🚀 go-pugleaf

>NOW!  You sound like a little child, stamping her feet until she gets
>her way.

What's wrong with being a child?  Kids are more likely to see a problem and
provoke a change than an adult.  It's the children who are going to have to
deal with the consequences of our doings.  I would much rather be a child
who is willing to change, than an old sucker who is lost in his/her stubborn
ways.

>  These conditions are already being improved in this country,

Yes, now that we chopped down all of our old-growth forests, can't go
swimming in most rivers, are having problems finding water for cities, and
have protected the soils with concrete, we are starting to notice that there
is a problem.  Do you really think that "these conditions" are really being
improved well enough?


>though not in many of the countries that would be allowed to continue
>to pollute under the terms of the recent agreement in Japan.  In the

Yes, blame everything on other countries.  That's always an easy way to get
out of a problem or to divert someone's attention.  Let's focus on our
pollution problem, the worst in the world, before we start accusing others
of misbehaving.  How can a country be a leader if it can't lead itself?

>real world, a balance must be reached between the desire to reduce
>pollution and sheer economic reality.  A collapsed economy benefits

Can that balance be found in a country with one party, the demopublicans, or
in a country where the presidents office is held by which ever person can
produce the best commercials on TV, or where the vote of our representatives
can be purchased with PAC contributions?  I find it scary how many of our
hospitals are more interested in their annual profits, than their success in
helping people.

>no one.  Progress takes time and must be evolutionary, rather than

Ok, so lets just sit back and watch it.  Let's do nothing and see how it
fares.  Since the population in the US is decreasing, since corporations are
working together to pollute less, since everyone in the US is buying less,
recycling without help from the government, and driving their cars less,
were going to have a great future and there's no need for us to think about
what we can do to help the environment.  Why take action when it's not
needed?

Well, I disagree with you strongly.  To prove that your idea is in need of a
tune-up, ask the first person you see after reading this note why they drive
their car(s) even though they know that it might be damaging to the
environment.  Most people feel that it's not their fault or problem.  They
believe that their car is only one out of millions, and therefore they can't
be responsible for all of the pollution.  Yet, when you combine millions of
people together with the same opinion, you have a million people who are
responsible for oil spills, air pollution, water pollution, spread-out
cities, and vanishing farmlands.  Yet, if each individual were to try to see
more in the world than just their own way of live, and if they were to try
to imagine how the world would be if everyone lived with the same excuses
that they lived by, I'm sure that they would be more concerned with how they
go about their lives, and they would try to change the way that you are
afraid to.

>revolutionary, as it's a sad fact that the pristine world you envision

I do not envision a world.  I just try to think and do what may be best for
it.

>will require the loss of a good part of the human race; five or six
>billion people will always generate a good deal of pollution.  The


Five or six billion "uneducated" people will generate a good deal of
pollution.

>trick is to develop ways to minimize this, while still allowing a
>healthy economy to function.

In this sense, we're both interested in the same thing.

>
>>I know that you don't want to stop driving your car, that you find it
>>too costly to place solar panels on your roof, that you probably don't
>>recycle much, and that you haven't made much of an effort to conserve
>>energy.  It seems sad to me that you need proof that all these things
>>are harmful before you'll think about changing.  Sometimes, all that
>>is needed is a little common sense.
>
>So, in your book, "common sense" involves a knee-jerk reaction to
>every new theory that comes down the pike.

Can you explain that better?