Sam Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 ...and it's not over until Sam/Bonedaddy posts...! Siggy, is that like the fat lady singing? OK, here's my take. The planet is our temporary home. Some of us are neat-niks and some are total slobs, but we all have to share it. The Great Being gave it to us to support ourselves while we live here. First, we need to develop true respect for each other. The reason to conserve or recycle something is so that someone else may have it to use. Wasting and polluting is selfish. Believing that we can "save the planet" is a huge ego trip. We didn't make it. We don't have any control over it. We can't even survive in most parts of it. What makes us think for a minute we could "save" it? The planet is provided for us, OK? Let's just stop acting like arrogant asses and receive it's bounty gratefully. That is the real test. Are we greatful right now, this instant? Or are we worried about some dreadful, fictional, apocalyptic future our silly minds have invented? Stop loving the planet and start loving the people. Some day very, very, soon our physical bodies will cease to function. What we are left with then, is only our spirit living in the present tense for eternity. The price of fuel or the contents of the land fill are totally irrelevant from this perspective. Find your connection to eternal things. And, help other people find theirs. This is all that matters now. And now is all there is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
driver8M3 Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 ok, gas is a little more expensive lately (of course, it's totally unrelated to true scarcity of any natural resource). now, are you doomsayers for or against drilling anwr? how about building a few more refineries in the US-for or against? milk? federal price fixing for milk is the leading cause of higher milk prices. these high prices have in turn caused demand to decrease. if demand for milk was increasing, certainly someone would be supplying it. you are aware that there is a price floor for milk, right? chicken? well no wonder everything tastes like chicken...it is chicken! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDave Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 I agree with some here in saying that it is pretty arrogant of us (humans) to think that we have as a significant an impact on this planet and its resources as we think we do. Ol' Mom Nature has done a pretty good job of taking care of herself, and it looks as though she'll continue to do so. People are always looking for an excuse. "Why did four hurricanes hit Florida this year? It must be global warming!!!" Please. What an ego we have. However, I do think we are increasing wasteful use. Say what you will about capitalism and free markets or whatever, but does a Mary the soccer mom really need to roll Molly and Mikey around in a 10 mpg SUV? I'm begining to wonder. Not that I think we're running low on fossile fuels or anything, but rather that I think it is excessive and unnecessary to do the job required. On the other hand, do I think Mary the soccer mom, et al need to pile into a Ford Festiva instead? No. It just seems that people in the US are more likely to put vanity ahead of practicality in terms of decisions. Imagine what it might be like if people made purchases in the same manner we here buy and shoot guns. Ergonomics, reliability, accuracy and economy (both in terms of $$$ and motion) would always win over looks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 Well, hold a min. gmw2b and SIG Lady have some valid complains but they have not much to do with the state of nature, and more with financial matters. I'm sorry SIG Lady, but none of your last complains mean anything more then "I need more money" and I can certainly sympathize, but that doesn't mean that the world in trouble. Look folks, the price of gas has NOTHING to do with us running out. We have enough petrolum to continue increasing our consumption at the current rate and still be ok for a hundred more years, and that is in deposits we know about. The price of oil is a geo-political variable, and controled output commodity. Welcome to the monopoly folks. Further, take a look at the price of gas and break it down. Almost 65% of it (last I checked) was TAX, not value. Lets put it in perspective. For $2 you get a gallon of fluid which has been extracted across the world, shipped here, refined, tested, transported again, doubled in price by taxes, and then put into your car, and it moves you, your car, and the crap in it for about 20 miles. Also for $2 I can go to my local convinience store and buy a gallon of water poured in from the hose by local discount destributor, and if I walk 20 miles I proabably need 2 or 3 such bottles on a nice day, nevermind a hot day. Gas is VERY cheap folks, its just not as cheap as it was 10 years ago. You want to rebel against modern man and his smelly technology? Feel free. Here we go, buy a horse. Of course a horse costs about as much as car to maintain and feeding him is more expensive then buying gas. Your car also carries more then one person and unless you buy a convertable, doesn't make you stay out in the rain. And then there is polution. Perhaphs you would like to know how sidewalks came to be? I'll tell ya, they were away to avoid walking through the horse shit. For me, I'll take the cancer rate as caused by polution rather then the typhoid, and cholera rates of years past (those had a lot to do with the horse shit and the like) Look, I'm not saying we should rape nature for no good reason. Raz has a very valid point about some of the chemicals we play with and the lack of care we exhibit with them. I go hiking and I pick up the