Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 87 of total 87 in this topic |
Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 6, 2005 - 12:38am PT
|
A comment made by the Fet on the ‘Aliens’ thread got me thinking…
What is an “environmentalist”?
Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?
If yes, why, and for what reasons?
If no, why, and for what reasons?
Do you agree with the following definitions of environmentalism and environment?
From Merriam-Webster Online:
http://www.m-w.com/
Main Entry: en·vi·ron·men·tal·ism
Pronunciation: -"vI-r&(n)-'men-t&l-"i-z&m, -"vI(-&)r(n)-
Function: noun
1 : a theory that views environment rather than heredity as the important factor in the development and especially the cultural and intellectual development of an individual or group
2 : advocacy of the preservation or improvement of the natural environment; especially : the movement to control pollution
Main Entry: en·vi·ron·ment
Pronunciation: in-'vI-r&(n)-m&nt, -'vI(-&)r(n)-
Function: noun
1 : the circumstances, objects, or conditions by which one is surrounded
2 a : the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors (as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival b : the aggregate of social and cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or community
3 : the position or characteristic position of a linguistic element in a sequence
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
The material environment, in which we are now living, is called maya, or illusion. Maya means "that which is not". And what is this illusion?
The illusion is that we are all trying to be lords of material nature, while actually we are under the grip of her stringent laws. When a servant artificially tries to imitate the all-powerful master, this is called illusion. In this polluted concept of life, we are all trying to exploit the resources of material nature, but actually we are becoming more and more entangled in her complexities.
Therefore, although we are engaged in a hard struggle to conquer nature, we are ever more dependent on her.
|
|
k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
|
|
OK, that's heavy.
But I still want to go climbing.
|
|
Hootervillian
climber
Lickskillet, AL
|
|
It's not that it's 'heavy' just a bit bulky.
Supernatural naturalism comes with a certain metaphysical baggage, allowing itself to be bogged down with anthropomorphism (he/she)and in the end fails for many of the same reasons as a 'creationist' mentality: hubris and a tragically reductionist mindset.
Although both supernatural and methodological naturalism are based in the principles of science, methodoligical naturalism is constrained by that which can be observed. Providing a 'supernatural' clause only opens the door for anything that may seem logical for beings with a very limited spatial and temporal context. Applying any more than can be observed tends to slide into a religious or supernatural mindset, perhaps providing 'personal fulfillment' yet not offering much towards understanding.
Science is a thought process, the supernatural a belief system, let's be careful not to confuse the two.
Edit. Visualize me 'throwing Tsampa in the air'.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
There are all kinds of shades of "Envinronmentalist" just like shades of "Liberal" "Conservative" "Religious" and "Whatnot"
But their is an obvious question of low long we can spoil the cage before we can't live in it anymore. There is a question of how much death and poisoning we can live with as a consequence of our actions in order to enjoy our lifestyle.
An environmentalist is someone who is concerned with those questions rather than just living blindly while letting the kids, and the neighbors, suffer the results when they come. Naturally, there are differences of opinions regarding how we weight the balance of our actions towards sustainability versus profit.
Peace
Karl
|
|
Hootervillian
climber
Bolivia, NV
|
|
One can only attempt to realize symbiosis by understanding; political labels and beliefs exist outside this framework, creating quite an inertia for the application of any such understanding achieved.
Clearly, in a dynamic system, preservation of a 'green' condition suitable for human habitation is a direct contradiction. However, the extent that we may enable ourselves this pleasure, is also, in a limited temporal sense, somewhat up to us.
Having an equal stake in this journey would seem to entice a more positive, self-deterministic outlook. We do not need anything to take the credit for this ineffable system, nor do we need anything to take the blame.
Me?, I'd like to hang around a while.
|
|
the Fet
Trad climber
Loomis, CA
|
|
Ok, here's a big dissertation, but you asked for it...
Like so many terms everyone probably has a different idea of what it actually means.
I'm an enviromentalist as it applies to #2.
2 : advocacy of the preservation or improvement of the natural environment; especially : the movement to control pollution
However I believe in conservation, not preservation and it's not just the natural environment. I studied Environmental Sciences and my wife is an Environmental Consultant so I'm pretty well versed in it.
As far as conservation over preservation; what good is nature if we can't enjoy it (anthropocentrically speaking). My personal philosophy is to do what is easy to reduce my impact. And IT IS easy to reduce your impact greatly. e.g. I throw my recycling in blue plastic bags instead of in the trash and reduce my trash by 50 to 75%. But if I'm somewhere and there's no recycling I'll toss a can in the trash instead of carrying it all the way home. Instead of a full size SUV, get a small SUV (if you really need an SUV, which a lot of climbers really do) I ride a two stroke too, but I damn well make sure I don't spill any gas when filling it, ride in appropriate areas, and I don't harass wildlife like some jackass. Some people aren't willing to do anything at all to reduce their impacts (litterers, people who crap on bivy ledges, giant SUVs that never go off road, etc.) and I can't believe people can be so selfish or ignorant.
As far as the 'natural enviroment' thing. Environmental Impact Reports used to be (1970s) more geared towards all impacts (e.g. jobs created, housing lost) but it seems to be drifting towards natural impacts only, not sure why.
One of the main reasons I'm an Environmentalist is common goods, like air and water quality. If a power plant owner can make an extra million dollars by not installing pollution control equipment what do you think he will do? It's up to the govt. to protect the common goods because otherwise the polluters have no incentive to do so. And in purely economic terms for society as a whole protecting the environment can be very beneficial. That power plant owner might make an extra million, but the health costs for people exposed to the extra pollution (cancer, etc.) might run into hundreds of millions. This is a very real situation.
As an independent moderate (in my own eyes anyway) I know where republicans get their money and who they fight for (generalizing here of course, Arnold seems to respect the environment I hope). And the actions of the Bush admin show just how far people who care more about money than anything else are willing to go at the expense of all of our environment.
The right wingers have done a great job at making it seem like protecting the environment is for the benefit of animals at the expense of humans. e.g. the spotted owl thing is a great example. Endangered species are like the canary in a coal mine, if a species is dying off it's an indicator the whole ecosystem is in trouble. The ecosystem crashes and the resulting landscape can take thousands of years to recover and is susceptable to all kinds of problems like beetle infestation, like when they burn the rainforests and they never return. Northwest Cali is down to like 5% of old growth remaining and the owls, etc. need old growth. But the logging companies want to log that remaining 5% because it's the most profitable and they make everyone think if they can't it will cost jobs, when in reality they were already shipping the mill jobs overseas and accelerating their cutting on replanted lands to unsustainable levels.
But Dingus is right, the Environmentalists come off as dirty hippies and can't articulate why it's important to protect these remaining old growth forests, etc. It seems the same with a lot of political discussions. The most visible people opposing Bush for starting an uneeded, unjustified war are far left kooks like Al Sharpton et al, advocating an immediate withdrawl from the mess we've created over there which of course will lead to an even greater mess.
The truth is one of the species who will get the most benefit from protecting the environment is humans (if we kill ourselves off the Earth will still be here). We should take the easy steps to reduce our impact (anyone who tells you these easy steps will cost economic productivity is just protecting their own interests; alternative energy/greater fuel efficiency is going to economically benefit someone, just not them) Most people who understand science agree that global warming, pollution, etc. from humans are a threat to our health, and extrapolating it out many years a threat to the capacity of the planet to sustain humans. Right now pollution is causing health problems. In 100 years global warming will cause expensive problems for our grandchildren (protecting lowlands from rising oceans, etc., actually that's happening now but it'll get far worse) and back to the Aliens thread: in thousands or millions or years what kind of planet will we have left for our posterity? What lengths will they have to go to to survive because we weren't willing to reduce our impacts enough?
Maybe what we do won't make that much of a difference, but I for one am willing to take those easy steps to reduce my impacts and leave as much limited resources available and as little pollution as possible for future generations without too greatly impacting my own life.
With that said, anyone who is opposed to uneeded bolts is an environmentalist! Hah!
Edit: as I was writing that, Karl summed it up in much fewer words in his post, good work!
|
|
Ouch!
climber
|
|
As usual, Karl makes good sense.
|
|
landcruiserbob
Trad climber
the ville, colorado
|
|
Good post's Werner & DMT.As a species it's a bit arrogant for us to think we truly can change much in Earth time(6 billion years).If everybody was an enviromentalist it would ony get us an additional 10,000 years or so.Not much in the large scope of things.Once we reach our carrying capacity a plague will break out & put us back to the stone age at best.I'm into the enviroment for selfish reasons. I also beleive that an old growth tree is really young hence you can log them in the proper manner.rg
|
|
Don't let go
Trad climber
Yorba Linda, CA
|
|
If you drive a car, make a fire, or even digest food, you are ultimately a part of global warming. We will die sooner with bite of food that you consume. Therefore I say that no one is an enviromentalist, even those of you that only eat fruit that has naturally fallen from a tree.
|
|
Todd Gordon
Trad climber
Joshua Tree, Cal
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2007 - 02:34pm PT
|
Here is an Environmentalist.
|
|
marky
climber
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2007 - 03:23pm PT
|
an environmentalist is a certain species at the high end of the consumptive class
|
|
Hootervillian
climber
the Hooterville World-Guardian
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2007 - 07:00pm PT
|
i remember when i got my first chainsaw.....
|
|
DonC
climber
CA
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2007 - 07:37pm PT
|
Saw a guy in Alaska wearing a t-shirt that said "The only good tree is a stump, F*ck the Sierra Club"
|
|
My Name Is Drew
Big Wall climber
Dogtown, LosAngeles, CA.
