Why on Earth (Day) are we still arguing over this stuff?

[thatcrazycajun]

Today is the 39th annual Earth Day in the US. Leaving aside the wouldn't-it-be-nice thought that every day should be Earth Day, I can't help but be frustrated and depressed that far too many of my fellow human beings, nearly four decades after this observance began, seem to object to even the tiniest little suggestion that maybe they should help clean up the mess they helped make...and continue to make.

Look at the brouhaha that erupted just weeks ago when folks were asked to turn off electrical stuff in their homes for just one hour, to call attention to the urgency of the problem. Some, including one or two people right here on my LJ friends list, took offense ("Who the hell are you to tell me how I should live?") and actually ran more stuff during the hour, in protest. And there are still many political figures, most of them on the right, arguing that there is still no proof and no consensus among the world's scientists that global warming is real and human-caused (or at the very least, human-aggravated)...in spite of an ever-growing mountain of evidence to the contrary. And those who attempt to spread the truth, or propose remedies, are derided and de-legitimized as Chicken Little alarmists.

Everybody wants clean air and water and green space, right? Everyone wants the kids and their kids to have them too, right? Nobody wants landfills piled high (except perhaps their owners), leaking toxins into the ground and providing both eye- and nose-sores on the landscape, right? These goals should be absolute no-brainers. But dare to suggest that people should change the wasteful habits that mitigate against these shared desires even a tee-nine-sy bit, or that (God forbid!) serious cash should be spent by either government or business to repair the damage and/or prevent more...and inevitably, some alleged citizens start frothing at the mouth about how it will destroy our economy, remove people's personal freedom and hasten the coming zombie Apocalypse. (Our last President was one of them, and his whole administration and approach to government reflected this.) One author (cited recently here) from the conservative noise machine has issued a screed bemoaning a supposed future in which "enviro-Nazis" and government agencies will micro-manage every environment-affecting aspect of our lives, and titled it Green Hell. And he includes suggestions for deliberate efforts to monkey-wrench environmental activism.

Saving the only habitable planet we presently own from becoming uninhabitable should not, repeat NOT, be a partisan issue, goddamnit to hell! We all contribute to the problem, every last blessed one of us...and we should all contribute to the solutions. (And note the plural; it's going to take more than just one solution to solve a problem this big and complex.)

Comments

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Okay, I am probably going to get flamed for the following opinions, and, no, I will not look up cites and facts to support these opinions I have garnered after 6 decades on this mudball.

I do believe that we are in the beginning of a natural climatological change. No, I do not believe that humans caused said change, but I do believe that we have accelerated and added to this process.

I also believe that we humans, assupposedly intelligent caretakers, should try to do our best to reverse those effects we can and learn to live in harmony with that which we are meant to pass on to future generations.

I have no personal stake in the above opinions. I am childless, in ill health and have a very low opinion of most humans. I also think that by the time humanity is bitten in the ass by its current selfish practices I will be long gone from this mortal coil. But I also fervently hope that humanity will continue on because I have seen many wonderful examples of the best it can produce. The host of this blog happens, in my opinion, to be one of those shining examples.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

That has to be the single most backhanded compliment I've ever gotten...and I thank you—I think. :-) I have altered my original entry to reflect the very valid point you make. And nobody who posts here will be allowed to flame you herein without me getting all up in their faces; you have my word.

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

The compliment is not meant to be backhanded. Nor is the statement of my opinions.

I 'feel safe' expressing myself in your journal. You give much latitude for disagreement and personal opinions. That is a rare gift in this world.

I feel truly blessed that you friended me. I only hope that someday we may meet in person.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

You mean we haven't met in person? I could have sworn we had...What cons do you go to?

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

I haven't been to a con since the mid to late 80's. And all of those were Western US cons (California, Oregon, Arizona).

We do have several friends in common. I also used to hang around the Starport group in San Jose with Colleen and Steve and Lisa and Harold.

For a time my folks had a t-shirt business where I worked cons with them.