trash the rest of the people leave behind. But there is a difference between being carefull and screaming "Death to the human race" because the latest coffehouse politics dictate that humans are the evil upon the planet. I too want to live on a 40acre farm and only see my neighbors when I choose. But the facts remain that the world population grows. We can mope on the couch and complain, and call for the death of the humanity, OR we can do something about it (and I don't mean going out and causing the death of half the human population). Maybe your Tolkien like philosphy makes you see technology as the big evil. The truth is that technology is the only saviour we have. Note that I'm refering to us the human race. The planet is fine. it has survived volcanos, plate tectonics, meteor strikes, ice ages, solar cycles, gravitational shifts, and many more but somehow if I stop recycling the planet will crumble? I worry that too many people have a very idilic view of the uncorrupted past. Too many folks complain about air quality without knowing what the mediaval village smelled like. To many people complain about disease without remembering what true pestilence was like over the majority of human time span. Some bemoan the amount of garbage we generate. I say make more, your grand-grand-kids will thank you for being thoughtfull enought to provide them with a easy way to mine resources. Its easy enough to stay home, recycle (even though it is actually worse for the planet), and complain how other are not doing their part. It is a lot harder to go out there and figure out a real solution, and do the hard math of figuring out what the real problem is, and figure out a way to make life better for animals AND people (who are also part of nature) and not just wish that half of them were dead. Now, can someone please help me down from this horse? It is the tallest beast I have ever seen and I really need to take out the recycling before the smoke belching truck comes to pick it up. Anyone? Help! Vlad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDave Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 Nice retort, Vlad. Well put. The other problem I see is that most American's want 3 three things: 1) More $$$, in terms of salary 2) Lower costs, period 3) Jobs to stay here in the US I'm sorry - 1+3 does not equal 2, not without manufacturing efficiency gains that would offset 1. The reason things here are as cheap as they typically are is because someone is willing to work for $0.50/day with no bathroom breaks. Dependency theory is great, so long as it doesn't manifest in your own house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schmitz Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 North America (read US of A)=not the world, it's just a part of it. It's a great force but... there's more to it! Read only mode off and again on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Di Vita Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 I couldn't agree more with Vlad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 My little rant about money was an effort to portray the greed that has overtaken us, exacerbating the rift between the rich and the poor, causing the exporting of perfectly good jobs (for instance), and illustrating the LACK OF BALANCE we are showing both in our disrespect for the environment AND for each other. THAT was the point. Sorry if it wasn't clear. Also sorry if it seemed personal. But it IS personal. The greed and disrespect affects REAL PEOPLE. Who among us has not been somewhat-to-hugely affected by corporate greed lately...? I'm blaming some of our problems more on faulty stewardship than global warming, that's for sure. (We need to recycle to 1.) keep from poisoning ourselves, and 2.) accept responsibility for our over-indulgence in the concept of a throw-away society.) THERE IS NO GARBAGE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
driver8M3 Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 john stossel did a tv special on greed a couple of years ago. i loved it...i'm guessing you didnt! if you missed it, i'll sum it up for you---"greed is good." one persons greed can create hundreds or thousands of jobs. youre correct that we are all affected by greed every day. today, i benefitted from the greed of the guy that purchased some inflatable toys and rented them to me for my daughters birthday party. i also benefitted from the greed of the gas station owner that started a business close to my house...otherwise i might have run out of gas. i benefit from the greed of bmw every day i drive my car...to keep getting people to buy their cars they must build a great product. i dont think they really care if i get from point A to point B...they just wanted my money. is that what you meant? i love this quote from adam smith: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages." exporting jobs? would you rather pay more for product X by keeping the jobs here? if another country has a competitive advantage over the US for making product X, it benefits everyone to let them do it. is it fair to make everyone else pay more for something to protect the jobs of those that make product X? siglady: let me ask you directly-are you in favor of recycling something if the act of recycling is itself more harmful to the environment than if we just threw it in a landfill? do you even accept that that's possible? