Fat people do have a larger carbon footprint, all other things being equal.
So do athletes.
Heh, so do people who own X-Boxes, or people who drive SUVs.
The carbon footprint thing is going to be a joke until people fully recognize that their current level of consumption needs to be revised.
To be fair I don’t think he was trying to defend it, just disagreeing over what was the correct term.
That may be true. Either way, I think it’s completely full of shit.
I’ll try keep this response quite short, as it is only parcially related to the OP.
XT, food for thought. Unless your family are direct descendants of a native Mexican tribe, odds are greatly in favor that you have some Spanish blood coursing through your veins – as repulsive as you might find that thought due to your constant disdain for anything having to do with Spain, it is also a fact.
Point being, the fact that you and your family have been able to migrate to the US of A owes no small part to the also factual point that Spanish conquistadores had little to no aversion with mixing with the native populations of the lands we conquered – where, mind you, about 80-90% of all of the Native American population resided at the time. OTOH, had your ancestors been part of an American Indian tribe, odds are also better than even that you’d be either non-existent and/or stuck in a dead-end reservation. Or, if you were really, really lucky, working (or even owning) a casino.
No, I am not especially proud of our ‘Golden Years’, but to pick Spain as the worst of the worst as you continually do (especially, as I said, likely being at least partly a descendant of a Spaniard) is, at best, being rather ignorant of history, or at worst, carrying a grudge that you’ll never be able to rid yourself of. Why? Because, as I said before, in either situation (native or not) you wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for my ancestors. And the fact that it’s easy to judge in hindsight, for were the Romans, Mongols, Anglos, etc. any “better” than us?
Am I particularly proud of our Empire? Hell no. But to demonize it the way you do, while looking for outs for the actions of others (especially Anglos to this very day) is, again, more than a bit disingenuous on your part.
“Let him free of all sin cast the first stone” I believe Jesus said. And while an atheist, I do beleive there’s a lot to be learned (and practiced) from his teachings.
Doubt he’d live to 33 now a a days, damn pinko commie that he was.
Trust that was concise enough to get my point across. Though I doubt I ever will.
I’m sad to say that this isn’t true. American knowledge of the Holocaust was limited during World War II and what was known was often dismissed as wartime propaganda or disregarded because of homegrown American anti-Semitism. We knew that Hitler was abusing the Jews, but we didn’t know the full extent of the atrocities until the camps were liberated. And in any case “protecting the poor Jews” was very, very low on the list of motivating factors for most Americans in the wartime years.
No, we just shipped the victims to them and saved them the commute. More terrorist attacks than ever…doesn’t matter where.
RedFury, how are mestizos generally regarded? Better than “half-breeds” (ugly term, anyone think of a better one?) in the US? I’ve no knowledge or preconceptions either way.
There are already insurance surcharges for smokers on the grounds that smokers are much more likely than non-smokers to need expensive, prolonged medical care. I expect the same will eventually be done to the obese and on the same grounds.
Western leaders developed a pretty good idea what was going on in the camps during the war, but this was not publicized or utilized in strategic planning. What “motivation” there was for Americans to fight Hitler was amply supplied by the dictator in declaring war on America in support of his ally (Japan’s) aggression against the United States (A lot of people are apparently unaware that Germany initiated hostilities against the U.S. by declaring war).
Carbon consumption on a global scale cannot be reduced though the individual efforts of upper middle class Westerners, and it is simply not politically or economically possible for their governments to ask their citizens to accept poverty and unemployment as a price to reduce carbon emissions, if in fact it’s even physically possible for government to force the issue. It isn’t going to work, end of story. There is no point in pretending otherwise. Energy consumption is going to go up. It’s going to go up over the next 10 years, over the next 20 years,and over the next 100 years, barring global catastrophe. That is an absolute, ironclad fact.
No, the next great crusade on that front will be finding a real solution. The good way would be a crusade towards the construction of non-fossil-fuel energy sources, such as a mass program of nuclear power plants, or perhaps alternative sources such as wind, tidal forces, solar cells, etc. The less likely, more science-fictiony way would be to find a way to reduce atmospheric CO2 through some technological means. Plan C, which is probably the least desirable option, is to adapt to a world with a different climate. Maybe in 50 years England will be a frozen wasteland and Alaska will be primo farmland; that would suck big time but it’s a possibility.
Preventing it entirely by having some schlub in Sherman Oaks drive a smaller car and use different light bulbs is not going to work. Your choice in car isn’t going to do anything to stop massive CO2 emission increases in China, India, and Africa.
From what I’ve read, the reality was that the government avoided the issue of the persecution and extermination of the Jews, fearing that many people would not support the war effort if they believed that it was about saving Jews. There was a lot of popular anti-Semitism in America. When I lived in Royal Oak, Michigan as a child, my Mother told me about our neighbor, Father Coughlin, priest at the National Shrine of the Little Flower Church, who was a vicious anti-Semite with a weekly network radio program and a large national following.
Poverty is becoming unacceptable in a world-wide-sence. I forsee an increasing drain on working people to ‘fight poverty’ along with guilt-inducing-attacks by people with a political agenda.
I’m well aware of that, thanks. I believe, if you re-read what I said, I wasn’t praising our past actions…far from it. But anyone looking around the country will note that there are a LOT of native American reservations, pueblo’s, etc about…so if ‘genocide’ was the goal we didn’t do such a good job of it. What we DID so was what I said…it was a land grab. In short we acted just like Europeans (which is really no surprise as we were founded by them).