Silencing Earth Day Critics

[(Anonymous)]

You are absolutely right, we all should be contributing to the solution. Please see my response to Earth Day critics.

http://thegreenmarket.blogspot.com/2009/04/silencing-earth-day-critics.html

Happy Earth Day

http://thegreenmarket.blogspot.com

[ericavdg.livejournal.com]

I am so with you. Having worked at BioScience magazine in the late 80s and early 90s when all the climate change data was coming out, I was and continue to be pretty well informed on this subject. As ladyquat says, the warming may be natural, but even if it is and we had nothing to do with it, our ass is still grass if the trend continues. Two Pacific nations (can't remember the names at the moment) are currently using their tourist profits to buy up land elsewhere because they will soon be completely under water!

As a Pagan, I consider it my religious duty to help heal Mother Gaea. To that end we recycle like crazy, compost, try to keep our energy use down, and support environmental causes. (Although we will not give again to the Environmental Defense Fund, because despite a letter with our contribution asking them not to contact us but once a year, they have sent us two solicitations every month this year. I am anal; I keep a spreadsheet of charity junk mail! Next year the money will go to organizations that don't waste money and natural resources on unwanted junk mail.) Our current conundrum is how to recycle or compost used kitty litter; with five cats, that's over half our trash! And I feel horribly guilty when we throw away recyclables while on vacation.

From what I can tell, recycling and energy-saving measures save money. Pollution controls are not that hard, and everyone's health benefits. I wouldn't drink water from the Potomac, as much of my area does, because male fish living in it are growing more eggs in their bodies than female fish of the same species.

Once again, I seem to have written my post for the day on someone else's journal. Pay no attention when you see this come up on your friends page. This is not the post you're looking for; move along, move along!

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

You are most welcome anytime you wish to post in my journal...even when it's to tell me I'm full of it and/or being an asshole. Thank you for letting me host your surrogate LJ page for today. :-)

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

On kitty litter - have you tried Feline Pine? Some cats don't like it (such as my current bratbaby), but if you can use it, it composts well.

Thank you for the acknowledgment of my opined statement. Due to some storylines my co-writer and SO (sordak) are working on, I have had to do some research and postulation on global climatic changes in the distant past of our planet. There have been warm periods to 'balance out' the ice ages. However, from what I have been able to find, the warming shifts took longer than what we are currently seeing and predicting.

Less than 100 years ago 'conspicious consumerism' was shunned. Within the last fifty years it became a goal to be achieved.

[ericavdg.livejournal.com]

I have to restock kitty litter, so I'll try Feline Pine and see what my boys and girls have to say about it. On my journal, someone recommended a brand made of corn cobs, so I'll try that, too. However, being a multicat household means that our favorite, Fresh Step, may remain the brand of choice because (Warning! Blatant commercial plug!) it controls odor better than anything else we've tried. Plus they have a points program where you can get neat stuff for your cat(s) or donate money to the ASPCA.

And thanks for the link to gaiatribe. It looks like it might be interesting to follow.

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

BTW - you might be interested in joining gaiatribe. It posts many interesting articles about helping our planet or how to make people aware of impending ecological problems.

Kitty Litter

[maugorn.livejournal.com]

Compostable kitty litter does exist, but in the absence of that, if you keep it simple, I don't see much harm with kitty litter going into a landfill.

As I understand it, Kitty is mostly equal to clay. And the simpler the litter, the more claylike it is. Someone please enlighten me if I'm wrong.
It's my understanding that while it's not *exactly* environmentally neutral to put kitty litter in a landfill, but it is more or less the equivalent of moving a bunch of clay from one place to another, and fortifying it with some organics and nitrates.

Perhaps, if we're worrying about landfill volume, and capacity, then what we need are good places to PUT kitty litter, which maybe just means that where ever we need to fill in a hole, that kitty litter could be used as part of that solution.

IMHO, kitty litter tho, is not topping the list of what we should worry about going into a landfill, and I'd reserve my guilt and energy to seeking solutions for the more toxic and durable materials.

