Tell me a story

In their rambling romp through postmoderist literature in "Break Through" [Houghton Mifflin, 2007], Nordhaus and Shellenberger end up in the right church but wrong pew. They correctly highlight the failure of the environmental community, especially that portion of the community exorcised about our impending doom from global climate change, but offer the wrong story for going forward. They rightly castigate the negativity and narrow-mindedness of environmentalists in pitting "man against nature" but advocate a continuation of that public losing story with their "let's prepare for disasters" message. It's like they didn't hear themselves: people respond to immediate, positive images of the possible -- stories that offer hope while all about is gloom.
Gloom we have from the environmentalists: our unrelenting assault on nature by an over-populated earth; drought, disease, floods, rising sea levels, hurricanes and torrential storms; disappearing forests and species, blistering hot cities and unsustainable energy supplies; melting icecaps and nature in full retreat... all inevitable. Who wants to hear this stuff? No wonder the public tunes these people out!
Well, let's talk about the good stuff. Good stuff; what good stuff? As long as environmentalist define "good" as a story of returning to a mythical past, say 1990, there can be no "good stuff". Time is the one linear thing that moves forward; we can selectively remember, but we can't go back.
Unlike environmentalists, economists know all change brings winners and losers. A "just society" seeks to compensate the losers with some of the winnings of the winners. Who and where are the winners in climate change -- an inconceivable question to environmentalists?
The reality is there may be many winners... those living in northern climes long limited by long, cold winters and short summers (Canada, Russia, the Nordic countries); those with access to dependable supplies of freshwater (Great Lakes); those that will control the new coastlines and build new cities. Perhaps warmer climates will result in new waves of natural productivity and speciation as flora and fauna come together in new ways.
Even in the depths of the Great Depression, stories of hope and communal self-reliance resonated with the population, e.g. "It's a wonderful Life". Where are our stories of hope and positive objectives amid the gloom of the environmentalists message -- the messages that not only offer hope, but propel people forward in creating a different, more just society and world where evolving Man and Nature are seen as one.