Debate Topic: Environmentalism (Little Upsilon)

'personal animosity.'

You are one lucky puppy FB. I read your last post last. I was scrolling down to tell you that you have your big toe over the line.

Anyway. Science only makes sense when you have test results. By the time you get your test results, the Enviroment will be dead. Which makes no sense.
Common sense is just that. You look at the pin on the floor and common sense tells you that it could hurt someone. Now science would require someone to step on it before accepting the fact. Which by then would be to late.

What are you scared of FarmerBob?
Did you make your money in a non enviromentaly friendly way?
Or is common sense just to 'up in the air' for you?

"Yes. I am fully aware of how much of our jurisprudence is wrapped up in Christian dogma, but that doesn't excuse creating more."

I too believe that Christian Dogma is a bit obscene. You may have mistaken my comments on faith for Christian Prophecy. I understand the reasoning, but I am not a Christian. I respect the belief system in it's purest forms, but too much hatred is spawned from religion.
It is actually the Christian Ideal that God gave us the Earth to use as we see fit that has got us into this current enviromental problems.
I agree with the Earth Friendly views of the Druids, Ancient Pagan, Hopi Indians, Buhddists, Hindus and certain sects of the Middle Eastern Religions (Christianity, Judeaism and Islam?)

"Therefore, any religion based belief has no proper place in our national policies."

True, to a point. The problem is the fact that religion is used as the leash to lead the masses. The Core values are often forgotten.
From the 10 commandments to the 8 Precipts to the laws of Karma. All speak of being kind to your fellow man. Not the case in most modern political bodies.

"We don't pray for clean drinking water. We engineer the means to ensure a clean water supply."

True, I do, however, pray that the engineer didn't cheat on his college finals. That's the way I look at it.

Poobah, I will repectfully decline to get into religious discussion. I have no issue at all with what you've written, but wish to keep this thread related to environmentalism. We will probably touch upon the subject again as the rebirth of Gaiaism bears some relevance to the discussion, or the the similarilities between soft green belief structures and religious convictions, but for the moment let us stick to topic.

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We are made of this earth. In a sense, it is that which is our creator. It is what gives us life. Maybe some respect is in order?<!-/Quote-!>

A very interesting point. The difficulty in attempting to answer such a question lies in one's defintion of "respect".

What does it mean?
How do we measure it as societies?
How do we translate it into laws and regulations that govern our lives?
Does environmental "respect" outweigh human life?
Or human welfare? To what degree and under what circumstances?

My humble answer to such a question as a Conservationist would be that "respect" is to preserve as much as possible, unexploited by human activity.
To embrace rational policies that minimize the footprint of man while respecting the principle that we will seek to survive as will every other product of nature.

Since no other species will voluntarily limit its activities for the good of a higher concept like "Nature", the folly of ignoring our natures to survive, reproduce, and seek our own happiness should be incorporated into our views of modern man's responsibility to the world.

It really begs the question: What is Man?

That leads directly back into the religious discussion, and I don't believe it's one we can ever really answer conclusively.

Therefore, at some point, we must set aside the philosophical introspection and look for rational answers to the question of how to respect nature while ensuring our own survival within the confines of our own natures.

For rational answers, we have turned to science to explain why things work as they do, and engineering to apply those explanations into things which benefit us. Both are founded upon mathematical principles that govern their use.

Human individuals, much less our societies, are immensely complex. It is fair to say that we don't have the mathematical knowledge to accurately describe anything that we do. That includes our behaviors as individuals or groups.
The artificial constructs we have created over millenia, economies, governments, religions, are very real parts of our daily existence; but, also beyond our means to quantify mathematically.

Therefore, incorporating those constructs into our relationship with Nature cannot be accomplished in a scientific manner. We have to use the less precise means of trial and error, which we have been doing throughout our entire existence as a species. We study our recorded history, examine every aspect and combination of factors that go into human existence and seek patterns and answers. Do we have many conclusions?

Collectively, not really. For every objective conclusion one might claim to have, there will be many who argue against it.

We can only then look at what and how we have done things in the past, try to determine if any really bad things occurred as an obvious result, and change our behaviors as necessary.

So what does all this mumbo jumbo have to do with anything?

The principles I went on about in the very long three posts above, seek to answer that question of how to balance respect for nature with our own human needs. They seek to incorporate as many of the lessons of what we have learned of what works and what doesn't into a rational pattern that meets both goals.

Will many argue against part or all of those principles?

Of course. We can't agree on economic systems, forms of government, or religion, can we? So principles based upon choices within those spheres aren't any more likely to achieve universal concensus.

Depsite that fact, those principles are based upon Regulated Capitalism as the most efficient and beneficial economic system, Representative Government as the best form of government, and Religious Freedom as the best form of religion.

