[Freakinoldguy]

Thanos Thanos:

xerxes xerxes:

And here's the crux of the problem. To paraphrase an old saying: everyone wants to save the planet, but no is willing to do what it takes.

That's because solving the problem will require the end of using all fossil fuels, slamming the brakes on the economies of the developing world, changing the contemporary economy of the developed world into something unrecognizable (that kinda/sorta looks like some hybrid mix of feudalism and communism), and permanently placing about 95% of the world's population into a perpetual pre-industrial state of poverty ruled over by a tiny technocratic elite. Anyone who thinks this mess will be fixed by putting solar panels and windmills everywhere is sadly deluded.

It's not about saving the planet, it's about power. The ones who don't have it want it and the ones who have it don't want to give it up. The unfortunate part is that they've figured out how to use people as weapons in their power struggle. So, don't expect the world to become a better place anytime soon because, as long as there's an agenda people will use what they can to exert their views over others.

[herbie]

Each time I go down south if I stop for a coffee at a town 200 miles away I meet a couple guys from here delivering logs to the big mill down there. They used to run huge trains from in the bush a couple times a week but it was all anyone to keep the spur from the local mill to the railyards in Prince George open.
More jobs as drivers, but its a PITA following smokey slow trucks with wobbly loads or chips spewing like snow hour after hour on the highway.
Can't grasp the economics of it.

[Thanos]

In reality the only thing that can save what's left of the wild parts of this planet would be the disappearance of at least 6.5 billion humans. That Life After People series on History a few years back was chillingly accurate, especially when they said that there wouldn't be (except maybe for dairy cows that need to be milked daily or they'll bloat up and die) a single animal species that wouldn't immediately thrive again if the entire human race spontaneously disappeared. That's the real legacy of the human animal, that our numbers and lethal ingenuity are a nothing less than a perpetual mortal threat to every life form that we share this planet with. Not much to be proud of there.

[BeaverFever]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

Thanos Thanos:

xerxes xerxes:

And here's the crux of the problem. To paraphrase an old saying: everyone wants to save the planet, but no is willing to do what it takes.

That's because solving the problem will require the end of using all fossil fuels, slamming the brakes on the economies of the developing world, changing the contemporary economy of the developed world into something unrecognizable (that kinda/sorta looks like some hybrid mix of feudalism and communism), and permanently placing about 95% of the world's population into a perpetual pre-industrial state of poverty ruled over by a tiny technocratic elite. Anyone who thinks this mess will be fixed by putting solar panels and windmills everywhere is sadly deluded.

It's not about saving the planet, it's about power. The ones who don't have it want it and the ones who have it don't want to give it up. The unfortunate part is that they've figured out how to use people as weapons in their power struggle. So, don't expect the world to become a better place anytime soon because, as long as there's an agenda people will use what they can to exert their views over others.

It is about saving the planet. Unlike the fossil fuel industry, there's no power or wealth to be had by hippies wanting people to be less wasteful. Don't go down the road of the people who thought curb side recycling was a totalitarian outrage.

All he's saying is that you don't have to be 100% pig 100% of the time and you should at least be cognizant of the impact your choices have on the environment. So if you want to eat beef 20 times a week, fine but you should consciously think about the impact that has on the environment and recognize that you're one of society's "Takers" whose mess the other taxpayers have to clean up.

[Thanos]

Everyone's a taker though. All those children that the environmentalists say they care about so much will turn into the same consumers and shit-dispensers as adults that every other single human that's ever lived has become. There are no innocents in this issue. If there are then they're such a puny minority in terms of numbers it would be no different than if they had never existed at all.

[Delwin]

I've never purchased a litre of gas in my life, I've lived in the city in apartments and taken transit, I'm going to eat my steak. Cameron can GFHS in his jet.

[andyt]

No innocents but certainly quite a spectrum of culpability. Now most of those less culpable are so because they don't have the resources to pig out more, would do so just the same if given half a chance, but still.

But yeah, there is a bit of holier than thou to all this - a status symbol for the wealthy about how environmentally correct they are, while contributing far more to the consumption industry, and consumption than the average schlep driving his F150. Wonder if Cameron tallies up all his airplane trips he takes vs the average person for instance.

Still, gotta start somewhere. The perfect is the enemy of the good. And there do seem to be some signs that the world is turning a bit. Maybe it will start to pick up, and 50 years later people will be wondering what all the fuss was about. Maybe not.

[BeaverFever]

Thanos Thanos:

Everyone's a taker though. All those children that the environmentalists say they care about so much will turn into the same consumers and shit-dispensers as adults that every other single human that's ever lived has become. There are no innocents in this issue. If there are then they're such a puny minority in terms of numbers it would be no different than if they had never existed at all.

When it comes to adults, there are no innocents, period. There are only those who try their best and those who don't. I'm not infallible by any stretch but I regularly reflect on where I fail. For example I would love to be a vegan but I just don't have that level of discipline.

[Freakinoldguy]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

All he's saying is that you don't have to be 100% pig 100% of the time and you should at least be cognizant of the impact your choices have on the environment. So if you want to eat beef 20 times a week, fine but you should consciously think about the impact that has on the environment and recognize that you're one of society's "Takers" whose mess the other taxpayers have to clean up.