Just a thought

[maugorn.livejournal.com]

Matt, I am with you 100%

And I want you to know that I agree with you that we, as a race, as a species, need to be a whole lot more responsible and thoughtful about how we use our collective power.

To claim that what is happening now is "part of a cycle" really is a distraction.
We DO affect our environment and our ability to do so grows daily.
If a bunch of humans decide to kill a million people, it's done. We casually, and often ignorantly and sometimes deliberately wipe out entire species. We cure epidemics and cause them too. We can re-route entire rivers, and literally move mountains.
Everything we do causes change and to those who claim that the climate change isn't our doing, I ask "How could it NOT be?". But maybe they're right, for now,
For a race that take a mountain and put it somewhere else on a whim or render thousands of square miles radioactive wasteland, it's really only a matter of time until the climate we have IS our fault.
There is a large, immensely large, NON ZERO amount of evidence that suggests that this is already happening. Whether or not that's true TODAY is not nearly as important as what we need to learn from that evidence to forestall the bigger disaster that could come whether we happen to be right or wrong TODAY, if we don't start acting as if we DO have an effect and seriously pondering what we can do about that and what the consequences WILL BE if we don't.

As for "saving the Earth." What's really sad is that it's probably *true* that the Earth doesn't need saving. She's survived worse than us, and simply shrugged and moved on to something different. That doesn't mean that we *can't* make a mess that's so big that *we* can't live here anymore, and that we'll probably take out a whole lot of undeserving others with us as we approach and possibly reach that point. At that point, self-preservation will require us to think about more than our own little needs and wants. It's one thing to make a mistake and learn from it. Consequences come from mistakes and those who are wise learn to survive the consequences and then learn from the mistake. Karma comes to those who make mistakes and DON'T learn.

We'll see who's making the mistakes and not learning by seeing how they live when the consequences come. The Earth will probably survive. We just might not.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

People is funny -- go fig.

Many people take personal offense at statements of group responsibility or group guilt -- especially for things they feel are beyond their control or for which they are not responsible. A statement of "hey, we all got to take care of the environment and get everyone to change their behavior" is perceived as "I am holding you responsible for all the bad environmental stuff and whatever you do will NEVER BE ENOUGH so suck it up sinner and become the slave of my agenda." This is not necessarily a rational response.

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

Did you see the History Channel show on The Dust Bowl that aired just recently? Rather enlightening to see, back then, that they (our nation/goverment officials, etc) knew that what we had done contributed to the massive soil errosion far beyond what the drought conditions would have done to the grassland prairie. Also shown how other countries (I think China) are making the same mistakes.

Today is the 38th recyling of my original 'Give Earth A Chance' Earth Day Button.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Sorry Matt, your facts are wrong, as usual. The Earth is in no need of saving. The brief warming we saw in the 1980s and '90s flattened out in 1998, long before it had warmed nearly enough, and two years ago started cooling. We're now back around the global temperatures of 1970, when the scaremongers were worrying about an ice age rather than a runaway greenhouse effect. And it may indeed be time to worry about that; sunspot activity is at a minimum not seen since the Little Ice Age, and there's no telling when it will pick up again. Since the middle of 2007 there have been only six sunspots, and since January 2008 there has been exactly one; that is worrying, and certainly explains the sudden cooling of the climate. There ought to be at least 100 a year.

Ladyqkat says that even if we didn't cause the warming we saw in the late 20th century we should still do something to stop it. But why? Warming is good. The Earth is too cold, and a degree or two (Celsius) of warming would be wonderful. We wouldn't want it to go too far beyond that, but there's no reason to suppose that it would; indeed, as we've seen recently, it appears that we're not even going to get that much, dammit.

You mention landfills. What on earth is wrong with those? They concentrate all the garbage in one place, which can be as far from where people live as you like, and nobody has to see or smell it who doesn't choose to. There is plenty of empty land that's not good for much of anything else.

If you don't want to be called an enviro-Nazi, don't try to force others to behave as you like. Until you can prove that someone is harming you, what he does with his property is none of your business, and when you stop trying to persuade him to change his ways, and resort to force, then you have earned the title you so resent.

