Global Warming, Personal Health, & Finances

[Laterider21958]

Is anybody out there concerned about how much is being produced for a throw away society mindset? It just amazes and worries me. I hate waste, and our society is becoming very wasteful. I know there are recycling efforts, but is it truly, totally recycling that is happening, or re-use and then toss? It's a hard question, and I don't know if there is a solution as we have travelled so far down the consumerism path. The major countries economies revolve around us buying something they produce to make a profit. Is it too late? Somewhere there is a huge electrical appliance/car etc cemetery. Why aren't industries required to produce items that can be repaired or returned for component replacement or reuse?

On another note......I do feel that I'm trying to do my bit for the world. I try to ride and not use the car. I don't toss out perfectly good stuff just because I would like a change and I take as much as I can to the recyclers to do what they do with it, instead of chucking it in the bin without a thought.

This stuff is probably in the wrong forum - Sorry...

[kaian]

It is a throw-away society. It's really sad. My biggest pet-peeve is plastic bags. In MI I have yet to see any grocery stores put up a recycling bin for plastic bags. When I go to smaller stores, I get paper bags and re-use and recycle, but some of the bigger stores only have plastic bags.

In the city I live in, we have a decent recycling service, but with plastics, they only accept 1s and 2s. I don't understand why all plastics can't be recycled. Anyone know? And they won't take colored glass. What's up with that? I would be happy if just about everything could be recycled. I would certainly feel better about the products I purchase and use.

Recently, I saw a family of geese walking in a busy intersection where I work and live. It made me soooo sad. Here's this family of geese crossing in front of a gas station with traffic everywhere. They made it across, but it was just kind of surreal watching it. It really makes me sad about how the earth has changed. The animals are really suffering, too. They don't have anywhere to go because we (humans) have taken away their habitats and put up condos and gas stations. Very sad! How do we fix all of this?

[Python]

Like LBTC suggests check out the second-hand shops. I often do and have got some absolute bargains - like the brand new business suit. It even still had the original price tags on it.

I only had two children - a boy and a girl, both in their twenties now. My daughter and her husband have one child - a boy. They don't want any more children. I think two kids are enough nowadays. What used to annoy me was the pressure that is put on couples to have kids. I was married 5 years before my daughter was born and if I'd 1 penny for every time I heard "Well when are you going to have family?" I'd be wealthy now! If a couple choose not to have children then that is their choice and they shouldn't be made to feel guilty.

I think my pet hate as far as packaging goes is that hard plastic packaging that you need to use a pair of scissors and a lot of cuss words to get into Not only are they impossible but they're dangerous too because of the sharp jagged edges they have.

Plastic bags are a pest too. Why can't they go back to paper bags like we used to have? These could be made out of recycled material and either recycled again or go in the compost bin.

Another thing that annoys me is the cartons, either waxed cardboard or plastic that milk comes in. Years ago it was always glass bottles which you washed out and returned. If you bought the milk from the shop, you took the bottles back to the shop. The only way you can get milk in glass bottles now (at least here in the UK) is if you get your milk delivered to your door, then you put the washed empties out and the milkman collects them. The only snag with that is it is far more expensive than buying at the local supermarket and our milkman comes at 10am - no use on a hot day if you're working as the milk is sour by the time you get home (or the cats have tipped it up and helped themselves, which our cats learnt very quickly how to do )

I think manufacturers need to rethink their packaging. One of the biggest problems we have this side of the pond is the EU and Health & Safety. It is mostly because of them that we have this packaging problem. Biscuits (cookies) must have at least two layers of packaging - for health reasons. Might catch a disease When I was a little girl, we went to the local shop, stuck our hands among the biscuits, put them in a paper bag, got them weighed and paid for them. Oddly enough, diseases like Salmonella, E-coli etc. weren't heard of. It's only since we went all clean and hygenic that diseases like that have reared their heads. Personally, I think we're too clean nowadays.

[HappyAnika]

So-called Global Warming is the biggest con-trick ever conceived by greedy, corrupt governments.

I haven't read all the posts, but this comment really strikes a nerve with me. Our greedy, corrupt government won't admit to global warming, it isn't acknowledged by them, much less conceived by them.

I agree that the earth has warming and cooling cycles, but let's try a little thought experiment here, it's really all just thermodynamics: For millions of years the earth was inhabited by much less life than there is today (at least the kind that consumes and wastes as much as humans). The earth ran its natural courses of warming and cooling without much external influence. Then come along humans, and eventually the industrial revolution. You may remember back in junior high and high school science classes about different types of energy, potential energy and kinetic energy. For example, if you hold a ball above the ground, it has potential energy (due to its mass and gravity and such). Now if you let it go, it has kinetic energy, its now moving. Now think back to chemistry class, there are two type of chemical reactions, exothermic and endothermic. Exothermic reactions release heat as they happen, endothermic reactions consume it. So now think of the earth as a ball above the ground, it has all this potential energy. Now the humans and their industry come along and "drop" it, releasing much of that potential energy in the form of intiating a bunch of exothermic reactions. We are burning up all of the fuel stored in the planet. Every machine we run converts that fuel into heat and mechanical energy. Heat, heat, heat. Just think about all the heat created running cars and airconditioners and industrial machinery. We don't have many endothermic reactions going on to balance all the exothermic ones. We are literally tearing up the earth and releasing all of its stored energy and since no thermodynamic process is 100% efficient, a significant amount of that energy is pure heat. Even without green house gases and natural warming and cooling cycles, it is inevitable that the earth will warm if it is disturbed. As the population continues to increase and we continue to increase our consumption of "things", we warm it at a faster rate. Even if another cooling cycle comes along, the irreversible damage has been done, the earth will never be as cool as it once was.

