Oops. cut of half my post. Anyway I am glad that you think that propagating ignorance is a silly game.
Indeed I did, but as so often you are deliberately ducking the issue.
You made the ridiculous claim that the loss of any species, whether it be fungus, nematode or tiger. makes the world amuch worse place. Now can you please answer my question and explain how the loss of a nematode known only to two zoologists makes the world a much worse place? I fail to see how it would make it even anoticably worseplace for anyone but those two zoologists. And if the change isn’t even noticable then how can you argue that it is much worse?
That;s nice. We both agree that there are times whent he preservation of habitat is silly. Now if we can also agree that there are times when it is detrimental then you can retract your statement that it is always beneficial.
No I’m not. Yousaid that theloss of any species will make the world a much worse place. By saying that “any species” includes an almost unknown nematode I am in now way putting words in your mouth. A nematode is a species is it not?
I am simply highlighting how ridiculously exagerated and meaningless your statement was. Clearly the loss of many, probally most, species will not make the world a much worse place.
But nobody is arguing that they are not worth preserving. However you are arguing that there no detrimental effects whatsoever to preserving tigers. Try teling that to the people who have no choice but to live with them. Or do you perhaps believe that having your children eaten is not detrimental because these people are only savages anyway?
First off please show me where I said that preserving the Old Growth is detrimental to the Human Race. This is a blatant strawman.
You are still ducking the issue. You made the claim that conservation reserves for animals are only beneficial for humanity, never detrimental. You did not claim that preserving old growth isnot detrimental, you claimed that conservation reserves for animal species are never detrimental.
And I certainly can provide evidence that preservibng old growth forest is detrimemental to humanity and not just a small subsection of humanity. All I need you to do is clearly articulate how you separate those two sets.
“an old-growth forest has, if it is in a steady state, no net CO2 exhange, no net oxygen exchange. There are trees falling over and dying and decomposing, giving off CO2 and taking up oxygen. Similarly, at the same time, there are saplings growing up, taking up the carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. The whole thing is in some kind of balance. It is true that the net effect on the atmosphere of that is, let us say, about zero…
We often hear that forests are the source of oxygen for what we breathe and so on. That is true while they are growing. The oxygen and carbon dioxide stores are based symmetrical. While a tree is growing, it is giving off oxygen in net. Of course, when it respires it takes it up like you and I and when it falls over and decays, it gives it off again. There is cycle. So an old growth forest which is in balance in terms of CO2 is also in balance in terms of oxygen.”
“Conclusion: oxygen released by plants is not an issue of concern to today’s society. Many other things are, including atmospheric carbon dioxide.” Dr. Doug Pollard, Pacific Forestry Centre www.metla.fi/archive/forest/1994/07/msg00008.html
As a mature ecosystem, the amazon rainforest (for the same reasons as listed above) would use up roughly the same of amount of oxygen as it produced. There are many good ecological reasons for conserving mature trees and mature forests, but oxygen production is not one of them.” http://madsci.org/posts/archives/aug2000/965676157.Bt.r.html
I honestly thought this bit of ignorance about forests as the lungs of the Earth had been quashed long ago. Oh well, it’s taking a little longer than we thought.
Also an important point. Environmentalists, especially the extreme ones, are really poor at cost-benefit analyses. They tend often to simply wave away any concerns other than the ones that worry them.
The problem is not that ‘we are killing the lungs’ by cutting trees.
The problem is the erosion that comes after too harsh cutting.
ME had dense forests around what is today Lebanon, until the Romans cut them down for ship-building and such.
Such things has also been done in Europe, as many other such destructive things.
By planning how to cut, how to preserve etc., you get the most out of the forest moneywise, in the long run, without doing any harm. Maybe changing something, but in a acceptable way.
Personally I am not so concerned about our wild-life, as people mostly understands that, and are making decisions accordingly.
I am more concerned about the fact that the enviroment movement has much to do together with the corporations, and neither side is able to see it. Such deeds that will gain both the consumer and the manufacturer.
Mostly it is about how we consume as citizens.
Unfortunately I am very busy now, it’s my wife’s birthday, but I will be back to this utmost interesting thread a.s.a.p.
Which I suspect is why the environment is often seen as a liberal issue. The idea that money, jobs, health, standard-of-living etc. simply don’t enter into the equation when ‘higher’ things are at stake is to a large extent anathema to the conservative mindset.
