here is where "for our children" is a useful handle for people trying to get a grip on the seriousness/urgency of the situation --  although the level of selfishness in popular consumer culture today is so extreme that even this may not work any more.

I don't see this working at all. It works for people who already get it, and marginally for people who are a little behind.

To the people who don't get it all, it means nothing. (Conservatives don't do empathy or reality, remember.)

DeAnander:

there are no downsides to eating really good fresh local food -- it tastes better and it's better for the eater's personal health, as well as being socially altruistic and so on.  it's win-win-win.  in this instance, hedonism seems to align with conscience rather than pulling against it.  

This doesn't work either, unfortunately. The food may be good but who wants to do menial cooking work, except as an occasional hobby?

And health is hardly a big draw. Fitness could be, but health - not so much, I think.

DeAnander:

I dunno.  I am flummoxed.

I'm not. I just don't like any of the solutions that are likely to work in practice because none of them are pleasant.

The most promising approach is probably A Movement - international, positive rather than oppositional, popularised by soundbites and repetition, possibly quasi-religious.

The Greens already have this, but they're not socially or politically coherent enough, and they have too much faddy Birkenstock baggage to be taken seriously. (As non-Greens would see it.)

The challenge would be getting governments to play along. Somehow I don't see that happening. And Al Gore's Powerpoint politics aren't enough of a substitute.