Time of useful consciousness. A great phrase -- it's what pilots term the time between something going seriously pear-shaped and being conscious enough to do something useful to remedy the situation.
It's also the title of an excellent little pocket book on climate change published by Bridget Williams Books (viva
this audacious NZ publishing unit and their sassy collection of big ideas in little packages). It's a great title for a book on climate change -- because navigating the sea of conflicting information on this issue for the lay person is like being told to boogie board a tsunami wave and hope for the best.
Unless you have a really thorough knowledge of maths, and some sophisticated physics, chemistry and biology, climate change conversations deteriorate into the fanatical yelling to the deaf who then relay the message to the blind via sign language.
It often feels like an exercise in Olympic level idiocy underscored by ideological vehemence on both sides. The people I know who don't believe humans are having any effect on the climate -- who are very clever and who all have science degrees -- tend to have made their money in either mining or the oil industry, which takes something from their arguments for me.
The ones who are equally vehement that climate change is happening and that it is caused by human industry don't all have science degrees and tend to eat far too many organic carrots, which, again, fickle as I am, undermines their authority to speak on pretty much anything.
