what can you do about the Greenhouse Effect?

I'm heavily guilty of this myself and don't really know how it could be possible for me to kick my addiction to jet fuel.

I wonder how many air miles David Suzuki logs. I've seen him at the airport once.

A few months ago, attending a public talk by his daughter, who was making a tour of Japan to report on her trip to COP4 in South Africa, I thought of a new greeting.

Instead of "Hi, how are you?" or "How's it going?" or "Genki?"

why not greet your environmentalist friends with "Hi, so how much jet fuel have you used lately?"

I'm also puzzled about the truth behind the "greenhouse effect". On one hand, I feel that there's some great viability behind this theory, as I've noticed that our summers have gotten longer and hotter and our winters have generally gotten milder. At the same time, though, I was told people were raising all kinds of hell about the "greenhouse effect" and whatnot in the very early '70s, and if our global average temperatures really haven't changed at all since then, then we must be doing something right. (I attribute it to our heightened awareness of the environment and the fact that we became a post-industrialized country in the early '80s.)

Yes, I know it's absolutely vital to think environmental. I just don't think we should do it at the expense of economic progress, and what was decided in Kyoto would do exactly that. There has to be another, better way, one that would be environmental-friendly and beneficial to capitalism.

Second thing is that it was not at all easy to get nations to agree to the Kyoto protocol. It was already seen as a big compromise. For example, European countries were ready to promise much larger reductions in CO2 emissions that what was finally set forth in the agreement. The compromise was made as an effort to get the american government to sign, so it was very disappointing that they didn't.
Even the large CO2 reductions supported by Europe are less than what many predict will be necessary to avoid serious damage to the biosphere.

The question is: who deserves to use the natural resources of the earth, who deserves to pollute? If there is a natural threat that may threaten the planet and we can somehow avert it, it seems to make sense to work together to avoid that threat. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be possible right now.

About protecting economic progress, think of it this way, which is more important to you, your health or your bank account?

You don't strike me as an individual who has that same sort of mentality or upbringing. In fact, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you were raised with parents who were raised in middle class neighborhoods and that you didn't have early childhood memories of your parents struggling to keep their heads above water. I will never let myself become an individual whose checking account only contains $15 because I saw what that did to my parents. I will not remain economically stagnant.

As for "who deserves to use the natural resources of the earth?", well, that's simple -- those people who will use it to improve the general standard of living. I have found out through actual figures that the U.S. grows 75% of the world's food and produces 50% of the world's ore. Do the farmers and miners of America deserve to use more natural resources because of that? The answer is an unequivocal "yes". Also, who does most of the technological research and development? Well, after the mid '90s, the answer is the U.S. Who does the most pharmaceutical research and development? The U.S. This country is the most productive country in the world. Our workers work more hours per week than any other country in the world, produce more good and services than in any other time in the past, and anything that will jeopardize our right to reap the benefits from all our hard work will be over my dead body.

Plus, what other country out there has an equivalent governmental agency to the EPA? Do you hear of any other country out there who has its own monitoring agency that will actually go out there and repair the environmental mistakes from its past? The EPA has been involved in many projects in the past 25 years or so that are devoted to cleaning up all manner of things, from illegal chemical dumps to improperly run refineries and dry cleaners. All of the presidents we had in the 1970s, from Nixon to Carter, should be commended for setting up this agency.

