When I first heard about this, I thought 'only in America'. Then I found out the same thing is going down in Queensland, Australia. The environmental impacts on groundwater are completely unknown, and yet more and more bores go down. It's madness.

Ah, here's a nice debunking of the dog vs SUV claim:
http://www.grist.org/article/dogs-vs.-suvs

Also, Peroxide, are you being intellectually honest with yourself when you list all of the collateral expenditures of dog food manufacturing and shipping and not do the same for cars? The environmental impact of roads, bridges, car dealerships, quickly lubes, parking garages, the auto insurance industry, hospitals and funeral homes for the 40 thousand that die in car accidents each year, etc...

From Wikipedia:

Dangers
Glow sticks contain hydrogen peroxide, and phenol is produced as a by-product. It is advisable, therefore, to keep the mixture away from skin and to prevent accidental ingestion if the glow stick case splits or breaks. If spilled on skin the chemicals could cause slight skin irritation, swelling, or, in extreme circumstances, vomiting and nausea. Some ravers will cut or break open a glow stick and apply the glowing solution directly to bare skin in order to make their bodies glow.

Environmental Impact
Because the product is a one-time use device and is made from plastic, and because of the number sold, the device is considered to have a high environmental impact for purely recreational entertainment. The toxic internal substances, if released, are also damaging to the environment.

>> ^Sniper007:

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.
This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.
If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).


Ironic that you say Hans Rosling doesn`t know what he`s talking about. How can 2 billion of the poorest people turning into 4 billion help economic growth? In fact, its one of the factors that perpetuate the cycle of poverty, as limited land is passed down to successive generations. When your small plot of land is divided amongst your 6 children, and they each divide their land amongst each of their 6 children, it does not help your condition one bit.

Also, sure an individual from a developed nation choosing to live frugally (like the 'sandal people') may result in a net positive effect on their local climate by reducing their individual carbon footprint. However, an additional 2 billion 'sandal people' will significantly increase our environmental impact through increased demand and things like deforestation.

>> ^Sniper007:

He's assuming limited global population is the desired outcome. It just so happens that limiting your population growth is what will take the blue box to below the 'sandal people'. The tremendous economic growth has risen and fallen in the US following exactly in line with the demographic phenomenon called the baby boom. Now that the baby boomers are leaving the work force, the entire US financial house of cards is falling.
This guy has NO CLUE what he's talking about. Wealth is CREATED by humanity. If you limit humanity's growth, you limit wealth's growth.
If he's worried about 'climate change', then he should realize that it's not the number of people, but their behavior which (potentially) affects that. In FACT, there are humans which by living their lives (ironically, in a lifestyle manner not unlike the 'sandal people') have a POSITIVE effect on their local climates, and thus the global climate (sic).


Wealth is not created by humanity's growth. Much of the financial "wealth" of the last century was created by banks and bankers. Money is a very misunderstood concept. http://videosift.com/video/What-is-money

In relation to population growth and the environment Rosling's concern is that the trend of rising economies is that they tend to adopt the behavior of the economic state they rise towards, i.e. trading in bicycles for volvos. He states point blank that technologies should be developed so that these people can choose to use electric volvos rather than diesel ones, and thus curb behavior to have a reduced environmental impact.

I answer the entire controversy with this awesome cartoon:

http://comics.com/matt_bors/2010-05-24/

This is what liberals, and perhaps the media wanted.

Mostly though, I'm in the camp that says "I can't think of anything he can do to help with the spill that he hasn't already done and not been given credit for".

I'm also at least partially in the camp that says he should be grandstanding and demagoguing this incident until there's a national consensus that we really do need to get serious about all the issues this touches on, including a) the environmental impacts of using oil, b) the need to have effective and strong government regulation of business, c) re-establishing the rule of law and the general sense that no one, not even the mega-rich, are above the law, and d) that getting off oil is a big job -- which is to say that doing so would employ a lot of people, and we happen to have more than a few people who desperately need jobs right now.

But strictly speaking, that's not "doing more about the spill", that's maximizing the political value of a crisis that validates essentially everything about the liberal outlook on, well, just about everything...

Everyone keeps mentioning all the jobs in the Gulf area that are being destroyed and the huge environmental impact. Don't forget that eleven men were also killed in the initial explosion.

Eh, this is Top Gear. Rational people can easily see why the test doesn't tell you anything about the relative environmental impacts of construction or use.

@blankfist, I do own a Prius, though it's mintbbb's daily driver, not mine. Great car.

Oh, and BTW, Clarkson's pronunciation of Prius is actually intentionally wrong. The UK pronounces it the way we do.

He just wants to make it sound as close as possible to "priapism" as possible.

*eco
*comedy
*lies

>> ^blankfist:
You still didn't give me a better system.

I've got a better system than you -- a regulated market. FDA to keep an eye on food and drugs, OSHA to keep an eye on labor conditions, EPA to monitor environmental impacts, an SEC and FTC to keep an eye on finance and market competition, etc.

Better still, I have a welfare state to make sure that economic failure isn't a death sentence, with unemployment insurance, food stamps, universal health care, social security, disability, etc.

Zillions of times better than anything you've ever talked about wanting.

A completely new system that's totally different from capitalism? I'm not sure what that would look like. I do think we need a sort of redesign of economics around actual human behavior, and not 18th century presumptions about human behavior. I don't think individual monetary gain is the only or even the best motivator of people, and I'm definitely skeptical that the bulk of the resources of the human race should be at the command of people who've accumulated it through sheer ambitious drive to acquire material resources for themselves.

I'm not going to be the revolutionary philosopher-economist who invents what comes next, but I think we're deluding ourselves if we think that everything we ever needed to know about how to form a human society was worked out by the classical economists.

