cars killing coral reef?

[fgray1]

Otter
We are in the same circle.
One of us is on the inside and one is on the outside.
When I was young none of this mattered I had nothing and spent all my time trying to feed and cloth my family. Much like the average Joe in America. I didn't have time to care or worry about the thing you now worry about.
Now that I'm older and I see the end of my life creeping up on me, I could care less about the things your worried about. I've worked hard to get what I got and I'm not willing to let life pass me by so that 500 years from now the world will be a wonderful place for everyone. A human life is far to short to waste it chasing something that I won't be around to enjoy.
Yes I'm selfish. I'll leave the worrying to those who will come after me.
That's the realist I am.
Oh by the way you can substitute the doughnut with a half full glass of water.
Tear that one apart.

 

[Otter]

Otter
We are in the same circle.
One of us is on the inside and one is on the outside.
When I was young none of this mattered I had nothing and spent all my time trying to feed and cloth my family. Much like the average Joe in America. I didn't have time to care or worry about the thing you now worry about.
Now that I'm older and I see the end of my life creeping up on me, I could care less about the things your worried about. I've worked hard to get what I got and I'm not willing to let life pass me by so that 500 years from now the world will be a wonderful place for everyone. A human life is far to short to waste it chasing something that I won't be around to enjoy.
Yes I'm selfish. I'll leave the worrying to those who will come after me.
That's the realist I am.
Oh by the way you can substitute the doughnut with a half full glass of water.
Tear that one apart.

Would that be poluted or unpolluted water?

I understand your position completely. What I don't understand is how being concerned about the environment constitutes "..letting life pass [you] by.."

I think by virtue of the fact that I have two teenagers, I don't have the luxury to not care how they or their children may be impacted. We also may differ in the timeframe. I don't think we have 500 years. Maybe 50. I think I am a realist, you may think I am a pessimist. Only the historians will know for sure.

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

Ahh.. I see. I feel so much better knowing that the World's rich consumers (wherever they may be) are in charge. Shame they don't care about the environment though.

Chris.

If they didn't care about the environment, these type innovations wouldn't occur - no stimulus for change. I don't follow your 'reasoning'.

For an example of automotive innovation from a non-free market economy, I refer you to the Trabant. This product had absolutely nothing to do with the "World's rich consumers". Compare the emissions, fuel economy, etc. from that design to those I referenced, then check on the amount of environmental cleanup and shutdown of factories, oil refineries, etc. in East Germany after the German reunification, and the attention to environmental stewardship those sites evidenced.

Chernobyl is a non-hydrocarbon related example.

 

[fgray1]

Would that be poluted or unpolluted water?

I understand your position completely. What I don't understand is how being concerned about the environment constitutes "..letting life pass [you] by.."

I think by virtue of the fact that I have two teenagers, I don't have the luxury to not care how they or their children may be impacted. We also may differ in the timeframe. I don't think we have 500 years. Maybe 50. I think I am a realist, you may think I am a pessimist. Only the historians will know for sure.

The best you can do with your time left is teach your kids.
Then they can teach theirs and so on.
Being conserned is one thing.
Activisem is another. Hence the BLAH BLAH BLAH factor.

 

[Kim]

The best you can do with your time left is teach your kids.
Then they can teach theirs and so on.
Being conserned is one thing.
Activisem is another. Hence the BLAH BLAH BLAH factor.

Well - honestly I wouldn't want to teach my kids the selfish attitude that you seem to be espousing. I also feel that I owe my parents and grandparents etc something back for the unselfish sacrifices they made for me. But that's just me - each to his or her own.

 

[fgray1]

Well - honestly I wouldn't want to teach my kids the selfish attitude that you seem to be espousing. I also feel that I owe my parents and grandparents etc something back for the unselfish sacrifices they made for me. But that's just me - each to his or her own.