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDave Posted October 23, 2004 Share Posted October 23, 2004 "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages." My grandfather (a crusty old, retired Army officer who claims proudly "I was alyways more comfortable in uniform than I have been in civis") basically claims that that was the downfall of society in general. The moment that one farmer began producing more (food, whatever) than he could consume was all the reason his neighbor needed to quit trying to producing his own. I think it is an interesting point. I'm unsure of the validity, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted October 24, 2004 Share Posted October 24, 2004 "exporting jobs? would you rather pay more for product X by keeping the jobs here?"If I can't find WORK I can't buy ANYTHING."siglady: let me ask you directly-are you in favor of recycling something if the act of recycling is itself more harmful to the environment than if we just threw it in a landfill? do you even accept that that's possible?"You'll have to explain that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sterling White Posted October 24, 2004 Share Posted October 24, 2004 2003Gas Tax info can be seen by State with this link. I'm not sure where you got the 65% or $1.30 of every gallon sold are taxes? Monopoly theory....damn right and guess who the big dogs are? Top World Oil Net Exporters, 2003* (OPEC members in italics) Country Net Oil Exports (million barrels per day) 1) Saudi Arabia 8.38 2) Russia 5.81 3) Norway 3.02 4) Iran 2.48 5) United Arab Emirates 2.29 6) Venezuela 2.23 7) Kuwait 2.00 8) Nigeria 1.93 9) Mexico 1.74 10) Algeria 1.64 11) Libya 1.25 I'm not at all a dooms day believer....but anything is possible with Nukes in the wrong hands. I am not going down the road on this topic but instead will stay with natural resources. OMG...John Stossel, the same guy who advocates for Self-Government - Libertarian Education! His claim to fame is being a Devils Advocate against all sides. "'Libertarian' is a better term for my beliefs." -- John Stossel in his 2004 book, Give Me a Break! The book is a great opportunity to open up the debate on regulatory oversight in general. However, I would not take it as the final word. After all, while he is an expert journalist and presents a wonderful point of view to consider, he is not an expert in any field that he has "researched." Even to earn a Master's degree, one needs at least two years of research. Never forget to take this fact into consideration when reading his opinions, as logical as they may seem due to linear thought and oversimplification. Ask the experts...and read Marion Nestle's Food Safety: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism, George McGovern's The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time, and Hernando De Soto's The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. These books are written with a holistic and, as much as humanly possible, unbiased perspective on regulatory issues and the need for public service agencies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
driver8M3 Posted October 24, 2004 Share Posted October 24, 2004 i havent read the john stossel book, but i've seen almost all of his tv specials, and saw him speak at the cato institute's 25th anniversary dinner. i really like his work, including a somewhat recent abc segment on gun laws, which showed our side VERY favorably. i dont think you need 2 years of research to figure out the right or wrong side of an issue. You'll have to explain that one. you keep saying we need to recycle. there are examples where recycling does more harm than good. for instance, (and i dont know if this is true) if recycling plastic bottles creates more pollution and uses more energy than just throwing plastic bottles into landfills, do you still think we should recycle plastic bottles? do you believe that the above situation is possible? or do you believe that all recycling is good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad Posted October 24, 2004 Share Posted October 24, 2004 2003Gas Tax info can be seen by State with this link. I'm not sure where you got the 65% or $1.30 of every gallon sold are taxes? So on the average the direct taxes are %40 to %50 (state +18.5 federal). How about corporate taxes, transport taxes, and so on? Just because it is not part of the simple breakdown it doesn't mean you are not paying it and it isn't a tax. I'm not quite sure what the source of oil has to do with the rest of this thread. Is it cleaner if comes from Texas or Russia? As for the books you listed I think you need to check your sources on the authors lack of bias. I have no idea when it was the last time someone called McGovern unbiased and Nestle is an out right loon who has made it clear that she is more concerned with telling you what to eat and taxing your "bad choices" while fighting the corporate world, more then with weather what you eat is good for you. Whatever experitse she has, has been clearly overiden by her political drive. As for De Soto, last I check he maintained that what the third world need it as more property rights and more basic capitalism and greed then anything else, so I'm not sure what your point is. Vlad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sterling White Posted October 24, 2004 Share Posted October 24, 2004 These are the primary natural resources in the US that I'm refering to: coal, copper, lead, molybdenum, phosphates, uranium, bauxite, gold, iron, mercury, nickel, potash, silver, tungsten, zinc, petroleum, natural gas, timber, and crops. Most of the environmental issues in the US are: air pollution resulting in acid rain in both the US and Canada; the US is the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels; water pollution from runoff of pesticides and fertilizers; limited natural fresh water resources in much of the western part of the country require careful management; and desertification. The labor force in the US today breaks out something like this: farming, forestry, and