Like I said before, pollution does not abide by national boundaries.
A regional example: I live about 30 miles north of the Mexican maquiladora sector, if you're unfamiliar with the term, look it up. FTZs are notorious for pollution and can contribute heavily to other environmental problems as imports and exports are encouraged, and environmental concerns are not a priority, to say the least. Even if every person in my state, and all states contiguous, drove a hybrid car, used solar panels, recycled, etc... my region would still not have clean breathable air or clean drinkable water, not to mention an ocean without pollutants and constant beach closures. There would still be noticeable pollution, hazy air filled with manufacturing particulates and the air quality would still be terrible.
Let me ask you... Have you ever drank Coca-Cola? Have you ever consumed any products made by Nabisco? Have you ever owned any BRAVIA, Hyundai, Sony, Vizio, Dell, Samsung, Kodak, Panasonic, GE, Microsoft, Cemex, Philips, Pioneer, Siemens or Sanyo products? Ever ridden in a BMW, Jaguar, Toyota, Ford or Volkswagen? All of these companies have manufacturing and distribution plants no more than 45 minutes from where I live. If you're neither refusing to use, nor outright protesting all of these companies and all of their products on a daily basis, you've been partially responsible for the poisoning of MY air and MY drinking water and MY oceans.
Well, it looks like we, as a country, on this issue, are going to be throwing that ball against the wall all by ourselves for the foreseeable future.
Oh, I like guns, now? I've never even held a gun in my entire life, let alone owned one or threatened use of one to "further my cause." My point was that shaming, or forcing people into a state of compliance creates dissidence and weakens your position and legitimacy. But, I guess that's a typical tactic on your part, to skirt the point of the comment, and snidely remark on something irrelevant.
What if people just don't care? What if they would have rather lived their lives doing what they so chose instead of worrying about the environment? Let's say that all this man-made Co2 is depleting the ozone, melting the icecaps, and all life on this planet will be gone in a few hundred years... so what? Why should I care? Don't answer that. Its rhetorical. I don't care... at all.
Why make a "throw-away comment" when the rest of your post is so serious in tone? And why make such an overreaching comment that is a clear attempt to emotionally, and sensationally detract from the point of the discussion?
And speaking of "your cause," what exactly is it? I mean, you have John Lennon tossing up a peace sign in your avatar, and you spout all this hippy-dippy peace and love stuff all over the place, but aside from standing on a soapbox in an internet forum, and ridiculing those who think differently than you do, what do you actually do to combat these issues that you claim to care so fervently about? Do you drive an electric car? Do you always take public transportation? Do you have solar panels installed on your home? Do you refuse to buy products from companies that are known gross polluters?
I understand that you think you're better than most people because you act like you care, and you act like you're fighting this grand crusade of awareness and enlightenment, but in reality, what is it that you actually do that actually has made a difference?
I'll write slow so you can understand. I have only made this point many, many times.
I walk. Everywhere. No, I am serious. Everywhere. Have a 5k run in the next town? Cool. I walk. Have to go to work? Cool. I walk. Farmer's Market. Cool, I walk. The shoes I get (running included) are made in the next town over.
My food? Read the previous paragraph. There is a large clue in there.
My computers? I make them. Get the parts from some local dealers.
Are you seeing a trend here, or do you need a big pretty picture drawn for you?
My carbon footprint is rather small - yet as you have astutely been incapable of figuring out, I do not go drumming it about, as my opinion of myself and PR for myself is of unimportance. I actually find myself to be a rather unimportant person - again, something you have been rather spectacular at not being able to figure out. This is because I am not. I am only one person in a billion - but I figure that if I do my small part in aiding the planet that provided me life, at least I am doing my own small part. So, while I am quite content in being the true small-living, tiny carbon footprint kind of guy, I am also rather content in being myself.
Of course, despite being that one tiny person, I do have the ability to think globally (actually, universally...but that is a whole different thread). I've no kids, but I would like the planet that I live on to be as clean as possible for the next generations. Of course, in reality, I know it will not happen. To be frank, humanity is fucked. No, I mean that literally. We are fucked, and we will fuck ourselves. Our greed and small mindedness are destroying us, and in quicker ways than we realize. I believe we are long, long past the point of no return that environmental scientists have theorized. Not because we have reached the fatal atmospheric PPM saturation point, but because we are leading ourselves towards it at such a pace that we are unable to stop. We are too self centered. We are too greedy. And, to be quite frank, greedy folks such as yourself and Sam are leading the way.
Fortunately, globally, in the long run it will not matter. Eventually, our greed will wipe humanity off the face of the Earth - but Earth will remain. It will probably take a while, but the planet will continue to evolve, continue to regenerate and continue to rebuild, erasing all of our destruction and eventually erasing any trace of humanity off of its face, life once again flourishing and awaiting the next dominate species - one hopefully not as destructive (my bet would be on the dolphins, should they ever figure out how to evolve thumbs). And all of those materialistic monuments you have built for yourself will be insignificant pieces of dust.
Cheers!
In geological terms 'recorded human history' isn't even the blink of an eye, we are at the moment coming to the peak of the last interglacial warming period. Give it a further 5000 odd years and will see if man has effected natural global warming, but 20 odd years of bad science won't give you the answer. Take the political funding out of science and we might get back to some proper answers!For those people that don't think the world is getting warmer...the world just recently had the hottest 12 month span in recorded human history.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-19/world/eco.globalwarmingsurvey_1_global-warming-climate-science-human-activity?_s=PM:WORLDThe strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.
Anybody that makes the argument that is no such thing as climate change is a moron. What can be and quite frankly, should be debated is whether or not that change is man made or natural. Now let's say that we clean everything up,renewable energy becomes the norm and we all but eliminate emissions only to find out that it was a naturally occurring event. What is the worst case scenario? We leave things cleaner for those who come after us? How is this a bad thing?
Check the link I posted Sam...
You're a fucking clown, Samantha, and I've never made such a statement. What I have said is that you can't synthesize the information you read and make your own fucking argument with it. At this point, you have burned so much credibility, posted so much biased bullshit, and made so many completely fuck-tard posts that anyone that wastes their time following one of your links or reading though anything you post is just foolish.
Excellent article. Seriously!
But, don't let xfire see it. Otherwise anyone who believes Steven Novella, and uses his findings while debating, will be called a clown and someone who can't think for themselves.
You see, XFire thinks debates should be handled strictly with the thoughts of novices and anyone else who wants to chime in. Forget about the experts who know what they have written, and possibly gotten awards for their findings. Yeah, let's NEVER read a medical article or a scientific report, lest we look foolish in XFire's eyes because we are referencing someone who is an expert in the field we happen to be debating.
In other words..... throw all learning out the fucking window and just go with your own thoughts, or lack there of. At least according to XFire, anyway.