YOUR own parents and grand parents for YOU.
I never said I don't and haven't sacificed for MY family.
I'm not willing to sacifice anything and I mean ANYTHING for what might or might not happen 10, 50 or 500 years from now.
You really need to read the thread before you make personal comments
Oh by the way what have you done this week to help out.
What have you sacificed for the world to be a better place.
The words Glass houses come to mind.
I give several computers away to families that can't afford them.
I've bought shoes for those that had none. I've given water to my neighbors that had no power to run their well pumps. I've paid for the tolls at the toll booths for the people behind me just Because. My list goes on and on. How about yours??????

 

[hvulin]

That's about as good as it gets. With you there 100%

Cars do kill coral reefs, but the way things are going there will be few fish left to populate them. That is something we can do something about and has nothing to do with climate change. Its the big trawler out there....

Chris

actually if you drop a car next to (or on top) of the coral reef, it will soon became a reef itself... - so you can say that cars help build new reefs

on the other side: I don't care about what kills the coral if it is its time to die (as it happened many times before people were the cause), but trying to lower the amount of polutants that we release is always a good thing...
Introducing new chemistry/plants to the oceans just so they can lower the damage that we do is a VERY bad thing since we don't know what else they will change.

The science has gone a long way to understand how everything works but we are still very far away from the answer (if it even exists) and I believe that the best thing we can do is try to reduce our own output (not just waste, all output) and not mess things up any more then required...

 

[Nay]

The best you can do with your time left is teach your kids.

Isn't the best way to teach your kids by example?


On the US tourists thing: I think archman's point was that one country has well more than half of the cruise ship business. So we're not saying that the US is totally responsible, but more than half responsible for negative or positive effects made to the environment by cruise ship operations. No, we're not the only ones in the world, but we do use proportionately more than other countries and should recognize that. We also however have stricter evironmental guildelines than other countries which hopefully helps.

Has anyone read "Out of Gas: the end of the age of oil"? It's still in my "to read" pile but I attended a lecture by the author about the book and he talks about how bad it really is. Not in a pessimistic, the sky is falling way, but in a rational, "we have less time than we think" way. Yes, there have been more discoveries of oil in places like Canada, but the cost to extract that oil is far greater than the oil we currently use and something we need to consider is we have to begin to prepare now for a world without fossil fuels to be ready for when it does happen because we may have as little as 50-100 years of affordable oil and it will take at least that long to make necessary conversions. It looks to be a really well done, multi-dimensional book. As for what to do: freaking out isn't the answer, and hybrids aren't the final answer, but I at least think they're a step in the right direction. These things take time and incremental steps.

Another book that's next in my pile is "Uncertain world, Uncretain science" It's also said to be a great read and talks about what people have been saying here, that science isn't, well, an exact science.

Last one, I'm reading "The world according to Pimm: A scientist audits the earth" I'm only in the first few chapters, and what he does is take a lot of numbers that get thrown around and breaks them down to see if they're realistic.

All good reads.

 

[Nay]

I guess the way I approach environmental stuff is the way I approach everything.

balance.

People who go to extremes in things, especially complicated stuff like this, tend to tunnel vision into one thing and can't see all of the other contributing factors.
That's why I'm starting to study ecology, it's really complex and I find it fascinating how eveything is intertwined.

I'm also frustrated because these things sound a lot better in my brain than they come out. Argh!

 

[Otter]

The best you can do with your time left is teach your kids.
Then they can teach theirs and so on.
Being conserned is one thing.
Activisem is another. Hence the BLAH BLAH BLAH factor.

I have learned that the best way to teach is by example. I try, not always successful, to be a role model my boys, their friends, and my students (scuba).

One person's activism is another person's leadership-by-example. BTW, I am not by any stretch of the imagination, an environmental activist. I do pickup trash when I see it (land or ocean), I do recycle (mandatory here) and I am considering the environmental as well as economic impact of my next auto purchase.

I do believe we have a moral obligation to leave 'our world' no worse off than we found it. Even better if possible.

You are right, at times I am not a realist. At times I am a fatalist. I think that the majority of the world share views similar to you and we are destined to reap what we sew.