What would YOU do

[Guest EricMM]

I'm sure everyone understands that it'd be better to help the environment than to do nothing at all.

 

However, there are certainly different amounts that each person is willing to do to clean up/prevent pollution.

 

I of course know what I would put, and I will post later, but I really want to hear other peoples best ideas.

 

Try to be reasonable, and if at all possible economically sound, otherwise, pfft...

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

One stupid thing I do is pack my garbage. For example, If I finished a box of cereal, I'll leave the box around, shove a day's worth of wrappers, foil, etc. in it then throw it away.

 

Actually, I do this because it saves space, thus prolonging the trip to the dumpster...

[Guest Brian]

You don't recycle cereal boxes?!? I'm outraged!

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

The cereal box is made out of Styrofoam (sp?)...

[Guest Some Guy]

I recycle all my beer cans and bottles, does that count as saving the environment?

 

I think we should raise taxes to New Deal Era levels, cut the military down to Canadian size and spend all the money on saving the trees. Yeah that'll do the trick.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

The more $ we save, the less we'll have to make, thus saving on trees from all the bill production.

 

That or just make our currency from hemp...

[Guest Some Guy]

Good point. See the left has been right all along, the rich really are evil, all that money they make causes trees to be cut down. (Note: We'll ignore that they also make our economy run and pay virtually all the taxes for the sake of this argument)

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Or we could just use those gold Saca-whatever-her-f'n-name-is coins.

 

They may be made out of metal, but some trees will be saved...

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Another recycling thing I do is pee in the shower -- I save 10 or so gallons of toliet water. It's all good as long as you aim for the drain...

[Guest Syxx]

Yeah they pay a large percentage of the overall taxes, but not nearly as high a percentage of their annual earnigs as the lower class, and the poor. If there was any compassion they would be taxed harder and we could fund some more useful social programs and bring the homeless off the street.

[Guest Some Guy]

Yeah but you are actually wasting water unless you clean yourself while pissing. If you do then bonus points for you, if you don;t then you are extending your showering time. What you should do is get one of those water saving toilets that don't have enough power to flush a decent sized shit. That's how to save the environment, yeah that's the ticket.

[Guest EricMM]

What we have here is a failure to communicate

 

I said seriously.

 

I do like how the discussion has moved from trash compacting and recycling (repairing) to conservation (prevention).

 

But peeing down the drain only saves water if you use a low flow shower head. And it PROBABLY pollutes the Chesapeke bay, you bastards.

 

Incandescant bulbs use 5% of their energy to produce light, and 95% to produce heat. Flourescant bulbs use 20-30% to produce light. They make phospherous bulbs that use 50-60% of their energy to make light, and it's better light than flourescant, so don't worry about that. It doesn't flicker. It's real soft light, and it saves a lot of power.

 

This is the kind of no-drawback stuff that I'm talking about.

 

Tax breaks for insulation and better windows would lower the amount of fossil fuels needed, period. Whats so wrong with that. One would not lose one's standard of living at all.

[Guest Some Guy]

Yeah they pay a large percentage of the overall taxes, but not nearly as high a percentage of their annual earnigs as the lower class, and the poor. If there was any compassion they would be taxed harder and we could fund some more useful social programs and bring the homeless off the street.

Huh? If a rich person pays 50% of their income in taxes while a poor person pays 20% how does the poor person pay a higher percentage?

I think what you mean to say is that the rich person is left with more money after they pay, which is an obvious result of them making more money to begin with.

Compassion?

Raping the wallet of those who produce to support those who don't, while at the same time justifying and encouraging them to not produce and giving those who do a reason to no longer produce. Yeah, that sounds like compassion to me and sound economic policy. Or not.

 

Homeless off the streets?

We tried that in the 80's and the Left protested and sent them back. 99.9% of homeless people are insane or drug addicts or both, giving them money will only further their addictions. Getting them into drug treatment, prisons, or the loony bin is a much better idea.

 

BTW, did you know that homelessness actually rose during the Clinton years? Did you know that the very Leftist San Fran has the largest homeless problem in the country? Maybe, just maybe your socialist policies that have been tried over and over and have failed everytime JUST DON'T FUCKING WORK!

Just a thought.

[Guest BaldFish]

::looks up from his shaving cream, razor, and Beluga whale::

 

"SAVE the whales? I thought you said SHAVE the whales!"

[Guest cynicalprofit]

If you really want to save the enviroment, kill off all the humans, seriously, it would do the job.

[Guest EricMM]

the point of "saving the environment" is not to protect this ball of rock.

 

It is trying to keep it in a state that we find hospitable.

 

The Earth cares exactly squat about it's CO2 levels. They were higher in the dino's days than they are now, due to volcanos spewing carbon into the air.

 

But we wouldn't like it like that, and our agriculture wouldn't like it like that, and our beachfront property wouldn't like that.

[Guest DrTom]

Tax breaks for insulation and better windows would lower the amount of fossil fuels needed, period.

It would also clutter up the already byzantine tax laws. The IRS would find about 450 different grades of windows, and 200 grades of insulation, and you'd need to be a CPA to figure out whether your tax break is $20.18 or $20.22. Nice idea that ends up being not worth the hassle.

