Debate Topic: Environmentalism (Little Upsilon)

And you harm the environment from inefficient use of land, nix.

The environment would benefit much more from building a high rise apartment building on your allotment.

Leave agriculture to the efficient professionals who produce much more per acre than you could ever dream.

If you must play in the dirt, use planters and sillboxes or roof top gardening that requires no use of actual land.

To do otherwise is the hieght of hypocrisy for a so-called "environmentalist".

I've explanined this to you many times before. London, Tokyo, and Manhattan are more eco-friendly than your suburban, back-to-nature nonsense.

How big is an English allotment?

What is the cost per acre to grow vegetables vs buying from a farmers market?

What vegetables can be grown in the UK?

What is the growing season?

Fertilizers or compost?

Greenhouse would make sense for the climate.

Lots of variables to include.

I don't think they use arable land in the UK for this purpose...I believe its leftover from WWII when gardens prevented starvation.

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Rats, bine weed and algae.
Not many compaired to the ones that have died out. 1000's a year.<!-/Quote-!>

Once again, nature is all about change - the passing of species and the thriving of others.

Robins, blackbirds, red foxes, silver foxes, rabbits, cows, pigs, sheep, pigeons, goats, chickens, geese, ducks, dogs, cats, mice, goldfish, ferrits, guinea pigs, hedgehogs, hamsters, raccoons, skunks, doves, bettas, guppies, koi, turkeys, zebu, donkey, horse, emu, ostrich, bison, llama, alpaca. The list goes on, and each one has benefitted from human civilization.

You display quite readily a misunderstanding of the mechanisms of the natural world, and I find it quite pointedly distressing for one who would choose to preach to others.

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All you need to do is dig some soil, plant some seeds then water.<!-/Quote-!>

But why? My garden is home to innumerable plant, insect, avian and mammalian species as a horticultural wilderness. To hack it all up for the sake of a few vegetables - which can be grown elsewhere in a more readily adapted environment - would surely prove counterintuitive to the very point you are trying to make?

No. I will stick to farmed food. I will allow those with the time, knowledge, inclination and passion for such things to pursue their lot in their life. And I will do the same in my own.

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If your a writer you might also get some insperation. You know what they say: The garden is the closed place you'll get to God.
What kind of things do you write?<!-/Quote-!>

I have no place for your God. My garden is where I will be close to the kami.

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About you growing some food. I write on here, grow food on my alotment, work as a tree surgeon and gardener, keep up to date with current affairs, make sweet love to the women, catch up with my friends, cook some good food, help out my family, walk the dog, do a work out and my chores all in a day, so why can't you?<!-/Quote-!>

Simply put, Nix, I do not want to be you. I do not want to live my life in a manner dictated by somebody who does not know nor understand me, my family or our collective needs.

I will not subscribe to the uneducated ramblings of a man with such openly and blatantly hypocritical views.

I will read my books. I will write my fiction. I will continue to learn, educate and develop as a human being. I will continue to work har to provide for my family and care for them in a manner that negates the rambling dictations of ignorance, and I shall feel absolutely no guilt in doing so.

Miles.
Quote from you 'Here's a question for you, Nix. How many species of plant and animal now thrive thanks to human activity? Go on. Go learn something.'

Do you have any idea just how many there are? You talk like you might also know the ratio between those that have died over the last 100 years and those that have thrived. If you do. Will you tell me.
You also seem like the kind of person that would'nt care less if all there was in life was you and your cat.
Thats not life. Diversity is life.
Can you not remember being a kid?
The wonder of life?
How sad would it have been if the only life that you saw was a human or a rat?

Sure we can live without it. But do you really want the kids to?

Anyway. Good for you for having a garden wilderness. Not many people have gardens like that. They have lawns and slabs and decking. So they would be the ones who I was talking to. You should'nt take things so personal. Especialy when someones not talking to you.

/me enters thread, burns tyres and leaves.

What leaves are you burning Stuie?

lol nix - the most polluting ones

/me slaps Nix around with a cabbage and points him back to this....

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How big is an English allotment?

What is the cost per acre to grow vegetables vs buying from a farmers market?

What vegetables can be grown in the UK?

What is the growing season?

Fertilizers or compost?