Should you agree with those three choices, framing a coherent body of ethics for interacting
with our natural world, balancing its needs, as best we can scientificly understand them, with our own needs, as best as we can scientificly understand them, becomes much less difficult.

Reread those principles with "respect" in mind and see what you think.

Nix,

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What are you scared of FarmerBob?
Did you make your money in a non enviromentaly friendly way?
Or is common sense just to 'up in the air' for you?<!-/Quote-!>

1. Alzheimer's and losing my wife before me.

2. I imagine that a professional military officer's job would not be described as "environmentally friendly", nor an executive's within the private logistics industry.

3. "Common Sense" is virtually undefinable and even less applicable. One man's common sense is another's idiocy.

In reply to number 3. This is why nothing is being done on the scale that is needed to ensure our future has an Enviroment to live in. The destroyers say theres no proof. The healers say when we get the proof it will be too late.
I know that your way is to spend the money you have made on land and let nature be, but do you buy land that has been destroyed and heal it? or do you buy land that has'nt been destroyed?
Also, with countries getting poorer, how many healers are going to be able to buy the land to balance out all the destroyers?

.

@FB- Bravo man. Great response.

"A very interesting point. The difficulty in attempting to answer such a question lies in one's defintion of "respect"."

I was refering to personal respect and responsibility. No laws and regulations will work if the people guided by them don't care. I was refering to the people who dump garbage in the mountains. People who dump meth labs in lakes (Oh yeah, that happens around here). Even the average person who throws a soda cup out their car window.
The Definition of respect I was refering to was "Personal responsibility to help keep our home clean and healthy".
Of course, most people don't practice such values.


@Nix- Life on earth has come near to extinction several times through out history. Volcanoes, asteroids, solar Flares and other various hazards have caused such great kill offs. Life, however, always bounces back. I talk about a clean enviroment because I'm tired of beer cans in my streams. I'm tired of random crap crammed into the street gutters. I'm tired of Dumb asses burning tires and other petrol based products out of pure laziness.
Mass kill offs on earth are inevitable. To use a Rose farmers analogy- You snip the old and dieing heads to promote healthier, thicker growth. Think of Earth as a rose bush and us as the flowers. Sooner or later a lot of us will get cut.
The truth is that we may not have a say in what happens when it comes.

What if the truth is that we are having a say?

I would call that an ephemeral truth. In the truth market, it would be worth two rolls of toilette-paper.

lol Laguna. Cheap, scatchy paper. I will return to this thread soon.

please let me clarify-


FB- Your a rationalist. A comendable quality.
Most of the world doesn't see the world through such speculative eyes. It's a shame it's not so.
You must know that us humans, as a society, tend to have a "if it's not broke, don't fix it attitude".

For example-
Man A- "Pumping Carcinogens into the Air MAY cause severe respiratory disorders."

Man B- "Sounds like we should do something? Huh?"

Man A- Maybe someday, but untill people start dropping like flies in the streets, nothing will be done. We wouldn't want to waste money on something that might happen? Would We? What if we fix it and nothing happens? We would be wasting valuable Yacht money."

This might be a bit extreme, but It serves as a possible template to how most political matters are handled. If you dig down through the BS you will find various parties involved with everything.

Someone pays for the Green energy adds. Someone pays to keep gas guzzlers on the road. Someone paid to start wars. Someone paid to end them.

That is capitalism. In the "Wealth of Nations" it straight up and down says that Greed fuels Capitalism. I do not think a greed fueled economic system would be planet friendly.

Now lets take that mess and throw a wad of respect in there. The company producing the carcinogens stops and feels a "moral obligation" to prevent damage to people and nature. Side stepping personal greed.

Several religions state that one should strive to gain personal success with out harming any person or thing. Including the Earth

All this boils down to-
We can argue on an online forum or we can do something about it. Words not followed by actions are just words.

Wonderful, Austia. You are thinking and applying outside learning to the questions at hand. I do not mean to sound condescending, but its refreshing to get past ideology.

Back to your point.

I will quote myself, my apologies.

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Some micro-pollutants are conclusively established to do real harm. When such harms are reliably identified, their sources should be contained.
However, we reject the casual presumption of guilt before innocence in the micro-environmental realm. Most of the time, pursuits of the extra part per billion prove to be more wasteful that the pollution itself. Most consume more energy, material, time, endanger more lives, generate more real pollution, dissipate more value, than the thing pursued. Chasing after the micro threat should have a clear stopping point where fears begin to outweigh scientific evidence of harm. As a geberal rule, we are far better off putting our money and efforts to uses where clear environmental returns can be directly realized. How much more environmental good could have been done by buying up green spaces, riverbanks, watersheds, and forests with the tens of billions that were poured into the bureaucracy of superfund?
Better to direct environmental spending away from the trans-scientific pursuit of micro-environmental phantasms and toward the conservation of wilderness.<!-/Quote-!>

The issue comes down to perceptions of threats. I refer you back to the definition of Trans-Science.

