The Subject Least Interesting To Members Here

Didn't even know there was an environment topic.

Most individuals feel helplessly outgunned when it comes to environmental issues. Sure, I drive a hybrid, eat a plant based diet, and try in other ways to reduce my footprint, but the game is rigged against individuals. It's like going to war armed with a water pistol when the other side has flame throwers.

Food and goods sourced locally? Depends on the definition of local. The factory or farm next door? (Good luck with that.) 100 miles away? (Ditto) An adjacent county? (Nope.) An adjacent country? (Perhaps.) Someplace across an ocean (Almost certainly.)?

Once ashore, everything gets trucked into the stores. Even on domestic farms, the equipment runs on fossil fuels. Let's not get started on the massive pollution from livestock industries, and pesticides used on agriculture. The days of local factories churning out durable goods are in the rear view mirror.

We half-pretend that the smog and heavy metal pollution in China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc., are too far away to affect us, but what gets pumped into a river or the atmosphere halfway across the world eventually finds us all. Meantime oil, gas and coal companies continue to drill and mine apace, with only profit and personal power in mind - no serious consideration is given to future generations of the many species who inhabit this planet.

Then there are those who claim this is no big deal... nothing to see here. Don't bother checking behind that curtain. Snarky, ignorant remarks like, "We had an ice storm yesterday... what global warming?" are so unhelpful.

My heart goes out to Millennials and generations after them. Their world will be a chaotic mess of climate migration, food shortages, extreme droughts and extreme flooding.
 

I go to New Posts first, then scroll through the whole forum looking for what catches my eye. I am least interested in politics. I get out my anger about politics on Facebook and Instagram. Sometimes I unleash my fury on TikTok and Reddit.😂
 

Protecting the environment is interesting. The constant harangue of "global warming" and "climate change" is mostly boring, insipid and quite often moronic. The earth has gone through multiple warming and cooling periods, with warm periods and abundant CO2 for life preferred. That the seas were going to rise and drown coastal cities is proclaimed about every 10 years or so and still hasn't happened (Note: When tectonic plates sink, it'll look like seas are rising when they're not). I could go on but you get the idea if not the belief.
 
StarSong said:
We half-pretend that the smog and heavy metal pollution in China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc., are too far away to affect us, but what gets pumped into a river or the atmosphere halfway across the world eventually finds us all.
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StarSong, you made several good points and this one struck a chord. Not only did my father's generation "half-pretend" there wasn't a problem, they truly believed the earth was so big that humans didn't actually make much of a negative impact. Chalk another one up to just plain ignorance, and we and future generations are paying the price. Humans are still pretty "dumb" about a lot of things.
 
StarSong said:
Didn't even know there was an environment topic.

Most individuals feel helplessly outgunned when it comes to environmental issues. Sure, I drive a hybrid, eat a plant based diet, and try in other ways to reduce my footprint, but the game is rigged against individuals. It's like going to war armed with a water pistol when the other side has flame throwers.

Food and goods sourced locally? Depends on the definition of local. The factory or farm next door? (Good luck with that.) 100 miles away? (Ditto) An adjacent county? (Nope.) An adjacent country? (Perhaps.) Someplace across an ocean (Almost certainly.)?

Once ashore, everything gets trucked into the stores. Even on domestic farms, the equipment runs on fossil fuels. Let's not get started on the massive pollution from livestock industries, and pesticides used on agriculture. The days of local factories churning out durable goods are in the rear view mirror.

We half-pretend that the smog and heavy metal pollution in China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc., are too far away to affect us, but what gets pumped into a river or the atmosphere halfway across the world eventually finds us all. Meantime oil, gas and coal companies continue to drill and mine apace, with only profit and personal power in mind - no serious consideration is given to future generations of the many species who inhabit this planet.

Then there are those who claim this is no big deal... nothing to see here. Don't bother checking behind that curtain. Snarky, ignorant remarks like, "We had an ice storm yesterday... what global warming?" are so unhelpful.

My heart goes out to Millennials and generations after them. Their world will be a chaotic mess of climate migration, food shortages, extreme droughts and extreme flooding.
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Brava!
 
Yes good people, our dear planet Earth is in BIG trouble. The mess is really complicated and the solutions are not easy. First of all there are just too many people on this planet; 8 billion plus counting. Secondly, we pollute with our lifestyles. To save the earth we have to stop building huge "monster" homes with 3 or more garages. We have to stop manufacturing huge cruise ships that take up to 5,000 passengers for a holiday. The people in SW US have to give up their swimming pools. We need to stop watering all that green grass in front of our homes that we never step on. We have to switch to electric cars. We need to stop buying things that end up in landfills shortly after. The end is that we have to give up our lifestyle and no one wants to do that. China wants cars; India wants cars and each country has over 1 billion people. As seniors, it is all too much. I wish the younger generation (the ones with the phones, the shorts, the tattoos and the beards) the best of luck in trying to solve this problem. Boy, are they going to need luck! Lots and lots of luck and maybe a lot more than luck than our generation ever had.
 
Our generation certainly knew about the danger our environment was in way back when we were kids. Slogans like "Don't be a litterbug', "Give a hoot don't pollute" were very popular.