Greenhouse would make sense for the climate.

Lots of variables to include.

I don't think they use arable land in the UK for this purpose...I believe its leftover from WWII when gardens prevented starvation.<!-/Quote-!>

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Do you have any idea just how many there are? You talk like you might also know the ratio between those that have died over the last 100 years and those that have thrived. If you do. Will you tell me.<!-/Quote-!>

You're the religious sort of person, right Nix? Do me a favour. Go down to the oldest church near where you live and take one thorough look over the ancient stones which comprise its walls. Tell me what you see.

Up to 25,000 different species of lichen.

Open up your fridge, your freezer, your cupboards. How many different species - all domesticated - are there represented in your kitchen? Alone, how many species of grass go into meeting your dietary needs? I can think of at least a dozen cereals.

And these are just a handful of the domesticated species of plant.

I know you'll just rephrase this question and ask it again. I look forwards to answering it over and over and over.

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You also seem like the kind of person that would'nt care less if all there was in life was you and your cat.
Thats not life. Diversity is life.
Can you not remember being a kid?
The wonder of life?
How sad would it have been if the only life that you saw was a human or a rat?<!-/Quote-!>

You're welcome to your interpretations. As many of us are seeing they're based more upon personal belief and assumption than fact.

I've addressed your issues, offering statistics and facts. Yet when the time comes for you to do the same you simple regurgitate the same old rhetoric again and again. Ignoring facts, you rely instead upon the gaps in your own knowledge to try and prove your points.

Extrapolations are drawn from factual evidence, my friend. Try to keep this in mind when you draw your conclusions.

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Sure we can live without it. But do you really want the kids to?<!-/Quote-!>

Life is change, Nix. The environment it not static. Species come and species go. Trying to hang on to them is ultimately more harmful to the ecosystem than to allow them to die out.

Look at the extinction of bears, wolves or wild boars from the woodlands of the United Kingdom. Did it cause irreversible, irreparable damage to the ecosystems or the environment?

No. Life moved on. Ecosystems adapted.

The world did not end.

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Anyway. Good for you for having a garden wilderness. Not many people have gardens like that. They have lawns and slabs and decking. So they would be the ones who I was talking to. You should'nt take things so personal. Especialy when someones not talking to you.<!-/Quote-!>

You told me rather specifica;;y tjay I was destroying the future, Nix. So once again you're being a hypocrit. But then, I've grown accustomed to it. It does tend to go hand in hand with narrowmindedness. It is people like you who will ultimately harm the future.

I hope your god will forgive you. The kami and I coexist in peace.

Miles.
I was'nt talking to you about growing your own food. That was said in a reply to MasterOfAll. It's also something that I've kept on bringing up over the past 10 months. (Maybe Miles, you could get an old metal drum and grow some potatoes?)
You talk of now and then, but not of the future. Tell me some environmental facts about the future. Especially as thats what the threads about.

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I was'nt talking to you about growing your own food. That was said in a reply to MasterOfAll. It's also something that I've kept on bringing up over the past 10 months. (Maybe Miles, you could get an old metal drum and grow some potatoes?)<!-/Quote-!>

You're missing the point entirely Nix.

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You talk of now and then, but not of the future. Tell me some environmental facts about the future. Especially as thats what the threads about.<!-/Quote-!>

Past and present set the precedent for the future. Where else do we gather the facts to interpret the future? Or would you care for me to explain temporal mechanics to you as well as environmentalism?

Yes. Then I might understand where your coming from.

Well, you see, Nix, by comparing past and present data and observations we can compile various mathematical models which allow us to predict - to a certain degree - the manner in which certain quantative inputs will or may effect the eventual output.

The issue you appear to be having in your arguments is a willingness to overlook the inconvenient inputs and data in order to manipulate the outcome in such a way as benefits your position, rather than making any clear cut attempt to remain objective.

That clear enough for you?

Never in the history of man has so much input been added to the balance of life over such a short space of time. Your mathematical models cannot predict anything due to the variabilty of the facts used to make up the equations.
In some equations using certain assumptions of the unknown facts, the environment will be slightly affected from the 50 years of capitalist encouraged consumption and globalized destruction of the Natural World. But when other assumptions of the unknown facts are used, the models show a complete shut down of the earths eco system.

