There is just an amazingly pervasive gloom at the show, not in feeling, but in expression of the problems the planet is facing.

This morning, Alex Wilson of BuildingGreen Inc., a founder and early supporter of NESEA, intended to give a speech that covered the "challenges" and then gave 10 categories of solutions, but then had to rush through the second half because the governor arrived. So he ended up spending more than 30 minutes, easily, on the many areas in which, it seems, we're just screwed, any minute.

These include peak oil, the point at which the world can no longer extract new oil to fuel expansion, and every recipient of oil reflects someone else who didn't get that oil; water shortages, such as the precipitous falling of the water table in China's breadbasket and how, in Lake Mead, which supplies Las Vegas with 90 percent of its water, they had to revamp the water outtake system because the waterline had dropped below the old one; the growing incidents of dead zones in large water bodies, which has risen a third in three years; the use of toxic chemicals in building materials; food shortages likely to result as production falls — it hasn't met consumption in 7 of the last 8 years — and 70 million more people populate the planet annually; and more more more!

His solutions, meanwhile, were crowded out, and I hope to get his slides via e-mail at some point to at least consider them. But the unintended effect (which seems completely in keeping with the metasubject) was a strong impression of "all bad, little good." Even his solutions summary sheet, before going into his list of 10, was pretty depressing:

* It won't be easy.
* It will get worse before it gets better.
* We'll need buy-in first. (My thought: Little sign of that so far.)
* There is an excellent capacity for change, once we get started.

This is the good news!

Now, I'm playing a bit with the circumstances; there was nothing to suggest that Wilson wanted to leave only a grave impression. But last night at the public forum, despite the persuasive Solitaire Townsend's that we need to stop saying "we have a nightmare" and replace it with "We Have a Dream," the tenor was predominantly negative as well.

Writer Jim Kunstler led the gloom with brimstone and bombast, saying we are engaged in "delusional thinking" partly resulting from, and in, the "worship of unearned riches." He cited Las Vegas as the obvious example, but more to the topic at hand, he said we can't rely on "they'll come up with something" as a solution to current conditions. He said "we won't tech our way out of this, and we won't organize our way out of this," as many activists in the room might think or hope.

"We need to grow food differently, we need to conduct trade differently, we need to do commerce differently, we need to do schooling differently. We need to inhabit North America differently. And we don't have time to be crybabies," he said. Later, during questioning, he added, "It's not about what people like. It's about what we have to do."

Still later, Kunstler predicted that "we're about to enter a period of convulsion" comparable to the late 1850s, in which environmentalists are today's equivalent of the abolitionists, a small, dedicated group working for change without significant public effect. Then, as now, he said, "we have no idea where our leadership will come from."

So, have a nice day!