You can claim that the hippie is only trying to save the planet and doesn't want power which may be true but, like I said, people are just weapons in the quest for power and the push from forces behind that hippie is just as strong as the push from forces behind the oilfield worker.

So, unfortunately at this point it's become a war of ideologies with winner take all and no matter who wins the survivors of the war are going to end up the losers.

As for being cognizant of being a taker. I am and I'm not ashamed of it unlike that hypocritical section of society who claims they aren't but, when you look closely at their lifestyle discover that they're as destructive in their own way as any beef eating, truck driving, animal hunting, oil guzzling redneck to ever walk the planet. So, until they walk the walk all they're doing is talking the talk which is meaningless.

And for the record I agree with Thanos and andyt. Everyone of us is a "taker" in our own way and in most cases it's only circumstances which dictate how much of a pig we are capable of being.

But I do recycle if it counts for anything.

[Jabberwalker]

If we suddenly stopped using petroleum, a couple of billion of us would starve to death in short order. The agricultural revolution that feeds this artificially bloated population of ours is petroleum based. We literally eat oil in the form of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides. Petroleum powered machinery allows a small portion of the population to produce all of our food. Organic farming techniques won't come close to being able to feed all of us.

[Canadian_Mind]

I'm a taker. I drive an older F350 diesel (no emissions equipment) on a daily basis because it's my only vehicle. So it pulls quadruple duty as daily driver, tow beast, bush pig, and utility vehicle.

I eat red meat, lots of it.

I keep the house between 70 and 75f regardless of outside temp.

I shower till the hot water runs out, and i have an instant hot water heater.

I'm sure i can come up with other things i do.

[DrCaleb]

Thanos Thanos:

xerxes xerxes:

And here's the crux of the problem. To paraphrase an old saying: everyone wants to save the planet, but no is willing to do what it takes.

That's because solving the problem will require the end of using all fossil fuels, slamming the brakes on the economies of the developing world, changing the contemporary economy of the developed world into something unrecognizable (that kinda/sorta looks like some hybrid mix of feudalism and communism), and permanently placing about 95% of the world's population into a perpetual pre-industrial state of poverty ruled over by a tiny technocratic elite. Anyone who thinks this mess will be fixed by putting solar panels and windmills everywhere is sadly deluded.

Thanos Thanos:

In reality the only thing that can save what's left of the wild parts of this planet would be the disappearance of at least 6.5 billion humans.

Not true. We don't have to stop using fossil fuels, we don't have to kill a huge percentage of the world population in order to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's the process of clearing land to produce things like Soy, to feed to chickens and cattle so we can get fewer calories of meat from them than their feed that will give the largest bang for the buck in reducing carbon emissions.

Not eating them, and instead eating what would have been their food will not only save the land needed to raise the animals, avoid the need to clear more land to plant more crops to feed to more animals, and also reduce nitrate runoff from the manure and from the rivers and ocean dead zones those nitrates cause. That also means an increase on ocean life, which a huge population of the planet requires to survive. Doing that one little thing has a very large 'snowball' effect.

Fossil fuels aren't the largest contributor to global warming in our society, so I balk at the groups like Greenpeace that already know this but choose to go after the petroleum industry instead. Like Xerxes said, they aren't willing to do what it takes to live up to their own morality.

Fossil fuels will take care of themselves when people see that companies like Tesla are giving them real alternatives to internal combustion, while fitting into already established infrastructure.

[DrCaleb]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Organic farming techniques won't come close to being able to feed all of us.

Standard farming techniques will never come close to providing us all with 8oz of meat per day. Even if we raze the mountains, fill in the lakes and level cities, there isn't enough land area to grow the crops needed to feed those many animals given standard animal husbandry techniques. And don't get me started on Factory farms.

There is more than enough land area to grow vegetables in the old 'rotational' method, and not only feed everyone, but do it with a reduction in fertilizers and nitrates. Just like the way it used to be done.

[peck420]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Standard farming techniques will never come close to providing us all with 8oz of meat per day. Even if we raze the mountains, fill in the lakes and level cities, there isn't enough land area to grow the crops needed to feed those many animals given standard animal husbandry techniques. And don't get me started on Factory farms.

The problem is our thought process. Humans do not require 8oz of meat per day. We require protein. Which, our current food production systems (including those evil factory farms) produces far in excess of.

There is no food shortage on the planet. Hasn't been for quite some time. What there is, is a distribution and waste problem.

We loose approx 1/3rd of all food production...which is abysmal. Imagine an oil pipeline saying, "sorry, 1/3rd of the oil is lost and wasted between extraction and burn." There would be massive outrage. With food...as long as we aren't the ones starving...meh.

For the record, in 2008 we produced enough meat to provide every single one of the estimated 7.3 billion persons on this rock, with 3.3oz of meat...if zero was lost. That is close to 50% of our required protein intake. With a properly balanced diet (under the assumption that meat would only account for 50% of our protein) we wouldn't need to change much to satisfy everyone.

$1:

There is more than enough land area to grow vegetables in the old 'rotational' method, and not only feed everyone, but do it with a reduction in fertilizers and nitrates. Just like the way it used to be done.

Sadly...this would take up less land than what we currently utilize, if the wastage was reduced.

[2Cdo]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

It is about saving the planet.

Not quite right. The planet doesn't need saving, it will still be here when we are long gone. You probably meant saving us humans.