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Old 11-30-2014, 07:28 AM
 
Location: Central Florida
2,062 posts, read 2,534,453 times
Reputation: 1938

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Why do those in power like politicians think that the USA cannot have a sucessful economy without polluting the earth? Isn't it possible to live in harmony with nature and still have a strong healthy economy? Can't we get rid of polluting industries or improve them and still remain financially strong as a society?
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Old 11-30-2014, 07:51 AM
 
41,815 posts, read 50,878,348 times
Reputation: 17863
Your premise is flawed, we need practical and sane regulations that provide more benefit than harm. What is often overlooked is the enormous health benefits that cheap energy provides.
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Old 11-30-2014, 08:22 AM
 
Location: Central Florida
2,062 posts, read 2,534,453 times
Reputation: 1938
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman View Post
Your premise is flawed, we need practical and sane regulations that provide more benefit than harm. What is often overlooked is the enormous health benefits that cheap energy provides.

Which cheap energy? And what about our landfills ?Too much trash things that cannot be recycled and are not biodegradable do we really need to be creating that kind of stuff ?
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Old 11-30-2014, 09:40 AM
 
41,815 posts, read 50,878,348 times
Reputation: 17863
Quote:
Originally Posted by vanguardisle View Post
Which cheap energy?
Coal and natural gas.

Quote:
And what about our landfills ?
You mean the mines of the future?
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Old 11-30-2014, 10:27 AM
 
7,099 posts, read 27,131,405 times
Reputation: 7452
Maybe we could start by eliminating tin cans. Just think how nice it would be if all those people living in tall apartment buildings could have their own gardens and raise their own fresh vegetables instead of buying canned goods.

Then maybe we could do without things like soft drinks with all those empty bottles. Toothpaste would have to go too. We don't need to have those metal or plastic containers. We could also do without cigarettes and whiskey. Whiskey bottles aren't even reused!

Then, stop making synthetics like nylon. Women don't really need stockings and fancy underwear.
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Old 11-30-2014, 11:53 AM
 
7,280 posts, read 10,907,373 times
Reputation: 11491
The idea that anyone wants pollution is flawed. I don't know of anyone that wants pollution.

If you are talking about people who are willing to accept pollution as a by product but unavoidable part of industry, progress and so on, that is a different question and probably the one the OP wanted to bring forth.

No matter what source of energy is used or how it is harvested, using energy creates pollution. There has always been pollution and the environment has a certain capacity to deal with it and render it least harmful but when we overcome that capacity the results are what we have today.

There is so much single mindedness in the way much of the problem is viewed that very little actually gets done to lessen environmental impacts until one type of pollution becomes a critical problem nearly everyone can see.

We could get rid of many things but something else will replace them, that is the nature of humans. Comfort is a very powerful motivator and lets see who is willing to spend most of their waking hours on sustenance living with the least impact on the environment. There are very few people like that.

Take the economies of some countries that are heralded as models of conservation and environmental stewardship. Look at how they really operate. While in many aspects of their function they manage to reduce the impact of their economies on the local environment, they are usually exporters of the very things that are used in other economies that contribute to a lot of pollution.

For example, China which has a huge pollution problem with the air and water isn't the country of origin for most of what it's industries produce. Instead, you have countries in the EU that export the technologies and designs that require someone to build or manufacture to be more than drawings on paper of a CAD/CAM file on a computer. Without the industrial capacity of China where are all those things going to be made, Holland or Norway? The same holds true for the US; if all the industrial capacity had remained here, who is willing to say we would have been able to make the strides accomplished so far when it comes to industrial pollution?

We have a nice clean looking Apple campus, sleek buildings all over Silicon Valley yet most of the products they design are made in China or elsewhere. Take a look at the air quality of Silicon Valley back some years ago before the huge shift of manufacturing to China and then add what it would be like if all those nifty e-gadgets were being made in the USA. Now of course, we slam China and other countries because we off-loaded the pollution creation to them and somehow thing we aren't part of the cause?

If you are buying large format TVs, get a new phone every year, and consume consume consume, that all comes with a cost and someone has to pay it.

Simply changing away from fossil fuels to solar isn't going to fix air pollution just like it isn't going to solve the need for energy. Project the capacity needed to accomplish a nearly complete move away and even if you factor in wind and other types it can't be done, not within the prediction timeframes of even the most optimistic doomsday scenarios. Really, China has the solar manufacturing capacity that has the best chance of making the biggest contribution but they can't even keep up with the demands for energy from a society that is just starting to get a taste of what we take for granted when it comes to product consumption. There has to be another source of energy and unless we get serious about it with more than big banner solar and wind cheerleading all we're doing is compressing the time we have to look at alternatives to the dreams that can't match current let alone future energy needs.
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Old 11-30-2014, 02:39 PM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,478 posts, read 59,623,251 times
Reputation: 24860
Pollution is an accepted, to some, way for a business to externalize the costs of production or living thus maximizing profit and reducing taxation. The major failure of out international trade agreements was they allow the foreigners to manufacture at lower costs because they severely pollute the environment. They use that savings to undercut domestic manufacturers that have to internalize that costs.