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2007 - 09:19pm PT
|
AC.....
(Bobcat Goldthwait responding to a heckler)
"God had the blueprints for you and he was like
'What do you think about the brain?
Brain? No brain? No brain? no brain.
there ya go, good luck'.
The birth of another Republican!"
An "enviromentalist" is someone who cares about a bit more than their petty, infinitesimally small, short existence on this planet.
You know.
Not preoccupied exclusively with "their stomachs and sex" (Frank Zappa).
Really sweet photo; chainsaws are all well and good if a career in juggling is what you're hoping for.
Now flamethrowers.....
you wanna talk juggling!
|
|
Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2007 - 10:00pm PT
|
An Environmentalist: Belief System:
First and formost, respect for Mother Earth.
Clean water to drink.
Clean Rivers for sustainable fishing.
Selective logging for sustainable forests.
Clean Air humans and animals can breath without worry.
A healthy ecosystem with all systems in balance.
Sustainable fishing for a healthy ocean.
An environmentalist begins making a difference at home and votes for the choice of a healthy planet.
Not too difficult, pretty basic when you think about it.
|
|
maldaly
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
|
|
|
Jul 29, 2007 - 10:02pm PT
|
As usual Karl Baba is well stated and right on. Under those terms I'm an environmentalist and proud of it. Am I pure? Hell no, but I try to lead a concious life and act deliberately in ways that minimize my impact on this earth that my kids will have to live in. Thanks Karl.
Gorge Monbiot is one of the most savvy writers I read regularly. He cuts through the normal BS we progressives camoflauge ourselves in. He's the avatar that keeps me honest. For quite a while I've been pretty uncomfortable with the concept of buying carbon offsets and the psuedo wind power purchases that are offered all over the place. Here's what he wrote about it a few days ago. You can also read it on line here: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/07/24/eco-junk/
Eco-Junk
Posted July 24, 2007
Green consumerism will not save the biosphere
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 24th July 2007
It wasn’t meant to happen like this. The climate scientists told us that our winters would become wetter and our summers drier. So I can’t claim that these floods were caused by climate change, or are even consistent with the models. But, like the ghost of Christmas yet to come, they offer us a glimpse of the possible winter world we’ll inhabit if we don’t sort ourselves out.
With rising sea levels and more winter rain (and remember that when the trees are dormant and the soils saturated there are fewer places for the rain to go) all it will take is a freshwater flood to coincide with a high spring tide and we have a formula for full-blown disaster. We have now seen how localised floods can wipe out essential services and overwhelm emergency workers. But this month’s events don’t even register beside some of the predictions now circulating in learned journals(1). Our primary political struggle must be to prevent the break-up of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. The only question now worth asking about climate change is how.
Dozens of new books appear to provide an answer: we can save the world by embracing “better, greener lifestyles”. Last week, for example, the Guardian published an extract of the new book by Sheherazade Goldsmith, who is married to the very rich environmentalist Zac, in which she teaches us “to live within nature’s limits”(2). It’s easy: just make your own bread, butter, cheese, jam, chutneys and pickles, keep a milking cow, a few pigs, goats, geese, ducks, chickens, beehives, gardens and orchards. Well, what are you waiting for?
Her book also contains plenty of useful advice, and she comes across as modest, sincere and well-informed. But of lobbying for political change, there is not a word: you can save the planet in your own kitchen – if you have endless time and plenty of land. When I was reading it on the train, another passenger asked me if he could take a look. He flicked through it for a moment then summed up the problem in seven words. “This is for people who don’t work.”
None of this would matter, if the Guardian hadn’t put her photo on the masthead last week, with the promise that she could teach us to go green. The media’s obsession with beauty, wealth and fame blights every issue it touches, but none more so than green politics. There is an inherent conflict between the aspirational lifestyle journalism which makes readers feel better about themselves and sells country kitchens and the central demand of environmentalism: that we should consume less. “None of these changes represents a sacrifice”, Sheherazade tells us. “Being more conscientious isn’t about giving up things.” But it is: if, like her, you own more than one home when others have none.
Uncomfortable as this is for both the media and its advertisers, giving things up is an essential component of going green. A section on ethical shopping in Goldsmith’s book advises us to buy organic, buy seasonal, buy local, buy sustainable, buy recycled. But it says nothing about buying less.
Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet. If it merely swapped the damaging goods we buy for less damaging ones, I would champion it. But two parallel markets are developing: one for unethical products and one for ethical products, and the expansion of the second does little to hinder the growth of the first. I am now drowning in a tide of ecojunk. Over the past six months, our coatpegs have become clogged with organic cotton bags, which – filled with packets of ginseng tea and jojoba oil bath salts – are now the obligatory gift at every environmental event. I have several lifetimes’ supply of ballpoint pens made with recycled paper and about half a dozen miniature solar chargers for gadgets I don’t possess.
Last week the Telegraph told its readers not to abandon the fight to save the planet. “There is still hope, and the middle classes, with their composters and eco-gadgets, will be leading the way.”(3) It made some helpful suggestions, such as a “hydrogen-powered model racing car”, which, for £74.99, comes with a solar panel, an electrolyser and a fuel cell(4). God knows what rare metals and energy-intensive processes were used to manufacture it. In the name of environmental consciousness, we have simply created new opportunities for surplus capital.
Ethical shopping is in danger of becoming another signifier of social status. I have met people who have bought solar panels and mini-wind turbines before they have insulated their lofts: partly because they love gadgets, but partly, I suspect, because everyone can then see how conscientious (and how rich) they are. We are often told that buying such products encourages us to think more widely about environmental challenges, but it is just as likely to be depoliticising. Green consumerism is another form of atomisation – a substitute for collective action. No political challenge can be met by shopping.
The middle classes rebrand their lives, congratulate themselves on going green, and carry on buying and flying as much as ever before. It is easy to picture a situation in which the whole world religiously buys green products, and its carbon emissions continue to soar.
It is true, as the green consumerists argue, that most people find aspirational green living more attractive than dour puritanism. But it can also be alienating. I have met plenty of farm labourers and tenants who are desperate to start a small farm of their own, but have been excluded by what they call “horsiculture”: small parcels of agricultural land being bought up for pony paddocks and hobby farms. In places like Surrey and the New Forest, farmland is now fetching up to £30,000 an acre as city bonuses are used to buy organic lifestyles(5). When the new owners dress up as milkmaids then tell the excluded how to make butter, they run the risk of turning environmentalism into the whim of the elite.
Challenge the new green consumerism and you become a prig and a party pooper, the spectre at the feast, the ghost of Christmas yet to come. Against the shiny new world of organic aspirations you are forced to raise drab and boringly equitable restraints: carbon rationing, contraction and convergence, tougher building regulations, coach lanes on motorways. No colour supplement will carry an article about that. No rock star could live comfortably within his carbon ration.
But such measures, and the long hard political battle required to bring them about, are, unfortunately, required to prevent the catastrophe these floods predict, rather than merely to play at being green. Only when they have been applied does green consumerism become a substitute for current spending rather than a supplement to it. They are harder to sell, not least because they cannot be bought from mail order catalogues. Hard political choices will have to be made, and the economic elite and its spending habits must be challenged, rather than groomed and flattered. The multi-millionaires who have embraced the green agenda might suddenly discover another urgent cause.
George Monbiot has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex and an honorary fellowship by Cardiff University.
http://www.monbiot.com
References:
1. Eg James Hansen et al, 2007. Climate Change and Trace Gases. Philiosophical Transactions of the Royal Society – A. Vol 365, pp 1925-1954. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2007.2052. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/2007_Hansen_etal_2.pdf
2. Sheherazade Goldsmith (Editor in chief), 2007. A Slice of Organic Life. Dorling Kindersley, London.
3. Sarah Lonsdale, 19th July 2007. Take the online test to find out your footprint. Daily Telegraph.
4. See http://shop.tangogroup.net/PDF/H-Racer%20002.pdf
5. See http://www.lawsonfairbank.co.uk/pony-paddocks.asp
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 12:20am PT
|
Thanks Malcolm, I read George myself and conincidentally had just read the eco-junk article.
