What's an Environmentalist to do?

““Um....Bummer? Could we get a GIANT ROLAIDS to reduce acid buildup? It worked for Roger Staubach.”
XL400236
8:11:18 AM
7/28/06

LMAO, maybe you're on to something.”

“Which is better (referring to the giant Rolaids), treating the symptoms of a problem or treating the causes of a problem?
last edited: 7/28/06 7:14:39 AM”

“

“I thought it was a bug that was killing the trees in the mountains”
Hyway

I kill lots of trees just sprouting out of the ground by trampling on them, while collecting firewood.

You should have seen me, when I was tearing-up the tundra. After my last visit, no trees remained on Adak Island.
last edited: 7/28/06 7:30:58 AM”

“If ya'll have the time you might check out this website of Micheal Crichton lectures and speeches. In particular "Aliens Cause Global Warming" In a nutshell it's about how groups use bogus science for political or financial gain. Remember the Nazis? "Tell a lie often enough and the people will believe it." It's rather long, but if your hanging around the message board you've got time.
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/index.html”

“I'm reading that article now. Very long but very informative. So far I like this the best:

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. ”

“What the heck sort of trail name is Bill Townsend....unless you did some work for a company that does contracts for a small communities...then I guess Sending the Town a bill is pretty cool way of finding a tt name.”

“This is why the environment is such a non-issue with American voters. In an era of cleaner air, cleaner water, more affluence, and longer life expectancies, the average voter will take isolated setbacks to the environment in isolated locations in order to continue having affluence. I see many who consider themselves environmentalist driving gas guzzling vehicles instead of walking or biking, using electricity to type away on the internet instead of reducing their energy footprint, and buying the replacement gear for fully functional equipment instead of helping to reduce CO2 emmissions that resulted in the manufacture of the gear.”

“XL,Sorry but I don't do the trail name thing. I do the JMT a lot and most of the folks w/ trail names are PCT'ers or folks who have been on the AT. Most from out of the area. Must be a regional thing. There is somthing strangely Jungian about trail names that freaks me out. The name I was given works just fine. Plus when I joined I was in hurry to post a reply to someone bagg'in on one of my favorite places and didn't waste time trying to be clever. You can call me anyting you like at the moment; most people do. Now I'm going to go watch "Fern Gully" so I'll feel better.”

“Dang, there was a girl in school Fern but her last name excapes me......I don't think it was Gully.

The air in my town is anything but cleaner, what with the re-emphasis on coal-fired generating plants with relaxed emissions regulations to the west of Maryland. We suffer increased air pollution with the prevailing winds from the west.
This is of course a gift from the Dubya administration to the energy industry and coal industry.

Water quality is also going downhill.....Chesapeake Bay is dying and our governor, Herr Erlich, actually said that the bay may not be worth saving........"we can't afford it".
So much for affluence.
Many residents of my fair city are losing ground economically......so much for affluence.

Longer life expectancy may well slip as our overweight commercially-driven junk-food-eating citizens lose ground where health is concerned.

I personally eat right and stay active and try to keep the consumption habits and activity of my kids on the good foot.

Oh and I commute to and from work with two-foot drive thus saving fuel and health.
At 53 I take no prescription drugs and my annual checkups are aces.

Hey Bill, my name is Mark.
I too think the jive-time trail names are kinda lame, but I dearly love some of my hiking pals with their lame-ass names.”

“Nuclear Energy, endorsed by MarkO”

“While some of the worst trends like air and water pollution have been somewhat addressed in the US and few other places in the last 30 years

the world now in no way can be characterized as cleaner in anyway compared to 30 or 300 years ago

and the longer life expectancies and affluence of the fortunate 15 or so percent of the world will not be sustained for much longer.

For those that suggest predictions of climate change and environmental degradation only result from government funded studies, well, you are pretty much right.

There are no shortterm (the only profit that counts) profits to be made by the private sector for studying such things and besides private business desires to hide these truths.

