How much do you care about the environment

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Scarim Coral

Jumped the ship
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Oct 29, 2010
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A fair amount but I'm not into Green Peace or anything like that.

I put my rubbish into a recyling bins if possible.
One of the reason why I don't own a car is cos of that (althought the main reason is that I scare and hate driving a car).
I shut some of plugs off at night like the route and the plugs to the tv and computer.
 

Thaluikhain

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Jan 16, 2010
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Well, climate change exists, yes.

As for the environment, what does that mean? Humans change their surroundings, whether this is good or bad is a value judgement. The "traditional" rolling English countryside exists because humans annihilated the wild wood that existed before. But the normal landscape is seen as natural and normal.

In general, I think this is something we need to be more aware of, in an actual, rather than lipservice way.
 

Recusant

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First thing's first: look out the window. Note how the sky is clearly visible, since you're not seeing it through a thick layer of ice? That's because the Permian ice shell around the planet melted. The planet warmed up. It's pretty obvious, putting two and two together, that global warming exists. Now, the Greenhouse Effect? Anthropogenic global warming? That's a different kettle of fish. The planet is warming up, and all our predictive models say that this is (at least in part) our doing, but there's almost no proven causal link. Of course, by the time one was established, we'd all be hopelessly screwed, so waiting for one before taking action makes no sense.

That said, look at the action that's been taken: we have people, even in this thread, talking about "carbon footprints". Carbon is not a greenhouse gas; carbon isn't a gas at all. CO2 is, yes; but 1. it's far from the only one, 2. it's far from the most potent one, 3. you produce it by breathing, making it essentially environmentalist original sin, and 4. industrial and governmental sources produce a whole lot more than individual people do (though that may not be the case in every country). Remember, if those frozen methane hydrates in the ocean start melting, the resultant greenhouse hit will make all the CO2 humanity's ever produced look minor in comparison.

The key thing to bear in mind is that even in the worst case scenario, this isn't a world-destroying problem, like CFCs erasing the ozone layer was. The damage will be catastrophic, yes; but not as bad as the P-T extinction, and probably not even as bad the K-T. As part of the species that survived Toba, I'm not real worried for us. I'm not happy about the prospect of civilization being destroyed, hideous suffering and the bulk of the species dying in agony (though living in the Yellowstone blast zone, I get to look forward to a much more rapid and cinematic death), but 1. I'll be dead, and 2. the descendants of those who rebuild will no doubt get some kickass video games out of it.
 

McElroy

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I'm mindful about my consumption as long as I don't have to make any big lifestyle changes. However, if I had the money to consume more I would, and the sustainability angle must be included in the price. In the end, individual "steps" can only give you some personal solace - on the whole it doesn't matter.
 

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
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Very little, I'm afraid.

I don't litter. That's about as far as my caring for the environment goes.

I could give less of a shit about global warming. Anything that's happening on a global scale is so out of my hands I don't see the point in worrying or fighting it.
 

Barbas

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Oct 28, 2013
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Baffle said:
The English rage about having to pay 5p for carrier bags is amazing. It's a shame that it took a 5p charge to encourage people to re-use bags. It is, however, hilarious watching people walk out of supermarkets with a teetering pile of shopping in their arms, seriously at risk of losing their chocolate hobnobs, simply because they won't pay for a carrier bag. And people steal them! Steal them! Just leave a few in the cupboard overnight, the little shits breed!
The Scottish rage about it is even worse. At least when I was in Wales they just dealt with it. It's five pence. What the hell else can you possibly buy with five pence?! A half-eaten orange? Some frayed string??? They should be thanking the cashiers for taking the useless coppers off them!

Judging by the size of the people around here and what they eat, it's all going into the household pie fund... :I
 

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
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Sure, I care about the environment, but I don't go out of the way or inconvenience myself to reduce my carbon footprint or anything like that.

Honestly, it can be really hard to care how much CO2 my car is producing or whether I tossed that plastic bottle in the correct recycling bin when Beijing looks like this and is completely out of my control:


Also, I don't plan on having kids so I really don't care about what state the world will be in after my death 60ish years from now.
 

