Enviromentalism is the next big scam?

[Revolverman]

Bio fuels are a Red Herring. Just as polluted, and the same, if not more of costs.

[SuperHans]

As far as I can see it, organic foods have just become another avenue for elitist snobbery. If you live on a council estate and don't make alot of money, your primary avenues of food shopping are mass grown un-organic sources. If you live in a nice suburban townhouse, you generally have the disposable income to buy organic and follow all the other fads set by the trendies. Thus you can look down on those that don't shop at M&S or Waitrose but under the seemingly legitimate guise of environmental concern. It (as well as several other similar features of the climate change movement) utterly sickens me. I'm by no means a complete envirosceptic, but the movement surrounding it revolts me.

[Gami]

I'm not 100% sure if you're referring to environmentalism as actually trying to SAVE the planet or just preserving it for future generations. When it comes to the latter, we're  going to stop really. It's the big things that mess things up. The oil, the toxic waste, the air pollution - all that.

As for saving the planet, I think that's just ... bullshit. In the end, all this will do is just make us humans unable to live the way we do now. Earth has survived rampaging huge dinosaurs, massive earthquakes, avalanches, volcanic eruptions, meteors hitting it - hell, at one point it was even practically covered in ice! The Earth can take care of itself. Various species of animals are extinct every day. Nothing we can do about it. I doubt some air pollution, metal cans and plastic is going to kill it forever.

[Jude]

Above poster, you don't really seem to understand just how fragile the conditions for life are.  We've yet to find another planet in the entire galaxy that meets the necessary criteria to host living organisms.  Why would anyone be surprised if it was hard for us to screw ours up as rare as they are?  Venus is also a good example of how what's in the atmosphere can damn the entire planet's capability.

Meteors, and all of that were a one-off event.  They usually caused mass-extinction for as little of time as they were building.  Humans destroying the planet is a rather sustained effort.  What I don't think is very well understood is that Oil, Natural Gas, etc. is all the byproduct of thousands of years of natural processes storing solar energy.  Burning thousands of years of such is obviously not wise.

It's possible no matter what happens as far as that goes we will survive, and the planet will too.  But it's hard a good idea to run a massive experiment in your own ecosystem without fully understanding the consequences.  The people who're trying to grasp what we're doing to ourselves (scientists) have come up with a lot of seriously disturbing ideas.  I just find it amazing how people pick and choose what ideas of science they want to accept based on utility.  It just goes to show that the only thing that really matters in Western Civilization is short-term practical usage.

Unfortunately we aren't interested in Science for its ability to seek out truth.

[Zakharra]

 Us destroy the planet? No. We don't haver the capacity. Possibly make it harder for us to live in? Possible. Through overpopulation and unregulated farming/explotation, definately. but we do live here and need to make choices that allow us to live. Life will find a way and it's herbis to think we can ruin that. Over 98% or all of the plant and animal species that have existed on this world are extinct. Not by human effort either.

It's extremely hypocritical that those who are preaching to us about how to live green, are usually very wealthy and live extravagent lives. Having homes that waste kilowatts of power, have several gas burning SUVs, fly jets and the like. They talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. Al Gore is a big example of this.

[Jude]

Us destroy the planet? No. We don't haver the capacity.

I'm sure we've all heard the old adage that Nuclear Weapons could destroy the earth many times over.  So we definitely have the capacity, whether or not environmental change/exploitation could be the engine of such is another question.

Possibly make it harder for us to live in? Possible. Through overpopulation and unregulated farming/explotation, definately. but we do live here and need to make choices that allow us to live. Life will find a way and it's herbis to think we can ruin that. Over 98% or all of the plant and animal species that have existed on this world are extinct. Not by human effort either.

Of course we need to make choices that allow us to live.  I don't care what happens to the earth, I care what happens to humanity.  Unfortunately in the mean time our success is directly linked to the integrity of our environment.  So naturally we do need to consider what we're doing to it.

It's extremely hypocritical that those who are preaching to us about how to live green, are usually very wealthy and live extravagent lives. Having homes that waste kilowatts of power, have several gas burning SUVs, fly jets and the like. They talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. Al Gore is a big example of this.

You're making the mistake of refusing to separate the message from the medium.  Even if it's prophets don't walk the walk, it doesn't mean the idea itself is incorrect.