Consider the pharmaceutical industry, they've spent billions to research and develop bogus drugs for conditions that do not really exist or at least do not need to be treated with a chemical fix and then try to convince people they have a problem.

I had rather not have the private sector left completely free to map the future of us all.
last edited: 7/28/06 11:29:20 AM”

“Are you trying to say that there is no opportunity for profit into Atmospheric Research that allows someone to ACCURATELY predict the weather. What are all of our Universities for if not to educate our youth while doing research.”

“No HyWay, just a few facts in my town.

Nuclear energy is no magic bullet, but it makes sense where it makes sense.

How about cleaner coal technology?
It does exsist, but industry won't apply it unless forced to do so since they are only responsible to their share holders and not to the community in which they operate.

We can have a coal industry and cleaner air.”

“Again we're taken back to the angst that the right exhibits in trying to accept that a problem exisits.

You admit there's a problem and you're accepting that the market, as it exists, is creating a problem - in that short-term economic gain is leading to long-term damage - that there might be some consequences to the huge profits being made by big oil.

If the most ardent free-marketeer accepts a problem of this scale then he also accepts that something needs to be done, and that comes largely in the form of Government manipulation of the market, either through regulation or incentive.

This goes completely against their dogma that the market can solve any problem it is confronted with.

It also promotes the ideal that a country, and even nations, need to act in common cause to help deal with a problem that could effect America as mch as Armenia through to Zimbabwe, Alabama as much as Utah.

No right-thinking republican can support a cause that requires international unity of purpose, because it detracts from the ideal that by allowing the individual the maximum freedom for wealth creation (and in some instances pollution) and gives lie to the ideal that maximum consumption is the ultimate human aim. It may also end up creating the international treaties they so despite.

The 'greatest good of the greatest number' simply sticks in their craw to such an extent that they can't allow themselves to conclude that there might be a problem.

So instead of looking at the problem itself they seek to 'label and laugh' at anyone showing any concern for the environment - rather like the 'fiction' writer Crichton seeks to do by painting hard-working scientists as extremists - when he himself is the one with what is beoming an increasingly extremist and crackpot agenda.

The trouble is that wedon't need to change our lifestyles too much to achieve vast improvement in polluting emissions of all kinds.

Personally, in the case of energy, I think that incentives to change are the way to go. Energy companies shouldn't be given handouts for doing nothing, they should be set goals and given the oppotunity to rise to the challenge.

For example, how about a government tax break for consumers to put 'real-time' electricity meters in their home - they show you exaclty what is being used and how much you are paying for it. This, for a start would encourage people to unplug an appliance or two overnight, to turn up the ac a degree or two in summer, or turn down the heating a degree or two in the winter. Let people see the advantage in insulating thier homes or buying energy-efficient appliances. Show people how much they can save by installing micro generation to power their home.

See the trouble is that it's not really in your local utilities interest for you to see how much you're using, or for you to cut your costs. The only time this comes into play is
on the few days a year when the electricity network struggles to cope with demand.
Lets face up to the problem find ways to solve it at all levels, without making the price too high.
last edited: 7/28/06 12:36:46 PM”

“The '...promote the general welfare...' phrase in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution has more to do with environmental maintenance than about anything else.”

“Few interesting spelling and grammar errors in there, but I'm really watching The Eagle has Landed. ;o)”

“LS "promoting the general welfare" wasn't about protecting nature it. It means that the Constitution and powers granted to the federal government were not to favor special interest groups or particular classes of people. There were to be no privileged individuals or groups in society. Neither minorities nor the majority was to be favored. Rather, the Constitution would promote the “general welfare” by ensuring a free society where free, self-responsible individuals - rich and poor, bankers and shopkeepers, employers and employees, farmers and blacksmiths - would enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

(btw, I cut and pasted that because it says it better than how I tried to say it.)

