Not of of them will admit that people are living better (all over the world, not just the US), living longer, having higher standards of living, having better health than the human race has ever had. I have no interest in going back to the way things were. I don't want to live out in the woods and haul water and plant crops and most of the people I know who have done that have gotten out as soon as they could.

Why can't these people appreciate what we have? I have seen such hate in their face toward people who say we have a good life. I have heard them say that the best thing would be for the human race to die off.

These are the same people who when they find out that I have no car and ride the bus or my bike, that they would too but they don't have time because they are so important and have to go to all these important meetings to save the world. The rest of us are suppose to ride the bus, but not important people like them. I even had an officer of the Sierra Club tell me that she would never ride a bus because she just didn't want to be around the kind of people who ride the bus.

The joke in Tucson, home of the radical Earth First group, is that the easiest way to find an Earth First meeting is to look for the parking lot with the most four wheel drives, because they all have to be able to get back to nature, you know.

They can't enjoy anything because they seem to feel like it's a sin to be happy and a sin to enjoy what we have and a sin to be comfortable. That's what they hate the most, comfort. They think people should hate being comfortable. So why else are we working our butts off if not to be comfortable?

I've lived with no electricity and had to clean lamp chimneys each day. I've seen what it's like when not only can you not get to the hospital, but there's no hospital to get to. I've watched children die of dysentary and malaria and I don't want to see it again. Don't tell me that we'll just keep the good technology, because who's going to decide, first of all, and who's going to keep people from inventing new technology?

We're stuck with technology and all we can do is guide it, what little we can, and trust that we will have the sense to use it properly. The only other option is a top down, brutal, authoritarian government, and that not only won't work, I would rather die of global warming, thank you.