I hope, as I think most people do, that we will find a technological way to solve the problem so we won't have to transition so harshly to a better equilibrium with the environment.  I even hope science is wrong about what we're doing.  But it doesn't seem likely.  I just think we need to do something instead of bickering about it for as long as the science indicates that's what is going to happen.

[Gami]

No, I understand them. I understand enough to know there's plenty I don't know about what actually allows  life on a planet. I do know that humans would most likely wipe themselves out before even getting close to turning Earth into Venus.

And multi-nuking a planet isn't a one-off event? A meteor hitting Earth s more than just a big fat crater - and I'm positive you know this. Like I said before, mankind will have been reduced (in several ways) before we get a chance to do this kind of damage.

I simply don't buy into it. Nature always has a way of fixing itself. So I wouldn't worry about that. As for us humans, we simply don't learn from our own mistakes, we're too driven by profit. Mankind needs to take a massive blow to get it inside its thick skull. Consider Mother Earth the, well, mother. And we're her kids. And we're beyond a spanking. We need mom to open up a can of whoop-ass for us.

I don't know the unrealistic scopes of this, but mankind should try to learn to utilize sun energy and convert particles and such into energy. E= mc^2 ftw.


Excuse me, I may sound a bit unserious in this discussion but it's simply my way of expressing myself, I am very serious about the matter, and I could rant for pages on how downright shit it is that we're actually just messing up for ourselves with all the air polluting, the oil waste, toxic gas, the greenhouse effect, the holes in the ozon layer, the thinned-out atmosphere, the poisons we put in our soil, in our crops, in animals, in ourselves, the nature we destroy to build houses of concrete, stone and steel, remove forests in favor of complexes that do nothing to contribute to the life of nature and most likely - on larger scales - disturb the ecosystem - fill our lungs with shit (my bogers were 50% black after a few days in London), wipe out fields to put asphalt and stone bricks, completely mine out mountains to built all kinds of crap. I've thought about it, trust me: just go outside your house. Look at all the fences, the signs, every sign post, the railway, the cars you see, the bars on freeways, the coins in your hand - just look at all the amount of metal used when you take a stroll around town. Now imagine that there are millions of cities around the world that are the same. Then take a stroll to the industrial area of your town and check out all the metal used there. Multiply a few thousand times and add that to the amount. Then take that final amount and double it. Do not include the airplanes and satellites, mind you.

But it's just too much. I can't fathom how there are enough resources for this. And if there are, I can't imagine there being THAT much more. It's bound to run out. We're bound to hit a stop, somehow. We're going to screw ourselves up before we screw up nature, that's for sure - unless we deliberately screw nature up.

[Jude]

Nature always has a way of fixing itself.

I think that's the crux of where we differ.  What you're saying isn't a fact, there are plenty of extinction events that could occur, including one scientists recently discovered where earth/mars orbits could synchronize resulting in a catastrophic collision.  The whole concept of "nature" in a vague, spiritual way doesn't make any sense once you start looking beyond our planet.

I don't know the unrealistic scopes of this, but m ankind should try to learn to utilize sun energy and convert particles and such into energy. E= mc^2 ftw.

Utilizing sun energy literally is solar energy development.  There's a lot of promise there too, it's theorized an advanced civilization would have to employ it to meet their energy needs, so that might be where we're going.  As for as the Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared bit, that's a concept involved in Nuclear Fusion, etc.

Excuse me, I may sound a bit unserious in this discussion but it's simply my way of expressing myself, I am very serious about the matter, and I could rant for pages on how downright shit it is that we're actually just messing up for ourselves with all the air polluting, the oil waste, toxic gas, the greenhouse effect, the holes in the ozon layer, the thinned-out atmosphere, the poisons we put in our soil, in our crops, in animals, in ourselves, the nature we destroy to build houses of concrete, stone and steel, remove forests in favor of complexes that do nothing to contribute to the life of nature and most likely - on larger scales - disturb the ecosystem - fill our lungs with shit (my bogers were 50% black after a few days in London), wipe out fields to put asphalt and stone bricks, completely mine out mountains to built all kinds of crap. I've thought about it, trust me: just go outside your house. Look at all the fences, the signs, every sign post, the railway, the cars you see, the bars on freeways, the coins in your hand - just look at all the amount of metal used when you take a stroll around town. Now imagine that there are millions of cities around the world that are the same. Then take a stroll to the industrial area of your town and check out all the metal used there. Multiply a few thousand times and add that to the amount. Then take that final amount and double it. Do not include the airplanes and satellites, mind you.