Y2, I agree that lifestyle changes to reduce energy consumption is the best way to decrease pollution caused by energy production, but I disagree that government can force that on us. In the 70's it wasn't government that brought us fuel efficient cars (efficient for 70's standards), it was an oil embargo and the availability of previous disregarded japanese cars. The American car makers didn't see a need to provide fuel effecient cars until they started losing market share.”

“Bill././.no offense intended...JK? glad you are here. Hyway GREAT evaluation of the Constitution. Must have some experience in there.”

“thanks, but if you note I did mention that I did cut and paste that from somewhere else. It was what I was trying to say when I typed a reply, but when I went in search of the actual article/section of the constitution that the general welfare cluase was in I saw that paragraph. So I pasted it over my inadequate words that the general welfare was to protect the little man from the class society of England so that everyone had the same right of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,””

“In a very real way we here in Maryland are subsidizing profits of the energy companies that are fouling our air.

We pay extra medical costs for the problems created in the Ohio valley by dirty power plants.”

“so what cost are you saving by being on the power grid?”

“Hyway...that is a part of natural consequences but accepting natural consequences means being RESPONSIBLE...that bunch can't grasp that.”

“A perfect example of the "us vs. them" mindset.

Everyone is lumped into one of two categories via gross but false generalizations and labeling. Then comes the name calling, pejoratives, communication breakdown and finally stalemate in public discourse.

It's all very sad.

As for this piece, let's just examine the first sentence:

The driving force behind the environmental movement is the idea that nature is a value regardless of its utility to human beings

This statement presumes there is a single driving force behind environmental thought. It also presumes there is a single "movement," although there is a substantial amount of easily produced evidence to refute this position.

The idea that nature has value beyond human utility probably has its roots in the work of Arne Naess and Kirkpatrick Sale, the fathers of what is often called "deep ecology." It's a very specific view and not mainstream by any means whatsoever.

The opposite of the view in the first sentence is the view that objects in nature have no value beyond what is assigned by man for his utility.

To presume that something has no value beyond what humans assign is highly anthropocentric and completely dismisses any value that a tree, for example, may have to a woodpecker.

It also dismisses the totality of the ecosystem and how all things are interconnected.

This piece is just another of the propagandizing of discourse. Propagandizing on either side of debate is wrong, as it prevents the real purpose of public discourse from being realized. That is, the furtherance of the overall good.”

“You're correct XL, the power plants in the Ohio valley refuse to accept resposibility for the consequences for their actions.
I'm trilled that you grasp that concept!

Its much like an industry that is poisoning local drinking water but they are making a profit at it.
In this case its air but, like water, its something that humans cannot live without.
Their campaign contributions persuade the federal government(Dubya Regime) to relax air quality standards as a payback.........bribery/corruption.

Hyway, my electric power comes from the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant on the Chesapeake Bay.
(Dumb question, my friend)
The plants hundreds of miles to the west of me, which benefit me and my neighbors ZERO, are causing physical harm to the citizens here thus costing Baltimore taxpayers EXTRA to care for people here with elevated asthma and other lung-related problems.

This is in real dollars coming out of our pockets.”

“MarkO, you are on the grid whether you like to think so or not. The widespread power outages across the northeastern section of the country a year or two ago proved that. I am not argueing that the coal plants in the Ohio Valley are good sources of energy production. Like you I think they should be replaced with Nuclear plants.”

