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PLEASE

I am afraid that the only way to save the earth is to stop the maddness of consumerism

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Well you can atleast try I did.

schleich61 wrote:

SUSANNE wrote:

I am afraid that the only way to save the earth is to stop the maddness of consumerism

Agree 100% with this. In 15 years, the arctic will be open ocean, based on current climatological trends, so maybe it is already too late to save it...

Then let's let them have 15 more years of HAPPY life.Don't we owe them that

Please help them! We don't have much time . You have no idea how happy it makes me when someone signs. by the way it does not show your last name on there :) .

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Not much time left

I hate to do this but let's be honest, none of us are willing to do what it takes to help the cause around the world to save the environment. The best we can hope for is to find ways to live with the environment and do our best to protect habitats while using it at the same time. Let me explain and show some promising examples.

First, are any of us willing to give up things like clean water, air conditioning or heating in our houses, do the dishes and ALL laundry by hand or the big one ELECTRICITY? Most people don't know that more then 1/2 of the electricity is produced by burning coal and oil. Less then 3% is produced by renewable means like solar and wind. Without gas or oil all transportation would stop, are you willing to throw away your computer or phones? All of these things would have to go for us to stop the use of natural resources, I don't think that is ever going to happen.

Can any of us blame a poor farmer in the Indonesian jungle burning forest down so he can feed his children? He doesn't have the option to go to a market or grocery store and if he doesn't burn the forest he can not farm the land to provide food for his family, how can we tell him to stop without a viable alternative?

Now for the promising examples of how our technology has helped in spite of the dependency on oil, take the BP oil spill, there is no lasting effects from it, since the Exon Valdez spill we have learned how to deal with spills and keep the environment relatively safe.

What about countries now selling Eco and hunting tours while hiring the natives to guide and protect the environment. I know many of you don't agree with hunting but if you sell guided trips to places in areas where there is so much damage to the environment two things happen, first you hire the farmers to guide and protect the forest instead of destroying it, thus providing a means to support their families. You also protect every other plant and animal species that live with the targeted species that are being hunted. I know it may be sad that a single animal is killed but as long as that animal is not endangered it will protect every other species that lives there, I think that is an exceptable trade.

I know it is a noble thought to try to "save" the arctic but how about using it as safely as possible as a best case situation at least at this time. Someday we will hopefully have a better answer, but in reality we have no choice unless we are willing to give up life as we know it.

Yes,I WOULD be willing to give up all those things if it meant living a natural life,sadly all the cry babies of the world would not.And Im talking about America,not Indonesia,because I belive it is America that is murdering the earth the most(Shell's is the one that wants to drill in the arctic).And what do you mean "there is no lasting effects from it"? Think of all the animals that DIED .
I also don't agree with hunting (I know that would of ben natural) ,I starting being vegetarian almost 2 years ago,because eating animal was like eating your own kind to me (it was killing me).And they don't know how to drill safley (they were the cause of the artic melting in the first place!!).I am willing to give life up as I know it,we gave it up about 200 years ago,we COULD do it now.

Your convictions and beliefs are very noble, that is commendable, but you must dig deeper, first the U.S.A. has the highest standards of air quality in the world. Cars here produce 70% less emissions then they did 30-40 years ago. The two biggest polluters are china and India, the biggest consumer of natural resources PER CAPITA is Japan (we have more people so we use more but Japan uses more as a percentage of population). One thing I can suggest is to go through the information as a skeptic, even if you agree, do the research yourself.

Just one example is Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth. There are so many falsehoods and mistakes that it is not allowed to be shown without disclaimers in many countries and even in some school districts here in the USA. If you just believe you will never get to the truth, just look up the facts from several different sources rather then just say he is right and those are wrong. Here is an example of what I mean, there are people who can light the water out of their faucets on fire in several cities where they frack oil and gas and the water catches on fire. The people trying to stop this say it is because of the fracking process. It is a lie, the Indians have named 8 areas "burning springs" because you can light the water on fire. In the 20's and 30's (the first fracking was started in the late 40's) they used to light the water on fire as entertainment. I am not trying to change your mind, just suggesting that you find the truth by looking at many different sources. By the way, if you look up safety and water quality records you can NOTfind a single case of ground water contamination that has been traced back to fracking.

