🚀 go-pugleaf

Mitchell Craig (hcrms@venus.chvpkh.chevron.com) wrote:

: >I think that if there are specific cases where harm is done, and a 
: >company refuses to try to help the victim or mitigate the damage, then
: >legal action may be in order. However, what you [gary hammell] have 
: >described,

: >>   "if a company knowingly produces and promotes a substance or
: >>    product which is in anyway harmful to the biosphere, it would be
: >>    punished..."

: >sounds more like you are fundamentally opposed to companies that do
: >certain kinds of business.  You don't leave much room for most of the
: >industries in the world.  If you were to sue all industries that
: >pollute, you would be in court a long time.  I think we all have better
: >things to do, fix and create.

I must say that I agree with Mitchell on this point. In fact, almost 
everything we do in life creates undesirable by-products.  Given the 
population of some urban areas, the environment is simply not capable of 
dealing with just the material we sneeze (for example) let alone all the 
junk our technologies produce! Still, I feel that Gary makes a useful 
point in suggesting that business should be fostered around a kind of 
"disposal side" economics instead of "supply side" economics.  That is, 
if there is no way to recycle/re-use the left over components of a 
product, then it should not be made in the first place.

: >Isn't it the responsibility of county, municipal, state, and
: >federal government, and developers to provide better mass transit and 
: >bike trails. We need to encourage and support this type of action.
: >And finally, isn't it the responsibility of the people 
: >to ride their bikes to work and use public transit instead of driving?

Here too i agree with Mitchell.  Certainly oil companies have a lot of 
work to do in improving their refinery techniques (e.g. removing selenium 
from waste water!), but there is plenty of room for each and every one of 
us to alleviate the problem by choosing public transportation or, even 
better, living within walking/biking distance of our places of 
business/academia.  

--
Greg Pasternack              | Because each and every reality needs
Environmental Scientist      | a regular tune up.
gpast@uclink.berkeley.edu