Look at all our great national parks and the many nature preserves. There are private ones, but most of the big ones are not. Look at public water access. In many places where private citizens own waterfront property no one can access the waterfront. Where I live I have the Clean Water Act and the Superfund money to thank for the relative cleanliness of the Hudson, which was polluted for years by GE.
5 Likes
Don’t forget Social Security, either.
Federal protected lands also motivate many private property owners to dedicate some or all of their own land to the conservation pool, especially when such land helps form a continuous corridor. Sometimes state, tribal, or municipal land gets added in.
Government is far from perfect. Same holds true for other collectives or individuals. I wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
2 Likes
Well there have been all kinds of governments down thru history and I have to agree this country was founded with the thoughts of being different and freedoms no place else in the world had ever seen.
The problem with expecting governments to solve climate change is they are all not us.
Lets not forget all the awful things governments have done and are doing around the world for their populations. Governments have taken on the tasks of exterminating whole races of people in the past and it goes on today.
I don’t think a country like China is looking to us for examples of what they should do. They are looking at us as something they would like to end.
1 Like
I get that you see a lot to dislike and not trust with governments.
As I do for private industry. Shrug.
My only point was that there are things that government, as a formalized way of us working together, is necessary and appropriate, and has often worked well.
All those words I just used are ambiguous, so without clear definitions, we could actually be on the same page, just not using the words the same way, smile. Or not.
2 Likes
I spent my life working in private industry in fact the big company that polluted the Hudson River I called home, but not at that location.
I wont say industry isn’t a problem, but they are also the same industry that has accomplished immense good for humanity, and yes did it to produce a profit. When you roll into the ER with chest pain and they start scanning you to find the problem rather than cracking you open. You have to thank the industry for that and somehow overlook the dark things they have also done. When I started there building locomotives they were dirty smoke producing machines guzzling fuel. By the time I retired they were much cleaner hauled so much more with a given gallon of fuel and efficiency was the number one goal. We did it because the railroads demanded it another private industry not because the government that really knows nothing about railroads or locomotives demanded it.
My company CEO got out of bed one day and announced to the world “Automate, Immigrate, or Evaporate”. Well hell we had been automating for 75 years so we jumped straight to Immigrate and went from a self-contained plant that started practically base level materials on one end and shot out 4 finished locomotives a day on the other end, to a manufacturing facility that covered the entire earth and spent as much on shipping and boxes as we did product. We did that until close to my retirement and then we basically evaporated.
We designed and put into production one of the best wind power generation systems out there and they were selling like hot cakes and made in America. We had a China subsidiary that wasn’t happy our product was outselling and outperforming their equipment and next thing you know it was time to evaporate. Government and industry are working together more than anyone knows IMO and not in a pro-America way.
Industry in today’s America is not the evil a lot of people seem to see it as.
Rudolph Rummel estimated that a total of 212 million people were killed by all governments during the 20th century,[3] of which 148 million were killed by Communist governments from 1917 to 1987.[4] To give some perspective on these numbers, Rummel stated that all domestic and foreign wars during the 20th century killed in combat around 41 million.
I’m in agreement on remaining skeptical of governments. The best predictor of the future is the past, we just don’t know when.
2 Likes
And all I am saying, is that government and private industry have their place, both have done horrible things, both have done great good, but neither is a model for the other. They provide different services, whether for good or evil…
1 Like
I don’t see governments or corporations as inherently good or evil, although I know there are examples of each. Instead, their behaviors reflect different motivations. Governments want to stay in power and corporations - public or private - want to make money.
The result is that change is slow and difficult.
- When it comes to problem-solving, elected politicians tend to follow, not lead, because they know most people oppose change even as they dislike the status quo. And if the knowledgeable career civil servants who work in federal and state agencies try to solve problems, they’re attacked and threatened with de-funding by the change-averse politicians.
- Large corporations also tend to follow (not lead) changing markets. They know many current customers will reject significant change no matter what it is, and they don’t want to put current market share at risk. The only problems we can be sure they’ll try to solve are those related to meeting earnings projections.
2 Likes
We seem to be in agreement that governments and private industry in our little corner of the world even are hard pressed to react and solve a huge problem like trying to fix climate change. Government is for the most part are divided and at loggerheads and somehow the plan can’t set people back so far they will resist the plan. That is if they ever do decide what the plan should be. Industry may well be able to invent our way out of the problem but if there isn’t economic reasons to do so the stock holders are not into throwing away money. That’s in our country where we have government that supposedly represents us and we are a fairly rich country. Now what about a communist country that only cares about controlling the population and staying in power. Their industry is not private it is state owned.