But it's just too much. I can't fathom how there are enough resources for this. And if there are, I can't imagine there being THAT much more. It's bound to run out. We're bound to hit a stop, somehow. We're going to screw ourselves up before we screw up nature, that's for sure - unless we deliberately screw nature up.

I think scientists generally agree with you that life will go on in some capacity even if we continue on as far as global warming goes, but I don't care about earth's continued existence when it comes down to it.  Only humanity's.  So this whole thing is kinda a pointless side-argument (that I admittedly help start).

[Avis habilis]

Us destroy the planet? No.

That would indeed be an idiotic claim. It's a good thing no one has ever made it. What we are fully capable of - and apparently bent on - doing is producing an environment that can no longer support us.

[Inkidu]

I personally think we don't have enough data on global warming and other various environmental problems to make an informed decision we just haven't been looking at it long enough. What about the industrial revolution when coal was burned unabated and unregulated?

Look at Rachel Carson, (sp?) who said there would be no birds by 1990 or something like that and I actually have more crap on my car than ever.

Sometimes I think we as humans just have to believe it's totally our fault.

[Serephino]

The earth does indeed have ways of dealing with pollution and such.  However, the rate we're doing it is too much for the earth to handle.  The earth is sick, there's no denying that if you just open your eyes and look at the facts.  People are living longer, but we're sicker.  That would be because all of the toxins we're constantly exposing ourselves to. 

It's true that if we don't change our ways the most probable outcome would be killing ourselves off and then the earth healing itself.  So why not try and change our ways?  I try to do what I can, and I'm dirt poor. 

[Inkidu]

The earth does indeed have ways of dealing with pollution and such.  However, the rate we're doing it is too much for the earth to handle.  The earth is sick, there's no denying that if you just open your eyes and look at the facts.  People are living longer, but we're sicker.  That would be because all of the toxins we're constantly exposing ourselves to. 

It's true that if we don't change our ways the most probable outcome would be killing ourselves off and then the earth healing itself.  So why not try and change our ways?  I try to do what I can, and I'm dirt poor. 

Because we should tell the thing that could wipe us out with a couple of earthquakes and volcanoes what to do. If we go, we go. We are as much a part of the grand scheme of earth as the dog, cat or beetle. It all has to end sometime, and to think human's can essentially hold the earth in their hands like some marble and control it is the height of folly. Humans are a part of nature. Now I believe in a lot of ways we're a perverse part of nature, but their is an exception for every rule, and a rule for every exception.

In short: We're just to damned mean and nasty to wipe ourselves out something else is just going to have to do it for us. Because if it's one thing humans are good at it's pulling our asses out of the fire. 

[Revolverman]

Short of the comet from Armageddon, I don't think Humans can ever be wiped out. We are too adaptable to environments. If need be I bet we could survive underground with our technology.

[Gami]

That would indeed be an idiotic claim. It's a good thing no one has ever made it. What we are fully capable of - and apparently bent on - doing is producing an environment that can no longer support us.

That's us making the planet unfit to support us, not destroying it.

I think that's the crux of where we differ.  What you're saying isn't a fact, there are plenty of extinction events that could occur, including one scientists recently discovered where earth/mars orbits could synchronize resulting in a catastrophic collision.  The whole concept of "nature" in a vague, spiritual way doesn't make any sense once you start looking beyond our planet.

I couldn't care less for natural disaster. Things just happen - two planets colliding is just one. It's not like the sun isn't going to blow up in our face in X billion years - but most likely it'll jsut grow large enough to make things too warm.

As for as the Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared bit, that's a concept involved in Nuclear Fusion, etc.

No, that's not it. I may've not been clear. I meant actually turning something into pure energy - not talking about fusion or fission, just simply turn the entire atom... into energy. Like I said, I don't know if that's going to be even feasible in a hundred years, but still. And, correct me if I'm mistaken, but nuclear powering leaves a lot of... you got it: nuclear waste. Uranium-238 is a bad boy.

