Real World Event Discussions

Tree-hugging destroying the environment

POSTED BY: Hardware
UPDATED: Sunday, June 26, 2011 13:18
VIEWED: 4151
PAGE 3 of 5

HARDWARE

Saturday, June 18, 2011 11:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:
The question Sig, is can you show me an industrial planned economy with a better environment?

The author demonstrated an example of when our own government supplanted the role of private industry in making dams and how badly that affected the environment. Can you cite a counter-example?

I'm hearing a lot of automatic rejection from the usual suspects. But, as usual, there's no supporting evidence being offered.

Total weaksauce. You all get a zero for the week.

And to Kwicko and Sig, in response to your earlier, knee-jerk refuting of the article...

"knee-jerk refuting"? Because I asked a couple questions?

THAT is some weak-ass sauce, hombre.

Quote:

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics - RAH

Apparently that holds true for cults, sects, and religions such as "free market" capitalists, corporatists, plutocrats, and the like as well.

Kinda easy to see why you don't get more allies around here.

Yet you don't mention the attached paragraph from the original article that negates your attack on it. If you had read the original article you would have known that you were making a lame attack. I think you're just playing for an audience.

As I said. Total weaksauce. Thanks for playing, come back when you have a valid argument.

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics - RAH

...and he that has no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. Luke 22:36

DREAMTROVE

Saturday, June 18, 2011 11:59 PM

Hardware,

Fighting will get us nowhere. I can give you a functional eco-society: The Mayans, ancient mayans. They had it down. The aforementioned Huari OTOH were an eco disaster.

This is all about brains. Using them. The US was an eco-disaster throughout the 19th c. Teddy really put us on the right track, but we're in danger of falling off that track.

An industrial eco-society can be done, but it takes thinking, and not rash action. Almost anything that needs doing will do no damage to the environment. Anything that damages the ecosystem probably doesn't need doing.

When we run into clashes, we should stop and think before acting, like in our recent discussion about switchgrass. We just agreed that Switchgrass briquettes were a better source of coal than mountaintop removal, ecologically, economically, and in yield per acre, as well as suustainability of yield.

So, now we have to demonstrate that to industry by actually doing it.

This is where the infighting has to stop. We will never actually get it done if we waste our time fighting and pointing fingers.

So, instead, let's just do it. I have a farm, you probably do to. How do we harvest switchgrass? 40 barrel eqiv per acre is going to be far more than I consume.

How about Algae while we're at it? I have a lot of water. I might be able to swing this. Screw Fracking for nat'l gas and contaminating the environment, any yield we can't use we'll convert to biogas. Gotta feed all the diesel, coal, and gas burning generators out there, because each wants its own specific type of fuel.

I have long thought that the most underquoted firefly line on this forum is "Why are we still talking about what's already been decided?"

This goes for everyone. Less talk, more action.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

NIKI2

Sunday, June 19, 2011 3:39 AM

Amen, DT. The problem is, it's NOT something that's already been decided. That's the rub; some say that the environment is less important than people making a living (and they go on to insist that the two are mutually exclusive); others say that the environment is the MOST important thing of all, so whatever jobs, livelihoods, etc., are lost is unimportant in comparison (and usually go on to not offering any alternatives for those displaced or who have lost their living). We can't work together until we agree, and that means compromise, moderation, which isn't what this thread was about. I think we have to work on agreeing on any of it first, then work toward compromise, before we can really start working on it in any way except what little things most of us can accomplish. Any suggestions how we manage that?

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

SIGNYM

Sunday, June 19, 2011 3:40 AM

Quote:
The question Sig, is can you show me an industrial planned economy with a better environment?

At least a dozen. What do you have to back up YOUR end?

BTW- Have you figured out the point he COULD have made that would have merited discussion?

SIGNYM

Sunday, June 19, 2011 4:31 AM

Still haven't figured it out?

I'll tell you tomorrow.

SIGNYM

Sunday, June 19, 2011 4:34 AM

Niki: we are at the point where we are destroying the environment. And I don't mean making it less pretty, I mean destroying it in a way that means we will not survive well. Unless we ensure the environment's survival, it won't matter much about "making a living."

NIKI2

Sunday, June 19, 2011 4:20 PM

Yet again, you put something up then resort to snarks and little else. You even STARTED with one:

Quote:
Excellent article for anybody who can understand cause and effect. For the rest of you, FLAME ON!

It actually doesn’t have anything to do with cause and effect, the way it’s written.

Quote:
His actual examples were a planned economy and free market economy. But I guess you can't open your mind to examine an idea that is immediately antithetical to your world view.

