Do we REALLY care?

[Takoto]

I'm not going to go massively out my way and start re-cycling every single piece of rubbish I have, however, switching off lights, using energy saving bulbs, only using an appliance if I need to and not leaving things on stand-by are things I think everyone should do...

 

[Phoenicks]

I don't care at all, mostly because I don't believe that man-made Global Warming exists (Prepare for flaming). The idea that we understand the system to the point where we know that we cause the problems is arrogant.

Not that you're not allowed to care. By all means, go on, do whatever makes you feel good. Just don't judge me *CoughHikarucoughH-Concough* because I don't believe.

 

[hurristat]

I think the reason that AGW is not effective in working is because there's no one who is the face of it. For everything, there's the one person who everyone feels bad for, and then they act on it. For example, the college student in front of the tanks at Tiananmen square. Due to the things that happened to him, the whole world became motivated to stop the Chinese oppression. There's no one who you can specifically pinpoint to be in a bad situation because of global warming, no little girl who had her house flooded, nothing like that. While AGW is not along the same lines as Tiananmen square, it's a similar situation. If there was a face of someone afflicted, I bet we would find it more compelling to help.

 

[RavenKingSage]

Lots of people pretend to care, and that's sad. I do little things to help, like conserve electricity and water as much as possible.

 

[Dewgong Reign]

I don't care at all, mostly because I don't believe that man-made Global Warming exists (Prepare for flaming). The idea that we understand the system to the point where we know that we cause the problems is arrogant.

Not that you're not allowed to care. By all means, go on, do whatever makes you feel good. Just don't judge me *CoughHikarucoughH-Concough* because I don't believe.

Whether you believe or not is irrelevant, just let others do what they want and we'll all get along.

 

[H-con]

Not that you're not allowed to care. By all means, go on, do whatever makes you feel good. Just don't judge me *CoughHikarucoughH-Concough* because I don't believe.

Phoenicks, I think you don't understand me. I don't care whether or not you believe in global warming. You can still care about the environment even if you don't believe in man-made global warming. Using less electricity is good even if you don't believe in gw. It doesn't hurt us to waste less eatable food even if we don't believe in global warming. I think that's something you ignore. That those two examples could help against global warming could be considered a side-effect of it. Like if you got your electricity from a coal-powered plant. Burning coal is not very enviromentally-friendly at all, and causes more problems than just CO2 emitted. Burning less coal will benefit the environment in more than one way (that's assuming you get power from a coal-powered plant, a thing many people do all over the world).

 

[Dewgong Reign]

Phoenicks, I think you don't understand me. I don't care whether or not you believe in global warming. You can still care about the environment even if you don't believe in man-made global warming. Using less electricity is good even if you don't believe in gw. It doesn't hurt us to waste less eatable food even if we don't believe in global warming. I think that's something you ignore. That those two examples could help against global warming could be considered a side-effect of it. Like if you got your electricity from a coal-powered plant. Burning coal is not very enviromentally-friendly at all, and causes more problems than just CO2 emitted. Burning less coal will benefit the environment in more than one way (that's assuming you get power from a coal-powered plant, a thing many people do all over the world).

We already wasted 29 pages on trying to convince Phoenicks to go green already...

Maybe he finds it inconvenient. It's like saying "Okay, you don't have to follow my religion, but I'll still spend time telling you to go to my church and worship my god, even if you don't believe in it."

 

[Nicoleta01]

Phoenicks, I think you don't understand me. I don't care whether or not you believe in global warming. You can still care about the environment even if you don't believe in man-made global warming. Using less electricity is good even if you don't believe in gw. It doesn't hurt us to waste less eatable food even if we don't believe in global warming. I think that's something you ignore. That those two examples could help against global warming could be considered a side-effect of it. Like if you got your electricity from a coal-powered plant. Burning coal is not very enviromentally-friendly at all, and causes more problems than just CO2 emitted. Burning less coal will benefit the environment in more than one way (that's assuming you get power from a coal-powered plant, a thing many people do all over the world).

While cutting electricity usage is good economically, as for Global Warming....you (alone) using less electricity will have no measureable effect. And seeing how plentiful food is, eating less will increase crop spoilage as it's not always feasible for the farmers to sell their surplus crops to poor countries.

And coal is from plants. >.> It can technically be called "green" for coming from a plant. =P /Humor.

I'm for keepign the environment healthy, as I believe pollution is mostly regional, but I don't think it should come at the expense of lowering living standards and high costs for groceries, power, etc, when it doesn't have a huge effect on the pollution.

