Environmentalism

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I was talking to a lady the other day, and she asserted to me that environmentalism is merely a scheme and a lie to take our freedoms away and that there's no such thing as limited resources or man made global warming.

I think its true that crisis is used as a way to control people, but I don't think the crisis is necessarily false in itself. With Carbon taxes, I think its all just a scheme to kill smaller competitors and allow larger corporations to pay to compete without any guarantee that environmental problems will be solved. My argument is that even if man made global warming isn't true, a lot of the real solutions that would stop it if it were true should be implemented anyway. I don't think our planet can bare another deep sea oil spill or nuclear meltdown (this has actually been a proposed solution to gw, but I side with green peace on this one that the risks far outweigh any benefits). I seriously doubt that continuing the current trends will lead to anywhere good.

Huge tracts of land in South America the size of Rhode Island are clear cut every year. i think its naive this could go on forever. The argument is that preventing this would limit our freedoms, but I just don't want to have to live in a hell hole of food riots and social decay when the biosphere does finally collapse. I'm of the mind that true freedom doesn't come from fulfilling base impulses unhindered. This is how one turns into an addict. True freedom comes from gaining a mastery over one's impulses.

I don't think its a completely invalid view, and I think we could maintain a very comfortable standard of living by applying industrialism and technology to a framework that's environmentally conscious. I feel the same way about industrialization that I do about corporations. They're not necessarily bad systems, but when they lack a moral and socially aware backbone, the results can be devastating.

Last edited by JNathanK on 18 Feb 2012, 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

The truth is that there is probably nothing that can be done. "Climate Change" is the proper term, and unfortunately the oceans are also at risk with increased CO2 content. Some parts of the world are going to benefit, others won't. Whether human caused or not, though I think to deny what is essentially macroscopic chemistry that is well understood by scientists is either done through belligerent ignorance or deliberate malice/profit motive

The finite nature of the planet's resources is not something most people like to think about. My own opinion is that the greatest environmentalist movement of all is that which wants to utilize off-world resources and does the dirtiest work off planet. I think space industry is more likely to have long-term implications for the safety of our environment than most environmentalists realize

My problem is that my species and culture, in its current manifestation, is acting like a ravenous virus or cancer on the planet, and I don't like that. It wouldn't be so disturbing if I was just some dumb unaware creature munching away at its host, but the real tragedy is we have the capacity to realize the situation, but we continue to take part in it anyway.

I feel I have to get off the grid and live a truly pollution neutral lifestyle before I die for my own conscience.

I haven't even been arguing global warming to people. i find it counter-productive, even if its true. I just ask, "Do we need another deep sea oil spill", "Do we need to subsidize medieval, absolute monarchies in Saudi Arabia for our fuel?", "Do we need fracking?", "do we need to acidify our streams and lakes with run off from petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides?", "do you want to spend more or less money on heating and cooling costs?", so on and so forth.

Global warming is just a macro-effect, and its probably lazy to only argue it from that point. Its better to argue smaller scale effects that are easily visible and less easy to deny. I think there's a danger to focusing on the big picture too much, because it has a tendency to make the individual feel too insignificant and hopeless.

Last edited by JNathanK on 18 Feb 2012, 12:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

At this point we are certainly abusing the planet, I think eventually we will reach equilibrium with our impact. This will probably be after (hopeful) decreases in the population over the next two to three hundred years. The more affluent a country gets, the less children people have. India and China are both increasingly gaining ground; eventually there probably will be a worldwide minimum standard of living, but it will probably only happen if we decrease the amount of humans by 40-80% over several hundred years.

Our own evolution as a sapient species was greatly pushed by competition and utilization of different kinds of resources from the environment. Farming was one of the earliest ways we began really showing an understanding of it; now we are at such a point that we have essentially "terraformed" our planet with our industrial technologies. With such understanding of this world comes great responsibility. We have now reached the point where we truly are stewards of this planet; the tree of life that began here eventually progressed to a point that one of its branches can carry seeds to other worlds and ensure its survival. Space is like a macrocosm of a young planet with young species, like us

I don't see the future being so optimistic, I have a feeling a world war is emerging soon and will pretty much thin out the numbers significantly.

I just don't want that decrease to be caused by mass suffering, genocide, forced eugenics, war, etc etc. I'd rather we just come to a voluntary decision to have less children. We're in a bizarre situation where we've gone forth and multiplied enough. Adam and Even already fulfilled that directive. Its time for us to spiritually grow as a species and harmonize with our selves and our environment. I just don't think the current modality will get us to the stars.