What, specifically, do you take exception too that I wrote? Which part was inaccurate? How about a bit of substance to your posts in future if you are going to attack someone?
As I’ve told you before Red I’m a mestizo…and indian/European mixed mutt (the irony of someone telling me that I’m defending the attack on native American’s is off the charts). Yes, I probably DO have some Spanish blood in my veins…perhaps a conquistidor raped one of my ansestors sometime in the past, or took one of them as a slave on his plantation and knocked her up. Its pretty well impossible to tell at this point. Certainly my family tree was one of the lucky one’s as its still about despite the Spanish.
THis is simply put bullshit. I don’t have time to look it up, but from memory something like 80-90 PERCENT of native American’s in those wonderful Spanish zones died of disease and starvation after the conquests. The remnants fled to mountain top cities as far away from the Spanish as they could get. One reason there is a lot of black heritage in central and south America is because the Spanish were forced to bring in black slaves…since they had killed off so many of the native peoples (who they would NORMALLY have used for slave labor on their plantation).
You have a rather rosy view of your nations history…which is ironic when you accuse me of the same thing (wrt America…you never want to talk about Mexico for some reason).
Well, I don’t want to hijack this thread with our fight Red. What I’ll say is that IMHO Spain was the worst, most cruel and arrogant nation in modern times. Not only cruel and arrogant though…but absolutely stupid. All that gold, paid for in the cost of oceans of blood, death and misery…and your ansestors pissed it away, going from a rich nation (rich on the blood of others, sort of like a tick), to dirt poor…all because they were morons. Cruel, arrogant, childish morons. In the wake of your countries passage was death, disease, starvation, slavery and the smell of buring witches and heritics…
-XT
What you categorize as a solution I categorize as part of the problem. Any centralized solution will create more bloat. The only solutions are for individuals to look at their own consumption and downgrade it. I’m talking about personal responsibility, not nanny state inducements.
The real solution is to stop buying cheap plastic crap from China. Wash your dishes instead of using paper plates. That’s the real solution. Don’t drive half a mile for a gallon of milk, work that fatass off by walking to buy it. All the big centralized solutions are nice, but no real workable solution will be found as long as we maintain the same conception of consumption, because as it is, improvements on a macro scale will only cause people on the micro scale to adapt and consume more if it is made economically feasible for them. If they do not accept the responsibility for the environment themselves, nothing can be done.
See, every drop makes a difference. It’s not just you that has to make a change but billions of other people. If you are unwilling to do it because you think it’s insignificant then so are all those millions of other people. You become an impediment to the process by trying to talk people out of individualized efforts to consume less. What this leaves us with is a ridiculous culture that thinks that simulcasted rock concerts are going to save us, without bringing people’s awareness to just how much excess pollution that rock concert generated.
Really the only hope I see for a reduction in pollution is a rise in the price of goods. People will reduce consumption if they cannot afford the prior level of consumption. As no one really wants to take matters into their own hands, and other people liek yourself try to convince the people who are trying to make a tiny dent in it, that they are not doing anything worth while, that’s the only way we will ever really reduce our consumption. I have seen consumption of ridiculous crap skyrocket since I was a little kid. All these plastic baubles that we have absolutely no need for. AOL CDs being mailed to us only to be microwaved or flung across dorm rooms.
The solution HAS to be bottom up to work. If it’s not, people will just adapt to the solution and consume more.
So, if the Spanish were so bad, how would you explain the fact that they mixed with the local population everywhere they went to a much higher degree than the Anglos ever did?
Immigration — and the Curse of the Black Legend
Myth and Reality: The Legacy of Spain in America
Did we do a lot of depraved and bad thing? No doubt – but that is only one side of history. Have they been historically inflated for propaganda purposes by our – then – enemies? No doubt either. Historical revisionism? Just read the above cites. And yet I bet none of those matters of historical record are taught in American schools. Or at least the ones XT attended.
I’ll simply close by saying that the one’s pointing their index finger at Spain, shouldn’t forget that when they do that, there are three others pointing directly back at them. Period.
This topic is dead for me.
</end of hijack>
Most American’s don’t really know that much about Spain…the extent usually being that Christopher Columbus came from there and that the Spanish had lots of treasure ships that sunk. Other than that I can’t say that I learned about much about Spain in the American schools I attended…at least not in high school.
Based on your, er, cites Red, and on this ‘This topic is dead for me’ (and on the fact that it IS a hijack) I’d say lets let it go. If you REALLY want to discuss the legacy of Spain in the New World (as well as in Europe and the Far East) then I suggest you start a GQ thread on the subject…and be prepared to learn that contrary to the rather rosy picture your cites are portraying, the reality was pretty grim.
Or just let it go and keep your rose colored glasses firmly in place about your home nation. Its all the same to me.
/end hijack
-XT
You can’t really blame the Spanish for that, though. They didn’t deliberately infect the Native Americans with smallpox- the only ones who did that (or tried to do that) were the British, much later. The Spanish of the time had no way of knowing that the Native Americans would be much more vulnerable to smallpox and other European diseases than they were, and there might not have been much they could do about it if they had known. Nobody in Europe managed to effectively control smallpox until the concept of variolation came in in the 1700s.