Friday, October 10, 2014

Thinking seven generations forward


Someone at the Economic Summit meeting in Sun Valley this week said that if the same percentage of the local population in Los Angeles, Calif., attended such a summit, the participants would have filled the Rose Bowl and left 40,000 people waiting in the parking lot.
    Around 240 people spent Wednesday discussing the state of the local economy, its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities.
    They were wowed by keynote speaker Mayor Bob Dixson of Greensburg, Kan., who made the astonishing statement that residents in his town had to decide if they would be “humbly grateful” or “grumbly hateful” for the “opportunity” presented to residents by a monster tornado that leveled the town in 2007 and left everyone homeless with no food, water or electricity.
    Dixson is no starry-eyed dreamer who spins gossamer tales for willingly gullible listeners. He and his practical Midwest neighbors harnessed their relationships and their strong sense of place, and yoked them together with government and private investments. They rebuilt Greensburg as a living laboratory of energy-wise construction and wind and solar power-generation facilities.
    Dixon is an evangelist for the sound business case for green construction and green energy and for the wisdom that people should face their disasters head-on, learn from them and live on. He believes that communities should project the impacts of their decisions of today seven generations forward.
    In two major wildfires, Sun Valley-area people looked down the barrel of potential destruction and didn’t blink. Businesses survived, events rebounded and the economy is slowly, but steadily improving because of sound decisions made by local voters, business investors and solid local leaders. Unfortunately, global conditions mean that the fires may not be the last crises the area is forced to face.
    One participant in the Economic Summit spoke the words that send shivers through areas with an economy based on winter sports: climate change. In response, Hailey City Council member Carol Brown announced the formation of a local Climate Adaptation Planning Group.
    In Dixson’s view, such an enormous threat is an opportunity to figure out how to change, adapt and survive well.
    Tornados are not part of life in the Intermountain West. Even so, Sun Valley-area residents are going to have many opportunities to find ways to address and adapt to the global climate threat.
    With its energetic people and resources, our area may have the best chance of any place in Idaho to put change on the ground and create a sustainable model for life, now and for seven generations forward.




About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged:

  • Spam
  • Ones violating this site's commenting policy
  • Clearly unrelated
  • Personal attacks on others
Comments should not be flagged for:
  • Disagreeing with the content
  • Being in a dispute with the commenter

Popular Comment Threads



 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.