Sadly, the question I often ask myself is how much to consider the selfish and limited aspects of human nature when reckoning how much environmentalism is likely to prevail in the world before the inevitable crisis happens. I figure we won't do enough about global warming until the gulf stream shuts down and freezes the crap out of England, but I'd like to be wrong. I can't believe they are rebuilding New Orleans right where it is.
When oil becomes depleted and gas is $10-$15 a gallon, we WILL drill the arctic. Few will care how much damage is done up there. Makes me wonder whether we should negotiate for the arctic to be drilled sooner with great sensitivity while we still have bargaining power. Sadly, I also think we ought to hold on to our oil reserves until we really, really need them so it's a catch 22
Peace
Karl
|
|
nick d
Trad climber
nm
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 12:42am PT
|
Mal and Karl, I cannot get into the idea that people the world over will ever be happy accepting a lower standard of living. The real answer is a greatly reduced population. I know that for myself I require many things that are the end result of huge industrial enterprises. I take great pride in the fact that I refrain from driving much. I put gas in my truck two weeks ago and today it showed 96 miles on the trip odometer. I accomplish this by walking and bicycling a lot. I am not oblivious to the industry required to produce my tennis shoes and bicycle tires, which I consume in fairly large quantities. My two bicycles were made in the 80s, so I am getting my moneys worth out of them, but I would like new ones sometime. The mining, the chemical plants, the refineries that these kind of objects entail is staggering. Can I give them up? Probably not. No more than those in the 3rd world (that would be rural NM!) can reasonably be asked to give up things like refridgeration, or phones, etc... The only way everyone can be happy is if we all share a reasonable standard of living, and that can only be accomplished by having a much smaller world population. I don't know how this can be accomplished, but it must be our shared goal if our world is to survive in a fashion still suitable for habitation by us.
Michael
|
|
marky
climber
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 12:42am PT
|
the platitudes about oil and politics, oil and economics, oil and ecology -- e.g., no blood for oil, no drilling in ANWR, etc. -- are pretty tired. And the latest fashion of talking about "peak oil" overlooks the technological advances being made. It's an axiom of economic theory that as good X becomes more expensive, consumers turn to good Y (or producers begin doing R&D for Y if it doesn't exist).
There was a pretty famous bet made by an economist and an ecologist in 1980, that roughly paraphrased goes like this: The ecologist was asked to build a portfolio of metals that were thought to be scare and soon depleted (copper or silver, say). If the portfolio was more expensive in 1990 (or whatever), the economist would lose and would buy the portfolio and thus incur a financial loss. If the economist won, he would be paid off somehow (forget the details).
Well, wouldn't you know it, the economist won the bet. Why? Because as the portfolio commodities became more expensive, substitutes for those commodities were discovered (driven by profit-seeking firms). As those cheaper commodities appeared in the marketplace, the "scarce" commodities became correspondingly cheaper. Cheaper, in fact, than their price in 1980.
The same thing is happening with oil.
I consider myself "environmentally conscious." I welcome higher oil prices; higher prices are the impetus toward technological development, development that will culminate in cheaper/less environmentally damaging sources of energy. I'll go so far to say that a gallon of gas, controlled for inflation, will cost *less* in 2057 than in 2007.
Anyone care to place a friendly bet? [A soon-to-be moot bet, I know, as most of you dudes will be dead within the decade if not this year]
|
|
WandaFuca
Gym climber
San Fernando Lamas
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 12:51am PT
|
Love it or leave it.
|
|
MikeL
climber
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 01:19am PT
|
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=79639&msg=79753#msg79753
partial excerpt:
". . . there are two classical and competing views about man’s relation to nature, both founded on distinctions about nature and society. In the first classical approach to the subject, nature is the raw material of man’s freedom that gave rise to harsh times and necessity. In a second classical approach, man is the polluter of nature. Nature in both cases is nature without man, and untouched by man: mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers."
"The U.S. is a great stage for the confrontation for these two philosophical approaches. The two present a classical confrontation between a comfortable, calculating, progressive approach to nature fundamentally grounded in rational self-interest, against that of a more feeling-oriented, primitive expression of man and nature that is somehow distant, attractive, and romantic—-a longing for a state of nature unsullied by society’s impossible demands, where true happiness has been replaced by the pursuit of safety and comfort of modern civilization. . . . . [O]n the one hand, you have the farmer who never looked at America’s trees, fields, and streams with a romantic eye. The trees are to be felled, to make clearings, build houses, and heat them; the fields are to be tilled to produce more food, or as sources of power. Then on the other hand there is the Sierra Club, which is dedicated to preventing such violations of nature from going any further, and certainly seems to regret what was already done."
"Perhaps more interesting is the coexistence of these opposing sentiments in the most advanced political minds today that leads to our political confusion. Nature is raw material, worthless without the mixture of human labor; yet nature is also the highest and most sacred thing of all. The same people who struggle to save the snail-darter bless the pill, worry about hunting deer and defend abortion. In some people’s view (like mine), it is a reverence for nature or a reverence for mastery of nature—but whichever is most convenient for us."
|
|
paganmonkeyboy
Trad climber
the blighted lands of hatu
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 01:50am PT
|
i just want to leave it better than i found it.
the last time i went in to the woods for a week alone, no trail, i still carried out 7 lbs of garbage i came across (who the f*#k brings a 5 lb glass jar of mayonnaise into the woods ??? those had better be the best damn sammiches *ever*...)
i don't have any kids, but many people do. i want them to have it as good or better than i found it. preferably *better*, but it's not looking as good as it could...
|
|
Mtnmun
Trad climber
Top of the Mountain Mun
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 02:00am PT
|
Man has already mined all the materials needed to sustain industry on this planet for eternity. All we have to do is mine our dumps and recycle.
|
|
Dropline
Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 10:59am PT
|
Definition of a modern environmentalist...
"Someone who thinks someone else should change the way they live."
|
|
happiegrrrl
Trad climber
New York, NY
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 11:51am PT
|
There's a guy who sets out used books and magazines on the Upper West Side. Take as you please. I often take a book or two when they're out and when I'm finished, put it in a spot where it's likely to be picked up by another reader interested in the subject. I've gotten some great reads with topics I'd never have sought on my own, and appreciate this street library.
Anyway.... Last time out, there were five editions of "Orion" magazine." I had never heard of the title, but one had a drawing of a bearded man, with the headline "Edward Abbey: The Unpublished Letters."(July/August 2006)
This inrigued me, since I had gotten the smallest introduction to Abbey here on ST(in a thread where Piton Ron mentioned a film being made of his "The MonkeyWrench Gang." I picked up the magazine and purused it, quickly discerning that I'd be interetsed in what this publication had to say....I scooped up the others, with a promise to myslef to pass them along as I finished with them.
I am finding the stories and information so interesting and educational that I will be sending in a donation/subscription to Orion (Orion.org).
The magazines say that "Orion explores an emerging alternative worldview. Informed by a growing ecological awareness and the need for cultural change, it is a forum for thoughtful and creative ideas and practical examples of how we might live justly, wisely and artfully on earth."
One story detailed about a new group of environmentalists who are working to safeguard cattle-grazing in the southwest because the impact to open space outweights what would occur if the ranch industry fails(development into residential areas and such).
Another story(May/June 2007) talks about plastics, and how as of the present, every bit of plastic that has ever been created is still here in our world. The degradation rate is that slow. Goes on to mention how, even as the plastics break down, the molecules remain, and as trash washes into the sea...the small bits are "bite-sized" for the smallest seas creatures. Talks about these eddy-type areas of the ocean the size of Africa, that are repositories of trash. Goes on to have one guy who says something akin to "In the long run.....organisms wil evolve that will eat these molecules."
Very interesting stories, nice artist profiles and highlights of their work. Lots to think about.
|
|
bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 11:53am PT
|
DMT wrote; "I'm not an Environmentalist and don't associate with that 'movement' much. I consider myself a conservationist."
That's pretty much where I stand as well. The difference between the two is that a conservationist understands the need to co-habitate with the natural world in harmony. An environmentalist puts the natural world above the existence of humans...and they always try and tell you how to live your life.
|
|
the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 12:17pm PT
|
"An environmentalist puts the natural world above the existence of humans...and they always try and tell you how to live your life. "
At least that's what the right-wingers would like you to believe. LOL! When the opposition is crazy dirty hippies you don't have to listen to them... I'd guess far less than 1 percent of people who considers themselves an environmentalist is like that.
I recently saw An Inconvenient Truth, pretty late to the party for an environ-mental-ist like me. The best part was the end. After all the doom and gloom, he showed some graphs demonstrating if we used new technologies, and reduced our impacts (driving smaller cars etc.) we could easily reduce our emissions enough to stop contributing to global warming.