If our politicians had any courage they would require importers to meet our environmental standards or pay an import tax of at least 150% of the cost differential created by lax environmental standards. FWIW - This tariff should also eliminate the differences created by low wages and government subsidy.
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Old 11-30-2014, 02:40 PM
 
Location: Central Florida
2,062 posts, read 2,534,453 times
Reputation: 1938
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman View Post
Coal and natural gas.



You mean the mines of the future?
Natural gas has promise as long as they clean up fracking I know they can come up with a cleaner way to get it out of the earth if they want to . Coal is fascinating to me because we have so much of it but it is also very polluting, if we could find a way to use coal in a clean way our energy problems would be solved, but the way it is utilized now it is way too polluting. I wonder if it can ever be made clean enough?
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Old 11-30-2014, 02:42 PM
 
Location: Central Florida
2,062 posts, read 2,534,453 times
Reputation: 1938
Quote:
Originally Posted by Padgett2 View Post
Maybe we could start by eliminating tin cans. Just think how nice it would be if all those people living in tall apartment buildings could have their own gardens and raise their own fresh vegetables instead of buying canned goods.

Then maybe we could do without things like soft drinks with all those empty bottles. Toothpaste would have to go too. We don't need to have those metal or plastic containers. We could also do without cigarettes and whiskey. Whiskey bottles aren't even reused!

Then, stop making synthetics like nylon. Women don't really need stockings and fancy underwear.

I just think there are recyclable and biodegradable alternatives to almost everything. We do have the technology these days.
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Old 11-30-2014, 02:51 PM
 
Location: Central Florida
2,062 posts, read 2,534,453 times
Reputation: 1938
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mack Knife View Post
The idea that anyone wants pollution is flawed. I don't know of anyone that wants pollution.

If you are talking about people who are willing to accept pollution as a by product but unavoidable part of industry, progress and so on, that is a different question and probably the one the OP wanted to bring forth.

No matter what source of energy is used or how it is harvested, using energy creates pollution. There has always been pollution and the environment has a certain capacity to deal with it and render it least harmful but when we overcome that capacity the results are what we have today.

There is so much single mindedness in the way much of the problem is viewed that very little actually gets done to lessen environmental impacts until one type of pollution becomes a critical problem nearly everyone can see.

We could get rid of many things but something else will replace them, that is the nature of humans. Comfort is a very powerful motivator and lets see who is willing to spend most of their waking hours on sustenance living with the least impact on the environment. There are very few people like that.

Take the economies of some countries that are heralded as models of conservation and environmental stewardship. Look at how they really operate. While in many aspects of their function they manage to reduce the impact of their economies on the local environment, they are usually exporters of the very things that are used in other economies that contribute to a lot of pollution.

For example, China which has a huge pollution problem with the air and water isn't the country of origin for most of what it's industries produce. Instead, you have countries in the EU that export the technologies and designs that require someone to build or manufacture to be more than drawings on paper of a CAD/CAM file on a computer. Without the industrial capacity of China where are all those things going to be made, Holland or Norway? The same holds true for the US; if all the industrial capacity had remained here, who is willing to say we would have been able to make the strides accomplished so far when it comes to industrial pollution?

We have a nice clean looking Apple campus, sleek buildings all over Silicon Valley yet most of the products they design are made in China or elsewhere. Take a look at the air quality of Silicon Valley back some years ago before the huge shift of manufacturing to China and then add what it would be like if all those nifty e-gadgets were being made in the USA. Now of course, we slam China and other countries because we off-loaded the pollution creation to them and somehow thing we aren't part of the cause?

If you are buying large format TVs, get a new phone every year, and consume consume consume, that all comes with a cost and someone has to pay it.

Simply changing away from fossil fuels to solar isn't going to fix air pollution just like it isn't going to solve the need for energy. Project the capacity needed to accomplish a nearly complete move away and even if you factor in wind and other types it can't be done, not within the prediction timeframes of even the most optimistic doomsday scenarios. Really, China has the solar manufacturing capacity that has the best chance of making the biggest contribution but they can't even keep up with the demands for energy from a society that is just starting to get a taste of what we take for granted when it comes to product consumption. There has to be another source of energy and unless we get serious about it with more than big banner solar and wind cheerleading all we're doing is compressing the time we have to look at alternatives to the dreams that can't match current let alone future energy needs.

You are saying the societies that have the cleanest environment are able to do so by allowing other countries to take the pollution hit for them and by selling polluting type forms of energy they do not use for themselves?
I do hope China starts to clean up its air it does seem they realize they have to . And it is time we stopped talking about green energy and started to live it. And yes we can be greedy with energy consumptions. We all need to be more aware of what we are using and find ways to cut back.

For instance Florida gets a large amount of rain each year and yet there is talk of a water shortage. Perhaps if people didn't think they need to water their lawns 24/7 all year long we would not have a shortage?
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