Erosion is certainly one of the potential problems associated with deforestation, though by no means the only one.
But my point was that the claim that oxygen supplies are a major reason to preserve rainforests is a belief espoused largely by schoolchildren and a certain type of environmentalist. Such people have a goal and then go out looking for concerns to garner support for that goal, rather than having a legitimate concern and then seeking to deal with it.
In this case quite clearly the idea that there is any oxygen problem associated with rainforest clearance has been created from whole cloth after someone decided they wanted to stop the rainforest being cleared. They did not hear any scientist say that rainforest clearing had the potential to produce oxygen fluctuations and become concerned about clearance based on that. IOW the whole oxygen issue was a way to frighten people into supporting their pre-defined agenda. Their agenda wasn’t based on evidence that we should be afraid of oxygen depletion.
So, Blake, I think we can agree on, and correct me if I am wrong, that it is possible to log forest, but only through planning and, as in this case, scientific research.
Two very simple ‘truths’; or anyhow I think like this:
The industry, the corporations should makes profit for their owners.
They produce what we buy and stop producing what we do not buy. (Don’t laugh, even if it is so f–king simple.)
**From that I come to the conclusion that: **
we as consumers are responsible for what is happening on this planet. If we do not care, who should? God?
I just simplyfy an example. There are three guys.
One guy lives in a metropolitan, that has never seen any river except Hudson.
One is a farmer.
and one guy is also urban but goes often out fishing and/or hunting.
The first guy has only seen in TV what is outside his city, and thus seen beeches, but his emotions has been totally occupied by Pamela Andersson. Not the enviroment. I think you get my drift?
The second guy, is a farmer. He does what he can and tries to make a living. He can keep his fields and forests clean, but there is no real plan for him outside the area he owns.
The third guy is an account. He drives with his friends to a river for fishing. They see that there has been some vandals camping. Do they begin to clean the shit? And if they see campers that ‘do not care’, what do they do? Shoot the idiots?
Probably they just go to another river next time, or such.
And if they see a new fabric at the river, clean or polluting, what do they do, or what can they do?
Nothing, more or less nothing.
Now, all of these guys are good guys, they are from different backgrounds, from different political leanings, etc. - and can do nothing.
One thing we all have in common - we are consumers. The industry sells what we consume.
Now if you look at your store what kind of tooth-paste they have. There is maybe 15 different kinds. Some of them is first packed in a tube, sealed. And then the tube is packed in a box. Why the box?
Does the industry be happy when they push some extra money in doing extra boxes? Of course not.
The boxes are made so that people can see a picture from a smiling girl, printed very nicely with additional silver and golden colours etc.
The manufacturer produce and pack the tubes in additional boxes in order to sell more.
Because, we, as consumers are so stupid that we think that a big box is “more” and a nice looking presentation (box) is “better”. Yes - we are stupid, because the manufacturer does not put more money needlessly into anything, before he has made a survey and many tests about how stupid we really are!
In Germany, some 10 years ago, people made a protest against the “packing the packing, inside a packing, into cellophane/plastic or what ever”. The questions were: "Do we consumers want to pay for needless packing? Does the industry want to pay for needless packing?"
The consumers bought as usual, but left all sellophane and needless packings in the store at the cashier. Heaps of waste.
The owner of the shop knew very fast what kind of products he wanted when he ordered next time. And so did the manufacturers.
So, what has this to do with anything?
Good question. The answer is that we here in EU “produce” waste 500 kilograms pere person per year.
You there in USA, “produce” waste 1.000 kilograms, a ton, per person per year.
In EU, we have problems with this:
it takes very much energy to produce all this shit, to transport it away, to sort it and so on.
and the payer is always the consumer and … the nature.
Now you might ask, what has this to do with the guys at the river?
A little, but I have not stopped yet.
This will run for days, because this is something I really like to discuss about:
Enviromental questions is/can be/will be a huge business for the industry!
We all + the nature, will win in the long run.
Just believe me, I will continue.
I think it’s important to distinguish between political special interest groups and party affiliation. All political parties are beholding in some form to the groups that support them. Currently one of the groups supporting the Democratic Party is represented (loosely) as an environmental PAC. It’s not a single group with a single leader espousing a single mantra. It would be safe to say that they range somewhere between water/land conversationalists to outright anti-capitalists.