fishing 2.4%, manufacturing, extraction, transportation, and crafts 24.1%, managerial, professional, and technical 31%, sales and office 28.9%, and other services 13.6%. (unemployement excluded) So your right when you say things are really not that bad after all we have luxuries that many do not. My point is really simple...conservation is vital to sustain resources for future generations. When I say conserve I mean - to use wisely. Too many things hang in the balance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hank Ellis Posted October 28, 2004 Share Posted October 28, 2004 The planet's in trouble! Period.ha! you malthusians (followers of thomas malthus, ie, doomsayers) have been predicting that stuff for literally centuries. fortunately for the rest of us the predictions have always been wrong. Take up scuba diving, go to a few reefs, then come back and tell me the oceans are not in trouble. Just got back from Roatan, Honduras and found the reefs and fish healthy and thriving. The reason is sustainable activities that are now or soon will be in place so that the presence of humans do no disturb the ecosystem. The Florida Keys however are in trouble. Many reefs are dead due to excessive diver pressure, sewage runoff and, pestiside runoff. Cyanide fishing is commonly used in Asia to harvest an endangered species of wrasse to supply the market. And by the way, cyanide also kills the coral. The shark population is down 70% due to overfishing and the wasteful practice of finning which involves the practice of cutting the fins off live sharks and dumping the rest overboard to die. Without the apex predators, the oceans ecosystem is way out of balance. The oceans are in trouble. I've seen it with my own eyes. With 2/3 of Earth covered in water, the oceans health is your concern. Oh yeah, I'm over 40 and thoroughly agree with the original first post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz-0 Posted October 28, 2004 Share Posted October 28, 2004 "siglady: let me ask you directly-are you in favor of recycling something if the act of recycling is itself more harmful to the environment than if we just threw it in a landfill? do you even accept that that's possible?"You'll have to explain that one. I've explained that one previously. Currently, the ingredients that go into makign a glass bottle are not scarce, with the possible exception of the stuff used to create the energy that goes into it. Recycling a bottle takes more energy and resources than making a new one. If you get into the world of recycling plastic bottles it gets worse. Essentially you are creating a larger ecological foot print by recylcing them. Most municipalities either have to pay for the privilege of recycling them because of the energy costs, or symply take the blue bucket, and dump it in a landfill with everything else. Then there are things like paper products. Recylcing paper results in dumping more toxic cchemicals someplace then makign new. IT really doesn't conserve a resource if the trees are farmed. And it burns more energy than new. This doesn'tmean tre farming is the end all be all, but I suspect that if we farmed hemp for disposable paper products, we'd be much better off than current tree farming or tree recycling goes. Then there are things that ARE good for recycling. Like electronics. They yeild high value elements from the process and recycling can also help keep toxic materials out of the ecosphere if done properly. bottles, paper, and electronics can all be recycled. Only one of them isn't driven by bizarre fears that there is actually no more space for a landfill and bad math on the thermodynamics of recycling. A pile of bottles, all things considered, is rather innocuous. It doesn't poison anything, it's at worst simply ugly. We can go scrounge from the pile when the energy equation changes, or the ingredients for glass become scarcer, or when intial refinement and processing of the ingredients becomes more polluting for whatever reason, then recycling the big pile of bottles will have a smaller net footprint. That's the time to focus on it; because it actually saves something other than someone's feelings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz-0 Posted October 28, 2004 Share Posted October 28, 2004 The Florida Keys however are in trouble. Many reefs are dead due to excessive diver pressure, sewage runoff and, pestiside runoff. Cyanide fishing is commonly used in Asia to harvest an endangered species of wrasse to supply the market. And by the way, cyanide also kills the coral. The shark population is down 70% due to overfishing and the wasteful practice of finning which involves the practice of cutting the fins off live sharks and dumping the rest overboard to die. Without the apex predators, the oceans ecosystem is way out of balance. Now see, this is something I have much less problem agreeing with. PErsonally, I think it is absurd that we worry about the continued existance of a species other than our own short of it permanantly making our ecosphere unsurvivable for our species. But at the same time that doesn't mean you go out and wipe out a species willy nilly. sewage runoff, pesticide runoff, and cyanide fishing are all examples of us seriously introducing material or quantities of materials that nature wasn't prepared to absordb, or may never be capable of absorbing (the last there, I mostly reserve for some of the bizarre chemical contrivances we make as humans that we then feel we can just eject into nature without thought.. very bad planning). it's also an example of going with very inefficient methods of resource use (finning). killing off the sharks, unlike say killing off the spotted owl, seriously impacts an ecosystem without alternate predator