With all of that said, for us to go back to a lifestyle of 200 years age we would have to farm, there is no other choice. If we were to farm we would destroy the environment just as quickly as we are now so the change would be of no benefit unless we cut the population, that means millions of people have to go. Where do we put them? The only way is to let the world population die off and then who decides who lives and who dies?

Finally, while I agree 100% that there is climate change I do not believe it was caused or is being influenced by humans. Take a real in depth look at things like this:

The last time there was an ice age there was no cars, electricity, very few humans, if we caused it how did we get out of the last ice age?

The last time there was a reduction in global temp it dropped 3/4 a degree (right now we are only about 1/2 degree over that) it was caused by a huge volcanic eruption which spewed out sulfers and carbon monoxide. That is what cars produce when you drive so maybe we should drive more?

Please don't take my points the wrong way, I agree that as humans we damage the environment, my point is we have to balance our needs with the environment as best as we can and to just say stop this or that is not realistic and will never happen. Use your passion and belief to make reasonable changes or advancements in technology to improve the use of natural resources and conserve as much as possible, maybe that could be a career path and lead to workable solutions! Just a thought...

And how do you know that those facts are true? Not to be rude.

HorseFriendzy wrote:

And how do you know that those facts are true? Not to be rude.

You're not being rude, it is a legitimate question. Most of what I say is common sense, look at the problem practically not emotionally and you will have a much better idea of what I mean. Just for example, if we cut out fossil fuel how would you refrigerate perishable foods? Haw would you transport food from the farms to the markets and how would the people get to the market? If we had to farm the food only locally there would have to be enough land for every family to grow their own and raise the farm animals, that is the most inefficient use of land and would destroy nature much faster then we do now.

I have also worked for many, many years with several groups and research projects all over the world both as an environmentalist and an educator promoting habitat rehabilitation and breeding programs for endangered animals. Then I would read or see on TV facts and statistics that were not what I saw with my own two eyes so I began to research things I was told were truth to find out it was false or based on research that was false.

I found that MOST global warming information was censured, here is an example: One of the most important forest studies proved that tree rings could give the weather conditions, air quality and health of the tree by looking at the spaces between rings. The wider the space the healthier the tree, thinner space meant poor conditions. They then went on to say that during the industrial revolution both here and in Europe, when air quality was the worst and there was no regulations, and again in current times the rings were at their thinnest. What they don't report (but you can look it up in the original study) is that they used 1000 trees and the results were inconclusive in all but 3 trees, so they disqualified 997 of the study group. While I admit that the results were inconclusive, not showing any pattern good or bad during these periods, you can not just throw out results that don't prove your point if you are a serious researcher. Same with my fracking example, you could light the water out of the faucets on fire for decades before there was fracking.

Again, I am just trying to get you to do your own research, don't believe everything you hear or read and become a well informed advocate for the environment.

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schleich61 wrote:

With all due respect, Phil, less than three years ago you informed me that "global warming" was a huge "scam" designed to make a gazillion dollars for Jeffrey Immelt... I guess your views have "evolved" since then.

Not at all Other Phil, my views have not changed, less then 3 years ago I said MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING is a scam and if you look at my posts nothing I said contradicts that. People like Al Gore claim it is real because of humans are burning fossil fuels yet he travels by private jet everywhere he goes. To top off the hypocracy he sells his TV network to Al Gazeera who is funded primarily by Arabic oil producing nations. If he is so concerned how come he doesn't act on his convictions? Immelt makes products that measure carbon output in factories and then the EPA wants to put taxes on carbon use, requiring that every factory has to have these measuring devices installed if this "cap and tax" policy is implamented it would make GE gazillions of dollars.

My point to all of the above posts was to be practice and as humans we should try to figure out how to balance the needs of the human population while preserving what is left of nature and the environment and at the same time don't just believe everything you see on tv or read, there is far more incorrect or false information then there is unbiased reporting of facts and statistics when it comes to the environment and climate change so don't take any one view as correct without researching the details and the opposing studies, then make your own decisions.

