual" future. It's validating to see that the head of the CIA also sees this as a priority. I also enjoy reading any article that uses the words "airy-fairy".

NOTE: If you are offended by an anti-bush slant, be forewarned. As much as I would like to be fair to the authors, recognizing that it is difficult not to be somewhat anti-bush administration when seriously discussing environmental protection or climate change, this article makes it sound like the an epic battle of their Heros as The Super Friends Vs. The Bush administration as The legion of Doom.

Never the less, here are some of their prize winning one-liners.

"Formal business attire is to Japanese executives as shitkickers are to Texas oilmen."

Thompson dismisses skeptics who contend that the current warming trend is due to a natural cycle. "Name one who has ever really studied climate or collected data," he says. "I bet you can't."

"Their denial is stupefying. Here we have an administration that invaded Iraq on sparse and even bogus evidence, and yet they claim to be unconvinced by the overwhelming data on climate change -- despite a bigger scientific consensus than most any we've ever seen in history."

In one of the most memorable sessions, McCain shot down fellow Republicans who were brandishing a statement signed by "experts" on climate science -- pointing out that Perry Mason and a Spice Girl were among the signatories.

"My grandchildren are pretty damned important to me," he says. "I can't sit here saying, 'Take action,' when I didn't take part in the action time. I don't want to leave a legacy that I didn't do my damnedest to try to slow this down as fast as we could."

"Millions of poor people could die in this century because of global warming, and millions of others are at risk of hunger and malnutrition. The poster child of global warming is a poor child. And Christians are supposed to look out for the poor, because God loves them."

He has instituted a five-minute limit on showers at his home, downsized the fleet of Hummers that he has been collecting since his Terminator days and worked with GM to develop an SUV that runs on hydrogen.

The irony, he notes, is that a president who boasts of his business degree is bucking the industry trend. "Everyone predicted that George Bush was going to be the 'CEO President,' " Lash says. "But if he truly had business savvy, he'd be following the path of these trailblazers."