Also, pollution comes from everywhere. Animals pollute -- do you want to cut down on the number of animals? The world did a lot of environmental damage before the many industrial revolutions took place. People will pollute, no matter what their manner of living is. Would you rather us (and by that I mean the world) go back to an agricultural economy? Yes, let's just give up all vehicles. I mean, even those tiny clown cars out on the road pollute. We'll have to rip up the asphalt because that's not environmentally sound. Oh, and concrete doesn't occur naturally, so we'll have to take out all the concrete we've laid. Take down all those buildings, too, because buildings use things like electricity and you know what power plants do to the environment. Let's get rid of toilets too, because all of that sludge in a typical sewer system is a pollutant as well. In fact, why not stop yourself up for eternity? Bowel movements are just little pollutant bombs. Let's close up all the stores, factories, research labs, etc., because they're big and they're bad and it's better anyway to produce your own cloth, sew up your own clothes, make your own fragrances, grow your own flowers, harvest your own food, slaughter your own cattle and chickens, catch your own seafood (and screw the residents of places like Idaho and Nebraska, anyway -- they'll have to suffer with goiter again because they don't have ways of catching fresh seafood), let people die of preventable diseases or just die of "old age" at 45, and de-evolve because by God we don't want another single microgram of pollutant discharged into our atmosphere or our ground ever again.

I mean, please. If you had to choose between the earth and the humans who populate it, what would you choose?

Have a read of Natural Capitalism, by Paul Hawken, Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, a whole book on how to trim down resource use, whilst increasing earnings, profitability and productivity.

Also, the UK is achieving huge cuts in CO2 emissions and I don't notice our standard of living slipping.

The reason the US feels hard done by is that dollar for dollar it produces more greenhouse gasses than anyone. Global warming is a fact, its happening. Its not the end of the world but it will be if people don't do something about it. Its about doing things more efficiently, which is a good way of making money.

Sebastien: yes smarter tech is the way. Now the question is, what is smarter tech?

I second Ed's posts.

Out ...

no seriously, as cool as David Suzuki is, I think he has finally managed to alienate anyone who isn't an Adbusters subscriber by now.

Destroy all hippies.

by this generalization i was refering to tech that have been modified to be eco-friendly; everything from industrial infrastructures to everyday products people are buying. eventually this "smart tech" will get even smarter thanks to ubiquitous computing.

this is a disingenious thing to say. If you really mean it, do you have an idea on how he could improve his game to positively contribute to society even more?

Destroy all hippies.

no need to feed the troll i know but... you can care about the quality of the air you are breathing without being a hippy.

i'm sorry for having called you a troll so promptly.

you can care about the quality of the air you are breathing without being a hippy.

have this point ever crossed you mind?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1109/p01s03-sten.html

Greenpeace : Future Technologies, Today’s Choices: Nanotechnology, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. .
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/5886.pdf

technogaianism
http://www.betterhumans.com/Errors/index.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/Technogaianism.Article.2002-07-16-1.aspx

I bet A true cynic would fight conservatives and their conventional values because they will do their best to ban creative and democratic usage of these technologies that could be used to live according to life, toward complexity. A cynical anti-conventionalism in 2005 doesn't have to be anti-civilization, anti-technology, and believe in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

seems on a roll : "The Apollo Alliance vision gained momentum, as over 20,000 people joined the Apollo action network this year. The Alliance was able to reach more than 100,000 activists and encourage them to sign a petition to our elected leaders urging them to pursue an energy policy that requires governmental accountability and does not give breaks to special interests."

"Leapfrogging" is the notion that areas which have poorly-developed technology or economic bases can move themselves forward rapidly through the adoption of modern systems without going through intermediary steps."

then i drank beer and promptly forgot about it.

2. Introduce unleaded gasoline and catalytic converters to Europe

or...

2. Continue to blame carbon-neutral US

-- Curious George (1/6 Scale Model) (crumpw@bellsouth.net), April 5th, 2005 4:08 PM. (Rock Hardy) (link)

I really do think that may be the way to go, unless they figure out a cheap way to knock the hydrogen and oxygen apart in water.

Scientific and technological progresses made under that type of economy improves quality of life (a promising angle is Applying nanotechnology to the challenges of global poverty , the jackpot would be molecular assemblers) but not in an optimal way: monopolistic practices and overly restrictive intellectual property law can seriously delay the development of emancipatory technologies, and restrict their access.

I think there is a way to get there while living right now as freely as possible, in a manner that is sustainable, both ecologically and socially. Progress with equity, solidarity, diversity.