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If I may ask you a question regarding your words in bold...
Are you willing to live off the grid? Are you willing to farm everything yourself, milk your own cows/goats, raise and slaughter your own chickens/turkeys, walk everywhere so as not even to use wood and produce metal for a wheel for a horse-drawn carriage? Live in caves and under palm fronds? Are you willing to eat veggies and fruits ONLY when they are in season, no canning allowed? Are you willing to dig a hole for your bathroom needs and fetch your own water out of the stream? Are you willing to die from viruses and diseases otherwise curable through man's advancements in medicine? So on and so forth...
I ask not to be sarcastic but to know how far you're willing to go to no longer live outside the laws of the natural system. You can't go back unless you're willing to go all the way back, as any human advancement for your needs should give way to further advancement for others' needs. Otherwise your life is valuable above other humans, and thus you live outside the laws of the natural system.
Again, don't take this the wrong way, I would like to keep this discussion going by seeing how far anyone is willing to go.
I am willing to live off the grid in certain circumstances, primarily where energy is concerned. As my current skills don't include much of what you wrote, I'd prefer not to live like that ONLY because I'd be overwhelmed. BUT, if there was a society that worked towards that direction I would feel interested in participating. I eschew pharmaceuticals already, preferring instead to use a naturopath. I don't eat red meat and a diet of fruits and veggies sounds wonderful.
However, your last paragraph has me stumped, to be honest. I don't think a return to an entirely natural system of living is possible for several reasons: a) most would die from the lack of necessary skills, b) the psychological shift would be too great for most to bear, c) where do the human advancements made over the last million years fit in?
The pendulum has swung way off to one side, that's pretty certain in my view. It can't just go to the center in one fell swoop. It has to occupy the space between the two points. I think adding in our advancements over the last million years and making 'the center' our goal, we can achieve much without the perceived discomfort natural living seems to promise. I do feel our continued path is too dangerous and most are now realizing that fact.
While it is possible that Mother Earth will shake her hips and be rid of us, I too believe she is resilient enough to put up with quite a lot. However, it is she that sets the limit and we mere humans don't know what that is yet. Contrary to others who chimed in on this thread, I believe the Earth is alive and sentient, kind of like how our individual cells add up to a human body.
What do you think about people who are poaching endangered animals for their ivory, or body parts that some believe give men extra virility. Once they're gone they're gone unless we can clone them in a laboratory. I think someone does have to speak up for preserving live on the planet and human life isn't the only life worth fighting for. There has to be a balance, between environmentalists and people who are not environmentalists. If it's not good for animals, it's not necessarily going to be good for humans either.
I agree with you for the most part. I am so against poaching of animals, hate it, endangered animals, are exactly that and should be protected. Do people not understand once these endangered species are gone they are gone. And yes there should be a balance i agree.
Environmentalism was and still mostly is based on the concept that some activities are injurious to human public health. We did not spend huge amounts of money cleaning up rivers by forcing industry to stop polluting to make rivers swimmable but to make them safe to drink with relatively little treatment. The same applies to air. Air made thick with coal smoke can kill people. This is why we limit what can be dumped into the atmosphere. Most environmental action is just forcing people to clean up after themselves.
The slobs increasing their profits by dumping crap into the rivers and air hate to be forced to stop using the common as their toilet.
I don't have a problem with environmentalists. What I object to are the "so called" environmentalists who are politically motivated to prohibit economic development for their own financial gain. There's an entire industry that revolves around "so called" environmentalism - the Global Warming crowd are a faction of environmentalists. There's a double standard involved in environmentalism which I do not agree with. They'll block a development, and initiate higher taxes for developers or prohibit them entirely while their lobbyists line the pockets of politicians who'll further their agendas.
Some environmentalism is necessary, but a lot of it is hogwash.
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Originally Posted by HistorianDude
The only compelling reason to be an environmentalist is out of unrefined self interest. Because the environment doesn't care.
The planet has recovered from far greater insults than anything humans can do to it, and recovered just fine. Think Cretaceous and Permian extinctions for just two. Any ideas that we are "stewards" of the Earth is new age pap. The Earth doesn't need our stewardship. It will outlive all of us.
We do not need to reduce pollution because the Earth cares. We need to reduce pollution because pollution is bad for humans. We do not need to keep water clean because the Earth cares. We need to keep water clean because dirty water is bad for humans. We do not need to preserve wild places, or stop overfishing, or fight mass extinction because the Earth cares. We need to do these things because they are bad for humans.
After we have wiped out all the living creatures larger than the Norwegian Rat and decimated our forests and poisoned the air and sea, and eventually joined the long list of extinctions ourselves... it will take a mere 10 million or so years before the planet is thriving again and we are little more than fossils waiting for the next species to achieve intelligence, begin exploring the world and dig us up.
And the Earth won't care about them either.