CFCs are a great example. When they were banned, selfish people were crying "it will cost too much, developing nations will still use them, refridgerators will cost twice as much". Guess what, an alternative was soon developed, costs didn't go up, and we've reversed the holes in the ozone layer and probably saved many people from cancer, etc.
|
|
bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 12:21pm PT
|
Explain Fet, what's the differnece between conservationaist and environmentalist in your opinion?
|
|
the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 12:22pm PT
|
Pretty much the same thing IMO.
A "preservationist" however is more like enviro-nazi IMO.
|
|
dirtbag
climber
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 12:37pm PT
|
the Fet describes how I feel.
I've worked for various universities and public agencies most of my life on various environmental issues, mostly dealing with wildlife conservation. The loss of biodiversity the world is currently experiencing is enormous and underreported in the popular press. We are only beginning to understand the implications of this loss.
|
|
fowweezer
Trad climber
Pleasant Grove, UT
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 12:52pm PT
|
I am definitely a conservationist, and try to minimize my impact both in the wilderness and at home. I don't always do the best job, but am doing better.
What really gets me is when the damn Sierra Club and National Parks Conservation Association send me so much paper product. I donated $20 to NPCA a year ago. I recieved a blanket, a calendar, and at least 3 big business size envelopes (you know, the document sized ones) full of papers and a cute picture of a bear.
I mean, I use the blanket, but I don't need a calendar. And I'm not reading your f*#king newsletter. Stop cutting down trees and spending my $20 to try to milk me for more.
F*#k....
|
|
Dropline
Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 01:08pm PT
|
Dirt, Fet, and others, I agree. The impact of humans on other species on the planet is enormous, and these impacts are also adversly affecting entire systems. There are simply too many of us on the planet. This bounty of people has been created by simultaneous advances in medicine and agriculture over the last century.
What I find interesting is that people recognzie the problem but think they, somehow, are not part of it. Some here identify themselves as climbers and environmentalists and they post about how the world has to change. But most of them drive and fly to climb, often around some pretty geographically diverse parts of the USA, and sometimes around the world. So too they post here on The Taco but there isn't anything environmentally friendly about computers.
I'm not saying these are bad people, just that hypocrisy is the 800 lb gorilla in the china shop of environmentalism. George Monbiot's Eco-Junk essay above posted by Maldaly ends the hypocrisy but replaces it with something perhaps worse, that being eco-socialism.
The spectre on the horizon, or perhaps just over the hill, is of centrailized governments dictating the most fundamental aspects of how we live in order to protect "nature".
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 01:17pm PT
|
Nick D wrote
"The mining, the chemical plants, the refineries that these kind of objects entail is staggering. Can I give them up? Probably not. No more than those in the 3rd world (that would be rural NM!) can reasonably be asked to give up things like refridgeration, or phones, etc... "
It may be true the folks will not willing give up their luxuries. That's probably human nature. Would you kill for them? Or have our brave heros in the military kill so you can have your luxuries? That's what it can come down to.
I do disagree wh"The only way everyone can be happy is if we all share a reasonable standard of living," if you mean a standard of living considerably higher than much of the world has. I know that's not true because I've seen many, many people just as happy with much less.
But it won't be a matter of you giving up those things, they'll be giving YOU up. (or more likely, they'll be giving your kids up.
As for population control. It would be the greatest step to easing our problems, but, as China knows, the devil is in the details. It's enough to make a guy suspicious when one of these new viruses starts moving around the world. It's getting easier and easier to design them these days. Not hard to fear that some neocon thinkers from somewhere might decide to ease this population problem with their own methods one day.
Peace
Karl
|
|
marky
climber
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 01:32pm PT
|
on population control -- implement a "progressive" tax for having a child, or at the very least get rid of deductions (which aren't deductions at all, but pass the cost of bringing a child into the world on society at large); also make the family tax an increasing function of number of kids (e.g., tax, say $1,000 for the first kid, $3,000 for the second kid, $7,000 for the third...)
and of course, subsidize the f*#k out of family planning programs
I'll say it: in 2007, having a child is pretty selfish/narcissistic/wasteful.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 01:37pm PT
|
Marky wrote:
"the platitudes about oil and politics, oil and economics, oil and ecology -- e.g., no blood for oil, no drilling in ANWR, etc. -- are pretty tired. And the latest fashion of talking about "peak oil" overlooks the technological advances being made. It's an axiom of economic theory that as good X becomes more expensive, consumers turn to good Y (or producers begin doing R&D for Y if it doesn't exist). "
They're platitudes because you call them so and tired for the same reason. What technological advances are you talkng about? The modern car gets about the same gas mileage as the Model T.
Economic theory is bullshit regarding oil because it's a very unique resource that took millions of years to build up. No amount of money increases the amount left in the ground, which is finite, and so, will absolutely reach a point someday where it's no longer economically (or energetically) feasible to extract. The problem is oil is scale. The world burns 120 million barrels a day of it. Figure out how much ethanol, coal gassification and whatnot it takes to replace that.
It's a little like air. No amount of money can allow us to live without air.
It's a little like cancer. Sure we can throw money at the problem and treatments get better with time, but once you have cancer, you could be Bill Gates and not buy your way out of it.
And so with oil, by the time oil is scarce enough to cost a bundle and spur all this technology, we won't have enough time to fix the problem nor enough oil to supply the energy to make the transition.
In 100 years, we've burned up half the oil known to exist, and at the current rate there's 40 years left. Naturally the cheap and easy oil is pumped first. Perhaps more oil will be discovered but don't bank on too much because the oil companies haven't had more than one or two really big finds in decades and are spending less on exploration cause it's a diminishing return already. On the other hand, with China and India coming online, demand is increasing a lot.
As for commodities, it's worth noting that the high price of commodities like copper has skyrocketed the prices of building new power plants. Why aren't they just using the alternatives?
Oil, it's going to be a major factor in environmental struggle in this century. The pressure to burn coal freely will be GREAT. Better press for the cleanest possible coal technology now while we have bargaining power
Here's one of my favorite rundowns of the issue
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
Peace
karl
|
|
dirtbag
climber
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 01:51pm PT
|
One of the major problems is how the water is allocated. In California, too much water is used to irrigate farmlands in deserts or semi-deserts. The soils may be great, but there it is a poor use of resources to, say, grow lettuce in the Imperial Valley. There is a Jeffersonian notion prevalent in American thinking that farming is one of the purest lifestyles. Give a man land, which we used to have a lot of after we killed off the Indians, and a plow, and he'll make a good honest living.
Well, that way of thinking may be fine east of the 100th Meridian where water is plentiful and unirrigated farms are possible, but it has had some disastrously wasteful consequences in the West. Much of our water supply has gone to feed this delusional notion.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 01:52pm PT
|
Good point about Water Dingus. That's the real bottom line. We can live without oil at a lesser standard but it will always come down to water.
Now the question for California is who and what uses what percentage of water and what water use is essential and what water use can be reduced or given up?
Ag is probably the biggest user by far as dirtbag pointed out.
I can't believe places like LA and Las Vegas have little or no checks on growth but not viable ways to service that growth.
This coming up against our limits is a new thing in America. The word "sustainable" is just a silly buzzword talking about something in the future until the future inexorably arrives. Then it's a serious concept.
Peace
karl
|
|
marky
climber
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 02:11pm PT
|
"Economic theory is bullshit regarding oil because it's a very unique resource that took millions of years to build up. No amount of money increases the amount left in the ground, which is finite, and so, will absolutely reach a point someday where it's no longer economically (or energetically) feasible to extract."
This statement badly misses the mark. Copper too is a finite resource, yet its price has gone down significantly over the past quarter-century. Has the supply curve shifted upward? No, of course not. So the only explanation is that demand dropped -- due to the increased availability of substitutes.
There is no conceptual distinction between copper and oil. Scarcity is scarcity. In the short term, as prices go up, people will make millions of micro-level decisions to consume *less* oil. Undoubtedly that's happening now. At the margins, there is some consumer who would be willing to pay $2.99 for a gallon of gas but not $3.01; there is some other individual who would pay $17 for a gallon but not $300.
These demand-side decisions will spur production-side decisions to make better use of available resources (i.e., oil) or to forego their use altogether. There will be a substitute for oil. We may not in our lifetimes ever return to the freedom of being able to roam the country cheaply in SUVs, but I don't see that as a huge loss. The eventual "decline" of oil isn't necessarily apocalyptic -- very far from it.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 02:31pm PT
|
Al Gore III and Lindsay Lohan are environmentalists
The're gonna' carpool to rehab.
|
|
the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 02:31pm PT
|
I disagree with the view that driving to climbing, having kids, etc. is hypocritical if you are an environmentalist.