“Holy Garbonzos!,this is getting heavy. I don't know if I'm smart enough for all this but I'll try. Woa! show on Yosemite on the Travel Channel, sorry short attention span.
Okay, money, I think making money is good. It generates jobs, stimulates the economy and pays taxes. When greed... Hell I don't have time for an essay I gotta pack for my trip so I'll just spout.
Theodore Rosevelt knew when to let Big business be and when to rein them in. Using existing regulating laws our government could fine tune alot of these problems. We must meet the needs of a modern industrialized nation but protect the overall envionment. Industry will respond to government and the market, and we the people are both. We just seem to forget about it now and then.
If our government is failing to it's job in accordance to the Constitution and the public good then we the people need to jump in and get involved instead of waiting for one of the parties to do it for us. The longer the politicians are in office the less they represent us. This very same situation existed at the turn of the last century, and gave rise to the Progressive movement.( Not to be confused with that bunch today.)
Like him or not Rosevelt, who wasn't meant to become president by the political machines, jumped in and did a great job of taking on the big boys of his time and to the benefit of the nation as a whole. Unfortuantely he was a political fluke. I see no such leadership today.
Industry needs a balance of control and freedom. Too much government control and you get a Peoples Republic of China where there is little concern for people and the environment in the name of industrialization and power. Too little control and we see greedy industrial robber barons sacraficing the people and the envrionment for wealth and power. I guess we need to step up and vote with our minds as well as our hearts. We can also use our dollars in the free market to make our demands. However, you've got to search very hard to find a piece of backpacking equipment not made overseas by some oppresed worker or made without petro-chemicals.
"Democracy is a horrible form of government, the only thing worse is everything else."
-Winston Churchill -
Rant, rant, rant...I'm going for a long walk...about two weeks worth. Thanks T.R. for a place to do it in.”

“Welcome to the club bill./...good group here. All of them are a hoot.”

“I see no reason why we can't have balance. Industry & prosperity is good but saving unspoiled land for our children’s, a child is imperative too. Unchecked industrial pollution is a disaster. There is no reason that we all can't do something to help the environment before we become aliens in search of a new home planet. I drive a very small car & would be happy to bike to work, but 20 miles thru the mountains (at midnight) is a bit far to bike. The summer tourists would probably run me over.

Balance & moderation in all things is a reasonable request”

“Cat....the big thing is private ownership. If people have an interest in something they will take care of it. Public Lands have always been a big loser.
Now with factories etc....when you take the punishment of trying something new and being profitable then more people will take chances.
Today they were #&%!$ing about the Gas Companies OBSCENE profits....do they not know that if you sell twice what you normally sell, you will make twice the profits (about 8 cents a gallon)”

“we are aliens on this planet. no child of mother earth would treat her like huMANs do

we do not deserve another planet to destroy until we nurse this one back to health

yesterday i was riding my huMAN powered scooter to work and noticed there are not as many frogs on the road to dodge as there were twelve years ago on this same path to work

frogs are the thermostat of our planet, and they are croaking”

“Maybe they are all working for Budwiser?”

“MY GOD...if we can do this

http://www.collegehumor.com/movies/1701528/

we can do anything. My Faith in my fellow man has been restored.”

“A moonglo sighting!


Moonglo, I was just thinking of you. I ordered a pizza with mushrooms because mushrooms are a fungus that feed on dead trees....or something....anyway, they recycle.

Sorry about the cheese though. I forgot that cheese comes from cows who eat grass and the resulting flatulance warms the air and destroys the ozone. I couldn't order a pizza without cheese, they wouldn't let me.”

“Exxon oil spill in Alaska in 1989, where nature quickly restored itself.
lonesurveyor
6:36:57 AM
7/28/06

A decade later, the ecosystem still suffers. Substantial contamination of mussel beds persists and this remarkably unweathered oil is a continuing source of toxic hydrocarbons.[Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Symposium, American Fisheries Society Symposium 18.]

Sea otters, river otters, Barrow’s goldeneyes, and harlequin ducks have showed evidence of continued hydrocarbon exposure in the past few years.[Exxon Valdez Trustee Council.]

Exxon-funded scientists have repeatedly dismissed evidence of on-going effects to wildlife from the massive 1989 oil spill by claiming that oil seeps contribute a bigger background source of hydrocarbons in bottom sediments in Prince William Sound.[Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry15]

In Katmai National Park wilderness, oil remained along the rocky coast with only slight weathering compared to freshly spilled oil after more than 5 years. Chemically, it was like 11-day old Exxon Valdez crude, with high concentrations of toxic polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s).[Marine Pollution Bulletin]
last edited: 7/28/06 6:53:24 PM”

“Yeah and the Captain was an environmental wacko....LOL>...It almost sounds like something from a Simpsons show doesn't it”

“moonglo, has there been any French tourists around?”