LysanderNemoinis

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Nov 8, 2010
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Well, like everybody here, I suppose I don't care enough. That doesn't bother me though, because considering every single human being on the planet is contributing to CO2 emissions simply by breathing, the only way to truly improve things would be for everyone to kill themselves. If we did that, problem solved. Plus no would would be driving, using energy, eating animals, none of it. So unless we get serious about mass suicide, the planet is pretty much borked.




In case you didn't get any of the sarcasm, the above was a joke, but I'm not being entirely facetious. Carbon dioxide is essential to life on the planet Earth and it's part of what plants need to exist. If there's no carbon dioxide, then plant life suffers. If the plant population decreases, then less oxygen is emitted into the air. If there's less oxygen...I think you can see where this is going. At the end of the day, do I believe there's global warming? Yes, but do I think it's going to wipe us out? Not really. This planet has survived a lot worse stuff than some oil spills, people driving cars (which are a lot cleaner now as a whole then ever before), using plastic bags, and God knows what else will come down the pipe. Plus, I'm not sure you know about this, but given the way the Earth orbits around the sun, sometimes it gets closer and other times, it gets farther way. And hold onto your sustainably-sourced hats, but that means the planet is generally warmer or colder. Part of Japan got nuked decades ago, for God's sake, and the Earth repaired itself. I think it can put up with us leaving on lightbulbs and driving hummers.
 

09philj

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I'd like the human race to survive, so I want the environment maintained enough for us to live in it. Hell, it's what I want to do for a job. I'm not some tree hugging hippie though. The environment is there to be exploited, but if we do it irresponsibly as we have been it'll come back to haunt us later. That said, the biggest threat to the human race is war, so we'll likely be dead by the point that the planet is uninhabitable to us anyway. Regardless of what we do, life will endure. There are some species that are nigh on indestructible.
 

GrumbleGrump

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I care about it, in a selfish, anthropocentric kind of way. We have to take care of it or we'll be ffffffffffffffFFFFFFFUCKED.

But I believe we need more innovations in technology in order to properly take care of it. We need nuclear fusion, more efficient solar cell (I think we have this down, check out Ecliptex technology by Hyperstealth), better implemented conservation efforts, upgraded farming systems (including vertical farms and biodiversity based pest control), among other things. All of this combined with enviromental awareness taught to future generations, of course.
 

McElroy

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LysanderNemoinis said:
I'm not being entirely facetious. Carbon dioxide is essential to life on the planet Earth and it's part of what plants need to exist. If there's no carbon dioxide, then plant life suffers. If the plant population decreases, then less oxygen is emitted into the air. If there's less oxygen... I think you can see where this is going.
This is the sort of thread that always invites "helpful and informative discussion", but I think this demands a reply. The atmosphere currently has 400ppm of CO2, which is 40% more than in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (280ppm). More CO2 is better for plant growth in the right conditions but plants only need about 100ppm or less for photosynthesis to take place. Also plants don't really add to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere - they use all of it themselves unless something stops the plant matter from decomposing (usually humans or an oxygen-free environment). So there's absolutely no need to worry about your scenario. Even if we let the forests and algae grow wild and dangerously reduce the CO2 in the air over the next million years, we can always start burning stuff again to increase it.
 

Michel Henzel

Just call me God
May 13, 2014
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I do care, however, aside from things that don't cost me anything, I do pretty much nothing for it. Products that are more environmentally friendly tend to cost more, sometimes a lot more, and being poor means that those things are simply not a possibility for me.
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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Feb 4, 2009
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Depends... what's the environment done for me lately...? In all seriousness, I care enough about the environment as I do about the needs of people. That being said.... we chew up resources for utterly nonsensical reasons. In Australia, we pave over land that is perfectly suited to future agricultural industry and carbon sinking so that dickheads can be dickheads with a quarter acre backyard. Pretending this is 'growing the housing market' rather than providing cheap, public infrastructure viable high density housing projects in the cities where we most need affordable accomodations.

