>> ^imstellar28:
^What is simple fairness? You seem to be suggesting that the cake should be given away, but how do you decide to whom and how much?


The government will seize your cake and a government czar will be appointed by the President to oversee the process of dividing it among the people. The czar will then form a committee to decide how to go about dividing the cake. The committee will then ask for bids to give the appearance of competition, but somehow the czar's brother-in-law who happens to be a certified CD (cake divider) is the only one qualified and his bid comes in under everyone else (of course). Before the cake is divided it needs to go through an economic and environmental impact study which will determine it unfit for the public because it is linked to diabetes and obesity. Government officials are above all this of course so they split the cake between themselves.

just voted for this video; very good, sobering perspective on the environmental impacts of accelerated growth; i hope more people watch this.

to the OP, i suggest you post on reddit and digg as well, where it will get a lot more exposure. even though this documental focuses on china, it also brings into our collective attention the rest of the industrialized nations and our own energy consumption as well.

Whats sad about human achievement? Do you really understand the creativity and production which can occur with millions of man-hours? How do you think the compact fluorescent light bulb was created (86% power savings) or light emitting diodes (95% power savings) or photovoltaic cells, hybrid engines, or high efficiency generators, etc. etc.?

If you want to save the planet sell your car, sell your house, sell your light bulbs and go live in the forest; but why criticize or inhibit the engineering effort of humans which can reduce the environmental impact of a 21st century lifestyle?

That is the point Michelle Malkin is making, and I don't think there is anything sad about it.



>> ^littledragon_79:
>> ^rougy:
Of course, Michelle Malkin is already urging people to leave their lights on in celebration of "Human Achievment Hour."
(deep sigh)
I just can't believe those people, sometimes.

Checked that link out...pretty sad.

well i eat military food packs everyday sure thay take a tun of energy to produce and aload of fuel to transport to my house , but without them we wouldent have an army and think of the miloins of people who would have died without this handy food!.

such a retarded argument.

1) bottled water costs a lot in energy to produce
2) bottles water has a far far far bigger negative impact on the environment than tap water

3) bottled water is good in emergencies and for specific situations

It would make total sense to pass laws making it imposable to produce the levels of display bottle water and soft drinks that are in shops today

It would also make sence using tax money to maintain the running of enough bottled water facilities for aid and disaster water production.


ITS a fact that general day to day usage of bottled water is STUPID and alot is bought under miss information propagated by advertising making bottle water look like some mirical drug substance( waist full expensive + environmental impact)

IT would also be stupid to compelaty remove bottle water but who ever claimed that ?

"From promoting conservation in coffee-growing countries to in-store “Green Teams” and recycling programs, Starbucks has established high standards for environmental responsibility.

By taking steps to reduce waste from our operations and recycle, we can preserve the earth’s natural resources and enhance the quality of lives around the globe. Starbucks actively seeks opportunities to minimise our environmental impact."

from www.starbucks.co.uk

I'm beginning to suspect that corporations don't always tell the whole truth

I too was impressed with the engineer's candidness with respect to the potential environmental impact.

I like to debate these things out until there's common ground, or at least bang out a opposing position that's logically defensible (if not one I agree with). This conversation hasn't really moved towards either one of those things. That's why I'm getting frustrated, because you often aren't responding to my argument, just saying "I disagree."

For example, the price point on oil in that study; why would that make any difference? Are you saying that entirely changes the expectations for supply? Even if it does, do you expect oil that's only profitable to be extracted at a high price to be used to lower the price of oil, and make extracting it unprofitable? They either won't extract it quickly enough to drop the price, or won't bother to start extraction until the easy stuff is running dry (my bet is on the latter).

Never mind that my last post was mostly asking how you'd quantify the expected effects of drilling. Do you think it'll bring back $1.50/gal? If so, for how long? When should we move to alternatives, if not now? Only when we're nearly done with oil?

As for global warming, I was just asking which denial category you were in, the "it's not happening" camp, the "it's natural" camp, the "it's not so bad" camp, the "it'll be good for us" camp, or the "hasn't been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt" camp. More for frame of reference than anything else, so I know where your specific stand is.