The Earth HAS the capacity to sustain x number of people consuming x amount of resources. We only recently passed a threshold where we are depleting certain resource faster than the Earth can deal with it. e.g. when we talk about reducing greenhouse gasses it isn't "let's eliminate all greenhouse gasses", it's "let's reduce levels to the level of 1990". We can easily reduce our impacts by 1/3 (recyle, drive a better mpg car, etc.) and the planet will be fine. Of course I'm greatly oversimplifying and we need zero population growth asap, but you don't have to choose between living your life and conserving the planet's resources.
Karl wrote "It's enough to make a guy suspicious when one of these new viruses starts moving around the world. It's getting easier and easier to design them these days. Not hard to fear that some neocon thinkers from somewhere might decide to ease this population problem with their own methods one day."
Except that it would neolibs! I was going to say that sounds like a great premise for a movie, but wasn't that already the premise of 12 monkeys? Good movie.
Yeah Marky, no additional benefits for children after 2, unless they are adopted.
|
|
Dropline
Mountain climber
Somewhere Up There
|
|
|
Jul 30, 2007 - 04:05pm PT
|
But Fet, even if those of us driving and flying to climb reduce our consumption by a third, by world standards we will still be gorging ourselves on carbon. As a greater portion of the world's population modernizes their carbon consumption patterns will become more like ours and the problem remains.
There just isn't any way you can drive a car, any car, and post on the internet and still call yourself an environmentalist, without a degree of self deception and consequent hypocrisy.
No offense intended.... just earnestly making my point.
|
|
MikeL
climber
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 12:32pm PT
|
Maybe I'm just in a pissy mood today . . . .
Bitch, bitch, bitch. To hear people talk about it, the world is about to flame out. Problems, problems, problems. How depressing.
In the 60s a group of scientists called the Club of Rome predicted that by now we'd be up to our armpits in mulch and worldwide wars because population would outstrip food production. Nada.
As a futurist in the 80s, our best predictions only had a 25% probability of being right. I remember seeing only one; it was wrong.
Remember systems theory? You know, the theory that says that everything is connected to everything else? "Fix" one thing, and something else unconsidered changes in ways unforseen.
Look at the big picture.
One: Impermanence rules. Get used to it. There is nothing anyone can do about that.
Two: Resource allocations are always contentious. Someone is bound to get hurt. (See #1)
Three: The earth getting "hurt" or "damaged" are anthropomorphisms.
Four: Want to make a contribution? Work on yourself.
Five: Everything is relative. Go lightly.
|
|
Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 03:50pm PT
|
Being an environmentalist to me is being a humanist. The earth is resilient and in the big picture will do fine. The question is, will our actions make life on earth for DMT's daughters kids, "life in hell"? Trying to understanding how nature works and working to redesign how we live in relation to it, is to work for better life quality for the future generations.
Peter
|
|
the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 03:52pm PT
|
Hey Dropline, good points.
But we don't need to eliminate our impacts entirely, we just need to reduce them to the point that the planet can handle it.
I guess what we could do is figure out what the carrying capacity of the Earth should be approximately, e.g. 6 Billion People (actually it is probably much lower). Then figure out how much emissions each person could contribute without causing global warming. e.g. 200,000 pounds per year (actually probaby much higher). Then limit your emissions to that point. However that would be for some future point in time, when everyone around the world could contribute the same as Americans do today. At this point in time we just need to reduce our impacts to the point where we won't cause additional global warming. So I'm back to the thinking if Americans reduced our emissions to say 1990 levels we'd be ok for now. As other countries develop and start consuming like Americans, we'll hopefully have increase efficiencies (electric cars, etc.) and we can further reduce our impacts at that point.
The bottom line to me is how do we reduce our impacts enough to keep the Earth's environment sustainable for our posterity. I don't think we need to eliminate all impacts for that to happen.
http://www.wikihow.com/Reduce-Your-Greenhouse-Gas-Emissions
en·vi·ron·men·tal·ism
2 : advocacy of the preservation or improvement of the natural environment; especially : the movement to control pollution
I guess it's in how you define preservation. But even a hunter gatherer isn't going to preserve the enviroment exactly how he found it. If you drive a prius 10 miles a year, can you still be an Environmentalist?
My personal philosophy is to do what I want to do (within reason) and make efforts to reduce my impacts as much as practicle. Because it all might not matter anyway. We could have a world war, an asteroid could wipe us out, who knows what the future holds. However I'm pretty sure that if everybody in the US and other developed nations put the same effort into reducing their impacts as I do we wouldn't have global warming (I say that because I see the idiots in big SUVs and trucks roar past me on their rush to the next stop light, my trash minus recycling is about 1/3 of my neighbors, I barely use HVAC in my house, etc.). Maybe in the future I'll have to reduce even more, but that's the future, can't worry about that too much.
|
|
hossjulia
Trad climber
Eastside
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 04:10pm PT
|
"Science is a thought process, the supernatural a belief system, let's be careful not to confuse the two."
You sure about that? Just what does "Super-natural" mean anyway?
I know plenty of people who have adopted science as their belief system, and others who use their thought processes to develop a personal belief system.
I'm a humanist. What is good for people, in the long term, is also good for the planet. What is good for people is not necessarily what they think is good for them either. Current society is a good case in point.
Most people would say they HAVE to have roof over their head and food on the table or they will die, or at the very least, get very sick and/or be socially unacceptable.
Not true, and why do they think this? Because that's the story we have been told. And why is that story told? To make money.
Capitalism is a dead end and is killing our planet.
But for those of you who think environmentalism will "save" the Earth, I say you are very cocky, the Earth has been around a lot longer then we have, and no doubt will be around long after Homo Sapiens has extinguished itself.
What we need to worry about saving is ourselves!
Edited to add: Maysho,I didn't read your post first, I think you said it better.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 04:13pm PT
|
"I don't know WHY we swallowed that fly Karl. But any 'solution' that excludes or overlooks the 7 plus billion Indian and Chinese is no solution at all. "
That's for sure. I think we should be spending every penny that being borrowed for the Iraq war on clean, renewable energy development from now until the coast is clear. Just like happened in Asia with cell phones, if better technology is available, the developing countries can jump into the new technology right away rather than build wasteful obsolete infrastruction.
The important thing I would note for those who dislike this kind of discussion is this. Don't get complacent and think it's all going to work out with we the people being seriously involved. In the course of history, most societies don't realize they are toast until it's far too late. This is particularly our fault in the US where we feel invincible and that we'll always be on top and that science will bail us out when we're in a pinch.
That's never been the case for any empire in history. This country is going down for sure unless we see change coming long enough in advance to do something about it.
As for your kids, even forgetting about Global Warming and Oil Depletion for a moment... Our government is living on totally borrowed money with no hope of ever balancing the budget in sight ever. We are producing less and less in this country with little change in that on the horizon. When does the bill come due? When will others stop loaning us money to finance our lifestyle when it's obvious that we're just printing oil sales backed money and we can never pay back our debt? There has to be end someday.
Seems to me that if we were in the "Clean energy manhatten project" business we would at least be having an economy at home that could take us somewhere. As it is, our economy totally depends on our making, exporting, and using weapon of death and destruction. I'm shamed by it. What makes us any better than gangsters?
What would happen to the US economy if peace broke out over the world. Would we try to prevent it?
We have to wake up. We're like teenagers that feel immortal and can't see where our actions are leading us
Peace
Karl
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 04:26pm PT
|
Fet, the carrying capacity of the earth if we didn't use fossil fuels is estimate to be between 2 and 3 billion folks. Sure we have fossil fuels (which also fuel global warming) which will still last us awhile but how long do we plan to be alive here (not only for your kids but when if there's reincarnation?)
It hardly matter what small acts we do personally (except for our own karma) when the world as a whole refuses to see and act on the future but insists on squandering our resources and money on war and killing. We should be fighting to save our future by using our remaining fossil fuels cleanly and in a way that invests in a long future. (ie Windmills, Solar Panels and tide farms use a lot of fossil fuels to develop)
Marky I'm in total disagreement with you. Tell me what could replace oil in our world and how it could be brought up to scale. Don't forget that we're not just talking about gas for cars. We eat oil.
My understanding is that copper is now at an all time high. Care to document that it's cheaper than decades ago?
Peace
Karl
|
|
the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 05:29pm PT
|
"carrying capacity of the earth if we didn't use fossil fuels is estimate to be between 2 and 3 billion folks"
Time to start developing that virus... A nice virus that only makes stupid people sterile.
"It hardly matter what small acts we do personally (except for our own karma) when the world as a whole refuses to see"
That's true but we can start to make a difference. Look at how much change Al Gore has helped bring about.
For me it's like trash in natural areas. I would never dream of leaving trash behind. When I'm out hiking and I see garbage I'm always tempted to clean it up, but it's often not practicle. So I make sure to clean up after myself, and if I have room in my pack I'll pack out some other people's trash too. But I can't worry about all the trash, or I'd spend my life picking up after other people.
|
|
atchafalaya
climber
California
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 06:53pm PT
|
"We stand for what we stand on." B. Abzug
|
|
hossjulia
Trad climber
Eastside
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 08:20pm PT
|
great quote. If you can name the book, then you qualify.
|
|
MikeL
climber
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 08:59pm PT
|
"It hardly matter what small acts we do personally (except for our own karma) . . . ."