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The first quarrels arise from the underlying facts of the issues. One might suppose that rigorous scientific investigation and disciplined economics would settle any such disagreements, but they don't and won't, and here is why:

Let us begin with Soft Green science. In a classic 1972 essay, nuclear physicist Alvin Weinberg used the term "trans-science" to describe the study of phenomena too large, rare, diffuse, or long term to be resolved by scientific means. Those means used by chemists, physicists, engineers, et al. that revolve around rigorous testing and controlled experimentation under the strict principles of the Scientific Method. The phenomena of trans-science are epistemologically "scientific", and yet, for strictly practical reasons, unanswerable by science.

One of his examples would be that it would take eight billion mice to perform a statistically significant test of radiation at levels the EPA deems "safe" using traditional, accepted scientific methodology. The computer model used instead to set that official threshold may by exactly right, or it may be way off in either direction. The only certainty is that no billion mice experiment will ever be conducted. Even if it did, countless other critical components of the model would remain unverified.

For example, both hard and soft green agree that pollutants in well-defined populations, where exposures are high, and effects strong and quick are certainly bad things in need of immediate remedy. The tough part comes when we attempt to scale out and down from that scenario. From high exposure to low. From short time frames to long, from small, highly exposed populations to huge ones that are hardly exposed at all. Infinite scope and zero effect can be multiplied out to quite a bit or nothing at all. It all comes down to the model.<!-/Quote-!>

Hard science is quite cpable of identifying the threats to human health. The CDC is extremely proficient with tracking health trends and tracking causality. Should you have genuine concern for such threats, the most likely biological killer of man would be the deliberate or inadvertant release of an effective man- made bio-agent, something we created to destroy ourselves.

Allow me to resort to analogy as well to place it in perspective for you.

Man A. Tornado wiped out Harry's place last night.

Man B. I heard. I'm on the way to bank to get a $20,000 loan to buy steel cables. I'm gonna strap my place down tight.

Man A. Good idea. I heard that Mable down the road will come by and a do a chicken dance on your property that keeps the tornados away for only a hundred bucks a month.

Man B. Really? I'm gonna give her a call.

I trust you get the point.

I am not a big advocate for trusting the government in all things, but the Federal Agencies are competent at their jobs. Beware the politicians who are speaking for them.

As to your other point, continue your studies of economics. The costs and benefits of various "doing something just to be on the safe side" measures should become more clear. That company dumping carcinogens in your example is largely fictional in the US. In reality, the EPA would crucify any such transgressor. There are thousands of pages in the Federal Register regulating pollution. Frankly, more than can be scientifically justified. Beware political scare tactics. Think for yourself. Are you reading headlines of actual, documented public health problems, or threats of them?
Are common ailments like allergies, what we used to call hayfever, suddenly being attributed to unnamed pollutants, without supporting evidence?

There is also the small catch that most of the proponents of these measures are advocating the surrender of freedoms, not just money.
No conspiracy theories, but have you noticed how the "solutions" typically require that new powers be granted to some central authority?

To your last point. Continue your education. Acquire the means to become a steward of the land yourself. Must you have a bureaucrat tell you how to protect your piece of the Earth?

Should you ask, there will always be those who will tell you exactly how you should be living every aspect of your life. Should you listen?

The Grand Poohbah. I like your anology.
Your anology FarmerBob is lame.
How many fences have you got FarmerBob?
Is there anything in life that you will make a stand on?

'Acquire the means to become a steward of the land yourself.'

And how would you suggest we do that without using up more of the futures resources and polluting more of the futures enviroment to make the money to buy the land?

And steeling land from someone else is not an option anymore.

Yo FarmerBob. Please ignore my comment about Is there anything in life that you will make a stand on?
I've not been getting any sleep over the past couple of nights and I was in a bad mood.
Sorry Bro.

Nick.

'Acquire the means to become a steward of the land yourself.'

And how would you suggest we do that without using up more of the futures resources and polluting more of the futures enviroment to make the money to buy the land?

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I actually understand what FB was saying. You don't need money to practice good enviromental measures.
Nix, As an enviromentalist, do you know how much power your computer pulls? Unless it's made from alternative sources, it is harmfull to the enviroment.


on another note, I heard that most of Europe wants 50% of their power to be produced by wind within the next 10 yrs. Is this true?

FB's talking about conservation. Which I agree with. But how do you get the money to buy the land in first place is what I'm getting at.

