KillerMuffin
Seraphically Disinclined
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2000
- Posts
- 25,603
Actually it's easy. Address the source of the problem. That's what no one is doing and that's the one thing that world leaders will never ever everever ever do. Why? The source of the problem isn't big business or the oil industry. The source of the problem are the consumers.
That's the easy part. The hard part is doing anything about it. I mean honestly, who here is going to give up driving four blocks to buy a cheeseburger when they can drive? How many miles do we log on our vehicles--globally--that could actually be logged afoot or on bicycles?
How many of us set the AC to 69 and the heater to 74? How many of us leave lights on that aren't in use? How many of us use 60 or 75 watt bulbs when a 15 or a 40 will suffice?
How many of us don't recycle? How many of us don't buy recycled products? How many of us use paper plates because we're too lazy to wash dishes?
How many of us expect instant gratification for our wants and then throw them away when we're through with them?
We've got a pan-industrialized nation consumption problem. The US is the worst, but we began the concept of assembly products and assembly failure built into them. After all, GM doesn't want you to buy one Chevy in your life, they want you to buy a new one every five years.
We have been trained to be consumers who expect instant gratification and the freedom to waste with it. We have allowed ourselves to be that way.
A lot of people bitch and whine because the US didn't sign that idiot and utterly useless Kyoto fiction. I think that people should realize that environmentalism is political suicide in any country.
The third world wants their chance to get rich at the expense of the environment and there are those who think they should get to do that. Should we also allow the descendents of slaves to get their change to get rich at the expense of white slaves? Learn from mistakes, don't repeat them.
The industrialized world has a problem. They know there's pollution and it's bad. They blame big business for it. The people who live in those nations blame big business for it. The governments blame business for it. I don't. I blame the plain old ordinary consumer for it. I blame the guy on the street. I blame you and I blame me for it. We don't live because of big business. Big business exists because of us. We guide how they do business by purchasing things and by our lifestyles.
Currently, our lifestyle is to waste over recycle, drive over walk, and use energy as if it were limitless instead of expensive in terms of ecological damage.
I've said that the Kyoto Protocol would never work for a variety of reasons. Mostly that it has built in failure devices, will send normal increasing pollution and economic power and comfort to other parts of the world, and that it gives a false sense of actually having done something instead of making things worse.
The main reason that I know that Kyoto will fail is because it makes no allowances and never addresses the actual source of the problem with a do-able solution. Instead, it slaps at big business, puts a crippling burden on economies already verging on depression, and pretends that it's all hunky dory.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans, millions of British, Millions of Germans, millions of Japanese, millions of Canadians, millions upon millions of Europeans get up in the morning and leave lights on that they're not using, drive a car when they could ride a bicycle, throw away paper plates instead of washing dishes, and throw away things that should be recycled. The consumer that drives the environmentally devestating economy never changes, never does anything. Instead he complains about the prices at the pumps, how much energy costs, and resists any governmental policies that force him or her to reduce their waste.
Kyoto will fail and there will be no workable treaty until the environment is practically unlivable because the people who are responsible for the way things are haven't changed and don't even know they should. Government officials aren't about to lay the blame where it belongs or force change because they know which side their bread is buttered on.
That's what I was thinking about today.
That's the easy part. The hard part is doing anything about it. I mean honestly, who here is going to give up driving four blocks to buy a cheeseburger when they can drive? How many miles do we log on our vehicles--globally--that could actually be logged afoot or on bicycles?
How many of us set the AC to 69 and the heater to 74? How many of us leave lights on that aren't in use? How many of us use 60 or 75 watt bulbs when a 15 or a 40 will suffice?
How many of us don't recycle? How many of us don't buy recycled products? How many of us use paper plates because we're too lazy to wash dishes?
How many of us expect instant gratification for our wants and then throw them away when we're through with them?
We've got a pan-industrialized nation consumption problem. The US is the worst, but we began the concept of assembly products and assembly failure built into them. After all, GM doesn't want you to buy one Chevy in your life, they want you to buy a new one every five years.
We have been trained to be consumers who expect instant gratification and the freedom to waste with it. We have allowed ourselves to be that way.
A lot of people bitch and whine because the US didn't sign that idiot and utterly useless Kyoto fiction. I think that people should realize that environmentalism is political suicide in any country.
The third world wants their chance to get rich at the expense of the environment and there are those who think they should get to do that. Should we also allow the descendents of slaves to get their change to get rich at the expense of white slaves? Learn from mistakes, don't repeat them.
The industrialized world has a problem. They know there's pollution and it's bad. They blame big business for it. The people who live in those nations blame big business for it. The governments blame business for it. I don't. I blame the plain old ordinary consumer for it. I blame the guy on the street. I blame you and I blame me for it. We don't live because of big business. Big business exists because of us. We guide how they do business by purchasing things and by our lifestyles.
Currently, our lifestyle is to waste over recycle, drive over walk, and use energy as if it were limitless instead of expensive in terms of ecological damage.
I've said that the Kyoto Protocol would never work for a variety of reasons. Mostly that it has built in failure devices, will send normal increasing pollution and economic power and comfort to other parts of the world, and that it gives a false sense of actually having done something instead of making things worse.
The main reason that I know that Kyoto will fail is because it makes no allowances and never addresses the actual source of the problem with a do-able solution. Instead, it slaps at big business, puts a crippling burden on economies already verging on depression, and pretends that it's all hunky dory.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans, millions of British, Millions of Germans, millions of Japanese, millions of Canadians, millions upon millions of Europeans get up in the morning and leave lights on that they're not using, drive a car when they could ride a bicycle, throw away paper plates instead of washing dishes, and throw away things that should be recycled. The consumer that drives the environmentally devestating economy never changes, never does anything. Instead he complains about the prices at the pumps, how much energy costs, and resists any governmental policies that force him or her to reduce their waste.
Kyoto will fail and there will be no workable treaty until the environment is practically unlivable because the people who are responsible for the way things are haven't changed and don't even know they should. Government officials aren't about to lay the blame where it belongs or force change because they know which side their bread is buttered on.
That's what I was thinking about today.