As for it being a conspiracy to bring more tax revenue, it seems a pretty inefficient conspiracy. All they really need to do is run up the national debt with a trillion dollar war in in Iraq, or bailouts of Fannie and Freddie, and then tax increases are easy to justify, if only to help slow down the size of the debt.

I'll agree there's a "minor connection" between Obama & Pelosi making sounds of caving on drilling and the price drop, but it's not the reason it went down, and the Republicans talking about drilling has been going on since the 2000 primary and earlier -- the Democrats caving to it is new.

I do think more oil would make things a little better, but I'm more worried about environmental impacts, to the degree that I honestly wouldn't be for it even if there was incontrovertible proof it'd cut the price at the pump in half instantly...but so far I haven't seen a credible study arguing it'll change it by more than $0.03/gal, so I don't see a reason for much of anyone to be behind the idea.

The main reason I keep steering the conversation back to oil is because at it's root it's really not a liberal/conservative schism, so much as a conservationist vs. non-conservationist one, and there are more concrete facts about it available than say, health care or abortion. There's potential on that topic for us to be able to convince each other to at least soften each other's positions.

>> ^MINK:
>> ^jwray:
Mink, you may want sweeping changes, but in the mean time it's good to make small improvements here and there. People aren't going to stop eating meat any time soon.

people aren't gonna fill their tyres up any time soon either, it's just fucking rhetoric. i bet you not more than 5% of the people who said "WHOOOOOO!!!!" went home and filled their fucking tires.
Of course he isn't going to say "stop eating meat" but the reason is economic, not social. He needs to keep the meat industry happy. the fact that meat production is the worst thing in the entire environment after asbestos factories just kinda... isn't relevant, right? send people to their local petrol station to fill up their tyres and buy a coke.
so keep voting for these guys who talk bullshit and pretend they care when really their hands are tied.
gobama indeed. at last the USA has a Tony Blair, and we all know how kewl that is.


The problem with your angry stance is that is ANYONE tried to run for office and go straight for the 'stop eating meat', do you think they'd get into office?

Hmm?

Do you?

No, of course they bloody wouldn't, so what would be the friggen point of running with that? What's the point of running with 'Stop eating meat', that will instantly put off a huge number of people (including myself, I'm very, very pro environment, wish the government would start spending some big bloody money on it, don't care if it hurts us financially at the moment, because it'll be a win in the long run)? All that'd do is not get said person elected.

Brilliant plan.

I'd MUCH prefer someone who takes the steps they can get away with, slowly ramping up the scale of changes as people get used to them. You start off small, or start off with big things that don't directly affect people's way of life, and then slowly introduce those things that require people to change their behaviour. It's the only way you're going to be able to be in power and do ANYTHING.

So stop with the 'Well, if he isn't prepared to ban all cars, make everyone vegans and insist that people only breath out on alternating days, then I won't vote for him'. It's insane logic.

And it just smacks of you trying to be a smartass and saying 'look, I think I know something you don't, meat production causes lots of environmental impact'. If you think it's so damn important, you run for office with that as your lead policy and see how far you get.

I hope somebody did a study on the environmental impact that those solar panels had on that local habitat.

Otherwise, I just don't think I could sleep at night.


On a serious note, it's a shame that solar panels aren't more practical. Maybe in a few more years. In the mean time we should build some more clean and efficient Nuclear Power Plants and stop polluting with all that natural gas and coal being burned.

QM, Oil, regardless of environmental impact, is not a long-term solution. Exploration and drilling is a long process, and the relative depth and scarcity here make it a very expensive process...which is why we import it. And, as oil resources are depleted, too much in the way of this nation's disappearing wealth is used to secure those resources (see Iraq) not to mention the f-ing chaos that ensues.
we are all addicted to oil. It is the reality that we know.