 

An easier way would be to give homes an "Energy Star" rating when the heating or AC is inspected. The HVAC person could test it (I'm sure a test can be designed for this), certify the results, and the homeowner could get a tax break based on the energy efficiency of their home.

 

Tax breaks should also be doled out for things like recycling. A lot of people recycle now, but a lot more would recycle if they got paid to do it. Tax breaks redistribute wealth, so it's not like the government would be pissing money away. Besides, slashing money from socialist entitlement programs would easily make up the difference.

[Guest LooseCannon]

Shit, that "Energy Star" rating system seems rather complicated and bureaucratic too, IMO. Even ideas that seem simple, end up complicated when the government tries to do them. One has an economic incentive to make his home energy efficient anyway without paying him to do it.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Global Warming doesn't exist in Minnesota. We've had below average temperatures the last 6 weeks, and it was one of the rainiest summers on record.

 

I've tried spraying aresol cans. leaving the refrigerator door open, and driving around in gas guzzling cars. It's still not warming anything up.

[Guest Mad Dog]

From what I've read Global Warming just seems to be a myth overall. I mean reading studies from the 70s and 80s we were supposed to be seriously fucked over by this point and time.

 

And what do we do when the sun eventually burns itself out. We're screwed then.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

The human race won't be around that long. If it is, we'd have probably terraformed something by then. The sun's still got quite a while left on it.

 

But peeing down the drain only saves water if you use a low flow shower head. And it PROBABLY pollutes the Chesapeke bay, you bastards

 

That drain goes to the same place your toilet does, wherever that may be. If not, your house has got some ate up plumbing.

[Guest TJH]

In response to the original question:

 

I would be happy to pay, say, $10,000 more for a car that was electric or petrol-electric if it came close to normal perfromance.

One thing I would be strongly against is raising taxes on petrol, or similar environment taxes. I don't know about America, but in Australia the government just uses the taxes to go behind peoples backs in taxing them, and claim it is for the environment. Which is interesting because none of the money from these so called "environment taxes" actually goes to the environment.

I would support a tax on plastic supermarket bags if the revenue went in to proper environmentally beneficial programs.

 

That environment minister.....(Daz)

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Actually, Eric, I am being serious. (I also forgot about getting a more fuel-effiecient car. d'oh)

 

I usually pee in the shower toward the end, so I don't have to clean myself off.

 

The funny thing about recycling is that the most pollution doesn't come from homes -- it comes from corporations. Putting out your glass products in that colored bin every week doesn't do squat.

 

"If there was any compassion they would be taxed harder and we could fund some more useful social programs and bring the homeless off the street."

 

Funny. Oregon recently voted down a universal health care referendum. Can you blame them? Could you imagine the influx of underclass visitors that would enter that state. (San Fran is only a bus ride away). Hell, I bet Willie Brown was praying for that bill to pass so he could unload his homeless problem onto another area.

 

"BTW, did you know that homelessness actually rose during the Clinton years?"

 

Funny, I didn't read about it in the media after 1992. I thought they all found houses to live in. Oh, but there was a little mention of the homeless when Rudy Guliani was up for re-election.

 

I love those low-energy toliets. Instead of using up 15 gallons of water in one power flush, you need to flush three times using 7 gallons of water each time (I'm making up numbers here, but you get the point)...

[Guest Some Guy]

Same with the "water saving" shower heads. It takes longer to shower, especially if you have long hair (which I did at one point) becaseu there is no water pressure to rinse out the shampoo. Like most liberal ideas, it looks good on paper and the intetnion is there but ultimately it doesn't work properly.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Did you know that the very Leftist San Fran has the largest homeless problem in the country?

Just wanted to note that I lived there for many years and still try to keep up with their local issues, and San Francisco isn't kind to their homeless at all, so it's not really an example of liberal policies not working since the policies always lose by ever-so-much. Most of the help the homeless get from San Francisco is by private organizations and charities.

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

"Same with the "water saving" shower heads. It takes longer to shower, especially if you have long hair (which I did at one point) becaseu there is no water pressure to rinse out the shampoo. Like most liberal ideas, it looks good on paper and the intetnion is there but ultimately it doesn't work properly."

 

Joel Stein (sp?) wrote a piece in Time years ago about people who build homes and smuggle in powerful toliets and shower heads. Funny read...

[Guest EricMM]

I never once, except in jest, mentioned low flow water fixtures. They're annyoing.

 

TJH if you're from Austrailia you already probably pay 3.5x the amount that we do for gas.

 

That would probably be the simplist and most unpopular and effective environmental move to make in america, tax gasoline. As soon as there is a SERIOUS demand for fuel efficent cars, you WILL find some that perform the same as current ones. Right now there's nowhere near enough market for them to seriously invest in them.

[Guest NoCalMike]

If electric cars were the right price and more readily available to your average consumer, then I would get one in a heartbeat. Oh and I recycle a lot of stuff.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Let's drill for oil in Alaskan wildlife reserves and cut down all the forests in the USA.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

And Mike: They are available, the price is so high because the government makes a shitload of money on taxing gas. Therefore, they probably will never become mainstream.