The good thing about Selling a Vision of Hope is that it is versatile. It can be used to solve almost any problem we face. Ideology plus Investment equals Hope. Use An Ideology of Common Sense along with some well placed Investment Dollars to sell people on a Vision of Hope.

 

Global Warming is one hell of a problem. Let's put it in perspective using Common Sense. Most scientists agree that man-made greenhouse gases are causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere. But even if you believe that global warming is a natural phenomenon, well guess what; we still have to fix it. Try finding another environment if we mess this one up. It's time to turn down the thermostat, unless we want to get a preview of hell, right here and right now.

 

The idea that we should grow our economy by burning massive amounts of fossil fuels is a relatively new concept in the overall scheme of things,  perhaps only 200 years old. We survived as a species for some 2,000,000 years before then. True, it was a short and brutish life that the cavemen had, but it was a life nonetheless, and we kept ourselves going, using our common sense, for some 2,000,000 years. That bears repeating, but I'll spare you.

 

Well, is it just possible that when we decided to modernize in this way, with our excessive reliance on fossil fuels, we may have made a wrong turn in the course of our development as a species?  Could our foray into modernity, in this particular way, have been a slight mistake? If our species approaches extinction as a result, will we finally come around to the conclusion that we may have made a boo-boo, at a time when there may not be anyone around to do much of anything about it?

 

OK. So what do we do now? We invest. And by investing, we fix the problem, and create jobs as well. What a concept! We know roughly the parameters of a solution: cars that use less offensive fuels, hydrogen cells, bio fuels, geothermal energy, wind power, solar power, nuclear power, conservation, bicycles, etc. I love my bike, by the way. I'm not a technical person, but there are some very smart people out there who know how to fix this thing. They have to be backed up by political will. Time to bite the bullet.

 

So we will use common sense to understand global warming. And we will invest big time to make it right. And we will inspire people with a Sense of Hope: the hope that people will have the courage to push aside all the nonsense and to see things as they really are, the hope that people will make their will known to the moneyed interests for the sake of future generations, the hope that a problem we all have in common will give us the opportunity to come together in common purpose, and the hope that we can defy the odds, and transform a dire threat to our existence into our ultimate salvation.

 

Global Warming, like our problems in the Middle East, is staring us in the face. We dare not flinch. It will not go away, unless we decide to make it so. We have used our brainpower to get into this mess. It is time now to use our common sense, and the resources we still have left, to make it right. In so doing, we will realize the potential that is within us to be more than we are. On this score at least, we played God and lost. It is time to own up to our failures, to learn from our mistakes, and to find it within ourselves, to do what we have to do, to leave behind a legacy that takes into full account the welfare of our children, and of the countless generations still to come. In the final analysis, isn't that all we may ever have left, when it is all said and done?