According to Wikipedia, EIA may refer to:

* Edmonton International Airport
* Electronic Industries Alliance, a US trade organization
* Energy Information Administration, a part of the U.S. Department of Energy
* Environmental Impact Assessment, an assessment of the likely impact of a project
* Environmental Investigation Agency, a non-governmental organization
* Enzyme Immuno Assay, see ELISA
* Equine Infectious Anemia, a horse disease
* Equity-indexed annuity, a financial product
* Evergreen International Airlines, an American airline with ICAO code EIA
* Exercise-induced anaphylaxis, a medical condition
* Exercise-induced asthma, a medical condition
* External iliac artery, an artery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EIA

manufacturing and recycling may have less of an environmental impact than other packaging options, but looking at the entire life cycle of the product you have to realize that there are more stages to the overall life cycle of the product. consider how much more energy is wasted transporting the bottles (full of their product or empty ones to the recycling plant), since they are more fragile and weigh more than their plastic counterpart much more energy goes into transport.

Im not saying it's less environmentally friendly, but people need to look at the big picture instead of saying 'my prius uses less gas than your hummer.'

As long as the environmental impact of producing the materials is lower than the benefit.
Ie with wind turbines the concrete used to keep them in the ground isn't very environmental to produce.

Choggie, thanks for the clearly informed guesstimate of my knowledge or overzealous assumption making style. We know each other so well, after all. The Irony is strong in you, I see. Apologies if the drug jab rankled you.

I can appreciate your reasons for not wanting to believe certain things are true or not true about causes of climate change etc. However, I do fail to see why someone who is making an effort---possibly for some pathetic or nefarious reasons---to help us minimize our industrial and personal environmental impact, makes you feel the need to voluntarily waste considerable amounts of your time shitting all over it.

And, of course there's spin! he's an ex politician for christ's sake.

If Al Gore can get it through Joe Sixpack's thick head that his pickup and urban assault vehicle might actually be harmful (if not to the planet at large, than at least to the atmosphere around my immediate person) then so be it. If he can change the industrial zeitgeist even slightly into one of environmental responsibility instead of total apathy so that those vehicles are cleaner and more efficient (among other things), then why shut him down? Because he's a possible Chicken Little? A mouthpiece? An opportunist? That's his problem.

At the end of the day, I'd rather live in a world with cleaner (and possibly more abundant) power and industry. I happen to see Gore as a contributer to that becoming a reality, doomsday forecast or no.

Let's also keep in mind that Al Gore did not invent the problem so he could strut around Switzerland. It was brought forward by science before Al Gore made it his ego trip. If dissenting scientists can find reasons to think otherwise, they are perfectly free to bring it on and the scientific community can judge the validity of their evidence and theories as they always have.



ANYWAY. The whole reason this is on the Sift is that I thought the speech had some historical merit, even if (especially if?) it all turns out to be horseshit.

Personally I think wind farms are beautiful. Green hills, dotted with massive wind turbines is just an awesome site. Which would you rather have?

wind farms?
http://www.ararat.vic.gov.au/Page/images/windfarm13.jpg
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/06/22/wind_farm,0.jpg

or nuke plants?
http://www.alstec.com/Portals/0/NUCLEAR/CX%20Ext%20Bush.jpg
http://www.lightandmatter.com/html_books/4em/ch02/figs/nuclear-power-plant.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Nuclear.power.plant.Dukovany.jpg/800px-Nuclear.power.plant.Dukovany.jpg

If you decide you don't like wind turbines, they can be moved. If you decide you don't like that new nuke plant, tough you're stuck with it for at least 100 years. Nuclear energy may be relatively safe, but it is not clean. The nuclear waste has to be stored somewhere, and even when a nuclear plant is decommissioned, it can be up to 60 years before the land can be safe to use. That's even if the plant is torn down, the owner can decide to turn it into a spent fuel storage facility and make more money out of it.

All it takes is one nuclear disaster (Chernobyl), and the environmental impact lasts for generations. If there's ever an accident at a wind farm, at least you don't have to evacuate entire cities and contaminate hundreds of square kilometers of land for decades. Yes I know all the experts say that the chance of a Chernobyl happening with US designed reactors is low, but with each new nuclear plant built, that chance goes up.