When discussing basic conservation (energy consumption, recycling, pollution, etc…) I have found no distinction between the individual actions of Liberals or Conservatives.
Good Evening Blake:
Let see this got started mainly because I mentioned the Oxygen Cycle.
Not the lungs of the planet (your phrase). Perhaps you will tell me the Oxygen cycle does nothing to clean the air. If so and you can back it up, I will have learned something new. You mainly seem to pick your own arguments however and then fight them.
I did say
I specifically said animals not fungus; again you brought up fungus.
As you wish to use a lowly nematode, lets first clarify what is meant by Nematode.
It is unlikely that the loss of an entire rare and virtually unknown nematode will greatly upset the ecology. There is a good chance that it will have little effect and something else will move into it niche. There is a small chance that the nematode would have led to some wonderful Biotech product, but there is also a small chance that it death would have a beneficial reaction.
Without knowing, the species loss would be a loss to science. But if you want a completely rational defense you are correct, my statement is more of and emotional or irrational one. It belongs more to belief than science.
You are extremely good at pushing my buttons; I hope you enjoy it at least.
My initial answers were not thought out and I should not have just grabbed the first few likely looking cites from a google search.
I will do my best not to rise so quick to your nasty remarks in the future.
**Henry-Finland **: Please keep posting, I would love to hear more first hand experiences of environmental successes were consumers, manufactures and the environments all win. This is of course the best case scenario.
No, I don’t. You said, and I quote, “A large part of preserving the rain forest is to preserve the Oxygen cycle”. That is simply untrue. Such a belief is ignorant. I have quoted several eminent scientists who have stated explicitly that rainforests play no role in maintaining the oxygen cyclea and are actually oxygen neutral or net oxygen users.
You comment was nothing whatsoever with ‘cleaning the air’, whatever that means.
Now can we please have a reference not written by a schoolchild to support your claim that ‘A large part of preserving the rain forest is to preserve the Oxygen cycle’. Because I’ve provided plenty that show that it’s ignorant nonsense.
Of course if you just made that up and can’t provide any evidence then I will accept you admitting as much so we can fight some ignorance.
No, you specifically said, and I quote “The world is a lot worse off when entire species die off”. There is nothing specific to animals in that claim. You do realise that fungi are species to, don’t you? If not I can provide reference to that effect and then maybe you can stop ducking the issue and explain how the world is worse off if an unknown fungus of little ecological importance dies.
Actually, to hell with it. How about you just answer the original question. Explain to us how the world is a lot worse off if a nematode known only to two zoologists becomes extinct? That way we don’t; even have to worry about your weseling because nematode is an animal.
I don’t think it has escaped anyone’s notice that you are weaseling here and deliberately avoiding answering that question.
But you just made the claim that “The world is a lot worse off when entire species die off”. Now you are saying that entire species die off and nothing is upset. Which is it?
Of course the truth is that your original comment was over-exaggeration presented as fact. Instead of the truth, which is that the world might sometimes be somewhat worse of if entire species become extinct you tried for the emotive hyperbole that the world simply always is worse off when species go extinct.
The truth is that 99% of the species that become extinct, even through rainforest clearing, are nematodes, beetles, rodents, fungi and so forth. They are not majestic forest trees or tigers or even birds. And as such 99% of the time when a species becomes extinct the world isn’t even noticeably worse off. That’s far cry from your original claim that the world is inevitably worse off when species become extinct.
The please don’t present it as a fact in GD. IMHO is across the hall and down two doors.
Whether your buttons are pushed are irrelevant to me. I do wish that you would stop posting ignorance and baseless opinion as fact in GD., Your statement that “A large part of preserving the rain forest is to preserve the Oxygen cycle” is ignorance, pure and simple. It flies in the face of all scientific knowledge. Yet whenever you post ignorant rubbish like this, or your claims that all whales are more intelligent than cattle or similar ridiculous pseudoscientific claims you never, ever admit to it even when inundated with evidence proving you wrong. Instead you seek to suport your erroneous position by using schoolchildren as references.
You are perpetuating ignorance in the name of your beliefs, and it’s not appreciated. We are supposed to be fighting ignorance, remember, not propagating it.
Your original answers were not just not well thought out, they were full of pseudoscientific nonsense and baseless opinion presented as fact.
The least you could do is concede that those scientists are correct when they say that the oxygen cycle is simply not an issue in rainforest removal.
