ohnonotthatguy: 2 Questions and only 2 answers

You as a die hard environmentalists would you,to save the planet
1)give up all comforts of technology(computers,cell,TV etc.) ?
2) give up all means of transportation powered by anything other than animal.?

OCD_OCD: No. It's called "evolution" for a reason.

Outbackjack: Agreed OCD.The luddite argument is impractical.

ohnonotthatguy: "evolution" comes at a cost "harm to the environment"

OCD_OCD: The world will never stand still. If it does, every life form will die.

Blame God for making us and for making cows that fart.

khaysha: if people boycotted this do u think that the planet would be saved? I think not! Everything exists for a time, if there is a beginning then there must be an end. That's why some people believe in the end of the world...At the same time I do believe that technology has alot to do with destroying the environment and the world. Now mans want to control the weather and in the process kill people off...

Irish American Rebel: i gave those things up for a year and I did just fine without them and my life was a little peaceful. But now that I have children I have to have those things. But I truely love the Earth and enviornment. I really do.

Likeitornot: I think environmentalists ideas are a waste of time. Environment changes regardless of our contribution, it is part of evolution. Rivers cut through mountains, Volcanos and earth quakes either destroy or create new land. Global warming or cooling has always been around, like the UK’s mini ice age in the 16th century. I don’t think you can ever control fire, water and wind nor can you stop the extinction of animals. Many animals became extinct long before humans arrived on this planet, it is what it is evolution.

Irish American Rebel: Yes we understand about evolution and natural enviormental causes...but we are talking about what man kind has done to the planet. Before technology we lived off the earth and never killed more or used more than we needed. Now we have about used all of our natural resources. We have put holes in the ozone, started a more drastic climate change and even caused more animals to be on the endangered species list. So yes evolution but man kind has had a hand in this for about 25,000 years now. So we need to care about mother earth before she kicks us in our butts and does soemething to cause mankind to become extinct.

Likeitornot: The hole in the ozone has always been there over the Antarctica. Global warming and cooling is nothing new. There is no doubt humans have contributed, how much of it? who really knows because those toxins we send into the atmosphere are not created or foreign to this planet.

DEEP dystopia: yes, but one can live with less, and make a differrence. few will chose so, becuase they wont do their part without knowing that everyone else is sufferring alongside them. greed, materialism jealousy- these are the banes of the environment.

DEEP dystopia: all that needs done is each idividual cut back their consmuption by 3%. eat one less steak dinner a month, really, and the kyoto accord is met.

Likeitornot: If our atmosphere is truly affected by pollution alone wouldn’t we be experiencing the opposite, like global cooling instead? But there again, little ice age happened between 1770 and 1850. Maybe there just cycles for the opportunists to cash in on…(smiles )

Serabi: We might not save the planet by becoming more eco-friendly, but we will afford our children better air to breathe, better water to drink and a better chance to see endangered animals. I think it is our duty to the best we can.

LiptonCambell: I don't think the Luddite argument for environmentalists isn't just impractical- its the logical conclusion for their arguments. Environmentalists argue we should do "with less" for the environment...I cannot conceive that if its wrong to harm the environment by driving your children to baseball practice, or to the grocery store, or to your sisters 3 towns over....but its okay to commute to work. I cannot conceive why its wrong for power companies to offer me electricity, but its right for me to accept it.

There just seems to be something fundamentally either wrong, or poorly elaborated upon, with the philosophy of an environmentalist. They wish to dictate when and under what conditions something is wrong- as well as the right to change their mind as to what those conditions are in the future- and I cannot conceive how anyone can live under such a tyrannical rule

Outbackjack: Logical conclusion???

So instead of using electricity lets all go out and chop down all the trees for heating.

Instead of modern sewerage systems lets just throw buckets of shit out into the street and all get cholera through the fecal matter in the contaminated water table that of course has not been treated.

Add to that all the garabge that we would throw out in the street and watch the rodent population rise because we dont have modern methods of dealing with them.

Need I go on?

Serabi: 1) Solar power/ Wind turbines We can tap unlimited power from a free source - the sun.
2) Self composting toilets are excellent to fertilise the earth again.
3) Cats are actually very good at rodent control. Add a couple of snakes and rodent control is excellent.
$) Nature strives for answers to questions - take one element out and you upset the whole Apple cart - that excludes parasites i.e. ticks and cockroaches of course. Even the pesky fly has a vital role to play in nature. Without flies wild animals will drop down because of gangrene.

Any more questions to answer?

LiptonCambell: >>>1) Solar power/ Wind turbines We can tap unlimited power from a free source - the sun.