Karl, my friend, I can't believe you actually said that!
It's all karma, and it's all personal. I'm sorry to grandly disagree, but there's nothing else, nothing else at all. I know you and others sometimes see a roiling sea of puppets with a few string-pullers in the background, but it's all up to you, the others reading this, and me. Be that person you want everyone else to be. It's a handful and a lifetime's project.
In Tibetan Buddhism, we do a lot of imagination in meditation under the belief that if we were to completely imagine ourselves to be a Buddha, we would be so, period. Everything is your mind.
Peace back at ya.
|
|
nick d
Trad climber
nm
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 09:02pm PT
|
Karl wrote in quoting me, "I do disagree wh"The only way everyone can be happy is if we all share a reasonable standard of living," if you mean a standard of living considerably higher than much of the world has. I know that's not true because I've seen many, many people just as happy with much less."
Karl, I am not saying this in a mean way, so please do not take it as such, but you saw the people you are talking about while you were jet setting around the world recreating, correct? People who live in primitive conditions everywhere want better. Remember the cargo cults in the South Pacific? My dad saw those guys first hand in WWII. Maybe their wants are pretty simple, but the more they know about the world usually the more they want. Maybe all they want are a few steel tools. What I was saying is I have a clear realization of the huge infrastructure behind that simple steel implement. You try to make me out to be a hypocrite for saying I want to have a nice bicycle and acknowledging the infrastructure that requires. I'll answer that with this declaration, imagine how much better off our country and planet would be if we could pry everbody out of their auto's and get em on a bicycle. I personally challenge everyone reading to do this, if you can do something without driving, do so. Driving is the worst thing we all do to our environment. I have a vehicle and I drive it when necessary. For me, that is usually once a week, sometimes less, sometimes more. Last year I drove less than 5000 miles. Admittedly I did not drive to the mountains as much as I might have to climb or ski, but I was happy with what I did. Maybe you can't be happy without a lifestyle that requires driving hundreds of miles a week, if that is so, probably you should not be passing judgement on people who live without electricity, refrigeration, phone service, etc... Think about that while you type away on your computer and think about the infrastructure that it took to put that computer in your house and connect it to the whole world. Denying others what you take for granted is very shortsighted. Are any here willing to give up nylon climbing ropes or aluminum/titanium/steel climbing hardware? Probably not. Think about the industry required to put those implements in your hands. In the long run a sustainable population size supported by high tech industry should be our goal. We must run our industries as cleanly as we can with as little impact as possible. In turn, we as individuals must do our part to minimize our impacts. I have chosen to drive less, and yes, it is a sacrifice. But no matter how much we are willing to sacrifice as individuals in the long run it will not matter if we cannot limit the world population. Personally I prefer taxation as the method, but no matter how go at it if we do not succeed in the long run nothing else we do will matter.
Michael
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 10:55pm PT
|
Michael, I didn't call you a hypocrite or make any negative remark except to say that people can be happy with a more primitive lifestyle. If they (and we) are forced to, we'll be more OK than we think. That's all. Happiness is within
which brings me to MikeL
I agree with you 100%. We are just speaking from different levels. On the macro- world level, I'm saying we need to do big things to solve these problems but perhaps our everyday life is what sets the example and energy into action.
I don't want to see folks just ride their bikes and recycle and say "I don't need to think about politics and our war machine, i've done my bit by cutting back" It's better than nothing but the hour is getting late and the world is painting itself in a corner. Not a corner than will get us older guys, but I fear for the grandkids for sure, and that's bad enough. I don't think the kids will get a picnic either.
Peace
Karl
|
|
nick d
Trad climber
nm
|
|
|
Jul 31, 2007 - 11:45pm PT
|
Karl, nowhere have I said I don't think about politics or the war machine. I apologize if I read a slight into your comments, but I think your remark about people "riding their bikes" gets right to the heart of the matter. Don't want to feed the war machine, big oil, etc...? My answer is get out of your car. You can't make a more powerful statement without taking up arms against the government. Of course, if its just a few of us making that statement the big guys can easily ignore us, write us off as a few left wing nuts. If you truely believe you can be happy with less, make that less driving and you will be taking an incredibly positive step. I am active politically and I am as anti-war as anyone I know, but the biggest vote you make from day to day is with your dollars. Don't give them to big oil! It is a big sacrifice to make in your personal lifestyle, but I say put your money where your mouth is. I do it as much as I can within my reality. That reality includes climbing, skiing, seeing some wild places. That means I have to drive at least some amount. but every time I buy gas I am very conscious of who is getting that money and how much they are f*#king up the world with it. I have organized my life so I don't have to drive very much, imagine how different the world could be if all of us were willing to make that sacrifice. If you are going to talk the talk, walk the walk (literally)!
Michael
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
Michael
I certainly agree with you in spirit but I don't think it necessarily works the way you want it to. If you conserve, and a bunch of us conserve, the price of gas goes down and the incentive for industry to build gas guzzlers goes up. That's one of the things that happened when Carter forced us to conserve. If oil is cheap, China and India also just burn more too.
So its great if you reduce driving for your own reasons and maybe it helps but maybe it doesn't.
Read about Jevon's paradox as it relates to petroleum use here
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html
Peace
Karl
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
Now wait a minute.
Simple living and high thinking is knott primitive, but real advancement.
This modern iron age of cars and computers is primitive.
In the old days one had good brain and didn't need a computer which is and extension of brain. Such weak brain we now have that we need to make an extension.
Just see how the illusionary energy works it's wondrous ways to entrap us deeper and deeper into materialism.
|
|
Hootervillian
climber
the Hooterville World-Guardian
|
|
"Science is a thought process, the supernatural a belief system, let's be careful not to confuse the two."
You sure about that? Just what does "Super-natural" mean anyway?
the only thing i'm sure of is that i'm not sure of anything. science has no answers, it's just that, a process, and not a very comforting one if you're searching for individual contextual relevance.
I know plenty of people who have adopted science as their belief system, and others who use their thought processes to develop a personal belief system.
i'm sure you do.
What is good for people, in the long term, is also good for the planet.
this one's going to take a little time just to define what good means. however, this seems the appropriate thread.
|
|
hossjulia
Trad climber
Eastside
|
|
I agree with Werner, I think.
"Good" can be so subjective.
|
|
Hootervillian
climber
the Hooterville World-Guardian
|
|
so it's good to throw Tsampa into the air. now, anybody know a good vegetarian tandoori recipe?
|
|
marky
climber
|
|
nick d said it well
we don't need another bumper sticker; we do need one less bumper
|
|
nick d
Trad climber
nm
|
|
OK Karl, you win. There is no point in conserving anything. We should just live as wastefully, in as totally self absorbed a fashion as possible. Happy?
Michael
|
|
John Moosie
climber
|
|
Nick d/Michael,
I don't think karl means that each of us shouldn't do our part. I think what he means is that when speaking globally, if you do everything correct and the rest of the world does everything wrong, then the world is hosed. Karmically you will be okay, but the world will be toast.
So to just focus on ourselves is to forget that we are all one and that we are our brothers keeper.
I personally think it is okay to have technology. It is okay to have automobiles. It is okay to have bicycles. It is okay to have computers. What is not okay is to abuse these gifts. We must find balance in everything we do. This mean living sustainably.
Every we starts with me.
HossJulia,
"We stand for what we stand on." B. Abzug is from Monkey Wrench Gang.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
Michael, just because there are no easy answers doesn't mean you have to feel judged nor suggest that I am advocating being wasteful and self-absorbed. I'm just pointing out facts that have a bearing on our reality and situation.
Folks like to live in denial. We don't want to face reality. It's liberating to look squarely at our situation and see where the most effective points to apply leverage are.
The world will run out of oil someday and will be in deep trouble long before oil runs out. There is no assurance we will cope effectively with a transition to lesser and alternative power before that happens. We'll just have do the best we can and advocate and practice the most effective and efficient policies to help make the transition sooner than later worldwide.
We are all going to die someday as well, and most of us will feel damn old long before we're dead. We can give up climbing and recreating to make more money to save money for our retirement years but there is no assurance we'll be in any shape to benefit from that sacrifice. Better think of all the different approaches to life now and in the future to make the wisest choice.
Luck (or karma) will factor into each scenario.
Some neocons suggest war over resources will be inevitable.
Some peacemakers suggest that unless humans wake up and renounce war and work together for human survival, we're hosed.
For me, I have my own approach and I support any effort you make, even if in the end, the energy turns out to be misdirected. Intention counts for a lot in my experience. Still, we shouldn't make an ego trip out of the purity of our lifestyles, cause everything has unintended consequences.
