I will admit to some trepidation at the thought of both houses of Congress changing hands, mostly because I fear the first order of the day will be settling old scores. But I do feel a bit of hope that we might be able to slow down the destruction of the environment with the right ousted from power.
Is it too little, too late? Will the big oil companies just change the payee on their PAC contributions to Democrat names? Will anything constructive happen? Opinions?
I fear that even if we chuck oil and change to a new source, we’re in too deep. I think Dems will spend a lot on new energy sources, but they need to do it quick. They need to fix a lot of problems very quickly, or we’re screwed.
The depressing thing is that America can’t do it alone. We generate a lot of the greenhouse gasses, but China and a couple other developing nations are poised to pass us as energy consumers. And they care even less about the environment than we do. Now that China, for instance, can see itself evolving into a major player/power, what are the odds that they’ll put the brakes on just because we ask them to?
Why would anyone for that matter? America builds thousands of nukes, then says “okay, everone- no more new bombs for anyone.” But “anyone else” is how the world reads it. We become a global SuperPower based on the ruthless exploitation of the planets resources, then cry “time to stop” just when everyone reaches for their slice of the pie. The sad thing is that as the only superpower left in the world, we’ve essentially reached the milestones that most of the world is trying to attain, and in the process learned the downside. But now no one else will believe til they’ve learned it for themselves.
Even if American stopped using any power, what would happen? Scientists say by 2050 over half the corral in the sea will have died. Those same scientists predict by the end of the century, 90% of all the fish in the sea will have been wiped out, essentially ending the ecosystems of the oceans as we know them. The snow caps of Kilimanjero are almost completely gone for the first time in recorded history. 2% of the entire area of the US is paved!
Is there any way to put the toothpaste back in the tube?
i never answered a thread of yours before,
but the problem is that republicans and democrats are taking turns.
When the republicans moves, the house is transform, and we see a new world, yet, we still have problems, only to that extent that the problem continues, the republicans will win back the house again. That will be years to come.
If the democrats wants to do good for us, then they better recognize we do have all problems
I feel the same exact way; we live in a very very depressing time. The worst thing is, that most Americans don’t realize the damage they are doing. And even if they did, they could care less. That’s why only intelligent people should be running this world, not those with money.
That’s disgusting.
It’s surprising you’ve never replied to a post of mine before! 
But I’m glad you did this time. 
Although I admit that ‘the powers that be’ are the driving force behind the copious amounts of production and hence pollution, in actual fact it takes two to tango, meaning, there must be a herd of consumers to keep the current system ticking over. We mustn’t just rely on our politicians to do something about it, we must somehow convince the herd that their consumerist lifestyle is destroying the planet.
We can start by leading by example. I choose to live a life of relative poverty (by Western standards) because I not only know the destruction it causes the planet, I know consumerism feeds of a desire for happniess that can never be attained. Unfortunately it takes people 20 years to realize this, and other people never learn.
My second step in combating this problem is to attack the marketers, those sub-humans who sit behind a desk thinking up a jingle and a line or two to sell the latest product that is meant to give people happiness, self-esteem, and an identity. Their whole lives and employment is based on lies, dirty manipulative lies that breed human beings from birth into believing in the ‘consumerist ethic’ and its so-called ‘good life’.
Certainly we can’t rely on politicians to save us (just the idea makes me chuckle! 
), but unless the entire population of the world gets involved, just having all Americans take a vow of poverty won’t be enough. Unfortunately for the environment, it looks like consumerism is sweeping the globe.
This is one of my biggest fears. Can you imagine a world where the only thing that matters the world over is that production is efficient and consumers consume at a high rate? This will be Nietzsche’s “last man”. All other values will be stripped from the world and it will be a reduction to “who can buy the latest commodities” as to who will be the noble. It honestly sickens me to see someone who “buys the latest and coolest t-shirt or car” becomes more noble than self-disciplined artistic genius.
Yes, certainly. The Democrat’s power base of unionized laborers will certainly see the benefits of eliminating their jobs to stop pollution and environmental damage caused by factories and consumption.
It’s the sort of propaganda and deception being repeated in the above comment that really worry me.
You see these lies all the time: that protecting the environment costs jobs or hurts the economy, that we have to trade one off against the other, that conserving energy means turning down the thermostat or otherwise doing without, and so on. And “lies” is exactly what they are, deliberate misstatements put out by propaganda groups funded by industries whose interests are threatened.