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Phil either I missed something or you did, my point was that people are not doing thier own research, or more accurately are just looking at research done by one side or another, in this case by research that advocates human caused climate change. The global warming falsehoods based on research are about 5.5 to 1 against it being human caused, and there is no irrefutable proof one way or another that human activity increases or decreases global temps or has an effect on climate. To make that point again THE STUDIES DONE SO FAR DO NOT PROVE OR DISPROVE MANS PART IN CLIMATE CHANGE, BUT IN MANY STUDIES RESULTS NOT IN LINE WITH A POINT OF VIEW ARE DISCOUNTED AND THEN REPORTED AS FACT. (See my example below that addresses directly the fact that some researchers do not allow any opposing view to be shown) Any set of statistics can be made to look like whatever the research wants to prove so you have to look at both parts of any research and make up your own mind. With that said all of the push for green energy may be good (and I agree that it is a great thing) the technology is not yet available to make it feasible. Here is just one example, to make the compact fluorescent lights takes more resources and energy cost then to produce an incandescent bulb so any environmental impact is lost, on top of that they don't last as long as they originally promised and they have mercury in them that if one breaks in your house you are supposed to evacuate the home after opening all of the windows and doors for several hours and then clean up the mess in protective clothing! I have to say that this is not only unecessary but overkill but the fact that they contain environmental contaminants but we are forced to buy them makes me question how much they actually care about the environment.

As far as Al Gore and Al Jazeera goes my point about them is the hypocracy of Gore's pro environmental stance but took the money from oil profits, as far as Gore's politics I won't comment because this isn't the place for that and it was not at all part of my original points. As for Al Jazeera, again I won't go there because this isn't the place but I hold a very different view of that organization and I my mentioning of them was only to show Gore's hypocracy as it relates to HIS environmental views.

As to my B.S. is in biology that is true but my work with researchers had huge environmental overtones and I was just one part of teams that were studying many different aspects of each project. Again you are correct that I am not qualified to make the full arguments but I know what I saw and then what is reported skewed or disqualified results that did not agree with their view on climate change, how does that help anyone who is searching for the truth? Just another example that happened to me personally was a research project in 2001 on the pollutant content of runoff into the lakes near a nickel mine on the island of Sulawesi. I was part of a team who did research in 1993 and 1997. The head of the 2001 study was a researcher like me on both of the first two studies (which did not show any decline in water quality or fauna between the first and second study) and had full approval and choice of his team. I was recommended to participate as I was there for both of the previous studies but was told that my views were not consistent with the expected results. Let me ask one important question, IF YOU ALREADY HAVE EXPECTED RESULTS, WHY DO THE STUDY AND IF THE FACTS DON'T AGREE WITH YOUR PREMIS WHAT DO YOU REPORT? I'll say this, has anyone read the results of any of these three studies? They never published any of the study results because the results were not what they expected, how is this helpful if your actual goal is to save the environment? Shouldn't everyone know that there are safe ways to mine nickel where the water quality and fauna are not negatively impacted?

And to your final point, I have pointed out that our consumption and population are the problems but at this time it will not change so we need to work with that fact and figure out ways to minimize the impact we have with the consumption levels that exist. As I mentioned in my previous posts, I am not trying to change anyone's views only suggesting that you look at the other sides arguments and research so you are a better informed advocate for the environment. If you don't look at opposing views and research the results you may never know that nickel mining has not damaged the water quality in my personal experience, or that fracking has NEVER had a water polluting incident reported by any research or who knows what else you may find out, good or bad!

This will close this topic for me, I can give example after example but it won't matter if you don't look it up yourself, and if you are not going to look up opposing views or question both sides it won't make any difference and it will just be repeating the same views with no understanding of what is actually going on so there will never be a solution that can actually work. For anyone, myself included, to just believe one thing or another will not help the situation or provide a solution that has a chance to work, I have said it before and I'll say it again, I am 100% sure there is climate change but up to now I have not seen a study that proves or disproves human involvement, to force people to change or pay for a "maybe" is not a reasonable response at this time, hopefully in the future there will be a perfect answer, until then do what you can and find compromises that will work with the current technology.

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I know I said this topic was closed to me but I don't want you to misunderstand Phil, first while we do have very different views you know I don't think you are an idiot and enjoy our conversations (speaking of which, we didn't get the chance at coffee last month, email me when you have some time to get together). If you did not understand my use of the pronoun "You" I apologize and after reading it again it was my mistake, I ment anyone not you as an individual or anyone in particular. You also know that I hold no ones views against them even if I disagree, I would lose too many friends if I did that. As far as including you in any of this, I was just responding to your post, I did not post to offend anyone only to show a different point of view.

I belive I made this topic for peple that are going to sign to Greenpeace,NOT to argue and correct me and others.Don't bother ansering me on this post.

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Yay! Shell didn't get theyre way this time! Because of millions of people signing! (Including me!).So HA! HA!