species capable of taking up the slack on short notice. We as humans also are not capable of taking on the predatory role very well ourselves. it isn't that I disagree that something needs to be done, it is jsut that so often what is suggested or forced on us is NOT going to help, and may in fact make things worse at the same time as we spend time and money to convince people it does not make things worse. I'm also not a big fan of people who think that the environment is so precious, we as a species must regress to protect it. Honestly, short of nuking the whole planet, and probably not even then, we can do all the damage we can dream of and the planet and life will go on. just without people. WE are the fragile part of the equation folks, yet that perspective is seldom involved in the business of fund raising fro advocacy, and expedient legislation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDave Posted October 28, 2004 Share Posted October 28, 2004 Well, I still think Mom Natures, despite our abuses, does a damn fine job of keeping herself in tune. People thought The Spill in Valdez, AK was the end of the world up there. 4 years ago it looked pretty damn good to me. Peopel thought the same when Saddam's goons went on a demolition party and blew all of those well heads as Iraq made the retreat out of Kuwait in '91. The world bounced back, or took care of herself. But, then again, I'm reminded of "you can't judge a book..." I still think that it is pretty arrogant of us as a race to think we have, in the last 100 years of the Industrial Revolution have had that big of an impact, if any, on nature as a whole. This planet has survived asteriod impacts, volcanic irruptions, ice ages, and quakes long before we were here and in orders of magnitude that we have difficulty calculating. At the same time, it doesn't take a rocket scientist (ahem, Rhino!) to figure out that pumping large amounts of cyanide into a body of water isn't a really smart idea. Its likely a similar situation as with DDT. DDT did (in this country) and does (worldwide) more good in terms of quality of life than just about any manmade compound you wish to name. The problem, at least in this country of "If X is good, XXX is great!!!" was that we used more than was necessary to do the job. It would be like using a 50 AE to shoot Bianchi. So what if hits the X ring, if a 9x19 minor does the same thing with the same efficacy, it makes sense, long term and short term, to use 9x19. You and your equipment will last longer!!! I really think it comes to being mindful. Do what it takes to do what you need. Nothing more, nothing less and understanding the impact of both. It is better for the environment to make virgin paper instead of recycling it. Less energy, fewer emissions. I was given an A on that paper in college. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhino Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 C'mon, guys! Don't confuse an issue that is 50% emotion and 50% political power maneuvering with silly stuff like facts and logic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sterling White Posted October 29, 2004 Share Posted October 29, 2004 Got to thinking the varying view points in this thread today. Its fascinating to go back over what people write and see if it makes sense several days later or if emotional bias was at play. Many ideas, emotional or not, have been laid out that say we (the environmental health of the US) are doing fine or not. Did you know that your not the only ones who have said the same thing then asked for the knowledge? Others within our society, representing many walks of life, voiced their ideas about the health of the US as well. The request for knowledge was responded to by the Heinz Center. Established in December 1995 in honor of Senator H. John Heinz III. In September 2002, The Heinz Center released The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, the product of five years work by nearly 150 individuals from environmental organizations, businesses, universities, and federal, state, and local government. Here's the cool thing that your tax dollars are going towards. The Heinz Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution dedicated to improving the scientific and economic foundation for environmental policy through multisectoral collaboration. Lucky for us - we live and learn from mistakes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlad Posted October 30, 2004 Share Posted October 30, 2004 If you think that the Heinz money are not politically driven and that anything coming from that group is anything but militant lunacy, then this is clearly a issue of belief for you, less then one of fact. It is my policy to not argue religion with people, so I respectfully bow out. Vlad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
driver8M3 Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 found this article in my inbox this morning. thought some of posters to this thread might enjoy it. http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1675 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
driver8M3 Posted December 23, 2004 Share Posted December 23, 2004 interesting article from george will: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/will1.asp he quotes gregg easterbrook: "Law of Doomsaying": Predict catastrophe no later than 10 years hence but no sooner than five years away — soon enough to terrify, but far enough off that people will forget if you are wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted March 9, 2005 Share Posted March 9, 2005 People over 30 should be dead //// We are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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