Forums > Social Chat > Environment concerns! (and rant)

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OrangeBoboSILVER Member
veteran
1,389 posts
Location: Guelph, ON, Canada


Posted:
Okay, I'm at a loss as to what to do anymore. And if I may, I'm going to rant madly for a moment.

In my school, I'm the minister of Environment. So, I have the lovely task of getting kids involved in helping our environment, and not kill it. But they're all so ignorant! I just want to slap them all, and scream at them. They just don't get it!

So far, my general concensus is this: "It won't be a prblem by the time I'm dead, so I don't give a damn."

They stand on their path behind school, smoking away, pulling at the trees, leaving their garbage everywhere, and it's disgusting! I don't know why they find it okay to leave it all at their feet, being complete lazy slobs.

I don't know why I have such a huge attatchemnt and concern for the environment, and yet at the same time, I can't understand why they don't! I have no clue as to how to get to them! And I'm the same age as them. They just don't get it!

(*screams madly*)

Moving on from that... I have a little survey, just to see what people around the world think, to see what it's like from everywhere. And from all different ages. So, if you could answer the following questions in short answer, or essay, doens't matter to me, as long as you answer!

1 - How much do you care about the environment?
2 - How much do you think about the environment?
3 - What do you think one of the top (few) environmental issues of today is?
4 - If you got the chance to, would you volunteer to help the environment?
5 - What would it take for people to get you (more) involved?

Thanks to Gnor and Neuron, who already put up with me, and this survey ^_^ hug

Any other opinions about this is completely welcome!

~ Bobo

wie weit, wie weit noch?
fragst mich, wo wir gewesen sind...
du fehlst hier


MillenniuMPLATINUM Member
Hyperloops suck
595 posts
Location: USA


Posted:
1 - I care about it a lot, I believe it's a growing problem as it is far down on the priority list of world leaders, however many steps are being put in place to help the enviornment (Electric cars, etc.)

2 - Honestly, not all that much. Not as much as I should. I never litter, I do my best to keep excess gas and heat usage down, I never spill my fuels while fire spinning, but I never go out of my way to help the enviornment, I simply do my best not to further the problem.

3 - Gasoline usage, specifically in cars. Electric or fuel cell vehicles need to be more fully researched and accessable.

4 - I'm going to say yes, but to be completely honest, there are so many things I'd do before volunteering to help the enviornment. This year alone I've logged about 300 or 400 hours of community service, and about 50 of it was trash cleanup and what not. Give me the opportunity and I will, but it's hard to pry me away from other responsibilities and hobbies to go clean up local parks and beaches.

5 - Nothing really. Anything I'd be willing to do wouldn't be changed by anything, whether it be money or moral incentive. Maybe if the problem escalates to noticable change for the worse would I volunteer more than I do, which really makes me feel terrible. I'd rather be proactive, but it's hard to change your daily life in order to change something that you can't see the effects of.

ViciousVixenmember
103 posts
Location: Oklahoma City, OK, USA


Posted:
Just my two cents, people will think about the environment and recycle more when it's convenient for them to do so. If there had been special receptacles for plastic bottles and aluminum cans on every floor of my dorm tower at college, a lot more people would have saved up their bottles and cans and put them in the receptacles. But since they had no idea where to take those things and didn't want to figure it out, it didn't happen.

If you put a cigarette receptacle right where they smoke, I'm sure some of them would start putting the butts in there.

DeimosBRONZE Member
Cinnamon Girl
191 posts
Location: Hfx, NS, Canada


Posted:
1 - I care about the environment very much, it's what we live in, we have no place else to exist so how could one not care about their home?
2 - Every once in a while, usualy while watching commercials on tv. I get very frustrated when I see all the ways to "make our lives easier".
3 - Over production, consumption and waste, very much so.
4 - I would do the best of my abilities.
5 - Not very much, maybe a good slap in the face or something. It's just not obvious enough all the time, one can forget.


P*L*U*R


Astarmember
1,591 posts
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada.