The older I get the concept behind Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged is starting to seem closer to real life.
Yes, but its not just communists. Its big business buying government to produce the same end. Laws preventing Medicare from negotiating prices with Big Pharma for example.
2 Likes
1 Like
Good news and bad news. I hope the bad can be avoided and the good happen sooner. With fusion the complexity of scaling it up is the next challenge. We have already learned how to scale up the bad.
1 Like
Sorry if I sounded like I agreed with this statement, I do not. I am more optimistic that we can work together and make a difference on climate warming.
Everybody talks, but is anyone listening. No.matter what we do, the worst offenders have free reign to di what they want. We had our time in the sun as an industrial power. The truth is the industrialists stopped fighting the regulations and gave China a pass, then we packed all of our manufacturing to China, along with a 2 billion pay out. We buy everthing we need from them and keep a blind eye to the pollution. Then we thump our chest and buy dirty batteries from them and teel the world how clean that energy is. Who is going to pay the cleanup of used batteries?
How narcissistic to think that we can stop the weather. Go to another pkanet becsuse this onevis getting uninhabitable. Cloning, gender, life under a rock on Mars while terminating viable life here, space exploration while we destroy this planet. Artificial InIntelligence when kids graduate but can’t read, and more college for EVERYBODY - FREEEEE! Tower of Babel. It’s a big circle. Everybody has ideas . . . They aren’t working. Its just wack a mole. I’m green, I paddle a kayak, but I drive it to the launch in a truck! Dnt drink water out of the faucet, but drink bottled water from some municiple water supply, shipped in a plastic bottle.
2 Likes
I love the hypocrisy of the alarmists as they attend climate conference after climate conference on private jets burning tons of fuel when a video conference would suffice while they wag their fingers at us.
6 Likes
they’re busy, important, irreplaceable, people saving the world one flight at a time. 
They need time to think in their huge carbon foot print houses.
2 Likes
Yes, the private jets flown to a climate summit is hypocrisy, and worth pointing out. Shaming them with it might help in changing their behavior. Bravo for trying to make them change for the better.
Of course, if you think private jets are a good thing, but condemn them for doing what you feel is really alright. I wonder if that is a form of hypocrisy.
It would be interesting to know what amount of all the very rich’s carbon footprint is. Their personal per capita output of carbon, and the amount they drive in their pursuit of wealth. At the same time those that fly private jets and aren’t trying to address climate change are no better. It might be worse actually because of their failure to try an address the problem.
However, there are lots of hypocrites on this planet. My carbon footprint is way lower than any of the rich, and I feel like a hypocrite at times even though I try to avoid flying altogether. Still, I realize there is always more I can do.
3 Likes
I’ve been working at least 30 years to reduce what later became called carbon footprint. I still feel something akin to guilt for doing a carbon-adding activity that is not essential, such as driving to a trailhead or launch. Then I see the myriad RVs towing full-size vehicles behind them, sometimes with a THIRD towee behind that, ALL of them motorized devices. Many from very far away.
I cannot control their actions. That’s why the only recourse short of government restrictions is to make them feel like more people do NOT join their ranks. Repeat: You can’t stop strangers from doing what is legal. You can, however, not oooh and ahhh approvingly at their acquisitions and activities. No need for rudeness, just don’t give them positive feedback for it.
Most people are herd or pack animals socially. If they don’t feel like they are in the majority, or getting thumbs-up for extravagant waste that they view as status symbols, they will eventually lose interest in continuing it.
Regarding rich people’s use of private jets, some of those rich people could be at personal safety risk on a public conveyance. You don’t think a Bill Gates has enemies OR psycho stalkers?
Also, some rich people have extraordinary influence on what the public chooses to do. So let’s say a celebrity flies on private jets but encourages (and walks the walk himself or herself) other habits that are environmentally beneficial. The net result actually might be significant when multiplied by millions of people.
2 Likes
Populations of various creatures are not static. The ranges can vary depending on situation. They react to changing weather patterns over time. Sometimes the changes in climate and populations occur over geological time rather than human time and we don’t notice it as readily.
Remember to shake your boots out every morning. 
Pag
1 Like