 

[SalamenceCommander]

Well, I switch off the electronics when I leave the room but otherwise... no.

^Same.

 

[claire_tigre]

[QUOTE='Nicoleta01]I'm for keeping the environment healthy, as I believe pollution is mostly regional, but I don't think it should come at the expense of lowering living standards and high costs for groceries, power, etc, when it doesn't have a huge effect on the pollution.[/QUOTE]

this^
i recycle, alot, and i turn stuff off when im not using them. but, imo, the best way to get people to actually do stuff about this so called global warming (im a denier!) is to show how it benefits them now. such as, making earth friendly products cheaper to buy, showing that using green light bulbs lowers your bills, etc.
have you ever seen that washer and dryer commercial, here ill find it.(later, this computer doesnt have flash) where the guy says he wants to learn more about green machines to make his daughter, the local anchor man, his daughter's science teacher, and some activists stop harping on it?
the thing that sold him on that machine was that, the money you save from using one machine would pay for the cost of the other.

 

[Eredar Warlock]

I only really care about breathing clean air. 'Course, I don't live in any big city, and any "dirty" air comes from wind blowing dust around, which I can do nothing about, so yeah. Don't care.

 

[Phoenicks]

Phoenicks, I think you don't understand me. I don't care whether or not you believe in global warming. You can still care about the environment even if you don't believe in man-made global warming. Using less electricity is good even if you don't believe in gw. It doesn't hurt us to waste less eatable food even if we don't believe in global warming. I think that's something you ignore. That those two examples could help against global warming could be considered a side-effect of it. Like if you got your electricity from a coal-powered plant. Burning coal is not very enviromentally-friendly at all, and causes more problems than just CO2 emitted. Burning less coal will benefit the environment in more than one way (that's assuming you get power from a coal-powered plant, a thing many people do all over the world).

H-con, when I said not to judge me because I don't believe, I was referring to comments like this:

People are too stupid to do anything about it because they only respond to things that are actually happening. Has anyone ever heard of a procaution? Whether GW does exist or not, wouldn't it be more valuable in the long run if we took action now in case it does?

And it's true. Society is a bunch of idiots.

Those weren't directed at me, but I'm saying that name-calling in an issue like this is pointless. It doesn't help anybody.

Now H-con, I have said this several times before, but I am fine with going green for the sake of the economic benefits. As a hopeful business executive, I understand that it's possible to shave off unneded costs by conserving more. And that's fine. I just don't do such things for the environmental benefits, I do them for the monetary benefits.

Honestly, when I'm given moral lectures on this subject, it makes me want to use more energy, not less energy. Call me whatever you want, but when somebody, whoever it is, decides to moralize to me about the environmental bee in their bonnet and why I need to do something, I feel good sticking it to them by using more energy. It's human nature after all. The more I'm lectured on this stuff, the less I will willingly contribute.

We already wasted 29 pages on trying to convince Phoenicks to go green already...

Maybe he finds it inconvenient. It's like saying "Okay, you don't have to follow my religion, but I'll still spend time telling you to go to my church and worship my god, even if you don't believe in it."

Exactly. In the same way, doesn't that kind of preaching make you more opposed to the religion in the first place?

Whether you believe or not is irrelevant, just let others do what they want and we'll all get along.

As long as 'letting others do what they want' doesn't involve government regulations forcing me to go along with those plans.

I think the reason that AGW is not effective in working is because there's no one who is the face of it. For everything, there's the one person who everyone feels bad for, and then they act on it. For example, the college student in front of the tanks at Tiananmen square. Due to the things that happened to him, the whole world became motivated to stop the Chinese oppression. There's no one who you can specifically pinpoint to be in a bad situation because of global warming, no little girl who had her house flooded, nothing like that. While AGW is not along the same lines as Tiananmen square, it's a similar situation. If there was a face of someone afflicted, I bet we would find it more compelling to help.

I think that it's because no one wants to commit to the costs. A symbol probably wouldn't have helped the Copenhagen conference by any noticable difference. I can't imagine China having said "Well, it'll cost the same amount, but we'll do this for the GW Girl!" or the US saying "Forget China, we'll do it for the GW Girl!".

 

[7tx]

Living in New Zealand, I'm surrounded by trees. I live right next to a native tree reserve, so no, I don't go out and plant trees. But I do try to be energy efficiant - short showers, never leave things on stand by, turn off lights, use DS on lowest brightness (lol). I also walk to/from school, even though I have my license and access to a car. But thats more of a "can't find a park and socialise with frineds who walk" reason than to save petrol, but hey if it helps.