Among the young generation not only was the peace symbol popular but also the ecology flag -remember that green and yellow patch with the letter E on it? We carried that around,but we did nothing or very little. People that did actively pursue environmental issues were called "tree huggers".

Higher education meant to deal with these issues was never really sought after; there was much more money in big business regarding manufacturing, medical,technology, law,etc. Higher education people wanted to get rich with and their education didn't really involve anything scientific enough to address the perils our environment was facing..

We all felt terrible and still do about big manufacturers moving our jobs offshore, saving them tons of money by not having to pay American wages or contributing to health insurance. Along with those jobs went the pollution to those offshore countries who took our manufacturing jobs.

Now it seems that the poisons the manufacturing business spews into the earth the soil, the air, the oceans are coming back around to us.
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I’m pessimistic because it is a global problem.

In order to make real progress the developed nations will need to reduce their carbon footprints but they will also need to develop some sort of process to help the developing nations improve the quality of their lives in an ecologically safe and sustainable way.

I’m not smart enough to figure out a global scheme to collect a carbon tax that can be paid to developing nations to stop burning the rain forests, polluting the water, etc... Basically a way to prevent developing nations from making the same mistakes that we made while creating a better life.
 
fmdog44 said:
Sadly but not surprisingly the Environment topic appears to be the subject most ignored here. Count the number of related topics then see the number of responses. Maybe that is why the environment is is deep trouble.
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The topic of Climate Change has been politicized and weaponized by the vested interests that would stand to lose $$ if fossil fuels fell in disfavor. It's the same situation as with the Tobacco industry's efforts to hide the lethal health effects of smoking.

Discussing politicized issues on this forum is pushing the envelope, and is a walk on thin ice.
 
I refuse to allow political nonsense prevent me from reading the writing on the wall, and doing so aloud.
Record-breaking droughts, floods, wildfires, and heatwaves aren't a matter of opinion, political stance or tortured interpretation.

When rainfall or heat described by climatologists as "a once in a thousand years event," are now occurring three times in a decade, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to read the tea leaves.
 
StarSong said:
I refuse to allow political nonsense prevent me from reading the writing on the wall, and doing so aloud.
Record-breaking droughts, floods, wildfires, and heatwaves aren't a matter of opinion, political stance or tortured interpretation.

When rainfall or heat described by climatologists as "a once in a thousand years event," are now occurring three times in a decade, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to read the tea leaves.
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Just looking at the geologic record and comparing that to how fast carbon has built up and when it started , clearly a link to how we humans have altered things. Let alone species disappearing, farmland disappearing , forests disappearing. The Amazon rainforest has always been a carbon and heat sink but this has just flipped. All the farmers I hang out with see it every spring and summer now.

Interesting I find the younger generation - at least those i am in contact with - seem to be well aware of what we are doing. We now face a predicament that there is no short or medium term solution. Problem is how we learn to cope with a new reality. Hopefully willingly and not by government coercion. Unfortunately a lot of "ESG" chatter is about financialization green energy and green living , not about addressing the problem. Just shifting to electric vehicles is great but not likely to fix the problem. It appears what humans need to do is have a leap to a new mindset , lifestyle and attitude to nature but I fear this probably won't happen
 
The least interesting subject is so not interesting that the potential poster does not find it interesting enough to post about it and has ignored it.
 
keep-the-earth-clean-its-not-uranus-earths-day-haselshirt.jpg

Why do most pictures that I find, when looking for ones of the earth, usually show North and South America in such prominent spots? Maybe it’s my imagination but maybe not. 🌏🌍🌎
 
IMO ......... The reason it is so ignored? .......... Is because there is basically nothing 'we' society can do about it . The earth is an ever evolving / constantly changing thing ..... basically a 2/3 ? water covered rock.

Yes I know, the tree huggers say 'we' are runining it but ....., I believe mankind actually has very little influence on it. And we here in the U.S. we are treating it with the most reverence & more carefully than others, elsewhere. ........... again, jmo
 
As Nelson wrote in 1984, “The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”

I found that quote but I have no idea who 'Nelson' is.

In some areas we've made a lot of progress probably -- getting rid of things like lead in gasoline, asbestos, some really bad pesticide (ddt?), reducing the air pollution. And I expect that there will be a lot of change toward greener energy sources, already my local power company has a bunch of wind power (according to their self-lauding brochure in the bill, gee, why am I still getting a paper bill, gotta change that!). My house has some really horrid original windows, then a few doors and windows replaced over the years with modern energy efficient ones which are noticeably better. I think appliances use less electricity, but since they make such pathetic ones that breakdown faster that probably more than wipes out any savings of electricity.

I think if we could get required standards for quality and life expectancy of appliances that would be a huge plus for the environment.
Cars have improved a lot, I remember when I was younger by 50,000 miles cars were constantly needing repairs, but aside from the fan in the heat/air of my car, it has been awesome about running forever without needing repairs.

Still so much not being done that could be, and sliding backwards in some things.
 
Victor said:
This is typical of Americans as a whole. Lack of interest for these issues, nothing new.
It is not even a topic for national debate or elections.
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Not true, Victor. Global Warming and Climate Change has been a political debate for well over a decade. The Environmental Protection Agency was established about 15 years ago, and climatologists and related scientists have been receiving billions in gov't funding since then.
 

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