just heard on TV…after showing pix. of where the Exxon valdez dropped a “bit” of oil in Alaska where the locals and env. dudes are complaining because there is still so much oil left…
some high exec. dude of Exxon
“well, it’s a good sign, it shows the oil has not migrated anywhere else”…
amazing…some french official gave the same crap in 76 or 77 when the amoco cadiz dropped a lot of oil in south brittany…
thanks for our environment…
It’s truley unfortunate that for a very long time and even right now, that the worlds oceans continue to be a massive dumping ground for all manner of things.
I recall being on a remote Island in South East asia years ago and walking onto an equally remote, deserted and otherwise pristine beach that had a scum of cigerette butts that stretched for several hundred meters along the high-tide mark. It was a rather disturbing site considering that I was hundreds of miles from any large populations.
My girlfriend is a research biologist that lived for years on Midway Atoll, studying Albatross. She has shown me pictures of the mountains of junk that floated up on their beaches. Because of the currents most of what showed up on Midway was of asian origin but this is a little recognized world wide epidemic. Three years ago she did a research trip to Heard Island, which a sub-Anartic island belonging to Australia. Over the course of their visit they collected several tons (exact number escapes me) of garbage that washed up on the shore. One of here duties on this trip was to catalog all of the different items found washed up on the beach. it was appalling. I think there are pictures on my computer I will look and post them if I can find them. On Midway the number one culprit was DISPOSABLE LIGHTERS thousands of them. They float, much like a small squid, on the surface of the water. Heidi once pulled 34 of them out of a dead Albatross. I will see if I can find some pictures. Oh! didn’t want to get on a rant today but somethings set me off.
I have a sinking feeling that this problem will only get worse. I have travelled extensivly in Asia and Africa and I don’t want to be accusitory, but countries in these areas do not have any wear near the environmental controls that we have in North America and Europe. It is somewhat of a hypocritical situation because, it has only been relativly recently that North America and Europe have started to take this seriously and even now we don’t really - witness the profligate use of gasoline, water and electrical energy in North America.
The the huge populations of Asia and Africa and the quickly expanding economies in Asia are going to be a huge burdan on the world’s environment, over the next 100 years.
True, the large populations of these countries have tremendous potential to damage the environment. Unfortunately, we in the western world have a far greater environmental impact on a per capita basis. The Bush administration’s scrapping of the Kyoto Treaty does not help either.
The problem will not be remedied until we place social and environment impacts above individual (or property) rights. This sort of ethical framework would be more appropriate. A rights system that gives me to right to purchase a hummer, choose not to recycle, or ocean dump is fatally flawed. Strict adherence to these rights will ultimately result in the destruction of the environmental systems that support human beings. If our rights system destroys its own environmental foundation, it will cease to exist (and hence is flawed). We need to a new hierarchy that recognizes preservation and conservation foremost over property rights and certain freedoms.
There is an excellent and timeless piece on these issues called “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garret Hardin. Written about 20 years ago, it still holds true today. Individuals use the environment for private gain while the costs of such use are borne by all of society. Your office refrigerator is the best example of the “tragedy of the commons”
Fleck, agreed that the countries of Asia with their booming growth will have a huge impact on the environment but don’t for a second believe that we in the West got “rich” by being nice to the environment. Just take a quick trip back to the 50’s through 70’s for a recap of our own environmental record. The developing economies are now trying to get rich the “old fashioned way”…the same way we did it 40 years ago. The only problem that their population densities are 20X what the densities were out here in the 60’s. Take a trip to any city in India or China to guage the impact of all those guys who commuted to work by bike as little as 5 years ago, now riding two stoke oil buring scooters and the like. There are millions of folks in those countries that can now afford cars that never could and they all certainly feel entitled to these “Western Luxuries”…the only problem is that the infrastrcuture and environment can’t handle the new found wealth in such high volumes.
Agree absolutly. I have been there and seen it first hand.