Stupid shit like that, where you get major ecological disturbance for naked profiteering that diminishes effective capital reserves spending (through thoroughly unproductive housing sector development) and provides a net loss of biodiversity. That is obviously wrong. It's a fucking retarded use of natural resources that could be better 'used' untouched and soaking up carbon dioxide and being tapped for methane as a clean burning fuel resource in the future. Or better yet not used at all to provide nature corridors for native animal populations and for growing the natural beauty and viability of the land itself.

It's not the end of the world if we decide to access the bounties of Earth... it will be the end of the world if we continue to do so for no aggregate increase in the public good.

(Edit) Put it this way... every 25+ metres of semi rural housing frontage requires 25+ metres of additional roads to service... 25+ metres of additional storm water drainage... 25+ metres of additional electricity service coverage... 25+ metres of additional telecommunications servicing... and ever more rural health service maintenance costs. All these treehugger fuckwits 'escaping to the country so that their kids can breathe clean air', please eat shit and die. The only sympathies I have for is the low income families and individuals priced out of the areas closest to their work/potential commercial zones in cities. Forced to buy a car because sure as shit public transport cannot afford to cover the immense area of urban sprawl that we're dealing with.

There is always going to be an environmental cost that accompanies development. Which is why we should model development on the greatest aggregate good of the needs of the public. Not openly steal from the public purse to increase property rates of once rural farmers on perfectly good land, and reduce the efficacy of state and federal CR spending, to suit the needs of a few rich property developers. Those who gain a greater profit bulldozing a forest to put up a housing division, rather than transforming a fringe city block viably serviceable by public transport networks to accomodate 1000 people closest to their work.

As you can probably tell, this is one of the environmental arguments I feel most passionate about ... but it marries both public good and environmental good in a nice, tight package... so in my mind it beggars the question of why the fuck aren't we fighting harder against this? It helps the poor, it helps commerce (barring perhaps banks), and it hurts scumbags ... you'd think if any 'environmental policy' was going to be an 'easy choice', it would be this one.
 

4ged

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my opinion is the environment has been, is, and always will be in flux based off of tectonic plate movement, trade winds, and undercurrents as well as volcanic activity and wildfires. I don't believe we as a species have the capability of changing the global ecology on an individual basis. bar nuclear war or active annihilation of most animals and plants on earth via toxic waste and over fishing/hunting we are not capable of hurting mother nature more then she can hurt us, and as soon as humans gain the ability of interstellar colonization Earths population will drop radically and earths ecosystems will be very old news and very unimportant to everyone.
 

Silvanus

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The scientific consensus on global warming is completely overwhelming. Yes, I believe in it, and I think that not believing in it is a stance of utmost denial.


The vast, vast majority of climatologists and scientists in other directly-related fields have testified that it exists. Almost every expert, and almost every scientific body and research centre across the world. For global warming to be untrue would require literally the greatest conspiracy ever, involving literally thousands of scientists and researchers, thousands of institutions, and almost every country on earth being in on it. A conspiracy many thousands of times more expansive than would be required to fake the moon landings.

So, yes, global warming is real, almost undeniably.
 

mrgerry123

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Aug 28, 2011
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I'm vegan (apart from whey protein shakes), try to walk when I can rather than take public transport (helps that I live in a small city), I buy low power lightbulbs and pc components. Obviously I recycle etc. That's about it. Still fly on planes and eat food not grown in my country. Still turn the heating up quite a bit in the winter but to be honest I want to enjoy life to some degree!
 

manic_depressive13

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I care, but I think we need to fundamentally restructure society if anything's actually going to change. Here mining companies are dumping tonnes of toxic waste into our water systems, ancient forests are being leveled for fucking wood chips, the government is refusing to make meaningful strides in the direction of clean energy, and the list goes on. Yet people want to believe they can save the planet by holding in their shits so they don't have to flush as much or something. David Attenborough did a documentary urging people not to overfill their kettles, among other equally trivial things. Yeah man, that'll do it.