I think scientists generally agree with you that life will go on in some capacity even if we continue on as far as global warming goes, but I don't care about earth's continued existence when it comes down to it.  Only humanity's.  So this whole thing is kinda a pointless side-argument (that I admittedly help start).

I guess the thing is, you have to start caring about Earth's continued existence if you want humanity's continued existence - until we can find another planet that's jsut as awesome as ours. And even then, good luck finding one that has the right climate, edible food, plenty of oxygen and germs and viruses that won't kill you.

But then you might say: "Let's just not screw up the planet as much and we can all live on!"

So you wouldn't mind losing all the conveniences of your life, like cas, airplanes, computers, concrete houses to shelter you, being able to get a variation of food at any nearby grocery store, electricity? It wouldn't be so hard to just take drastic measures to ensure the survival of both humanity and the planet, but come on, no one's going to do that. Especially not the people who are directly in charge of poisoning Earth, and those that profit from it. They're living the sweet life, and it is a sweet life too short to waste on trying to save the planet. Might as well play as hard as I can, because I won't be around when Earth is destroyed.

No, you see, what I believe is that humanity lost its grip a long while ago. Hopefully, they'll go down quietly without taking the Earth with them. Maybe Earth'll be so kind so as to let about 10-15% of them live on.

It would be ideal if they could start developing methods to gain energy and utilize it that don't involve the dangerous wastes you get from oil and nuclear powers.

But see, this is IT. It's those things. All the smaller things, like throwing cans and bottles and plastic and all that - no. That's BS. It starts with the billions of cars that let out all that gas. And progression in other fields to replace gasoline is going slow because the ones who profit from oil would lose if people used something other than their black gold.

[LaCroix]

Thats the entire thing that gets me about the environmental movement as well. I'm not about about to say I disagree with the entire movement completely, I think that recycling and reusing resources where we can is smart business and its good all around. However, I just hate that these people are unable to present the message on its merits.

They all want the movement to be taken serious and shake their heads when the unenlightened heathens are unable to see 'the truth'. The fact of the matter is though, the movement is incapable of putting its own facts forward on their own merit. You want to preach to me about 'the truth' of what we're doing to the planet? That's fine but let your message stand on its facts instead beating me over the head with images of the 'poor, poor animals' and how 'we're utterly doomed and our own evil technology is the terrible villain in this sinister play'. Because honestly, to me, the facts get lost in that kind of trite bullshit.

You say respect the message? Well I say the message itself and its so called 'prophets' need a lot of work on presentation. At the end of the day, I do respect science and fact, and I refuse to embrace something without a little skepticism especially when that movements biggest moves is to go for the jugular and make a play on my emotions first, and then toss 'the facts' at me.

[Callie Del Noire]

I think there is a lot of Obfuscation on both sides of the 'Green movement. Some faulty science over here on the proside from time to time, some really nasty 'it's not feasible' commentary from the con side (Mostly using numbers for the first couple years in this or that program to show it's not economical, ect.)

Things take time to work out. The Con-siders don't want the status quo to change.. the Pro-siders want fast results an occassionally do some shady moves to get it. The 'undecided' (that's us, the majority who aren't as active as the pro and cons) need to watch, listen and ask questions to make sure we're not getting sold a bill of goods.

Now, any new program, car, process is always going to be more expensive than the old way. Tool up costs, start up issues, and working out kinks take time and most signifigantly MONEY. which is why no one (big industry wise) is jumping on the 'water as fuel' or 'fast charge battery engines' bandwagon. They have to some extent or another invested in the current petroleum based infrastructure, building a new one takes time and GOBS of money. There was a show I saw on BBC America a couple years ago about the cost. It was hideous.. for a small country like NORWAY.

A lot of American companies have lost the 'long view' business image. When I was a kid (longer than I care to admit) you had companies who went 'we'll be making X dollars off this in 10 or 15 years', but now.. 'We need to make X dollars by 4th quarter with this'. No long term vision.

Shame

[Jude]

I guess the thing is, you have to start caring about Earth's continued existence if you want humanity's continued existence - until we can find another planet that's jsut as awesome as ours. And even then, good luck finding one that has the right climate, edible food, plenty of oxygen and germs and viruses that won't kill you.

