I wonder if there are people who understand me on this forum.
I am NOT an environmentalist. It's not that I want to destroy the environment, or that I bed down with the Devil. I pretty much want a better environment, like everyone I meet.
It's that I don't believe environmentalists do anything for the environment.
I'm older than most of you folks, and I have a memory. Never mind what you are told, it was a mixture of environmentalism and a lack of political courage in the government of the day that led to Ontario's coal-fired power plants, nowhere moreso than in Nanicoke.
I am also a resident of Toronto. Like it or not, I have seen the convulsions involved in dealing with the City's garbage. At every stage, when a solution seemed at hand, new environmental groups emerged to throw the previous solution off the rails. Every wave led by a new set of people claiming an environmental mandate.
Part of the problem is a great deal of good will from people like myself, who genuinely want to preserve and even improve our surroundings. We aren't demanding enough. Nobody challenges the environmentalists, bottom line. Why? Because you risk demonization.
And the real bottom line is that now that about 100 great hulking garbage trucks lumbering 600 km to Michigan, where it goes into a landfill -- upstream of Toronto. Could there be a worse solution? Each truck probably creates a ton of CO2 on a round trip.
More recently, I came across an old copy of Limits to Growth, a book from about 1968, and bedrock to the environmental movement. As I thumbed through it, I was reminded of its predictions. It predicts an apolcalypse fueled by continuing overpopulation.
By that account, by now the world would be OUT OF OIL! Pollution would be multiples higher than it actually is. The predictions included clouds of methane spontaneously igniting in the atmosphere, rivers that burned, and incredible human overpopulation. Global warming wasn't in the picture, but the scenario sketched out predicted tremendous social dislocation, as well as an atmosphere degenerating on an exponential curve.
And, of course, there was very limited time to react, otherwise, it would already be too late. Read it yourself, and examine the data. Draw your won conclusion.
Even while they alarm us, it often is environmentalists that prevent mere improvements from taking place. Locally, their form of activism is to collect money. It leaves people in the community scratching their heads. The model that works, out in the world, is not any model based on a classroom!
At a higher level, Kyoto is a big impediment to environmental progress. Basically, it means we can't talk to China about all the shit they're pumping into the air until 2012!
Much has been done for the environment. More in the US than here -- there were some horrible blights, I know from experience. The Calumet River, near Chicago, never froze in the coldest weather, and was grossly polluted, because it served as a drainage ditch for all the steel mills in Gary, Indiana. Love Canal was horrible. Guess what? All that, and more, has been cleaned up. But you have to think in terms of decades to see results.
Here's my point. Environmentalists seem to make perfection to enemy of the state-of-the-art, to put it plainly. Are we going to fish or cut bait? Or are we going to have a contest to see who can find the most things wrong with the best we can do?
That's enough for now. I don't mean to sound overly aggressive about this, because I recognize that there's a lot of people of good will who are idealistically looking for a solution. I don't mean to offend them, but I am getting awfully tired of all that attitude.
some ggod points bugs... there is DEFINATELY way to much talking and debating... we KNOW co2 is bad for the air, for our bodies, and for the environment.. give global warming a rest and attack the problems in front of us!!! fix what we KNOW is broken.. quit pointing fingers and attack the problem!
but i do belief that there is alot of good hearted people who simply do not know what to do because of all of the opposing political groups... so frustrating..
all i know is that i do what i can. i ride my bike when i can... i plant around 20 trees a year, i use CF bulbs, i compost and recycle.. i through nothing away that can biopdegrate.. and i drive the most economical vehicle i can afford...
so when the crap does hit the fan, atleast i can look my children's children in the eyes and say, 'it wasn't by my hand'
Our political parties try and make us think they're 'doing something' of course. But it's all appearances. You mention this vogue for fluorescent light bulbs. I don't mean to be hurtful, but those bulbs will have a negligible effect on your bill. We pay less than 6¢ a kilowatt hour. A 100 watt light bulb burns one-tenth of a kilowatt hour -- cost? Less that a cent, actually 0.6¢. Or $0.006!
Fluorescent bulbs will save two thirds, taking the energy cost down to 0.2¢. If you had your light bulb burning for four hours, you'd save 1.6¢. Over a month, that'd be 48¢.
Check it out, there aren't that many light bulbs in your house that are on four hours a day.
For much of the year, those light bulbs will turn on in the evening, after work. That's when the grid has to maintain certain levels of power in the system just so it will work, like pressure in the water pipes. It's the 'cheap electricity' time of the day. It will take thousands and thousands of these light bulbs to save a single ton of coal in any one city.
And in the meantime, they have 'marketed' a new kind of lightbulb to you that costs you $3 each, instead of $1. In my province, just to show us how serious they are about the environment, they have banned incandescent light bulbs after 2010 or so.
Yeah, but they welched on a promise they made, back in 2002, to close all of our province's coal-fired power plants by 2005. They are still operating. Just one of them, Nanicoke, produces 12 millions tonnes of CO2 every year! It's the biggest single pollution site in Canada! (I can't even imagine how much 12 million tonnes of a gas is, but that's what they tell us it produces.)
A lot of people are fooled by these highly publicized promotions. I'd be fooled myself, except I am retired, and can waste three or four hours a day on the net.
This is the way it looks to me: The individual is always faced with bum choices. Bicycles are a hard way to get around, for instance. Most people won't do it. Probably both you and I have a carbon footprint that is almost nothing -- face it, if you don't drive a car, and you don't take airplanes, you probably have a pretty modest effect on the environment. An air conditioner is probably the next biggest polluter. But, after that, really, anything else you do is not quite meaningless, but close.
To be effective, we have to do things like (in my province) closing these coal-fired powerplants. And put in place long term compulsory goals for industry, and things like that.
To be effective, we have to do things like (in my province) closing these coal-fired powerplants. And put in place long term compulsory goals for industry, and things like that.
i agree... to an extent! we definatly need 'mass' change to make the big difference that will be need to curve the problems that the environment, BUT i do believe that the individual still has some power to do good... imagine if every egotistical, materialistic person decided that driving a HUGE SUV when all they need is a honda civic was ridiculous and made the switch... the car companies would get the message and focus more on economy... what if every person that had a huge house decided that it was way more than they needed and downsized or looked for a builder to build them a small, economical, environmentally correct house... things would change.
it is all about the money... that is where we have the power as the public to change the world we live in... if we don't buy it, they won't make it...
as for the CF bulbs, i could care less if i loss money on it.. it the long run the bulb is suppose to last as long as about 10 regular incandesant bulbs... it has to take alot less energy and material to make ONE CF bulb than TEN incandesant bulbs... less oil to make, less gas to ship it, less gas to go buy them, less energy to use... all good things in my book!
good topic though and u do make alot of good points!!
I agree with you, it sure would be nice to have something you can do to make a difference ...
I didn't mean to dump on CF bulbs so much as this pretense that that's enough. I understand your attitude 100%. Good for you.
But it isn't enough, for A GOVERNMENT to ban incandescent bulbs, and then act as if that's a solution. Which, I am sure, is unique to my particular part of Dogpatch. We shouldn't be fooled by governments that are just pretending.
My Personal Environmental Problem
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