It presents a very uncomfortable and hypocritical situation when we in the West try and say to the East - " No you have to do it this way. With the environmental controls thet we have NOW". When they no full well that it’s only very recently that we have started to recognize this and start to clean up our act. Of course it does not help matters when most North Americans drive around in vehicles that consume as much gas in a year as a small factory in Asia!
“Purchase a hummer” Aside from this being illegal, how is it damaging to the environment?
Oh wait, you mean the vehicle…
We cannot simply switch to basing all our actions on purely environmental values. Every day 6 billion people wake up with real needs for food, energy and materials. The challenge for sustainability is to provide for those needs in ways that reduce negative impact on the environment. But any changes made must also be socially acceptable and technically and economically feasible. It is not always easy to balance environmental, social, and economic priorities. Compromise and co-operation with the involvement of government, industry, academia and the environmental movement is required to achieve sustainability.
First–all you “environmentalists” flame me for this statement and then I will tell you who made it.
I don’t disagree with this statement (whoever said it).
If we do not have a long term vision of environment, being socially acceptable etc…won’t matter much because eventually, all we’ll do is make this planet not livable anymore.
Decisions can not be based only on environment values, but they should be the key criteria to base our actions.
we could start for example by not reducing every year the amount of fundind available to the EPA…
incidently, how can you NOT be environmentalist???
We live on this planet…when you are at home, do you leave the door of the garage open with the car running and sending, CO in your living room?
Do you throw your trash directly on the ground?
I thought not…
Exactly what I am saying Francois. Thanks. There needs to be a hierarchy of decisionmaking that puts our ecosystem ahead of individual property rights. Your property rights are meaningless whent that property become un-livable as Francois just posted.
Sustainability, Sustainable Growth, Smart Growth. These are all false gods (and oxy-morons). You can’t continue to grow inside a closed system. Eventually our “smart” technologies, productivity, rate of technological change, energy innovation will no longer keep up. We’ll be crushed by a horribly top heavy insistence on indiviudal rights.
The pursuit of happines should not be construed to allow environmentally damaging behavior that ultimately destroys the ecosystem in which happiness exists.
I also do not disagree with this statement, and I consider myself an enviromentalist. I consider myself an enviromentalist first, but unlike a lot of people with similiar views, I consider myself a realist second. Leaving out the social biases on this subject, how realistic is it to have 10 kids in this day and age. I believe that over population is the driving force behind many of our current and future enviromental woes. Back when medical science was not so life prolonging, infant and child mortality was much higher, and the family farm had to be tended, it made sense to have a large family. What is the rational now? I work with a woman who has had 11 children. She often complains about the work involved, not being able to afford a vacation, and “how will she send them to college?” So I asked her one day why she had so many kids? Her only answer was that her family ALWAYS had large families, this was the only reason she could give me. I am not against children, I make al arge part of my living teaching children, I think kids are great. Its the large families that I see no rational for. Flame away, I know this position is unpopular.
Jim
Interesting, are we not talking about cycling and other sports here?
Does it matter if man is slowly poisoning his own planet? Of course it does but all the talk in the world isn’t going to do a dam thing. man will still go on spoiling the natural form of the planet. Because in what really matters , is How much money can I “man” can make and at what cost. By the time the earth is ready to die we won’t be here anyway. Enjoy what we have.
Keep on running or cycling or do what you do. idorun
I wonder what an oil slick would do for my IM swim time… Hmmm…
No flaming here.
I don’t know who said that, but it seems like it makes sense. I think the real thoughts of intelligent ‘environmentalism’ is this: the earth is gonna make it through all of this, NO problem at all. We may wipe out a lot of the other critters on the planet by the time we are done, but no big deal, this planet seems to know how to re-populate itself pretty quick (100,000 to 1,000,000 years and we are back to normal with all kinds of new critters).
But the thing is, everything we (as a species) are doing will catch up with us. We are not living in a way that can let us all live this kind of life and lifestyle for the next 50 million years–no debate about that. Whether our actions catch up with us fairly soon or a long time from now, nobody really knows.
But IT WILL catch up with us.