How about just not posting pseudoscientific ignorance as fact? Or not accepting that everything you read on the Greenpeace website can be presented as science? Or at least admitting it when called on it, rather trying to back up your ignorance with children’s homework?
If you choose to believe that preserving the rainforest has anything at all to do with the oxygen cycle then that’s your affair. You have been shown the facts and are now being wilfully ignorant. But to present such nonsense as though it is still true after being shown those facts is counterproductive to the fight against ignorance. Someone might believe that rubbish because you post it here and support it with the essays of schoolkids.
Blake I asked you to explain the complete oxygen cycle to me and I am willing to learn, instead of taking the challenge to reduce ignorance you hurl more insults.
I wouldn’t agree with that. It is certainly possible to log forests with no reference at all to planning or science. How sustainable that would be and how much of a mess you make in the process will depend on a lot of factors. But you certainly can’t say that you can only carry out logging with regard for science or planning.
But this goes beyond logging, since we are discussing clearing forests rather than logging.
I’m also not sure I agree with your second post. It seems a little simplistic.
Notably your comment that corporations “produce what we buy and stop producing what we do not buy”. Major corporations at least are not passive slaves to market demand any more. Corporations these days create and control markets. That is achieved in a lot of ways that we can’t go into in detail without totally derailing the thread. At the very least advertising and the use of market power to squeeze out competition seem uncontroversial ways in which corporations control market demand rather than simply responding to it.
It’s all very well to suggest that people can simply stop buying Microsoft products for example, or stop paying attention to advertising. But that seems to me to be the environmentalist equivalent advocating abstinence as a way to deal with AIDS. In theory it is 100% effective, but it fails completely when we are forced to deal with human beings.
I don’t dispute that consumer shave a lot of potential power. But they do not have the absolute available power that you seems to be suggesting they have.
You also need to be careful when comparing the EU to the US WRT waste (or anything else). People in EU nations do produce only half the waste per person of the United States. What you neglect to mention is the average GDP per capita for the EU is US$19,775 while the average GDP per capita in the US is US$40,100.
IOW people in the EU produce half as much waste, but that is because are only half as productive. That’s not really a very surprising finding really. If people in the EU produced nothing at all, ever then they would also produce no waste. And since they only produce half as much useful material and labour it is unsurprising that they will produce only half as much waste.
Which brings us back to the point raised by many posters earlier. These environmental policies are not cost free. They are purchased at the expense of productivity, wealth and standard of living. The EU can maintain low waste production levels precisely because they have low productivity and low standard of living, The question you need to ask is whether this is a wise and ethical choice to be making. Is reduced landfill worth the cost of child poverty or forced prostitution in Slovenia and Cyprus?
These are not easy questions to answer, but it does highlight one of the reasons why “environment at all costs” is more frequently seen as a position adopted by liberals. It also highlights why you can’t use the EU as an example of how to do things better than the US. That’s only valid if you accept that lower standards of living are an acceptable trade-of for less landfill.
Well no, you didn’t. You asked me to explain something about ‘cleaning the air’ which I don’t even understand. Cleaning the air has nothing to do with the oxygen cycle, although it now appears that you believe that it does.
If you don’t understand why mature forests like the Amazon have no effect on the oxygen cycle then I suggest you start by reading the numerous references I gave you. The Madsci link in particular is aimed a layman’s level of understanding, but none of those references require advanced knowledge of plant physiology or biogeochemical cycles.
If, after reading them, you still don’t understand I will be happy to explain, but I will ask that you start a new thread in GQ rather than hijacking this one.
It’s hard to argue with the substance of Evil Captor’s post. Clearly he/she has exaggerated, but was anything he/she wrote actually flat-out wrong?
I believe that given the choice, the majority of American capitalist fat-cats would prefer to make their obscene piles of filthy lucre without ruining forests, killing off endangered species or dumping known toxins into the air and water consumed by millions.
But the obscene piles of filthy lucre always-- *ALWAYS, * come first. If they have to dump plutonium into the NYC water supply to make their quarterly earnings then hey-- that’s the invisible hand of the market! It knows all! It sees all! It’s never wrong!!!
I will, but first I will speak more ‘trash’… I mean about waste.
Now, when you check some charts and texts, and there is that “the package waste is 120 kg” or such, remember that the package waste is discussed here and there, but the whole waste per person, per year is 500 kg.
