Anyone have anything positive to add??

[leahb]

Trust me...I am in no way ignorant about the severity of environmental degradation! Everyday we hear about something melting, going extinct, polluting the ocean etc.

Personally though, I think we need to encourage people (especially children) to see how much beauty there is still left in this world. I feel like so many campaigns are centered around guilt tactics and doomsday predictions, that people are left feeling hopeless and overwhelmed. And funny enough, feeling overwhelmed causes people to do even less!

Instead I propose that we remind ourselves why we love this planet so much. Why it's worth preserving. Come on, its worth a try isn't it...

[abhi_mgmt]

:agree: with your point.

We can point out the beauty and people about the goodness on this planet and then it develops the understanding of why we need to conserve this beauty; rather than just conveying the negative messages of what we are doing to this planet.

However at the same time we need to make sure that we maintain a balance between both the approaches.

:nicethread: indeed

Cheers

Abhi

[leahb]

Hey Abhi,
I couldn't agree more!
I think that awareness of the environment is KEY, but how we package this awareness leaves a lot to be desired. I don't see why we have to scare the future generation in order for them to start caring. There is plenty enough out there to freak them out already.

Its all about understanding that little changes and alternatives to ones life can create a huge ripple effect...so lets help create beautiful and real incentives to make those changes happen!

Anyways, thanks for the support.
Leah :peace:

[Johnny Electriglide]

There are still more beautiful places than trashed out messes, and gee whiz, we still have 10 years to reduce emissions on a global scale 80%. I've done it, and so have maybe a couple hundred thousand others, but now for the other 6.5 billion knuckleheads. Rots of Ruck!!!<rockon>:doh :

[Corey]

Awareness and doing are two different things.

Only way to ease the damage we are doing is cut consumption and reduce population which both have a 100% reduction in co2 any activity that puts out co2 needs to be prevented. putting co2 in the air then trying to take it out after we put it there is just plain too complicated for the average person due to what ever reason. only way to do it right that the dumbest person can comprehend is reduce consumption. Don't use the polluting resource to begin with if at all possible.

[rvanderlely]

One issue that needs to be addressed is our growing energy consumption. Reports of the rate of increase of energy use vary from one nation to another, but they are all on the rise. In Australia the rate is 3.3% annually. If we compare this to driving in a car, the effect would be to increase our speed by 3.3% every unit of time. This results in an exponential energy use growth rate. I've made some graphs of this and put them here:

Fossil Fuels or Solar Future? We must choose carefully.

(they are at the bottom of the page).

I think the greatest need is to reduce our energy needs; with less energy consumption we will produce less pollution.

I'm not saying we should accept fossil fuels as a source of energy; we all know that they are doomed to run out anyway, and hopefully they will do so before the damage done to the environment is catastrophic.

I even saw a watering can with a digital readout the other day. Why on earth do we need a power consuming watering can?

It's getting beyond a joke.

Roger.

[rc white]

One of the primary difficulties is that you are asking humans to stop behaving as humans and start behaving in some idealized conception you have of correct human behavior.
The fact is that there are very few instances of humans ever living sustainabley with their environment, the once fertile crescent is now desert, the north African desserts were once the breadbasket of the Roman empire, etc. etc.
all attributable to human unsustainable life style.
As is well known the planet has far to many people in the wrong places and increasingly reducing birth rate in places that have the prosperity to handle more population. It has been demonstrated many times to fix this you need to educate women and increase general prosperity, unfortunately many of the places the west relies upon for its raw materials and cheap labour frown upon the education of women, and the wealth that they could have is largely used to service the glutenous excesses of the USA.
The only way any of this will change is as a reaction to major cataclysm, and all anybody can do is to prepare for this contingency, anything else just asks humans to be some other sort of creature and not humans, and one thing is for sure that won't happen.
rcw

[rvanderlely]

Hi there RC

The examples of people living "in harmony" with the environment, or as close to it as possible, are hunter-gatherer groups. These groups tend to move to an area, live off whatever they can find, and when they've used up all the easily obtained resources they move to another area.

Their lifestyle is not so different from ours. However, since they employ simpler technology and do everything manually, they are unable to completely destroy the resources they are utilizing (unlike us). Therefore they move from an area before all the prey animals are killed and so the population can recover.

I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you; we all share basic behaviours. It's just that as we in the west now have a greater destructive capacity than when we hunted and gathered. Perhaps when we end up hunting and gathering again, we will consider what other possible courses we could have taken.

Roger.

Solar Power Facts - Information For A Brighter Future

[rc white]

If you look at the history of agriculture you will see that it became nesesary due to population pressure, there is no way that a population approaching the one the planet has can survive by hunting and gathering.
In Australia for instance the estimate is that the peak pre European population was around half a million, and the archaeological and paleontological records show that human presence has had a significant impact upon the environment, (although it has become politically incorrect to point this out).
These days Australia regularly grows enough food to feed 60 million people and has a population of 20 million.
Just making a simple proportional estimate based upon this shows that hunting and gathering will allow less than on fortieth of this population with no excess, a planetary population of perhaps 100-150 million.
Reducing population by this magnitude will need a disaster of such proportions that there would not be much left to hunt and gather in any case, and very intensive agriculture of any viable land would probably be necessary for survival.
rcw