 

[Pancake-chan]

I turn off electronics when I'm not using them for the most part, and my grandparents recycle all they can, as well as having a yard debris bin too.

but honestly, is there really anything besides that I can do? I don't feel good at all when topics like this come up, whether it's really true or not... but is there really anything I can do that would make a big difference?

I can't be the next scientist to develop breakthrough technologies that will vastly improve the condition of the world. I can't be the President who actually creates plans to save energy or things like that, either. I can't even convince other people to do anything about it, much less convince anyone to do anything differently period.

it's really disheartening, and that's why I rarely even try. and as much as people tell me to save the planet, there's just nothing I can do to carry it out. it seems as if the only people who can don't have much luck, and those in power don't seem to be helping them out that much either.

tl;dr I don't care much at all, because there's nothing I can really do to change things.

if I can't do anything to fix it, I find there's no sense worrying about it. I'm just another cog in the machine who's never going to be a star in the sky, never going to have the chance to do a lot of good for the world.

 

[Dewgong Reign]

Exactly. In the same way, doesn't that kind of preaching make you more opposed to the religion in the first place?

I mean after all, it's not like you're "the one person who can make all the difference" as everyone makes it out to be. Personally I'd say they're overreacting.

I don't care what you do (or don't do) about the environment as long as you don't tell us to stop doing things because you don't believe they do any good (which btw I've never seen you tell somebody.)

As long as 'letting others do what they want' doesn't involve government regulations forcing me to go along with those plans.

I guess that depends on your government. But H-con was the only one who suggested government restrictions, so I'd say probably not.

 

[TTEchidna]

No one really cares because the problem's not at their door right now. It's why the US didn't enter WWII until after Pearl Harbor, why France and Britain didn't do anything about Germany until they invaded Poland...

We try to convince ourselves that nothing's gonna happen and that what we do has so little effect on anything so as to be essentially zero, but when you've got seven billion of us all thinking the same, you gotta really wonder, isn't seven billion billionths nonzero enough to matter?

 

[H-con]

And that's fine. I just don't do such things for the environmental benefits, I do them for the monetary benefits.

That's not really a good attitude for fixing environmental problems. At all. You see, sometimes we have to make sactifices for nature, even if it cost something.
The only problem in nature today isn't simply global warming, as I'm sure you're aware of. Some things aren't even debatable, like how we as a society tend to use the nature as a garbage-dump. The Pacific ocean is littered by garbage.
Just because you don't believe in man-made global warming doesn't give you any right to deny any other environmental problem you know.

As long as 'letting others do what they want' doesn't involve government regulations forcing me to go along with those plans.

Changing bad habits on a bigger scale is the first step that must be taken. That doesn't involve massive government regulations.

While cutting electricity usage is good economically, as for Global Warming....you (alone) using less electricity will have no measureable effect.

You know, that's a very bad attitude towards solving virtually any problem, especially environmental ones. To quote someone (albeit in another thread, that's understood the point)

If everyone had that attitude, Bulbapedia wouldn't be running. That's why many things in life, such as less energy consumption, do not happen.

On a MUCH lesser scale, some people don't vote for their favourite act on a talent show, thinking "Oh, they'll win anyway"... Only to find that don't win, leaving them raging about how this guy should have won and that guy shouldn't have.

On a larger scale - Politics. Same thing applies, though. "I won't vote; This party will win, anyway". Only to be fucked off when the party they wanted in lost.

See my point? That attitude is just silly, to be perfectly honest. If you don't want the virus, or whatever it is, then that's fair enough and understandable. But using AdBlock constantly on Bulbapedia really does dent their income and therefore dents the amount of money put into server maintainance, thus making more downtime as the site becomes more and more known.

One person can make a difference. Over used phrase, I know, but that's not the point. Enough individual thoughts of "It's only me; it won't make a difference" ruins it for everybody.

A person can't go around thinking "i won't change anything". It's better to actually do something, that's a lot better than doing nothing.

And seeing how plentiful food is, eating less will increase crop spoilage as it's not always feasible for the farmers to sell their surplus crops to poor countries.

True enough, but this is our chance to actually do something about world hunger. Not only does this waste of food end up costing the consumer money, but it causes quite the environmental problem, shipping these products all over the world.
To use an example. The EU estimates that 40-60 % of all fish that's been fished is just thrown away. Just fishing less will put much less strain on the stocks of fish in the ocean.

I'm for keepign the environment healthy, as I believe pollution is mostly regional, but I don't think it should come at the expense of lowering living standards and high costs for groceries, power, etc, when it doesn't have a huge effect on the pollution.