Posted:
Why does it matter if they litter in an enviromental sense? It's not like plastic wrap and paper and tinfoil hurts the enviroment in any way, maybe they could recycle the paper and tinfoil but the bulk of what I see laying around from people littering isn't worth recyling anyways. It's more of an issue of having a clean and pleasant city. Seconldy unless the tree's are young, or unless they are massive giants they won't damage the tree's by picking at them, infact they will make them grow taller and stronger because tree's have evolved to be picked at by ground level herbivores, in nature it would be a bunch of moose picking at the tree's.



The real enviromental concerns are car emissions, factory emisions, power plant emissions, chemical runoff/leakage (big problem with mineing, and sloppy industrial sites, oil spills and ships dumping their bilge water haphazardly without fear of penalty. We can catch oil spills and bilge water dumpers pretty easily with all the satellites in the sky now, but they usually do it in international waters where no one can touch them (thanks partially to good old american resistance to international law)



Emissions are being delt with, once the kyoto accord gets refined im pretty sure america, russia and canada will give it some serious consideration, and a lot of small countrys will start signing on. But the process is slower then it should be because very few people give a damn. We need more people to give a damn.



In canada most of the big ecological problems are technically illegal but the politicians are in bed with the corporations so nothin gets done about it. Irving is such a horrible offender it's obscene, I really think we need to start flexing our consumer muscles and boycotting some of these [censored] corporations.



The whole factory farming industry needs a kick in the head to.



I find almost all the major problems with the enviroment are better approached by economic arguements then moral/ethical enviromental ones, the fact is the assholes who don't give a [censored] about the enviroment are cheating themselves out of money in the long term. Money talks more then anything else. It's time corporations learn not to be so reckless with their god damn capital.



Edit-also the whole over consumption issue is one thing I think an economics arguement can most strongly attack. The fact is some places in north america have higher unemployment rates then the "great depression" We have provisions to avoid the tragedy of the depression so we don't see the tragedy as bad as it was in the 30's, but these provisions will not last. This economic recession's cause is no diffrent then the 30's. TO much over consumption, to much use of credit and to much stock market gambling. We have created an artificial and precarious economy.


OrangeBoboSILVER Member
veteran
1,389 posts
Location: Guelph, ON, Canada


Posted:
Hmmm... Makes me want to pitch my tent up outside... Right now... At 1:15am. Well, I've now turned the heat off for my room... Don't need it anywho... And I'm gonna get a bunch of rechargable batteries soon. Don't know how much that would help, but it may, at least a little...

Now, I'm brewing up a ton of ideas... Should write this stuff down...

~ Bobo

wie weit, wie weit noch?
fragst mich, wo wir gewesen sind...
du fehlst hier


onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
I see humanities current car attitude as being a prime problem, not just cos of the effect on the environment but because of it's effect on the human scale.

So I think we need to tackle the current obsession by scrapping the huge marketing ploys which make car ownership seem not only sane, but highly desirable.

At the same time minimise the need for cars by working on forming strong local communities so it becomes the norm for people to work in the area they live in i.e. they can walk to work.

In education teach useful stuff about cars including their effect on the environment and the statistics for road deaths etc.

Also teach awareness of subtle marketing/advertising strategies from an early age so children are less likely to make the mistake that a car can confer social status, or that doing the lottery is a worthwhile proposition etc, etc.

Address the problem of our usage of animals, not only because it is an outragous abuse of sentient beings with rights, but because it is an abuse of limited world resources and a cause of polution.

Do this by the above methods i.e. stop the marketing of junk food and animal based food to youngsters and educate them to the true reality of our current food production system- if every primary age young person went on a school trip to a slaughter house then I reckon animal abuse would be pretty much over in one generation.

Education is the key, show them the facts, empower them to see past the subtle marketing ploys that urge people to engage in pointless and destructive activities, and let them make up their own minds.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


oliSILVER Member
not with cactus
2,052 posts
Location: bristol/ southern eastern devon, United Kingdom


Posted:
1. i care alot about the environment. mostly quietly though, which isnt good.

2.i do think about the environment. and how shafted people will be in the future when there is no oil left. which isnt that far away, i mean it worries me by the time that im 70 maybe we will have run out.

3.i think the top environmental issue is clean energy, its a tricky one though. but if we had some way of making energy with out bad bits, itd be good. but you cant make energy... so what i mean is convert it into a useful form.

4. it depends, i would like to think i would volunteer to help the environment, but i might not. i know me. it probably depends what ive got to do. if its volunteering to spend a week walking up and down the A whatever in kent picking up litter, then probably not. but somethings i would do.