Oh, I really don't know about turning off tvs for good. I have an issue with any knee-jerk, "get rid of 'X' entirely" responses.

There is a lot of good on TV. There are wonderful documentaries of the wonders of our planet, there are fantastic shows full of imagination and joy.

And, yes, there is an AWFUL LOT of utter, utter, utter dross.

Pick and chose and watch a little TV and you'll be ok. Watch the mainstream brain numbing rubbish hour after hour and you will indeed become part of the problem rather than the solution.

I limit the amount of TV my kids watch and encourage imaginative play, and active play, and my wife and I watch, on average, about 1 hour of tv a night, and that's pre taped or downloaded shows that we have discovered or sourced... and that hour or so is a great escape after the kids have gone to bed and before we get stuff ready for school the following day. Sure, we could play board games, or read, or learn a musical instrument etc. But the energy just isn't there (plus I do read on the way in and out of work on the train).

If we all do our part by making conscientious choices about what we buy and use and do with waste, then we're being part of the solution, not problem. But, as you said, you have to give yourself some slack and know that sometimes the things you use/buy/do will have adverse affects on others, whether you intentionally mean them to or not.
>> ^peggedbea:

i think i mostly agree with the sentiment of this comment. being a former traveling, vegan, animal rights, social justice hippie that i was...i tended to get too wrapped up in caring about shit. i tried hard not to be a zealot, but it's just like... if i cared about the way we treat and exploit livestock, then also have to care about the environmental impacts of livestock production, and also the impacts of globalization on 3rd world countries, and then poverty and hunger and disease, and then how every single product i use daily exploits someone or something somewhere etc etc etc on and on and on. i'd spin myself into a tizzy of caring about everything until my heart was broken and i couldn't go anywhere or do anything.
so, we can't do everything. and no, there's not enough left after taking care of ourselves and our families to care about everything. but i do think we'd all be a hell of a lot better off if we just turned off our televisions. and for good.

i think i mostly agree with the sentiment of this comment. being a former traveling, vegan, animal rights, social justice hippie that i was...i tended to get too wrapped up in caring about shit. i tried hard not to be a zealot, but it's just like... if i cared about the way we treat and exploit livestock, then also have to care about the environmental impacts of livestock production, and also the impacts of globalization on 3rd world countries, and then poverty and hunger and disease, and then how every single product i use daily exploits someone or something somewhere etc etc etc on and on and on. i'd spin myself into a tizzy of caring about everything until my heart was broken and i couldn't go anywhere or do anything.

so, we can't do everything. and no, there's not enough left after taking care of ourselves and our families to care about everything. but i do think we'd all be a hell of a lot better off if we just turned off our televisions. and for good.

>> ^spoco2:

I do love Rollins, have seen him do spoken word live a few years back.
I also get the rage against people watching dross while real world events flow on by.
BUT
We can't spend all our time always paying attention to 'what is important', it'd burn anyone out, even the most ardent of do-gooders.
I do fully agree that the majority of us do not do enough, and let a lot happen that shouldn't (me most definitely included)... However we are also struck with a few conflicting concerns:
a) The all powerful 'Yeah, but what the hell can I do about it?'
b) The also powerful 'I have barely enough hours in the day to do my work, look after my family etc... give me a few moments to relax dammit'. (And yes, doing this on videosift is part of my allotted relax time )
c) The nagging thought 'Well I think I know which side is right in this particular issue, but do I really know all the facts, or have I got it a bit wrong, so if I go in balls and all, will I end up finding out I've done the wrong thing?'
These, but mostly the first one, mean that while we may WANT to help and make the world better on these things, we feel powerless, and so rather than becoming miserable due to always thinking about what we are not doing, we do the best in our sphere of influence in our lives and do right by others.

Being that it could potentiality wipe out all relevant sea life on the coast, it does seem that the ramifications are rather great. The other point of, if we don't take it out of the ground than some other person is going to do it is also relevant. Didn't that happen not to long ago actually with Cuba? It is kind of like the idea of an embargo, not drilling doesn't keep you safe it just means you aren't the one doing it. We have to demand with our voting dollar that oil companies be/take responsibility for their environmental impact or be the victim of a people that don't care about our interests nearly as much as their own.

Plus, it just seems so silly to give up on something because it is hard and potentiality dangerous. Same could be said for fusion or any realm of science and discovery. Either way, this whole bit is pretty one-sided and overdone, obviously the president doesn't have an oil disaster machine...or else he would of used it on our competitors first to experiment.

Sounds like a go-wait, did you say taxes?!?!?!?!

SLAVERY!

TYRANNY!

SOCIALISM!

GLOBAL WARMING IS A LIBERAL HOAX!

Actually, I agree. I'm not picky about carbon tax vs. cap & trade, but I think a key way to help sell it to people would be for the taxes collected to be put into tax credits for everyone.

Liberals should probably wave something like "if you want to abolish the income tax some day, you need to get behind environmental impact taxes" in front of Republicans and see what happens.

It's probably the only way you'd convince the left to give up progressive income taxes and go towards a consumption tax.

>> ^joop:
It's hardly the worst environmental disaster. It may have released more material, but it's only affected 1.2 sq km.
Exxon Valdez spill affected 28,000 sq km of ocean and 2000 km of coastline. The total environmental impact is not even comparable to a few peoples homes and some fish.

Not to say this isn't terrible, but it just goes to show that it's all about how you spin it.

It's hardly the worst environmental disaster. It may have released more material, but it's only affected 1.2 sq km.

Exxon Valdez spill affected 28,000 sq km of ocean and 2000 km of coastline. The total environmental impact is not even comparable to a few peoples homes and some fish.