I just bolded the parts that show factually that you have a distorted view of human beings. Your comments that are bolded are not factually true. The world is not in the bad place that you believe it to be.Campitor wrote:I am relaxed and I don't believe humans are bad - you're ascribing to me traits not in evidence. The pollution I've seen and experienced has occurred in the USA in some of the richest states. I don't think humans are malevolent on the whole but I do believe a majority are not good at weighing the long term consequences of certain actions which then cascade into negative outcomes for humans. And I think the argument that holding poorer countries to certain emissions is a red herring. I think a developing country can build better infrastructure using cleaner energy sources without greatly impacting their growth; I think the "let them pollute so they can catch up quickly" is a lazy and shortsighted argument. As the twig is bent so grows the tree - in other words - if your growth is structured around dirty energy, your infrastructure will continue to grow in that direction until negative outcomes are experienced which will be more costly to control or clean up, or at worst causes military tensions with your neighboring countries.steveo73 wrote:Relax. Stop buying into the theory that humans are somehow bad. We aren't.Campitor wrote:
I'm not worried about the Earth being destroyed. Earth has survived countless asteroid impacts and 5 major extinction events. It's humans that I'm worried about. Regardless if you believe in AGW or not, there is no denying that we are slowly but surely poisoning ourselves with the amount of pollutants we keep pumping out. I'd like clean energy because I love fresh air and smog free skies. I want less mercury in the ocean and beaches that don't coat your toes in petroleum if you sink your feet into the sand. I want to walk into a forest and not see plastic bags floating on trees or smell excrement on the tide because the waste facility was overwhelmed with flash flooding and had to dump raw sewage into the ocean. I'm sure there are lots of financial interests that want to see the AGW money wagon pick up speed. But you don't have to believe in AGW to see the worldwide distress that we as humans are inflicting on ourselves and other species. We don't need AGW as a reason to reduce emissions of every kind.
I personally also believe in other environmental issues such as not polluting our local environments but there isn't a massive problem here. If you are though an environmentalist like myself I think you should realise that the local issues tend to occur in poorer locations. The best way to help these locations is to ensure that they get the chance to economically progress. This is a really good reason why we need to stop all this AGW crap. We want the poorer countries to develop. As countries develop they tend to care more about their local environments.
Your comments regarding poorer countries is also not true. This also impacts wealthier countries. Your comment regarding the twig and the tree is basically completely bizarre.
We need to discuss facts when it comes to these issues and if can't be so harsh and one-sided.
I think that these debates degenerate because one side honestly believes that they are morally and scientifically right when they aren't. If anything the reverse is true. Luckily the majority of people on this Earth agree with me and we aren't on the whole doing dumb things to placate people that sprout this nonsense.