I also know you don't need money to practice good enviromental issues. I earn just enough to survive. I buy second hand cloths, I recycle everything that I'm allowed too. I only use my 950cc van for work (gardening), I grow some of the food that I need. I desire no material wealth. Most of what I own has been given to me by people who would have thrown them away. I switch off any light that I'm not using. I don't leave anything on standby. I only use my computer to play this game to get my point about the enviroment accross. I don't use the heating (I just put on an extra jumper).

My point is that regardless of what I do, I know that unless big business stops the destruction of our enviroment for which they are doing in the name of profit then my sacrifices will be worthless. Unless people just live for what they need instead of for what they want, our future will not have a natural world to live in.

But that would mean giving up our material realm of safety. You know most people can't handle the responsibility of personal accountability.

I should have also added that this is why conservation will not be enough to ensure our kid's and grandkid's etc will live in a natural enviroment (as we have) and that this is why we need an enviromental movement to stand up for their rights. (For they are not yet here to do so for themselves)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

nuff said

read it and weep "skeptics"

a skeptic can merely point out that Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. Anyone can post edit or lie.
Show me a more reliable source.

I dont live in a natural enviroment.

The indians did. An look at em now.

Though taking into account Emmersons essay on

nature maybe I do live in a natural enviroment.

anywho-I have to use words when Im talking to you-so I am going to stop now.

Nix, join The Nature Conservancy. It's a non-profit organization (and I know you like that "non-profit" part) that pools people's donations to purchase environmentally critical lands. They try to be very smart about their purchases, and try to leverage their money as much as possible. Few people can buy and set aside lands as individuals, but many people working together can.

"Untill Science can answer that, Faith can never be fully discredited. I believe, personally, that the truth is infact a merge of the two. Faith and science". -Poo-bah

lol god of the gaps.
Faith: complete confidence in a person or plan

Science (Latin for knowledge): the effort to discover, understand, or to understand better

Sound like those two things are incompatible. If you have complete confidence that the Murry river in southern Australia was carved by a giant serpent, or the grand canyon was carved by a global flood, or the earth is a flat plate resting on top of four elephants on top of a turtle in space. Then your not going to want to learn any more, as you already have the answer.

The Earth is flat as dictated by the Flying Spagetti Monster. May his holy noodles bring us all a little peace and tranquility.

And he says Global Warming is a good way to scam suckers out of cash. Err I mean save the planet by raising awareness about the imagined real warming as dreamed up by con-men proven by hard scientific data.

Environmentalists: Oh noes. The planet is too hot. All the polar bears are dying. Who will save us from the evil carbon dioxide.

Me: I will take care of all that evil Carbon dioxide with my magic beans...And it will only cost twenty five billion dollars and some hotties able assistants.....And a 12 pack.

Environmentalists: I totally dig your groove man..Its great you are saving the planet....Want to smoke some herb and have a drum circle?

Me: No I must go forth and save the planet from warming.

Environmentalists: Ok here is a fat sack of cash. Let us know how the polar bears are doing.


Me: I would like to see that Ferrari in Red please. And I would like the upholstery to be lined in this polar bear fur..Its really pimp.

The End.

"My point is that regardless of what I do, I know that unless big business stops the destruction of our enviroment (environment?) for which they are doing in the name of profit then my sacrifices will be worthless. Unless people just live for what they need instead of for what they want, our future will not have a natural world to live in". -nix001

And environmentalism reveals itself. Its more about anti corporate movement then protecting the environment. At the end of the day corporations will only do what society will tolerate, and a corporations goal is simple: make the most money as possible, while I advocate a more socially responsible corporate model (pass profits all employees, shareholders, and clients). But I don't want to be a communist and impose these conditions, and besides the incurred costs of this regulation would outweigh the benefits (probably). I do think executive pay increase should be somewhat proportional no all employee pay increase, and if business is performing bad they should NEVER receive a pay increase.

Getting back on topic. I'm not exactly sure how making business operate inefficiently will reduce waste, and rampant destruction of the environment (your view not mine). Yeah minimal destruction and poisoning of the biosphere and atmosphere is an obvious goal, only a short sighted and selfish person wouldn't agree with that. But we didn't get from coal transportation, with little regard for human rights and health to a society where we have enough money to look after the disadvantaged, regulate environmental controls, provide a much higher standard of living education and healthcare (less wars, affordable healthcare Americans) in a day.
I'd assume you'd rather have a standard of living where you can communicate with people all over the world, then being an ignorant mud farmer with little food, virtually no healthcare, and no human rights (with no guarantee that you would cause less destruction to the environment). But I do agree somewhat with environmentalists that we are progressing much too slowly, but I don't really have any comprehensive solutions to speed up the process.