It would be nice if we could show pics, or at least charts, because I know that many people on the internet is just not clicking on the given addresses, just reading the quotes.
Anyhow, this is from the European Environment Agency (EU): Generation and recycling of packaging waste with some charts. Quoting:
So, this a quite sunny side of EU-policy. The dark side is that middle-Europe is still drowning in the shit, but there are solutions.
1) Recycling, as above 2) Make the waste to gasoline of some sort.
There was a story, 1,5 year ago, on TV (Deutche Welle) where some guy had invented how to make a car to work on gasoline and the stuff he got out from normal, not sorted, household garbage. They showed in that program how they drove a Volkswagen on that gas he got.
Anyhow, the guy needed some tens of millions of Euros, and searched for years and now he has a partner: Dutch Shell!
I know there is some thousands or millions of stories how to make bio-diesel and so on, but this story was amazing. The driver told that he could not see any difference in driving with this fuel.
I have Googled for that story, but can’t find it and I did not write down the company name :smack: .
3) Taxes. (Partly my solution. Yes I know you hate me now )
tax the packages that are not recyclable, and I mean: heavily + the handling costs!
tax the packages that are recyclable for the handling-costs - lightly!
Let’s assume that the government gets 100 billion in taxes in this way.
Then the government should reduce the income taxes with 100 billion.
Effects:
The tax-burden for people, like you and I, would not change
Many without work would get work in the “normally non-profitable sorting process” (I work nowadays by scrapping computers and other home-electronics).
Everyone would understand that it is in his/her interest that the manufacturers should do as follows. We take here herring as an example. Herring is a product that is sold in Finland in non-recyclable glass-jars, all different shapes and sizes. So what would the herring-industry do? a) put even herring in jars that are recyclable, and in order to do so, b) they would eagerly use standardised glass-jars, because that is the only way to get something recycled.
I am a lefty, and I do not love flat taxes :dubious: as I here suggest, but what should we not do for the environment? And besides, we could cut more of the income taxes for the poor than for the rich. But that is a left-right question and I would like to have these environment questions free from party politics, even if I know it is impossible. But as a princip.
The main point is: Do not tax the product because then the production will be increasing. Yes?
But if I have to pay a little bit more for my herring, but get tax reductions, I can buy herring as before. Yes?
But the guy who is an idiot, and still buy products with heavy non-recyclable taxes would pay more, even if he has the same salary as I have and get the same tax reduction. In fact, he is subsiding me a little bit.
See? I LOVE taxes, as long my taxes are not increased! Let the idiots pay the taxes - that’s my line!
You don’t actually know any conservatives, do you? I have plenty of liberal friends and plenty of conservative ones. NONE of my conservative friends are religious fanatics or ignorant fools. One or two of them might be considered profiteers, but I know some liberal profiteers, too. Most of the business owners I know (including myself) just want to succeed enough to live comfortably, and that goes for the conservatives as well as the liberals.
Here’s why this issue turns the usual liberal/conservative stereotypes upside-down: Conservatives tend to be considered the rich fat-cats. Liberals tend to be considered the blue-collar working poor. Perhaps that’s true in the big cities, but when you look at environmental issues in rural areas, there’s a different picture.
Around here, most of the conservatives tend to be the farmers and ranchers who are struggling to survive year to year (and, of course, the truck drivers, gas station workers, and so on). Turn on the TV and you’ll see filthy-rich Hollywood types saying that those ranchers shouldn’t be able to shoot the wolf that’s eating their livestock and the farmers shouldn’t be able to use so much water. The guy that drives a 10-year-old truck or SUV because he needs 4-wheel drive and hauling capacity (and it’s all he can afford) gets grief from the wealthy liberal that lives on the golf course and drives a brand-new $25,000 Prius.
There are a LOT of conservationists and environmentalists in my part of the world, and I consider myself one of them. I don’t see a predominance of liberals or conservatives. We’re all just people who live out here because we love this land. Some of us hike in it, some hunt, some drive snowmobiles, some work with the animals, and some just like to look at it, but regardless of who we voted for in the last election, we want to preserve what we have.
Frankly, I think the extremists on both sides are a pretty small number, and the majority of Americans are equally disgusted by the EarthFirst goons (whom most liberals would just as soon disown) and the corporate mass-polluters (whom most conservatives would just as soon disown).
Not the enviroment. I think you get my drift?
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