Surely, through our instinct for self preservation, we should be striving to get the optimistic models to show that human input is helping the environment and the pesermistic models to show human input is damaging the environment to the extent todays optimistic models are predicting?

And the only way we can do that is to accept we have a problem and make it our own responsability to do something about it.

I refer you back to the statistics and facts I offered in the other thread.

You, however, have yet to respond with anything other than personal opinion.

I would also like to know what exactly makes your own models of the future accurate enough to predict the future if mine cannot, given the same base data - assuming you have any, of course.

I have looked back through your posts on all threads and I can't see one proven fact about how 50 years of capitalist encouraged consumption and globalized destruction of the Natural World will impact our environment.

I work with all the models available. Read what I wrote again.

Ah, omission of convenience. Seems quite the common occurance for you, Nix. Its all there. One of my first posts I believe, quoting information regarding the last 150 years - comparing specifically nature vs human activity. If you cannot find it, that is your shortsightedness.

I shall contain my amazement.

Whats the last 150 years got to do with anything?
Mans biggest input has been over the last 50 years.
Evidence of this input will only be available over the next 50 years.
Mans input over the last 150 years has had a negative effect though would'nt you argree?
So you can just imagine how bads it's going to be due to the last 50 years of mans activities.

Nature could take us out in one swipe. I have no problem with that. But for man to mess things up is just plain stupid.
Let alone man knowing he's messing things up and still do it. Thats just plain animal.
Do we not have the ability to determine our own survival, within reason?
If I am wrong, no bad will come to anyone. If you are wrong then life might die.

Did they not say that there was no evidence that Hitler had intentions of ruling Europe?
Sure, the writing on the wall will never be fact, due to the future being unknown. But when it comes down to the protection of our future generations we need to use every tool available. And that includes the writing on the wall.

I know it's like a chain reaction. But what happened 100 years ago is just affecting us now. We don't yet know how nature will react to what we have done over the past 100 years.

Quote '50 years ago was when we recognized the problem and began trying to treat it.'

On a world wide scale (include every country) do you think man has polluted and consumed more of the world than they did 50 years ago or less than they did 50 years ago?

Facts and figures, Nix. Facts amd figures.

Nix is a Sand Pile Theorist. See Perk Bak and the amazingly humble title "How Nature Works".

An extension of this erroneous application of a psychologically appealling, but wholly inapplicable, modelling technique to natural systems is the "chain of events" thinking.

In Nix's warped perception, every small event in the natural realm impacts negatively and snowballs throughout the food chain and greater biosphere, and of course, always with deleterious and catastrophic effect. But to the rational mind, only a moment's thought is required to expose the utter fallacy of this line of thinking. It is simply a reworking of the Malthusian Dooomsday scenario that is based upon the presumption that mankind is a separate entity from the rest of the world and cannot exist within it in perpetuity, that we are destined to extinction from war, famine, disease, etc. regardless of our "temporary" progress.

Like Thomas Malthus, Nix's belief system betrays a fundamentally misanthropic worldview more revealing of his own psycholgical predilections than any application of objective, rational analysis of the world.

Nix, like so many of his predecessors and contemporaries, is uninterested in facts and figures, only ideology.

Helloa FarmerBob.
Quote 'In Nix's warped perception, every small event in the natural realm impacts negatively'

No FB. Can't believe you wrote that
But for some reason you did. I would like to know why.
The Natural world, to me, is a balance. You should know that about me by now???/. Every action there is a reaction. Some good, some bad.

MMmmmmmmmmm. FB????????I'll finish reading what you have written.

What?????'mankind is a separate entity from the rest of the world and cannot exist within it in perpetuity,' We are Animal. You know I think this. No God. Life is life, man is progressed animal.

Facts and Figure come at the moment of discovery.
Fine if your betting on a horse race. Gambling with your facts and figues to determine the out come.
But the environment is not a horse race.
It's the futures way of life. Without it, no race.
We have already gambled away our futures inheritance. But as money is'nt everything, they'll get over it.

FarmerBob, you are a self confessed conservationist. You said on another thread months ago: 'As nations prosper, concern for the environment will follow in due course.'

And I asked: 'as nation's become poorer, what happens then?'

Please answer me