[quote]lucasa wrote:
Very good knewsom, you can cherry pick quasi-relevant analogies and pass them off as supporting your hypothesis.
Good thing you chose smoking and the big C and not steroids the dead bodies they generate or ephedrine. Or listen to the experts suggest drugs like thalidomide or stacking Crestor with Baycol or Phen/fen or Bextra or Vioxx.
Better to not think for yourself, not listen objectively to both sides, and not promote a general level of awareness. Rather, spew mania about the impending doom and its homology to cancer.[/quote]
Lucasa,
I DID do the research, I HAVE listened to what both sides have to say on this, and I’m NOT spewing mania and doom and gloom. What I AM saying is that I’ve done the math, and it looks likeley that we’re exasorbating an existing situation such that it could become a MAJOR problem. It also looks likely that drastic climate change could affect humanity as well as many extant species of plant and animal in extraordinarily negative ways. This is why I’ve adopted a stance of “better safe than sorry”. Not because I believe the world’s gonna end in 20 years, but because I believe that’s a worst-case scenario and what’s REALLY going to happen is somewhere inbetween, but also probably not exactly good, the best case scenario being that us enviros are totally wrong… in any case, implimenting more lower-emmision technologies will help wean our dependence on foreign energy sources, lower the cost of production here, and give us another new technology to export and make gobs of money on, while helping developing nations take control of the situation as well. We need to be a world LEADER on this issue, not the big country that the rest of the world ends up dragging along kicking and screaming. (not to mention polluting less is just generally a GOOD idea.)
donno 'bout contrails, but trains are far more efficient than aeroplanes, and until we find a good biofuel for planes, I think we need to conserve what fossil fuels we CAN so that we can maintain international travel and freight via air. this is pretty important, because when petrol becomes cost-prohibitive, we’ll all be on extremely modern sailing ships bound for europe or china instead of on comfy airplanes being served free booze and nuts by flight attendants.
[/quote]
[quote]
Diesel for reasons other than the environment. However, I find it funny the people who drive a prius to ‘save the planet’. If everyone else is strangling and punching the planet the prius owners are merely choking and slapping it. If there’s a problem and a solution, commuting is only a small part of it. [/quote]
Sadly, in our society, the Prius is primarily the only widely available vehicle that is efficient and semi-eco friendly. (that’s new - for a used vehicle see the geo metro, which gets about the same mileage.) You’d be surprised how much CO2 comes from vehicle emmisions, and could be prevented by walking or riding a bycicle to work, where feasable. And as for your diesel, may I ask why, if not for enviro reasons, and what model? Are we talking a mercedes diesel? or a Ford 7.5L Turbodiesel F250?
TELL me about it… that’s why I pay $2.00 for an avocado whereas you can get them for HALF that at Safeway. I’m also planning on PLANTING an avocado tree once I own my own property (or rather a BUNCH of avocado trees, because they fucking ROOL - I love avocados… 
[quote]
I agree in that everybody should at least have some understanding of where their food comes from, what it takes to grow it, what is/isn’t gained by organic growing, why outsourcing is so prevalent, and to get people off their asses in general. I understand that not everyone ‘has the time’ but a majority do and should. But now we’re getting really off topic.[/quote]
awesome… we have some common ground here. it may be off topic, but I think that this is a small part of the overall puzzle, and I think it applies to more than FOOD. If we could localize the production of more consumer products and provide incentives to purchase from local producers (and make it equitable for EVERYONE), IMAGINE the efficiency we could gain by not shipping everything everywhere. I like to make stuff myself, and/or fix stuff myself, and LOVE handmade goods - if there were a good local cobbler, I’d TOTALLY pay 200 bux for a good pair of boots from him. If there were a good local knifemaker, I’d TOTALLY pay 150 bux for a good knife when my buck knife finally bites it (although that will indubitably never happen because after all it’s a BUCK knife). Sadly, artisans and traditional craftspeople are very difficult to find, and almost ALWAYS far more expensive than just buying something made in pakistan and shipped via fedex. However, as developing nations DEVELOP, as the dollar continues to decline, and as the cost of fuel increases, making shipping more costly, I suspect that we will begin producing more products locally again. That is my prediction, anyhow.
I hope you see where I’m coming from on this - it’s not that I want to “punish” anyone… it’s not that I want to toss around guilt and make people feel bad for their lifestyle choices - I drive a Bronco for chrissakes! What I want is our government (and private sector, where we can encourage it to do so) to invest in renewable technologies, and provide tax incentives to corporations that impliment them, along with a detailed public education campaign on the subject. Shit, I don’t even care if we sign the kyoto protocol. I just want us to do something about this, instead of arguing about “proof” until its too late.
-K