And given Earth Day's explicit pagan origins, celebrating it in public schools is no more acceptable than is celebrating Easter. It is nothing but Nature-worship. When I see kids come home from public school with posters saying "The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth", my blood boils the same way yours would if they came home with "Jesus is our Lord" posters. If the state's going to indoctrinate children in a religion, at least let it be the majority religion, not a freak minority one.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

>>Your facts are wrong, as usual.<<
Ah, so I'm habitually wrong on the facts? You are one of the very few posting here regularly who seems to think so; I'd appreciate your letting me know specifically what errors I have made in the past. If global warming is no threat, how do you explain the erratic weather patterns we have been seeing of late? The increase in hurricanes, tornadoes and other violent weather? The melting of the polar ice caps and sub-Arctic ice fields? The increase in snowstorms and lower-than-normal temps in winter and abnormal highs in summer? The droughts in places like my state that have never experienced them before?

>>given Earth Day's explicit pagan origins...<<
I checked the Wikipedia page on the actual origin of Earth Day just today, as it happens, and it was nothing whatsodamnever to do with pagan religion; it actually grew out of 1970s concerns over excess population.

>>You mention landfills. What on earth is wrong with those?<<
You mean besides the fact that they take up space that could be used for more productive purposes, leach toxins into the groundwater such as mercury and oil, and encourage overproduction and replacement of products rather than reuse or repair and thus increase consumption of limited resources? There's stuff in there that will be around when our great-grandchildren are dust. Also, we are running out of space for landfills; it is no longer as easy as you imagine, between space limitations and NIMBY activists' lawsuits and protests, to find space "as far from where people live as you like" for these things as we build residential housing further and further out from city centers.

I can quite easily prove that what others do in polluting and wasting harms not only me, but you and everyone else as well. You attack me for trying to force others to do things; I am not trying to force anyone to do anything, even if I had the power to do so. I suspect this comes out of a self-centered desire to avoid accepting the responsibility for how you participate in the trashing of our planet -- which too many others seem to share -- and a refusal to consider doing anything, no matter how minimal and reasonable, to adjust your behavior in the name of an exaggerated libertarianism. This was part of my original point: there is massive evidence that the Earth is very much in need of saving, and if you insist I will fill this page with reference links to back it up.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Your facts are egregiously wrong so often that it's not at all funny. But usually I don't take the effort to respond, because I don't want to be always fighting with you and putting you down. But it really is something I've noticed particularly with you. Remember, in late 2007 you were willing to bet money that Bush would not leave office on schedule; I was so flabbergasted by your loose grip on reality that I couldn't respond in any coherent way. I certainly couldn't take you up on your bet; that would have been next door to stealing. So I just sighed and let you alone for a while. But you ought to bear that in mind; if you considered it a serious possibility that Bush might attempt to stay on, then you need a major adjustment in your reality-filter.

On to the specifics of this post. Weather is always erratic. It's been no more so than usual. There has been no unprecedented increase in hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. As always, there are active years and quiet years. And there are long-term cycles. The 1980s and '90s were an unusually low time for hurricanes; this decade we've had some very active years, leading to conclusions that we're switching back to the pattern seen in earlier decades. But we've also had unusually quiet years.

The northern ice cap has been thinning lately, but not unusually so by historic standards. Every summer about 10%-20% of the Arctic sea is open water, and that's long been the case. Meanwhile, some of the deep ice is still recovering from the Little Ice Age, which only ended 150 years ago; ice that thick takes a long time to melt, especially when it refreezes every winter. Some glaciers are contracting, others are expanding.

Meanwhile in the south, most of Antarctica is building up ice rather than shedding it. On the peninsula, which is a different climate zone than the rest of Antarctica, ice is seasonal; it builds up in winter, recedes in summer, and every few years the strain on an ice shelf causes it to break and calve. There's no reason to suppose that hasn't been the pattern forever.

Low temperatures in winter are a sign of warming? And so are high temperatures in summer? What would you take as a sign of cooling, then? Or of no overall change?