Expensive and inefficient. Locally, I know the government of Canada helps people handle the expenses, and buys the excess electricity- and I have seen them cropping up all over the place- But I doubt we're at the point of tearing down the power plants- and I doubt we'll be at that point for decades...

>>>2) Self composting toilets are excellent to fertilise the earth again.

I haven't heard of that one...care to elaborate?

>>>3) Cats are actually very good at rodent control. Add a couple of snakes and rodent control is excellent.

I wasn't aware there was much of a rodent problem, or that it is harmful to the environment...

OCD_OCD: Where Serabi lives there are lots of rats and snakes.

We have TONS of wind turbines in Texas. The problem is that while the government was handing out tax breaks to install them, they neglected to pay attention to the fact that there needed to be some transmission and distribution lines connecting them to get all of that wind generated power to users. It has taken probably 10 years and they are just now laying the lines.

Amazing stupidity.

Serabi: Jack mentioned rodents over-running the earth in his post just above mine.

Solar power - we live in sunny SA.

A composting toilet is a dry toilet that uses a predominantly aerobic processing system that treats excreta, typically with no water or small volumes of flush water, via composting or managed aerobic decomposition. Composting toilets may be used as an alternative to flush toilets in situations where there is no suitable water supply or waste treatment facility available or to capture nutrients in human excreta as humanure. They are in use in many of the roadside facilities in Sweden, in National Parks both in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The human excrement is normally mixed with sawdust, coconut coir, peat moss to support aerobic processing, absorb liquids, and to reduce the odor. The decomposition process is generally faster than the anaerobic decomposition used in wet sewage treatment systems such as septic tanks.

Although there are many designs, the process factors at work are the same. Rapid aerobic composting will be thermophilic decomposition in which bacteria that thrive at high temperatures (40-60 °C or 104-140 °F) oxidize (break down) the waste into its components, some of which are consumed in the process, reducing volume, and eliminating potential pathogens. Check Wikipedia - lovely photograph there.

DEEP dystopia: america doesnt know how to make good wind turbines, they use diffwerrent alloys that expand and contract at differrent rates, resulting in high maintenance costs and faliures during extreme weather. solar and wind both have a shared propblem, making the [power generation shources close enuf to the point of consumption to make them affordable. when you have to go way out into the plains and hills outside of unban areas, you lose a lot of power over the miles of power lines. solar and wind power is most efficient when produced at the source of consumption. instead of bailing out the banks for 1.3 tirllion, obama should have set up a loan program for provate home owners to buy solar and wind generators, to be located at the pioint of consumtion, houses. the 1.3 trillion would have been enuf money to equip every single family dwelling in the us with a $20,000 sloar panel array, which would essentially take every house off the fossil fuel power grid. the olans could be paid off in roughly 7 yearsm, at the rate of the former power/gas bill, and after those 7 years, the homeowners would never have a utility bill again. additionally, it would have created real shovel readyu jobs for millions of americans.

electric cars more often than not are dirtier than gasoline cars, cause they chargge off a predominantly coal power grid that has to preduce enourmous amperage to make it across the miloes of power lines just to provide a relatively tiny amount of electricity to charge the cars.

i asked a GM rep about this at a car show a few years back, when they were promoting th3e then-new Volt. she said, "well, most of the people who buy these cars have solar panels. wow, thats gonna be a real change for the environment, considering there are like 3 solar powered houses in each metro area.

no electric car will be clean until it is charged off solar or wind power, which again, are most efficient when located at the point of consumption.

the easier solution is to stop acidifying the oceans, and study them to bring them back to health, so that they can absorb a tiny bit more C02.if the oceans cound absorb less than 3% more co2, the envoornment would be in baqlance again. in the meantime, we could easily cut back on 3% of golbal gas emissions by eating a little les meat, buying a little less manufactured goods and driving a little bit less. it really doesnt take much to cut back 3% if everybody would just give up something small. the best solution, solar and wind pwoer, is talked about by the envoron-politicians, but never implimented when the money to accon[plish their goal is available.

the government wont get us out of this mess, only the people can.

Serabi: In SA there is a trend amongst people to get their own solar panels for electricity - Our beloved Eskom can't cope because the fat cats at the top is bankrupting the parastatal in bonuses.

Rats are harmful to the whole earth - Noah should have drowned them.

The Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus, also called the brown rat or sewer rat) is a destructive pest found in urban and suburban neighborhoods. These rodents eat and contaminate food, damage buildings and other property by their gnawing and burrowing, and may spread diseases that affect people and pets. (As are all species of rats - I googled again and again and could find not one single positive fact on rats.)