Jevon's paradox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/the_dieoff_QA/message/5324
Peace
Karl
|
|
nick d
Trad climber
nm
|
|
John, one of my original points, (now seemingly lost in the mist!) was that our ultimate goal must be to control world population. What Karl said that kind of bummed me out was he has seen plenty of people who were happy to have none of the modern world. To my way of looking at things, that is simply not true. The more people who live primitively see of the modern world, the more they want of it. Who is Karl or any one of us, with all the trappings of technology to deny them to anyone else? It is delusional to be an adventure tourist jet-setting around the world, living for its recreational possibilities, and at the same time assert somebody else can get by just fine without a refrigerator. People the world over deserve, and will insist on getting, the same high standard of living we all take for granted. The only way that is possible is a lot fewer people. I definitely think we should all live as simply as possible to minimize our impact, I point out my driving habits as my part. But...I have rock climbed since I was in grade school, I love it, as I am sure the great majority of posters here do. It requires a huge industrial infrastructure to make what all the erstwhile "dirtbags" do possible. Just think what it takes to have produced 1 nylon rope. We must all be aware of the true costs of our recreational activities and live as awarely as possible. But in the end, only a finite number of us can live in the world and leave it in a liveable condition for the next generation.
Michael Smith
|
|
MikeL
climber
|
|
(Impressive thoughts. There is not a single lame post here. This is what a thread can look like.)
Hooter found one nexus: what is "the good?" It seems connected to how to achieve the good in a social world that is overwhelmingly materially oriented.
Here are a few old thoughts about what The Good is.
** order, prosperity, and peace
** whatever reason and science expose
** liberty and the pursuit of property
** love, hope, charity
** self-interested rational labor to create future benefit
** reciprocity and self-interest to create social justice
** "enlightened self-interest" that is Not hostile to the common good
** enjoyment of primitive feelings: the characterisics of a "noble savage"
** faith and religious experience
** whatever art, creativity, and freedom create
** whatever one's family, culture, and nation say
** happiness in this life
** happiness and freedom from pain and suffering across all of one's lifetimes
** orientations to others than to self
EDIT: My point is that a choice of one or some means conflicts with others.
|
|
the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
|
|
I just watched Who Killed the Electric Car last night. According to Ed Begley "John 'Stumpy' Pepys" electric cars would meet the needs of about 90% of us. My family could certainly use 1 for our commuter car. Even with coal burning plants producing the electricity it's less impact than gas. And there's huge reserves of coal, not to mention nukes. So I'm less worried about peak oil.
Interesting segment where they talk about limited demand for the electric car, and then talk about how GM bought Hummer because they knew enough morons would want one.
I wonder about these guys who are smart enough to lead GM, the oil industry, etc. but aren't wise enough to see beyond short term profits.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
"What Karl said that kind of bummed me out was he has seen plenty of people who were happy to have none of the modern world. To my way of looking at things, that is simply not true. The more people who live primitively see of the modern world, the more they want of it. Who is Karl or any one of us, with all the trappings of technology to deny them to anyone else?"
I'm not talking about denying anyone anything. I'm just stating the fact that people are just as happy with less. Guess what, rich people still want more. These third world folks, some of them, may see western movies and want more, but it's an illusion that they'll be happier. I've hung, in their caves and shanty's and mansions, with both ends of the socio-economic spectrum and the rich ain't happier. The same goes for the guys who used to live in vans between Josh and Yosemite back in the day. Are you happier now because you live richer or is it just the wisdom of age?
Anyway, it's not that these guys are going to be denied progress, its that your grandkids are going to be living more like the poor. Population growth control worldwide might delay or prevent this but who has a realistic idea of how to implement that? Speak up, don't just say we should without a plan cause everybody knows it. The devil is in the details of controlling the familie of cultures that value, even need, kids. How will you deny them their kids Michael?
Fet, you are not correct about the supply of nukes and coal, even a generation or two out. (We'll make it I suppose) Read the first two pages of
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Which is well documented with link and tell me what we're going to do. Really, if you ever read any link i post, it's this one. Not perfect but you should be able to think critically but not unrealistically about it and see what the issues really are.
Peace
Karl
|
|
the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
|
|
Interesting stuff, peak oil. I've read a few viewpoints on where we are heading and no one really knows. We will run out of oil at some point, but I remember my brother telling me in about 1980 that we'd run out and I wouldn't be able to drive a car when I got my liscense in 1984.
One thing is for sure, if we had spent the Iraq war money on alternative energy instead we'd be setting ourselves up for a soft catch, instead we just delay the inevitable. But I wouldn't expect anything better from Bushco.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
Just a nudge so the thread doesn't run out of gas
|
|
nick d
Trad climber
nm
|
|
Sorry for the tardy post Karl. I've got the working mans blues during the day. How would I deny people their kids? Personally, my choice would be economic disincentive. Tax you for the kids you have, and reward those who don't have any. Yes, it would have to be a world-wide effort. And the money produced would have to directly benefit those taxed. People who lived in the desert could be delivered fresh water through desalinization, for instance. I am not talking about the Americization of other cultures, but instead giving them better quality of life. When you say people can be happy with less, I have to answer that with this: Why aren't you? As you sit surrounded by toys that are the result of mining, chemical plants, drilling , deforestation, etc...it seems to me that if you think all that stuff is the inevitable end of the world, why not give it up? I already know the answer, because all those toys are just too much fun! You cited guys living in their vans outside the valley as proof that we can be happy with less, but the truth is guys like that don't actually have less. Even the most hardened dirtbag climber types I've known over the years had a pretty good arsenal of toys. Just take 1 climbing rope as an example. First, oil had to be found by exploration and then extracted from the ground. Then transported by pipeline, truck or railroad to a refinery. I grew up in oilfield country so I know what they are like, (very bad!), and refineries dont exist in a vacuum. They must be supported by a whole host of other chemical plants. Finally we have all the raw materials to make the plastic we need. The knowledge of how to do so has been gleaned from chemists all over the world, each having an impact on it. Now we can weave it into a useable final product with giant machines, themselves the final product of mining and refining, etc... and put that into the distribution network. Once again into a truck or a railcar or an airplane to finally wind up in our hot little hands. Those guys living in the van might not have had the fanciest spread, but they were taking full advantage of trillions of dollars of infrastructure, all run by industrialists that hammered the earth as hard as they could to make a profit. So...before you try to hammer me as self righteous, see me accurately first. I am very clear on the impact I have by living and consuming and recreating. I am also crystal clear on the idea that it would be beyond disingenuous of me to deny any others the same pleasures I have found climbing, bike riding, walking the woods, even driving my auto and using my computer. When those who don't have the same toys see em, they want em. That is a fact. The only way to keep our world livable and the majority of it's citizens happy is to have a much smaller population. You asked me how I could deny people their children, I ask you how you can deny all the worlds children the fruits of our labors?
Michael
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
Hi Michael
Be sure not to take this discussion personally, I admire your intentions and actions and am not slamming you. Still, we get wiser by bringing everything into question. Do apparent good deeds go bad? I've seen a lot of it.
"When you say people can be happy with less, I have to answer that with this: Why aren't you?" I certainly am. I got nearly straight As at Berkeley and am capable practically as well. Instead of going for wealth and prosperity, I live in Yosemite. It's wrong to say the ones living in vans aren't giving up society's luxuries compared with the wealthy.
A yogi living in a 10x7 foot hut in the Himalayas told me the story of Alexander the Great visiting a nobable saint when he was in India. He paid the saint the respect of staying the night in his humble hut while the massive army camped away.
The saint welcomed Alexander and said, "Whatever you need, let me know, I'll take care of it." Alexander laughed and said "I'm king of the world and have everything, what could a poor man like you supply me with?" The saint replied "I said "Whatever you need" We have this roof over our heads, there is food on the stove and water in the corner. What more can you need?"
I like your solution and would support it but you are missing a step. Who convinces the countries with high populations to implement this plan? Our western world already has a low population growth rate outside of immigration so we're not giving up much. How do we get this country to pressure other countries for radical change when we won't even go along with the whole world on the minor change of the Kyoto protocols?
I can read you posts cause I'm really focusing but you'll find folks read better if you make line breaks for your paragraphs.
Peace
Karl
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
Yep yep Karl
That's it, the yogi said everything you need is right here.
In this age of Kali Yuga these rascals will have to eat nuts and bolts due to their so called advanced technological puffed up superiority.
Actually they are already there in their advanced tasteless lifeless crap of food from their so called modern agriculture.
All sh'it ........
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
Hahahaha LOL Crowley
|
|
nick d
Trad climber
nm
|
|
Sorry for the run-on paragraphs Karl!