The fact is, our energy efficiency in this country is right around 10% at present. That means that for every unit of energy we use, we throw away another nine unused. It also means there’s plenty of room to improve that efficiency, to use more of that energy and waste less. It would not be very difficult to push that 10% figure up to 40%, which would in effect quadruple the amount of energy we have available at current levels of production. That isn’t exactly doing without. Or we could get the same use out of the energy produced, while producing only 1/4 as much – with nice consequences for pollution, global warming, and long-term resource husbandry.
The same is pretty much true down the line, with all of our resource use. We are grossly, grossly inefficient, and that increases our footprint per person a lot. We have a lot of room for improvement yet before we really need to start tightening our belts.
If we start now. If we don’t listen to the lies. The problem is, I’m not at all convinced the Democrats will do that.
It’s the sort of propaganda and deception being repeated in the above comment that really worry me.
You see these lies all the time: thatour energy efficiency in this country is right around 10% at present. That means that for every unit of energy we use, we throw away another nine unused. And “lies” is exactly what they are, deliberate misstatements put out by propaganda groups funded by industries whose interests are threatened.
If we start now. If we don’t listen to the lies. The problem is, I’m not at all convinced the Democrats will do that.
Gorgias, do you know what the term “energy efficiency” means?
Do I think the environment will catch a break? Absolutely.
Will it be much of one? No.
The number one polluter is state and federal government, not business. Let’s just get that out of the way. As long as we have government, we will have major pollution.
On the other hand, in the elections on tuesday, voters in 23 states approved 99 measures that will provide $5.73 billion for state and federal funding for land conservation! That is a record amount.
It is very unlikely that the Democratic house and senate will allow drilling of the contenintal shelf which is very good news, and I think we can expect to see extreme reform in environmental regulations for businesses which were weakened by the GOP majority. They will fix the EPA that the bush administration has been using to manipulate scientific evidence for their own agenda, and most likely raise the fuel efficiency requirement in automobile manufacturing.
The environmental problems faced in the U.S. are really minor compared to what is going on in China right now, which is just disgusting.
If the Dems don’t take it easy they will blow their chance to go for the presidency.
From my observation Americans don’t like vindictive people and they aren’t interested in supporting people that disturb their society. If changes are to be made, then they should be made very slowly.
True at some times, not others. We can see a rhythm in America, conservative periods when what you say is true, punctuated by times when relatively rapid change is considered needed and welcomed.
Are we currently in a time more like the 1920s or the 1930s? More like the 1960s or the 1980s? Is there a sense of national urgency, danger, and demand for change? Or do people want to kick back, mellow out, and enjoy the fruits of the progress already made?
What do you think makes times change?
Sometimes it’s events, but more than not it’s simply people becoming tired of rhetoric. It’s necessary to understand the culture of the people that you’re trying to govern.
The passing of one generation and the maturation of another. Quite seriously. People who grew up in times of great change are wary of it; people who grew up in conservative times are anxious for change. As each such generation comes of age, it sparks a shift in the national culture.
The young people coming of age now were born in the 1980s, a conservative time. For that reason, I believe we’re entering on a progressive period.
I think that you’re employing a lot of cliches to approach the problem. For intance, what’s “grew up,” “comes of age,” and “generation” mean?
Grow up: spend one’s childhood years, from birth (or perhaps early childhood awareness, say around age two) until the early 20s.
Come of age: reach the age at which one’s society regards one as an adult, with the privileges and responsibilities characterizing adults in that society. In the United States, the age is 21 (although some rights and responsibilities are gained at 18 ).
Generation: a group of individuals who share, by reason of the period in which they are born, a common thread of experience.
For example, all Americans born from the last year or so of World War II (1944 or thereabouts) until the end of the 1950s have a common set of experiences as follows:
None of them have any memory of the war years themselves, or of the Great Depression that preceded it.
All of them spent their childhood in a period of social conservatism, relative peace, and booming prosperity, in which the optimism within American culture was very high.
All of them came of age (see above) from the middle 1960s to the end of the 1970s, and were confronted as young adults with one of the most pronounced periods of cultural change in the nation’s history, encompassing as it did the later civil rights movement, the resurgence of feminism, the birth of environmentalism, the opposition to the war in Vietnam, the so-called “sexual revolution,” and a diversification in religious belief including the founding of many new religious movements.
(Note in passing the great contrast between the 1950s and the 1960s, and between the 1970s and the 1980s. Note also that the young adults of this generation were highly instrumental in causing that period of cultural experimentation from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1970s; it basically came to a halt when they became middle-aged.)
That’s only one example, but because of the rhythm of progressive and conservative periods, the same concept is applicable to people of other birth years as well.
It’s not a strict definition and certainly it doesn’t work to pigeonhole individuals, many of whom will always buck the trends, but it does help model the fact that our history does show a rhythm between tumultuous change and cautious conservatism.