Weird question! Environmental issues
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I preface this by saying, I'm a student of Sustainable Agriculture, and Envi-Sci. So this is something that is constantly on my mind. I recently read a very interesting book, Collapse by Jared Diamond that put these issues into an international perspective. (if anyone else has read it I would love to hear your opinion on it)
So, I was thinking…. This is an international community, and we all deal with different things every day. So what would you say is the most important/most pervasive/ most connected to your every day life- environmental problem(or problem with environmentalists :D)?
For my own part, I would say the most pervasive problem is the waste of many resources through simple negligence, and not paying attention to the little things. ie the amount of electricity wasted through keeping lights on all the time, unwillingness/inability to upgrade to more efficient means, not bothering to walk the two feet to the recycle bin, ect. (South Eastern USA)
What about you?
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Global warming proponets that have raised the price of pumping gas in my car.
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Global warming proponets that have raised the price of pumping gas in my car.
:P Where you at? Europe where gas prices are twelve dollars a gallon?
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I'd say the one problem is misinformation that is circulated by global warming enthusiasts in regards to man's influence on the global climate. In my area the environmentalist tie up any kind of development of our natural resources with frivolous law suits. This has had a direct and lasting impact on Montana's ecomomy. States bordering ours, like North Dakota and Wyoming, have had more leway in their resource developement and are swimming in the increased tax revenues. Every damn environmentalist in the U.S. wants to use Montana as a proving ground for their "good ideas" and then turn a blind eye when they don't pan out. They've built hosts of wind farms around here that are not economically viable because of their low output and high maintenance costs. They've introduced they grey wolf and we've watched our elk population decrease by 75 percent in the last few years. Not to mention all the cows, sheep, and goats that customers of min have lost to the damn wolves. The environmental movement is also working to block construction of the keystone XL pipeline through my state. This project alone would have created many jobs in the state and generated millions of tax dollars. Yeah … Holy shit am I on a rant now! Anyways... This energy crisis in the U.S. is self inflicted for the most part. Environmentalist is a dirty word around here.
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Digging up and using sun energy from millions of years ago that was never intended to be used at this time.
Look at human population levels before we began using fossil fuels, then look at the insane ramp after they began being used.
The world naturally balanced out with population and food, then we brought more old sun energy from the ground and flooded the world with energy, propagating a massive population explosion.
Oil companies.
Not utilising renewable sources like tidal energy en masse.
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Digging up and using sun energy from millions of years ago that was never intended to be used at this time.
You meen freeing up all that sun energy and carbon that was locked away by those selfish trees when they died all those millions of years ago? Returning the Earth to its natural state.
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Trees, bast&^ds. the lot of em.
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Why did you bleep out bastards? Are we supposed to bleep things now? I'm so confused by this thread!
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The most prevalent effect that I notice is simply hysteria. I would agree with senseitravis about anthropogenic influence over global warming being over-hyped. It has had some beneficial effects on society - pushing for minimising waste in industry, for instance - but the whole scandal surrounding it is a slap in the face of science.
Environmentalism is political, commercial, ethical - but not scientific. The former three are all traits I can readily relate to it, and through them it affects everything it touches. Scotland as a country has been striving to be at the forefront of "green technology" for a while now, but all it is is a different way of making a profit. It has had some positive effects on our world, and maybe one day we'll even find a way to collectively ensure waste energy is minimised, or to form a complete energy cycle that can return to the basics of using solar energy to power growth without relying on processes that take anywhere from months to mellenia to give us the raw material we want.
But, that at its heart this is fuelled by hysteria rather than science in my opinion, is still a gripe of mine. On a national scale though, environmental issues are given serious consideration - relatively recently, a gold mining project was approved, only after some conditions were met regarding the company behind it making sure that after they were done, they put the place back in order to the valuable countryside it was. So, it can have good effects, and it can create jobs - but at the same time it causes hysteria and can at any moment decide "this is not enough" and squash businesses, or do something that really is wholly inefficient like refusing to let a pipeline run through an area, causing it to either require a more material-heavy, bendy path to its destination (and result in higher operating costs in time, money and energy) or making it require automotive transportation, burning through fossil fuels on a continuous basis.
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Heal the worrrlllllddd. Make it a Better plaaaaacee. for you an for…..
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I don't want to turn this into a diatribe.
Allow me simply to say that I'm firmly entrenched in the camp of the Conservation movement.
I believe adamantly in the need for sustainable practices across the spectrum.Of course one can't minimize how very complicated these questions are. So incestuously tangled one within manifold others.
Over-population, pollution, short-term self-interest, avarice, poverty, insufficient access to resources and education, etc.
The list goes morbidly on and on.Fundamentally, given the above, I simply can't fathom how anyone can deny that modern civilization and its excesses are not having a palpably negative impact on the health of our bounded biosphere.
Allow me to prefix the next sentence with the disclosure that I'm not an economist. I have no formal training in that particular sphere.
However, I feel, as do many others, that the illusion foisted on us by classical economics, that of unmitigated and perpetual growth in the pursuit of profit is a profoundly destructive one.
There are limits.
There are palpable, hard limits.That's where I stand.
To the question at hand:
Ocean Acidification has me considerably concerned at the moment.And of course, the ongoing nuclear crisis on my very doorstep.
My family and I live approximately 200km south of the crippled Fukushima dai-ichi nuclear facility. -
I believe adamantly in the need for sustainable practices across the spectrum.
A process that follow a periodic cycle has an awesome feature that a linear one does not: it doesn't end.
There are limits.
There are palpable, hard limits.Are you suggesting that the Earth has a finite volume? Lies! It's all lies! Growth can be and will be infinite! You crazy earthling!