How soon it does, depends on the size of our ‘backyard’, the size of our population, what we are actually doing, and how powerful we become as a species. I think it is obvious that the way we (as a whole) are living today will not last ‘forever’. For one, our sheer numbers worldwide are increasing astronomically fast and we are a hungry bunch. When our actions do catch up with us, we are toast–we are done.
So I think most people would rather our actions catch up with us later rather than earlier. And I think some people miss the plants and animals we have intentionally or unintentionally exterminated (or heavily de-populated) along our way to world dominance. (The insects, however, are all probably having a good time because they know that their golden age is just around the corner–when we have vacated the premises).
What can we call this theory?–how about, “Sensible Selfish Environmentalism”?
It’s truley unfortunate that for a very long time and even right now, that the worlds oceans continue to be a massive dumping ground for all manner of things.
I recall being on a remote Island in South East asia years ago and walking onto an equally remote, deserted and otherwise pristine beach that had a scum of cigerette butts that stretched for several hundred meters along the high-tide mark. It was a rather disturbing site considering that I was hundreds of miles from any large populations.
I wonder if cigarette butts are biodegradable. You would think tobacco and paper would be. Still no excuse for littering those things all over the place.
The statement was made by Patrick Moore, PhD, and co-founder of Greenpeace, and I do not disagree with one word in it, nor would I assume that any reasoning person person would. But, apparently Kyle does. Kyle believes all of our private property rights–God-given according to our Declaration of Independence–should be taken from us based on some false premise that that would improve the environment. The facts are that in the US, our air and water are cleaner than they were 50 years ago, and getting cleaner all the time. We have more trees and forest land than we had 80 years ago. Not one species has been documented to have become extinct in the past 50 years, while many have been removed from the endangered species list. Kyle also blames George Bush for the demise of the Kyoto Accords. The Kyoto Accords were signed in 1997, and Clinton had three years to implement them, but took no action for two reasons. (1) They would destroy the US economy; and (2) They stand no chance of ever being ratified by the Senate because of reason number (1).
The full text of Dr. Moore’s remarks can be viewed at: http://www.dsisd.k12.mi.us/mff/Balance/GreenSpirit.htm wherein Dr. Moore exposes some of the lies and distortions perpetrated by the environmental industry on the public.
IRT the EPA’s budget–Analysis of the last 11 FYs shows that the EPA budget has been reduced three times since FY95. Once under Clinton and twice under Bush. However, these reductions were not huge (1.5%, 1%, and 4.5% respectively) and the last “cut” actually took money ONLY out of infrastructure (overhead) and ADDED money to Trust Funds and Operating Programs. In fact, the overhead of the EPA has been reduced to 25% in FY05 from 38% in FY95 (productivity improvement in government–what a novel concept). Further analysis shows that the EPA’s workforce has been reduced 4 out of the 11 years, three times under Clinton and once under Bush.
Yes, I am an environmentalist, you are an environmentalist, everyone is an environmentalist. What we need to be careful of is the radical environmentalist movement, which is really an anti-freedom, anti-free enterprise, anti-US, anti-human movement much more so than a pro-environment movement.
There is more to the EPA budget…the funds of research grants available has been cut far more than 4.5%. I will try to get the % on the EPA website.
Re. the air being cleaner than 50%, I have a very hard time believing this…can you give references??
Maybe it’s cleaner of some gases, but dirtier with respect to others…in particular CO.
I don’t believe water is cleaner either. same comments as for gases. references?
I lived and travelled in SE Asia in the early 1980s. I lived there again last year and returned to some of my favorite beaches on the Malaysian east coast that are off the beaten track. I was shocked by the trash above the high tide mark. Beaches that used to be pristine were horrible. In Indonesia there is no such thing as a naturally clean beach. Any clean beach seen by a tourist has a cleaning crew out there at 7AM picking up the trash. That said, when I was a kid I spent my summers at our cottage on the ocean in Canada. We used to take our metal trash out in the ocean and sink it. We had an outhouse that emptied into the ocean. We learned how to do things better. I have my own cottage now and the water and shoreline our prefectly clean. Is it unreasonable to expect the same from the Indonesians and Malaysians?