My point is not anti-environmentalism. It is an appeal for hard nosed, selfish environmentalism of the sort that might actually make a difference.
good information in these posts, and i agree with much of it. in a sense we are all environmentalists to a point. we all like breathing clean air, and drinking clean water, and we really dont want to see trash strewn about every where. we also want to see endangered species either maintain current levels, or recover to healthy populations. we also want healthy overall wildlife populations, it wouldnt do to have huge deer populations for instance if they were essentially starving and sickly.
we also want to be able to enjoy the wilderness in our own way.
to these ends proper laws and regulations and proper oversight and enforcement of these laws and regulations, is necessary. the problem with some "environmentalists" is that they go overboard with what laws they want, and what restrictions they want, etc. and then they never get out of the cities to enjoy what they pushed for.
personally i want a clean environment, but i want to be able to go driving on backwoods trails in a four wheel drive vehicle if i want.
in the end we need to be responsible for the things we do.
I don't really know what an 'environmentalist' is...
I mean, I always recycle, reuse, etc. I use things till they are worn to a nub. I get on everyone's case at home about paper products. We have rules about flushing...we keep our house at 68 in the winter and 78 in the summer...
At the same time, I think global warming alarmist bullsh*t is a load of crud and the government can cap and trade my fatt butt.
Nice, a series of people that say they are environmentalists(ish).
Here's a series of yes/no questions I ask to most any eco-friendly people I meet. I hope a few of you will answer.
Would you support the reducing of immigration to 5,000 people a year?
Would you support stripping illegals of all rights and deporting them when they are found?
Would you support mandating birth control use for welfare recipients?
Would you support a program that gives women small amounts of cash (~$100/year) for going on long term birth control such as IUD's, depo provera or norplant?
Is the US overpopulated?
Would you support a federal law mandating anyone convicted of felonies on 3 separate occasions will be put in prison for life with no chance of parole?
Would you support a federal law mandating anyone convicted of violent felonies on 2 separate occasions will be put in prison for life with no chance of parole?
Do you believe man has an impact on global warming?
Nice, a series of people that say they are environmentalists(ish).
Here's a series of yes/no questions I ask to most any eco-friendly people I meet. I hope a few of you will answer.
Would you support the reducing of immigration to 5,000 people a year?
Would you support stripping illegals of all rights and deporting them when they are found?
Would you support mandating birth control use for welfare recipients?
Would you support a program that gives women small amounts of cash (~$100/year) for going on long term birth control such as IUD's, depo provera or norplant?
Is the US overpopulated?
Would you support a federal law mandating anyone convicted of felonies on 3 separate occasions will be put in prison for life with no chance of parole?
Would you support a federal law mandating anyone convicted of violent felonies on 2 separate occasions will be put in prison for life with no chance of parole?
Do you believe man has an impact on global warming?
The planet has recovered from far greater insults than anything humans can do to it, and recovered just fine. Think Cretaceous and Permian extinctions for just two. Any ideas that we are "stewards" of the Earth is new age pap. The Earth doesn't need our stewardship. It will outlive all of us.
I'm not so sure of that, though it's an argument I've long used. There is a LOT of carbon and methane sequestered away in coal, oil, and gas deposits. Furthermore, the sun is significantly hotter and the energy striking the earth greater than it was during the Cretaceous. Finally, even the ELE impacts of the past were fairly regional events with global climate consequences. However, to a one, those events resulted in a greater planetary albedo which reduced absorbed solar radiation many times greater than the amount of energy deposited by the impactor (and exposure of the mantle) into the biosphere.
Right now we're looking at a very rapid (geologically) global alteration of atmospheric gas mixture which is modeled by most climatologists to yield increased energy input to the system. And, no, they didn't forget about clouds. I don't think we can really say, for sure, that we will not reach a tipping point which makes complex life impossible on the planet's surface. PROBABLY not, but possibly.
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We do not need to reduce pollution because the Earth cares. We need to reduce pollution because pollution is bad for humans. We do not need to keep water clean because the Earth cares. We need to keep water clean because dirty water is bad for humans. We do not need to preserve wild places, or stop overfishing, or fight mass extinction because the Earth cares. We need to do these things because they are bad for humans.
100% Agreement here. Any changes not bad for humans should be ignored.
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My point is not anti-environmentalism. It is an appeal for hard nosed, selfish environmentalism of the sort that might actually make a difference.
I think we also need to consider technological solutions to "doomsday" scenarios. People can live on soy mash. We don't need livestock or biodiversity to survive (but I do prefer to live in a world which has something to eat other than the Matrix's "Tasty Wheat" and something to look at other than paved cityscape.)
We cannot survive, however, if the oceans boil. Yet, if it comes to that, we should be prepared to take drastic steps to ensure species survival. Space-based sun shades, using nuclear weapons to generate enough aerosols to increase planetary albedo, etc.
In the mean time, I agree with cutting back on carbon emissions so it doesn't come to that.
I'm inviting intelligent arguments against environmentalism. Not just bigotry, not just dogma. Not just the usual railing, bashing, blaming and accusing.
Is is possible for someone to give a calm, even-tempered argument against environmentalism?
As some have stated, you first must define the term so there is no confusion in the argument. People have different interpretations as to what "environmentalism" means and until you clarify, any discussion will be random points that will only create confusion.
So, when you say "environmentalism", by what standard do you define such?
It is fine for the educational part, but the forcing and implementing policy to comply, is the problem.
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