You may be living with less than if you lived in the Awahnee, but my point is that you aren't really living without the trillions of dollars of infrastructure I described, Neither am I, nor is any one of us. If you were doing so, suffice to say you would not be communicating with me via the internet. Same for Werner. You didn't grow the rubber on those climbing shoes yourself, did you?
Countries with huge populations, India and China are the most obvious examples. Well, China already sees the light don't they? They see it because they are a country with a social system geared to central planning. I'm not saying they are going about it the right way, but they have clearly seen the consequences of unlimited growth.
India wants things from the rest of the world. Bushco just gave them a free ride on nuclear technology, no non-proliferation agreement, no controls. Its opportunities like that the rest of the world has to leverage. We had what they wanted and if we had any leadership at all that could have resulted in policy gains. Hopefully things will be different when the US returns to a legitimately elected government. I know, that is just wishful thinking. But the central premise of my argument is that people the world over wish for better.
Michael
ps I know that WVB is secretly in love with....SPAM!
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
Yes nick you are correct. people the world over are searching for the "better".
The modern leaders unfortunately are giving them the worst due to poor fund of knowledge of the whole.
Yes, and you are correct. When I first came to Yosemite in 1970 I ate spam.
|
|
nick d
Trad climber
nm
|
|
Werner,
10-4 on how bad our world leaders are. Also, just teasing, for I know you are now a "vegetable"!
I think that people everwhere are by and large good, it is the few bad apples that are, unfortunately, in charge. I hope for change.
Michael
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
It's true that China is one place that actually had the will to impose population control and it's seems they did so in as benign a way as possible in order to get the scale of result that they got. The consequences were certainly mixed as the culture scrambled to ditch their female babies (a lot of western folks got adopt chinese girls but there is going to be a serious shortage of females for Chinese guys soon)
India also offered radios to guys to get vascetomies and even kidnapped guys to snip em at one point.
I was just in India, they have better Cell Coverage than where I live and lots of folks who are really poor by our standards are on the internet regularly.
I hear Russia is actually promoting having kids at this point.
but again, the point isn't about denying the developing world anything. What they will be denied will come naturally as resources and the world economy struggle with the consequences of unsustainable growth being halted by oil depletion.
If the world can wake up and scale back on it's population benignly and in a timely fashion that would be fantastic. I don't see a mechanism for reaching that consensus which is short of response to deep crisis and that's what leads me to remind us that we can be happy with less...
.... because many of us, probably decades from now WILL have to make due with less. (but it happen sooner or later than we think).
It's not so easy to predict what a post-carbon world would look like. I imagine we would still have lots of broadband net and communications and that that would help compensate for increased cost and limited access to transportation. Air travel will be more rare, heating and cooling more expensive but information will still flourish, medical advances with DNA will march right along. We'll have more local level networks for cooperation and peer networks like supertopo online but the big picture is impossible to predict.
The era of the McMansion will be over.
The question will be if increasing masses of the poor and homeless will allow billionaires to keep all their money while so many are destitute. The fear of popular democratic power will motivate the real elite to build fascism into our system so nobody can vote a tranfer of wealth back to the masses. Don't be fooled into thinking wealth isn't already voted up the socio-economic scale as dividends are taxed less, tax cuts have favored the wealthy by a large margin and yet it is those with the big money who profit most from the trillions in infrastructure that uphold the system. Money is transfered by government policy one way or another, pure and simple. A lot of fortune 500 companies have avoided income tax competely. The rich getting richer, and the shrinking of the middle class is statistically obvious and undeniable. We are becoming Mexico.
And that knowledge of future vulnerability, which is obvious to those with knowledge but is being withheld from the people, is what's really behind the administration power grab we've noticed. They are tightening the reigns of power in anticipation of popular unrest when the party's suddenly over and folks get mad.
All these factors will have a vast influence on what happens to the environment.
Peace
Karl
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
Awhile back I posted
"Read the first two pages of
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Which is well documented with link and tell me what we're going to do. Really, if you ever read any link i post, it's this one. Not perfect but you should be able to think critically but not unrealistically about it and see what the issues really are."
Anybody check that out and seriously consider it? It's tough to swallow. It makes you mad at the messenger.
but the future of our environment is going to hinge on this issue and our lives too, and most certainly our childrens.
Most folks can't digest it all at once. They like to nurse some denial because it's not rosy. I think we can still live and climb in the face of it. The initial phases are just going to mean cutting back and advocating wisdom.
But make sure you've seen it
Karl
|
|
MikeL
climber
|
|
I read the article as requested.
If you really believe the thesis, Karl, you should sell oil futures. Your path is simple. Then when you've made your millions or billions, you can show us you and the thesis were right.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
What's your basis for not buying the article? It's pretty documented. Where's the loophole. Only the timing is really in question.
And timing is a big issue in oil futures. The big money can certainly squeeze shorts and play games.
The biggest game of all has been companies and nations overstating their reserves (Shell by 25% and OPEC nations by up to %50) to bolster their stock prices and OPEC quotas.
If I had money to invest, there would be lots of oil related plays out there.
Not my karma though. Too many sharks in the water and I'm not one. Look how long the dot.com bubble went on long after reasonable folks knew it was unsustainable.
Peace
Karl
Edit' I have no investment in being right and would prefer to be wrong. I've been wrong about other things according to some women and why not this?
Just don't count on it. Do your own research, place your own bets, Take responsibility for the consequences.
|
|
MikeL
climber
|
|
Karl, my taste in research favors something qualitatively different in tone. As I've said before elsewhere on this site and often, I doubt that certainty and clarity exist nearly as much as some people do about almost any issue whatsoever. I just don't see the world black and white, morally, objectively, or artistically. The sense of clarity, certainty, and operating conspiracies make for dramatic stories and movies, but I try not to confuse those with the world around me.
(I also don't believe in conspiracy theories because I don't think they can be engineered very well consistently. Come to think of it, I don't know of any conspiracy of any magnitude that actually worked historically, do you?)
I think reality is far too complex, nuanced, unpredictable, and people are far too unskilled.
The sky isn't falling. Sure bad things will happen, but it's not the end of the earth or life as we know it. But change will happen, invariably. You'll get another president, there will be some "problems" that will get fixed at the expense of some other issue, and new problems that you can't imagine will arise to make us all tremble in awe. Again, it makes for great drama, but let's not all become survivalists in Idaho (sorry, Idaho) and take to the streets in revolution. (Very few of those work out well, either.)
I think that we'd be much more likely to help the life on this earth if we could do just one thing: settle down. People could try not to get all embroiled in their outrage, their righteousness, and their anger. I think a sense of outrage and righteousness is causing more problems than the resource allocation concerns.
But that's not what trips people's trolleys on this site. I think people like getting angry.
Anger is the basis for the worst karma in the universe.
Peace.
|
|
the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
|
|
Hi Karl,
I read the link and even on that page there are disagreements about when and how bad the oil crunch will be.
Demand will go up, supply will go down, oil will get more expensive. People will conserve. Alternatives will be developed.
Will it impact our economy, surely. But humans are resourceful. We will find a way to sustain ourselves. Maybe we'll have another depression. But I doubt society will crumble and we'll be back to the stoneage. There's other things to worry about too, a massive terror attack could cripple the worldwide economy (especialy if timed right). An asteroid could hit, etc. We should take the steps we can to prepare for catastrophes, but history has shown over and over how resilient humans are.
And the age of America is already over. I remember 15 years ago a friend from Africa saying this was the age of the US and it's coming to a close. I thought he was full of it on both accounts. But the last 7 years has showed me otherwise. We've gone from leading the world to dragging our feet on many issues, staying obsessed with money, giving up justice and the world's strongest economy because enough people are scared sheep and buy into all the BS that is fed them.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
MikeL
Thanks for your response. I'm confused because you focused on addressing anger and conspiracy theory and I didn't feel like my posts nor that link were angry at all. Folks get angry when they hear things won't be as they desire but the info is simply information and disabuse of people's denial that "it's just one on many problems in our world that will be worked out after a few bumps"
The peak oil conspiracy is a little like the Iraq war conspiracy. Everybody knows we didn't attack that place because they had WMDs but nothing is being done about it. The people who know and care don't have the power to dump the crooks.
Everybody knows the OPEC nations overstated their reserves when they instituted the quota system. What cha gonna do about it.
as for the quality of research, that link is a synopsis which has hundreds of links underlying it's claims. Some links might be iffy, some are to oil and government doc. I think a real refutation would me more than the simple faith that "it'll work out, this is probably overblown:
Peace
Karl
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
MikeL
There are two types of anger, transcendental and material.
The first anger creates no karma the second does.
Anger can never be eliminated because, anger, is eternal.
There are three modes in material nature: Goodness, Passion, and Ignorance.
According to ones consciousness at the time of anger, one is in one of these modes.
When one transcends these 3 modes then anger is displayed perfectly and begets the perfect result.
|
|
| Messages 1 - 87 of total 87 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!