5. to get me more involved.. hmmm im not sure. just the right kind of friends i think.

Me train running low on soul coal
They push+pull tactics are driving me loco
They shouldn't do that no no no


EeraBRONZE Member
old hand
1,107 posts
Location: In a test pit, Mackay, Australia


Posted:
1) Cares in a vague way but is very mindful of working in an industry that taskes large chunks of the underground to the overground for no reason other than to make pretty jewellry. Not so caring as to be hypocritical
2) Only really thinks about it when immediate surroundings become disgusting. After spending 10 years in environment-based academia listening to EVERY argument about environmental change has come to realise that no-one out there has the faintest idea about what's happening to the climate or how human intervention has affected/will affect it so arguments about it no longer have any effect.
3) Housing development. 15% of city houses are uninhabited yet the government wants to put 300 000 new ones per year on greenfield sites. They're taking the green away nibble by nibble.
4) Will pick up litter and has planted a few trees in my time, plus I refuse to drive my car when there's public transport. But the net 10% car emmission cut agreed at the Kyoto summit is equivilent to that emmitted by 1 jumbo flying london-LA and
I'm not going to cut back on my overseas travel.
5) People need an idea of what exactly they are doing to help; saying "we've got to do pick up trash to help the environment." is going to have loads of people saying "so what?". Phrasing it as "we've got to pick up the trash so that we don't attract bugs and we can run around without cutting our feet open on broken glass" is far more relevent. The Environment is a largely unappreciated and ethereal concept to most people, making it relevent is the key. It doesn't help with various groups having punch-ups about the future of the envirnment either (see point 2). Three different models I have seen this week predict that in 100 years South Dakota will be a) a desert, b) a swamp or c) completely unchanged.

The more people harp on about it, the less likely it is to get done.

There is a slight possibility that I am not actually right all of the time.


MikeGinnyGOLD Member
HOP Mad Doctor
13,925 posts
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA


Posted:
Astar, I have to say that I'm a bit dubious as to your claim that America will sign on to the Kyoto treaty. In fact, as long as we have Bush in office, the U.S. will not sign any such treaty. Furthermore, Bush has had to be stopped from rolling back environmental protections by the court system because it has been determined that some of his new rollbacks would be so severe as to directly threaten the health of citizens.

This administration is neither interested in the environment, the economy, safety, or liberty. They are interested solely in two things: power and money. They need the money from industrial contrators in order to stay in power. Because environmental regulations are inconvenient and expensive to heavy industry, Bush can get money from them by reducing/eliminating the environmental regulations.

As long as the Bush administration remains in power, the United States government will remain uninterested in any cooperation with any other nations to address the problem of the environment.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura


Arakrysmember
34 posts
Location: Wageningen, NL


Posted:
It's not easy to change behaviour!
Education would at least tell people what the situation is, but what if the kids are always in the city, and for all they know milk comes from the factory? What if they don't want to hear the message?


Some little tips:
* never exaggerate, and always tell all sides of the story
* don't lecture them into what to do, if possible let then find out by themselves
* give them a personal experience by way of excursions or 'earth education'




CharlesBRONZE Member
Corporate Circus Arts Entertainer
3,989 posts
Location: Auckland, New Zealand


Posted:
Dave is right, and Arakrys is on the right track (about education)

Quote:

It's not easy to change behaviour!




Yes it is very easy to change people's behaviour, you just need to push the right buttons.

What is difficult is getting them to change their behaviours to the behaviour YOU want them to adopt.

Credible information is the first step, fiscal rewards (not penalties) is the second step and if all goes well, social and peer pressures will follow to make poeple more likely to be enronmentally friendly...BUT we also have to have the right systems in place.

Here in NZ, it became cheaper for the company that collecte dour recyclables to dump it at the dump than it was to actually process it for recycling...hence, they did that for several years until there was a huge public outcry.

It's not just about putting stuff in the recycling bin, it's also about buying recycled goods, throwing away less rubbish, using the car as little as possible and carpooling as often as you can and a whole host of other things that will make a difference from both indidivuals and society in general.

And don't forget how glowsticking and fire spinning aren't very good for the environment either... eek eek eek

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