Yeah, that's how I feel.  Finding another habitat is way out of our reach, and I'm only interested in preserving the earth for that reason.

So you wouldn't mind losing all the conveniences of your life, like cas, airplanes, computers, concrete houses to shelter you, being able to get a variation of food at any nearby grocery store, electricity? It wouldn't be so hard to just take drastic measures to ensure the survival of both humanity and the planet, but come on, no one's going to do that. Especially not the people who are directly in charge of poisoning Earth, and those that profit from it. They're living the sweet life, and it is a sweet life too short to waste on trying to save the planet. Might as well play as hard as I can, because I won't be around when Earth is destroyed.

I look at it this way.  Lets say there's a certain threshold of CO2 that it's game over when the earth reaches it.  When get get to amount x, we're dead.  We produce carbon amount y every year.  Z = x/y, aka the amount of years we have til we're all dead.  If we take small steps to lower y, then Z increases dramatically over time.  Which gives us more time to solve our problems without immediate drastic changes.  Think of how advanced we are now compared to 100 years ago?  The only thing that really needs a hard and fast turnaround is the oil consumption.

It would be ideal if they could start developing methods to gain energy and utilize it that don't involve the dangerous wastes you get from oil and nuclear powers.

I don't think we disagree that much, but we do have ways to generate energy aside from oil and nuclear powers.  There's wind, solar, and the other alternatives mentioned in this thread.  In fact, at one point it was proposed to build an orbital ring around the equator of the earth to collect solar energy then use microwaves to travel it down.  The public isn't very well educated on our opportunities.

Furthermore Nuclear Power is our best practical option from what we've got right now.  The waste isn't that hard to manage.  We probably don't have enough to make it a long term solution, but the U.S. really should rely on it more in the mean time.  I'm tired of the stupid, baseless fear of nuclear power based on Chernobyl (which was a worst-case scenario with an utterly inept government).  It's just another example of why a lot of people hate environmentalism, baseless hysteria.

A lot of American companies have lost the 'long view' business image. When I was a kid (longer than I care to admit) you had companies who went 'we'll be making X dollars off this in 10 or 15 years', but now.. 'We need to make X dollars by 4th quarter with this'. No long term vision.

That's not really their fault.  It's the forces of globalization.  Companies have to be more cutthroat to survive thanks to global competition, plus the rate of technological advancement has become a frenzy.

[Inkidu]

What I find about that is environmentalists are usually unable to see the biggest picture. They're all focused on their little wedge to see how it effects the rest of the environment. Example: The Exxon Valdez oil spill. Yes it's horrible, but that meant that all the environmentalists hopped in their cars, drove down using God knows how much gas to tear up the surrounding wildlife to park there, along with T.V. crews and whatever else have you, to clean some oil off some ducks.

Honestly letting the ducks die and skimming off the oil from the top probably would have been better environmentally. Yes that's horrible but doctors call it triage.

[Zakharra]

 Nuclear is the best short and long range alternative for electricity. It's much safer and cleaner than coal or oil, and the waste is storable. The only real problem is 'Not in my backyard' from amny people and the fit enviromentalists throw at the thought of nuclear power.

[consortium11]

Beyond storable, the "waste" is actually useful... as long as recycling is allowed the one-time waste can be processed again and again, giving more electricity, and thus when finally used up there's a lot less to actually store.

[Avis habilis]

Look at Rachel Carson, (sp?) who said there would be no birds by 1990 or something like that and I actually have more crap on my car than ever.

Dude, the reason they're there to poop on your ride is that we heeded her warning & got rid of the pesticides that were causing rampant reproductive failure.

At least here in the U.S.

[Revolverman]

Dude, the reason they're there to poop on your ride is that we heeded her warning & got rid of the pesticides that were causing rampant reproductive failure.

At least here in the U.S.

Not anywhere else on earth.

And lo and behold, birds.

[Oniya]

'Useta be you could sit on the stoop like a person.  Not anymore.  Boids.'

[Avis habilis]

Not anywhere else on earth.

For certain values of "not anywhere else". Those being "everywhere else".

[Inkidu]

Dude, the reason they're there to poop on your ride is that we heeded her warning & got rid of the pesticides that were causing rampant reproductive failure.

At least here in the U.S.

I learned this after the fact.