Red wrote
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I can't understand your position, to be honest. Even if global warming is not man-made, wouldn't it better anyway to change our way of life a little in order to make the planet cleaner? How can it be a bad thing to lower carbon emissions, and for people to become more conscious of the environment?
Joph wrote
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Go read some actual studies on the matter rather than someone's blog before you act as if you found the Achille's heel in the whole debate.
I probably didn't explain my position very well, sorry. And its because I
have read a lot of studies on the issue that I find myself unable to come down totally on one side of the debate or the other. I'll try and clarify, but seeing as how the rest of the thread is pretty grumpy, I'm expecting a bashing from one place or another.
Firstly, I wasnt trying to suggest that I'd found an Achilles heel, I was just mentioning what got me interested in the first place.
Im not for a moment suggesting we do nothing! Rather, I
am suggesting that we do should be doing something that
would make a difference. Something that would make a difference to us all, right now, not at some vague point in time in the future.
I dont deny for a moment that there is a change in the climate. Anyone can see that it is different than it was. But, I am not convinced that the change is entirely due to what we're doing.
I think one thing everyone agrees on is that the planet moves thru cycles, always has and always will. We may, or may not, be 'causing' it (global warming), but the arguement that we are accelerating it, imo carries more weight.
What I am trying to point out is that there are massive amounts of money being spent on researching this and that weather phenomenon, and huge amounts of studies being published by an ever-growing number of 'experts' ( a veritable 'industry, if you will), with sometimes very nebulous results, and from those results, were being told that the end of the world is upon us, that we must change our ways or we are all doomed.
I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but I
dont believe that global warming is something we should be spending so much energy (no pun intended) upon, when there are so many things we could be doing that would have an almost immediate effect.
Having said that tho, I
do believe that we're turning this world into a garbage dump.
And therein lies my point. You say, we gotta do something to improve our environment. Absolutely! we should do something. But how about doing something about all the things that we
know for sure are damaging our environment. Things that we know are stuffing up 'Spaceship Earth'.
A few humble suggestions for things that need immediate attention would be new regulations on the construction of oil tankers. The single skinned rust buckets floating around our oceans ready to spill their crap on our beaches the minute they bump into something sticking up in their way. The cessation of the use of known toxic chemicals that we fling around the farmlands of the world in the pursuit of ever better crop yields. The massive overuse of packaging that covers and wraps
everything we buy. The banning of single use plastic bags (already done in Mumbai). What about the recycling of car tyres into road surfaces, rather than burning them. Thats gotta help the environment, no? What about changing our attitudes to our diet, so we dont destroy rainforest, to grow soya beans, to feed cows, so lard-asses can eat burgers for a dollar?
I could go on (yeah, yeah). but thats what I mean by focusing in the wrong direction. We could be doing something about our environment. Today. But no, we are spending so much time and effort worrying about the weather on such a gigantic (to most of us unimaginable scale), that we are allowing ourselves to completly ignore our immediate surroundings, ie. the things we
could be doing something about, far more cheaply and simply.
I really believe that by concentrating on the "Climate", we are allowing ourselves to think that the problem is so huge, so totally beyond our ken, that our attitude to our environment is being damaged to the stage where we start to think "well theres f
uck all we can do about it, I'll keep on chucking my garbage out of the car window/leaving my **** all over the beach. Why shouldn't I? We're all doomed anyway!"
We need to start fixing stuff for sure. But fixing the climate?? I think if we start having some respect for mother earth, then She will be capable of looking after herself. And Us.
But what do I know, Im a surfer, who spends 10-12 hours a week in the ocean. I use solar/wind power at home. Recycle my rainwater. Keep chickens for composting my veggie waste. Don't eat meat. Am replanting my 2 acres in native trees. And never use plastic bags.
We cant 'all' do 'everything'. But if we all try and do 'something', the world would be a better place.
The whole global warming thing makes me think of those scientists who are trying to ressurect the
thylacine, when their money and resources would surely be better spent protecting the species that we
havn't killed yet....
As in health, it would be better to prevent the disease, but theres far more money to be made in selling the 'cure'.