I don't know what Louisiana's rainfall history has been, or what it is now. I've never heard of this issue till just now. Doesn't it get its water from the river? In which case it's affected by what happens upstream, I'd imagine. And who's taking water out for irrigation or whatever. Still, the Mississippi's big, and I'm finding it hard to imagine that it runs dry by the time it gets to you. It's not the Colorado or the Rio Grande.

I'm not sufficiently interested in the history of Earth Day to do much research on it, so I'll leave that one alone for now.

Landfills. There is a lot of empty space. Landfills take up very very little of it, and we are not by any stretch of the imagination running out of suitable locations. As you say, NIMBY activists such as yourself create artificial shortages by forcibly preventing landowners from opening new landfills on their property, and then have the gall to turn around and point to the shortage you created as a reason not to open more landfills! If you're worried about toxins, the landfills can be lined to prevent anything from leaking out for a long time. (In any case, concerns about mercury are way overblown. Mercury is very difficult to absorb through the skin or the stomach lining, so ingested mercury is rarely a problem except at enormous doses.)

You cannot prove any harm to yourself or anyone else from pollution; therefore you have no right to force anyone to refrain from doing as they please. The burden of proof is always on the one who makes demands of others, not on the one who simply wants to be left alone to do as he pleases; and you enviros have utterly failed to satisfy that burden of proof. And yet you (not you individually but your movement) seeks to force your way onto others, and fine us or throw us in jail if we object. That earns you the title you complained of in your post.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Will you take a reading recommendation? Bjorn Lomborg is an environmentalist with the same values as you, and an eminent scientist, but he examined the facts and the propaganda, and came to conclusions that will apparently surprise you. Read his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, and inform yourself. I don't agree with his conclusions because I don't agree with his values, which are still those of an environmental activist; but at least those values are applied to facts instead of fictions.

[maugorn.livejournal.com]

I was going to let this go, but all day, I just got more and more pissed off.

Matt's facts aren't wrong. But even if they are, everything that is being suggested that be done to combat Global Warming, are all good ideas anyway. Conservation, and escaping the economic disaster of our our dependence on petroleum and coal with alternative energy sources, and finding ways to NOT have to dump toxins back into the biosphere, &c- are all good ideas whether OR NOT you happen to agree that our current climate changes are triggered or exacerbated by humans.

But fine. If it's more important to you to be "correct" and act all contrary to these good ideas and actions that help bring them about, just because you just have to disagree with the overwhelming majority of environmental scientists and the mountains of evidence they continue to collect, well you just go right ahead and pour acid rain on it all.

And I can go ahead and say all that I want because I've got nothing to lose. I already have a reputation as a left leaning big mouth.

But I've got to wonder. Are you willing to put your money where *your* mouth is?

I've got $1000 that says that before you leave this planet that you're going to admit to Matt that HE was right, and that global warming has been caused by human activity and the buildup of C02 from combustion based energy sources.
Yeah that's right. Matt's right and before you die, you're going to see enough evidence that even you are convinced.
So I say, bet me $1000 that before you're done with your life that you're gonna concede that Matt's right about this.

This ain't no rhetorical bet either. We've got time.
I'll get $1000 together and put it in escrow somewhere if you will, and believe me, in MY job it's gonna hurt me a hell of a lot more than it'll hurt you if I lose.

So, what do say?

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Sorry, this got caught in my spam trap, and I didn't get around to checking it until just now.

What's the other side of the bet? What are the conditions under which you pay? That I die without having made such an admission???! That seems pretty silly.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Why are we still arguing over this stuff? My theory: Cognitive Dissonance.

Basically, the radical right backed themselves into a rhetorical corner. In order to justify things that have now been demonstrated to be completely wrong -- Balancing the budget by spending more and cutting taxes, letting the free market regulate pollution levels, removing Depression Era financial regulations will lead to unrestricted growth, etc -- they have to buy into the whole package. No conservative can have a chink in their armor. It's either all right or all wrong.

And it's all wrong.

And they don't have the personal responsibility to admit it.