I saw that pixar movie Wall-E recently with the cute robot that's employed to clean things up after humanity trashes its home. The real reality is that everyone would just die from the planetary collapse without the space option like the humans had in the movie. The best case scenario is that the richest and most powerful people would be able to escape, where the vast majority would be left to die on earth. There weren't enough human remains in the ruins and trash piles on that movie.

reality aint always a nice place,

we are living in a period where millions are starving so we are already in the stage of suffering you feared.

we simply dont want to acknowledge it yet, when we do it will either be halfway resorted or too late for any meaningfull continuation, survival sure, but society?, maybe even civilization?

The eventual depopulation will either be natural or enforced, I suppose. There are numerous scenarios that may play out. At this time I also feel that right now is the calm before the storm. There is a lot of pressure waiting to be released. A world war, or several large, conventional, regional wars, could be a possibility.

Oh yah, that's what a lot of people don't realize. Were told about the famines in China and the Ukraine being caused by Marxist-Leninism, but there's an equally destructive system, neo-liberal globalization, that's killed a lot of people through famine. Were never told why Ethiopians are starving, but its because "developers", corporations subsidized with "foreign aide", go into these countries, kick people off their ancestral land, industrially till the land till its barren and fallow, and bail and and leave people to starve to death and fight over resources. They're just as guilty as the left wing dictatorship that ravaged the same country in the 70's. Corporate propagandists of course avoid the responsibility of multi-national corporations and the IMF in these famines, just as the Soviet propagandists evaded the responsibility of the politburo in famines they caused.

I think we just need to engage in our communities, try to spread love in whatever way we can, get educated, become informed, etc. All this madness might be unavoidable, but I wanna be on the side of justice and truth in the end, and that's why I'm gonna try, even if its a futile effort.

While I do understand the reasons behind the Environmentalist movement (or at least a majority of them), I do not support it. I love animals and whatnot, but I don't want to be put out of a job because of them. If someone personally wants to do something to protect the environment, then I'm not stopping them. It's the extremists who want to make it the law of the land and try to tell me what car I can/cannot drive, what I can/cannot eat, what I can/can't wear, how many children I can have in my family, what house I can/cannot live in or what I can/cannot have in my house, etc, etc. that scare the crap out of me. There are already some pretty lenient laws on the books (no littering allowed, for example), so they should be enforced rather than putting newer, stricter laws into place.

What about putting tighter restrictions on companies to keep them from flooding water supplies with toxic chemicals? Would you be fine with creating stonger regulations to prevent oil spills, nuclear meltdowns, nitrogen leaching, acidification of oceans, depletion of topsoil, leaching of fracking chemicals, etc that all have devastating repercussions that affect many people far beyond those that caused it.

A lot of people who defend personal liberty and laissez-faire economics to the extreme say its ok to do whatever you want to yourself as long as it doesn't directly harm anyone else. They often have a blind spot where the environment is concerned, because when a company does something environmentally devastating, the share holders aren't the only one's affected. Its many other people and many other communities that have to suffer the consequences of their actions. Not to mention, future generations, those not even born yet, will have to carry the burden of mistakes made today that they had absolutely no control over.

Most social libertarians would agree that getting drunk and getting behind a wheel and killing someone is wrong. However, isn't it just as wrong to, for personal profit motivations, cut safety precautions that lead to environmental disasters and accidents that affect the public health and well being of entire regions? A lot of the laissez-faire idealogues won't be so quick to agree with me on this, and I've never quite understood why. They're both similar forms of recklessness that cause avoidable human loss and suffering.

"Restrictions" is often a code word for trying to gradually ban things for a private agenda.

yet you completely ingored the important part of nathans post.

What I mean by "restriction" is restricting dangerous practices that affect the well being of the public, much like how we have laws that restrict drunk drivers from legally driving a car, or restrict con-artists from legally conning someone, and restrict murderers from legally murdering someone, etc etc. These are all examples of restriction that serve no other purpose but to serve public well being.

Yes, legislation can be used to achieve a private agenda, but this isn't always the case, and putting tighter regulations on a corporation to keep them from dumping toxic waste into the environment, under-engineering a nuclear power plant, or under-engineering an offshore oil rig is a very straight forward thing.

Carbon Taxes I agree are BS, because its so vague and doesn't do enough to directly solve the environmental issues. One thing we know it will do is kill smaller competitors and allow large corporations to pay to pollute. There's an example of a private motive there being packaged as a public good. The idea that they'll use the taxes to save the environment is nothing more than an empty promise.

However, not all environmental regulation is driven by personal motives. We share the same globe, and when toxic crap gets released into the environment, its a very public concern, because we all share the same air, water, and planet.