Joking aside, I really like your description of the problems.
@--lizard-man--:
Environmentalism is political, commercial, ethical - but not scientific. The former three are all traits I can readily relate to it, and through them it affects everything it touches. Scotland as a country has been striving to be at the forefront of "green technology" for a while now, but all it is is a different way of making a profit. It has had some positive effects on our world, and maybe one day we'll even find a way to collectively ensure waste energy is minimised, or to form a complete energy cycle that can return to the basics of using solar energy to power growth without relying on processes that take anywhere from months to mellenia to give us the raw material we want.
Why isn't it political, commercial, ethical and scientific?
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Why isn't it political, commercial, ethical and scientific?
Because a large percent of people promoting it know nothing about science or scientific thinking.
@Waiting:
-Hey! Wanna sign this? It's about stopping nuclear power plants.
-Not really… why should I?
-They are dangerous! Think on chernobil! ((I've got no idea how to spell this))
-But we have completely different power plants then that one.
-Anything can explode. It's very dangerous.
-Really? Is it more dangerous then a power plant burning carbon?
-Yes! It can explode!
-Don't you say... Okay, so using carbon is better?
-No!
-What do you suggest then?
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-Well, we should consume less.
-Right, genius. tram arrives -
Also, the fact that Greenpeace, the only recognized green organization asks for donations on the streets. If I want to give, I can't simply donate a sum, they ask for personal details and want me to sign a paper which enables them to get a monthly sum from my account!
They REFUSE other methods. It's funny. -
Environmental issue which troubles me the most? It isn't really an environmental issue.
Statement: we should protect environment.
Most people approve this, so politicians approve too.
Too bad that this means a drop in the standard of living, and none approves this, not even the smallest effect.Solution: We outsource everything to china and other countries where they produce the same things with the most wasteful technologies (plus probably using children as workers, ect.)
It happens far, so we don't care. Everyone is happy.
Minor side effects: economical dependence, probably wars to stop the fall of the west, ect, ect. -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyVJsg0X ... ure=relmfu
This song agrees with AronFF.
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@Vrugor:
This song agrees with AronFF.
It's rare even for songs. :)
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This is more than a black and white issue. Someone who sides wholly one way or another is not worthy of praise by any means, and refusing to side wholly one way or another does not label one a member of the "opposite camp".
A lot of these problems stem from something much more profound than differing views on the environment. Things like monetary greed leading to tangible success are a fact of our society, and this is no more evident than in the way that many governments worldwide have pursued more environmentally friendly practices - by carrot and stick methods that make the greedy path synonymous with the environmentally friendly one. It is a slippery slope that we make little effort to escape, but at the same time it is not wholly an evil concept, wherein it promotes people to take initiative, to push themselves to their limits and end up rewarding ability - albiet which may not always be in the manner of any desirable quality.
What is important is to differentiate between what is anthropogenic and what isn't. This is what science needs to do, so that we can avoid frustrating ourselves trying to stop the unstoppable and give proper focus to matters that are in our power to stop. It is important, therefore, that the scientific method is followed in this area - especially so, considering the gravity of the entire situation, and what effects it has had on our society already - in order to make intelligent decisions, not ones borne out of panic.
The world goes through cycles, and it is a horrid mish-mash of politically fuelled "science" that tosses everything that is happening into one basket or the other. We are not incapable of sustaining life where it would never otherwise exist, from penguins in San Francisco to specialised greenhouses growing exotic plants, but we know that these life forms have no place in this environments otherwise. The same is true on a regional scale - we need to be able to tell the difference between a changing environment resulting in species dying out being a result of us polluting their environment or it being entirely out of our hands, and ourselves being mistaken to expect their survival without creating an ecosystem that nature has taken away.
There are limits, and we need proper scientific method to find those limits - not abuse the age old adage of being able to "justify anything with statistics". We also need to realise that despite our dominance of Earth, there are some things that are simply beyond our control. Things like hunting species to extinction, cutting away tracks of forest, dumping heavy metals into rivers, and this "sweep it under the carpet" approach to waste disposal are within our power to change.
To pull the plug on human development when the light starts to sputter is going to send you into the dark without doubt. Sitting underneath it and being distracted by things that are beyond your power to change is a waste of valuable time. As a society that rewards personal success, we are not very good at clearing our minds to deal with such problems when opportunism provides a much more rapid dose of success.
Niether extreme is right, and trying to find where the truth has fallen after all this panic-driven pushing and shoving is searching for a needle in a hay-stack that is continually being tumbled around, and in the end the hysteria surrounding it will benefit no one any more than a man being pressured into building a house with a flat roof in Alaska.
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@Benny|Too:
I'm reading through all these posts and realizing I have forgotten how the public face of everything always sucks. :( Yes, the Environmentalist movement is a bunch of hippies and fear mongers. But, there is a legitimate group of scientists who try to find the most efficient, economic, ecological and socially practical means. Necessity drives invention- and as we are realizing that there is a limited amount of resources on this planet, necessity will have to drive invention at some point or another. How close we are to the "deadline" or to Malthusian Theory is anyones guess :P
I agreed with many of the things said, for example … about windmills. There are conflicting accounts of just how economically and ecologically sustainable they are. Also- I HATE GREENPEACE. There are groups like Green Peace, as well as PETA, and Animal Liberation front that are Eco-Terrorist, or borderline Eco-Terrorist. Gives a bad name to a potentially practical field of study.
:D Moving on from Environmentalists. What would you say is the greatest social issue that you deal with/ is most pervasive in your area?
Neo: +1
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Television.