Lowering standards of living? But what are the standards of living? Is it to be able to buy anything we want, as long as we can afford it? To be able to waste our resources like we do today? Is that our "standard of living"? Surely, using less electricity, biking or walking more instead of driving, use less water, throw away less food and generally be more aware of the environment won't lower that? I think that too many believe that this will drastically lower "standards of living", but how do you define standards of living? To be able to live in a good home, clothed and to put food on the table and have a steady income?

Pollution is very regional, but some pollution does affect others. We in Norway have had our share of acid rain coming from factories in other countries, to use an example. Naturally, it's easier to see the results of pollution on a local scale though.

I guess that depends on your government. But H-con was the only one who suggested government restrictions, so I'd say probably not.

Come on, you make me sound like a socialist... Oh wait!

Anyways, changing bad habits in the general public needs a little start from the government. I was proposing banning regular light-bulbs and subsidizing bikes, not setting demands on how much you could use the car a day. Use common sense. I'm not talking about putting a massive "environment-tax" in effect either, to make that clear.

 

[Nicoleta01]

You know, that's a very bad attitude towards solving virtually any problem, especially environmental ones. To quote someone (albeit in another thread, that's understood the point)

Uh, just 'cause it's a "Bad" attitude doesn't mean it's not true. If you're the only person in a town of 10,000 cutting electricity usage, then yes, you have next-to-no measurable effect.

True enough, but this is our chance to actually do something about world hunger. Not only does this waste of food end up costing the consumer money, but it causes quite the environmental problem, shipping these products all over the world.
To use an example. The EU estimates that 40-60 % of all fish that's been fished is just thrown away. Just fishing less will put much less strain on the stocks of fish in the ocean.

Not all places are able to grow crops as efficiently as others, so if Japan was left to fend for itself, they'd face massive starvation as most of their food is imported. You can't ease world hunger if you want to slow importation of food. And any constraint in supply of an object may increase the price of said object, either locally, or regionally.

Lowering standards of living? But what are the standards of living? Is it to be able to buy anything we want, as long as we can afford it? To be able to waste our resources like we do today? Is that our "standard of living"? Surely, using less electricity, biking or walking more instead of driving, use less water, throw away less food and generally be more aware of the environment won't lower that? I think that too many believe that this will drastically lower "standards of living", but how do you define standards of living? To be able to live in a good home, clothed and to put food on the table and have a steady income?

Standard of living refers to being able to support oneself (Basic needs) in the economy that you live in. In the developed world that's a high standard of living, and in the developing world it is lower (and should be brought up through economic means). And it involves being able to satisfy most wants throught investment or buying.

Pollution is very regional, but some pollution does affect others. We in Norway have had our share of acid rain coming from factories in other countries, to use an example. Naturally, it's easier to see the results of pollution on a local scale though.

True, and acid rain can be minimized through regulation, as the technology available can support remodeling area factories to produce less pollution.

 

[new mew]

Okay, first I would like to clear this out: I'm totally unsure on which forum I must put this, so any kind mod could move it or something like that if its in the wrong one.

Now coming to the point....

We hear and read so much about Global Warming, Climate change, pollution etc. these days. But what matters is, do we really try to stop it? Do we really turn off the lights, fans etc before leaving a room? Do we turn off the car engine promptly after stopping at a crossing or a traffic signal? Do we keep within traffic rules? Do we plant trees every week? How many people do you know actually care for mother Earth? Do YOU care for it?

I dont think anyone cares for mothsr earth. Vegatarians say they do but they eat plants. Repulicans say they do but they just stand there any piont the finger at democrats. Kids say they do but their to fucking bgsy tagging peoples homes. I know for sure i hate the goddamn planet i live on so i dont fucking care about it at all! (ps the world goes through hot-cold phases, so thetes some proof that global warming doesnt exsist)

 

[bell02+]

Well, to be fair, they say it will effect their generation in the commercials, but in reality it'll effect our generation: everyone under 30 right now. So whatever happens that should be kept in mind. Just the reason GW is important isn't because it'll protect the earth, the earth will be fine, its to protect human life! Life on earth very well likely survive though the worst (as life can be seen in surprising places) just not the essential elements for ones we really care about.

Honestly I do really care about it, but I don't go to the "make your own compost" extreme. Little steps make great waves towards a better future, but furthermore adapting to new more efficient technologies and keeping appeal high enough for companies to fund things like real alternative energy like advanced solar, fusion power, and hydrogen power to be improved upon such that prices of that technology go down and become available for people to use instead of high pollutant choices.