Will the current environmental / green movement last? Why or why not?

I don’t think the focus and urgency (or hype if you will) it seems to have now will last, but one can only hope that the current ‘movement’ will change things for the better and we’ll learn from it and adopt best practices for the future.

Everything like this is a phase. It’ll go away. But people will remain more aware of reducing their bill size each year, and how to do it.

Cage, I’m curious what you mean by “Everything like this” because that could be interpreted in many different ways.

Scare phase?
Let’s remember it is now scientifically proven that global warming is actually a naturally occurring event in a cycle of global temperature change, however, this time it is made more extreme by the involvement of man kind. I think temperatures will eventually reduce again.

I’m sure it’ll go back down, but will anything we recognize be around to see it happen? If we’re talking about natural cycles then it could be thousands of years before we see the current upswing in global temperatures begin to reverse. Personally, I’d like to think pursuing cleaner energy, making things more efficient, and reducing our dependancy on foreign oil would all make a lot more sense, as well as having many positive ancillary benefits… but that’s just me.

That’s an excellent point! If we’re talking in geologic time, then the 60’s were about a half a second ago. But if we’re talking in human time, 40 years have passed in which the solar panels were taken down off the white house, fuel economy hardly increased, we’re using fresh water faster than it is replenished, etc.

But in the last year or two, there seems to have been a dramatic change in the way we think about building cars, buildings, cities and about what types of toxins are in the products we use, wear, eat and play with. I wonder if there is good evidence for believing that this trend will continue? What do you think?

I think this Green movement is here to stay because of the incredible advancements we’ve made over the years. However, when our Co2 heads back down, people will think it’s over and will not retain the same amount of consciousness about the environment and will go back to their earlier habits of pollution.