We DISCUSSED planned economy v. free-market economy, so I don’t know why you repeated that. And that wasn’t the point of the article, it was a slanted put down of environmentalists.

Quote:
I'm hearing a lot of automatic rejection from the usual suspects. But, as usual, there's no supporting evidence being offered.

Total weaksauce. You all get a zero for the week.

And to Kwicko and Sig, in response to your earlier, knee-jerk refuting of the article...

You appear to be the one whose knee is jerking, given you’re not saying anything in your own words to defend your stance, just snarking.

Mike asked

Quote:
if I can show you a "planned economy" that is cleaner than ours, and a "free market economy" that is dirtier than China's, can YOU open your mind to examine an idea that is antithetical to YOUR world view?

He asked a question, which you totally ignored and merely dissed him, then asked Sig to show an industrial planned economy with a better environment. She didn’t cite specifics, but since she said she could show a number of examples, I’d like to hear them, too.

Quote:
Yet you don't mention the attached paragraph from the original article that negates your attack on it. If you had read the original article you would have known that you were making a lame attack. I think you're just playing for an audience.

As I said. Total weaksauce. Thanks for playing, come back when you have a valid argument.

That paragraph did NOT negate the attack on the article, which was mostly that the way it’s written, it’s a propagandistic slam of environmentalists. That he admitted government might sometimes have valid influence on lessening damage to the environment actually negates YOUR argument, which only recognizes either totally planned economy or totally free-market, with nothing in between. Yet you come back to it as if it negated the points being made:

Quote:
Yet you don't mention the attached paragraph from the original article that negates your attack on it. If you had read the original article you would have known that you were making a lame attack. I think you're just playing for an audience.

As I said. Total weaksauce. Thanks for playing, come back when you have a valid argument.

Valid arguments HAVE been presented, against both the article and your concepts, but you haven’t addressed them.

The “automatic rejection” you heard is quite valid...the article wasn’t written in such a way as to make a point, it was so derogatory, well, Once again: Frem pretty much summed it up:

Quote:
initially you came across as pontificating, with a tremendously biased and non-credible source, which as mentioned, isn't reallllly the best way to start an honest discussion, either it reframes the debate in a way that winds up reduced quickly to absurdities, or it provokes sufficient hostility to make rational discussion thereafter difficult, at best.

As to

Quote:
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

As has already been pointed out, that goes or political ideology too, as is being eloquently illustrated by the actions of those elected in the midterms.

The intent of the article was not to honestly discuss an issue, yet it was honestly debated when it comes to the two different kinds of economies. Yet the fact is that among hard-core right wingers, THEY want totally unfettered free-market e

KWICKO

Sunday, June 19, 2011 4:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:

BTW- Have you figured out the point he COULD have made that would have merited discussion?

The best takeaway the author COULD give (and which he pretty much pissed away by putting people off in the beginning) is that capitalism and environmentalism can form a good partnership for both sides.

SIGNYM

Sunday, June 19, 2011 4:36 PM

Quote:
Still haven't figured it out? I'll tell you tomorrow.

Ok, here's what he COULD have said that really would have merited a discussion:

Societies become environmentalist only when people are rich enough to worry about things NOT related to immediate survival. Things higher up on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Once a population gets to that point the birth rate goes down, and people start caring about leisure time, the environment etc. The question would then become-

Which system gets to that point faster with less damage?

Now, THAT is a point worth discussing! The bullshit in the article? Not so much.

Historically, industrializing nations seem to go through a point where their environment becomes a toilet. However, there are a number of nations which appear to have better control of environmental degradation than ours, including Germany and Costa Rica, and they're all more "planned" than ours.

NIKI2

Sunday, June 19, 2011 4:52 PM

Sig, I forgot to respond to your last one:

Quote:
Niki: we are at the point where we are destroying the environment. And I don't mean making it less pretty, I mean destroying it in a way that means we will not survive well. Unless we ensure the environment's survival, it won't matter much about "making a living."

Of course I know this, and so do many others. My point is that is the argument used by many: no long-term vision, only short-term “convenience” if you will. Yes, it’s not convenience for those who could no longer make a living at what they’re doing now, but there seems to be no will to recognize that those professions won’t last ANYWAY, or the recognition that if we don’t do something, making a living won’t matter much. You’re preaching to the choir, you know that; to me the issue is getting enough people (enough people with money and/or political power) to acknowledge what you just wrote.

And yes, absolutely, this most recent post of yours is right on. But that wasn't the intent of the article, and we both know it, nor the intent of Hardware putting it up.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off