[kelownagirl]

Thanks for posting that Happyanika! I have wanted to reply to this thread but haven't had time to do the research to back up my comments.

My main point was that it's not the governments who are "pushing" global warming, it's the scientists, thousands of them from many countries. The governments are only now being forced to listen, mainly because people are finally cluing in that this is real and since we are the voting public, the govt finally realizes they have to address it, even it it means pi$$ng off their "big business" friends. Sadly, in Canada, the govt sucks at dealing with global warming. The recent laws to reduce emissions are weak and will barely make a dent. We won't even make the Kyoto targets - I'm embarrassed by my govt on this issue.

Go watch An Inconvenient Truth to have a better understanding of why this warming trend is so different from any natural weather pattern. Most scientists in the world now agree that the warming is man-made. That part is no longer under contention. Just how fast and what effect it will have, we will have to wait and see. But go up north and ask the polar bears, and they'll tell you it's happening even faster than they originally thought.

[Python]

In the UK the government only pays lip-service to the big industries too. Our government has operated a policy of tax, tax, tax in the 10 years it has been in government. The majority of people in this country are crippled by heavy taxation but most of us don't earn enough money to pay the taxes as it is. On top of tax deducted from our wages, everything we buy is taxed at 17.5%. For every litre of fuel we buy for our cars we pay approximately 80% in tax and duty to the government. Then we have expensive Road Fund Tax (aka Road Tax). All of it goes into the Treasury coffers and very little gets spent on building new roads or even maintaining the ones we've got. Most of our roads are so full of pot-holes that you've really got to watch you don't catch a deep one and fly off your bike. Then we have Council Tax. That is a tax all householders pay supposedly to pay for rubbish disposal, lighting, the police etc. That is the tax that this government keeps on increasing. Old people have been put in prison because they can't afford to pay it.

The government we have at the moment seizes on every opportunity it can to tax the ordinary working person here and global warming is their latest tax grabbing venture and they're exploiting it to the max

The quickest and cheapest way for me to visit my daughter in Scotland is to fly up. I can get a cheap return flight for as little as £20 if I book far enough in advance. By the time airport tax is added on to that the price goes up to about £60. All in the name of Global Warming.

The ones who are suffering because of all the extra taxation are those who can least afford it. For people on high incomes, paying extra tax will hardly be missed. We have a rich/poor divide here which is getting wider all the time and given our government's track record on taxation you can understand why I'm very cynical of global warming.

[lph]

The ones who are suffering because of all the extra taxation are those who can least afford it. For people on high incomes, paying extra tax will hardly be missed. We have a rich/poor divide here which is getting wider all the time and given our government's track record on taxation you can understand why I'm very cynical of global warming.

Well, I can understand that you're unhappy about taxation, and dislike your government, but that doesn't really imply that global warming isn't real...

I mean - let's say for the sake of argument that your country got involved in a war. Taxes would surely go up to support the war effort, and the effect would hit people hard. You could disagree with your government whether it was right to get involved in the war or not, but that doesn't mean the war doesn't exist.

Honest, not trying to be snide here, just pedantic

[carpaltunnel]

For those who want to understand global warming better, here are a few places to start:
Rent the movie An Inconvenient Truth. A good overview of the science supporting the theory that global warming is real and a threat to us all.

Read The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery

How man is changing the climate and what it means for life on earth.

Mr. Flannery is an internationally acclaimed scientist. I heard him interviewed on National Public Radio's Fresh Air Program. He was a global warming sceptic until he pieced together data he had collected from several trips to New Guniea over a period of years. The book details scientific evidence that supports the theory that global warming is real.
Listen to the show from this link
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5293273

Read Uncertain Science...Uncertain World by Henry N. Pollack
This book clearly addresses the precise language scientists use like "Theory" and "certainty", and explains what it really means. This is the language that people with an interest in business as usualy exploit when they say things like "Well, science has never proved that smoking causes cancer, (or burning fossil fuels causes global warming).
Dr. Pollack is a professor of Geology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. He does research into the historical temperature records that can be derived from core samples in the Antarctic and in rock formations. I attended a lecture he gave last week on this topic. He recommended that we all let our elected officials know that the environment is a high priority with us as voters, and we'll be voting that issue in all upcoming elections. A quote from his lecture: "We have to stop using the atmosphere like an open sewer."
He was also a presenter at the US Global Change Research Program seminar. A good summary is here:
http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/seminars/980112DD.html

Please give these careful consideration and try to separate the science from the current political responses. Thanks!