“Wacko, oh I thought some was talking to me.”

“Nope, I believe in public land. Private corporations are for profit, but like church & state, there should be separation.”

“Washington, DC —The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving ahead this summer to shut down libraries, end public access to research materials and box up unique collections on the assumption that Congress will not reverse President Bush’s proposed budget reductions, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA’s own scientists are stepping up protests against closures on the grounds that it will make their work more difficult by impeding research, enforcement and emergency response capabilities.

In an August 15, 2006 document entitled “EPA FY 2007 Library Plan,” agency management indicates that it will begin immediately implementing President Bush’s proposed budget cuts for the next fiscal year, which begins in October, without waiting for Congress to act. The memo describes what EPA terms “deaccessioning procedures” (defined as “the removal of library materials from the physical collection”) for its network of 26 technical libraries. Under the plan—

* Regional libraries, located in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City, serving 15 Midwestern and Southern states will be closed by September 30. Other regional library hours and services will be gradually reduced;
* Public access to EPA libraries and collections will end as soon as possible;
* As many as 80,000 original documents which are not electronically available will be boxed up (“put their collections into stasis,” in the words of the EPA memo) and shipped for eventual “digitizing.”

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=731”

“Hell, we all get this message:
"message from Reverend Truth V Wicked being ignored"
I love it, especially the "being ignored" part. I always say to myself, "Thank God."”

“EPA is the UN of the United States government....”

“NS, he doesn't seem to be flaming anything. What is your disagreement? Really.”

“So there.”

“If they shut down access to these materials the Corporatists win.......until we throw the bums out and open things up again to the public.”

“When I think of nowslimmer, retirement communities, early-bird specials, crates of Lipitor, and canasta tournaments naturally come to mind.”

“"Why Sustainability, not Terrorism, Should Be Our Real Security Focus"

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004799.html
last edited: 8/29/06 3:51:39 PM”

“In the nearterm, the US could become independent of imported crude oil and refined oil products from the Middle East

simply by allowing and encouraging by private industry an adequate coal-gasification and onshore oil refining capacity.

Coal-gasefication is a bad CO2 producer but that could be dealt with.

With no need for the produce of the Middle East, terrorism from there would become irrelevent.”

“thank you! thank you!

it is about time somebody said it. energy independence is so much more important than human life. it is so true that the only thing the terrorists care about is oil. if we would just do without, they would not attack us. there is a myth in the conservative press that terrorists kill because of religion, yeah ... the religion of greed

“This... this... 'coyote' is like, just another tool of this wicked administration, ... I mean are we supposed to accept the fact that it's okay for a predator like this to have nuclear weapons but it's not okay for say, a road runner or a baby harp seal? Coyotes like Wile E. are already waging nuclear war on defenseless road runners every day. I believe the pictures taken by my undercover operatives speak for themselves.” ~Cindy Sheehan”

“moon acutally it is the greed of CONTROL. In their mind Cindy would look alot better with her headless body draining on the turf of a soccer field.
I have found most people who seek to control others are actually trying to cover for their own life inadequacies. I still remember in the first Gulf War hearing from friends who were flying fighters to protect Saudi Arabia as they would tell of the Saudi reaction to female American Pilots.
After one greuling mission one of the Saudi pilots came over to congratulate an American who had covered him in some close ground action. When the pilot took off her helmet and he saw it was a woman he turned and walked away.
In truth the Saudis were pretty crappy pilots very little imagination, almost devoid of skill (not human nature but their enviornment). Most the islamic fascists are like the psychos in these fringe Christian religions that control women. IT is a power thing.”

“How is it someone who lies about their own name is spouting off about someone else's lack of truth?

Is it just me or is it hypocritical in here?”