Each to his or her own, but I choose not to live my life believing villains hide behind every tree and evil lurks in every shadow.
“There’s just to much to see waiting in front of me, and I know that I just can’t go wrong.”
(RIP Jimmy B)
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I don’t see villian everywhere. I just see some in public office. You can tell they’re duplicitous by their actions. You should be so trusting. I can’t help seeing it due to my training and experience. I’m not asking you to believe me, but I can’t ignore what I believe. You ever hear the old adage: what you don’t know can’t hurt you? Well its not true. I learned that if a person lies, expect the next thing out of his or her mouth to be a lie. You’ll be right more times than not.
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As with most political issues, the point of view is a matter of perspective. For example, one view is anyone who disagrees is ignorant or a denier, another view is that data is skewed by profiteers. Still others simply do not care, because policies can’t change thevoutcome, only induvidual action can.
I have no desire to change anyones mind. However, public debate is often a great way to assess how others analyse information. I’m gonna focus on kayak stuff now.
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Someone I knew encountered the same illogical obstacle to her replacing a very high-miles, tired old car with a new one getting better mpg. She was, in essence, punished for having driven a car with already-good mpg, while those who drove outrageously inefficent behemoths for city commuting got in on the deal AND earned the fake greenie badge of approval.
The car dealerships must’ve been laughing their butts off.
My husband’s old SUV was “bad” enough to be eligible but we chose not to participate for these reasons:
- The vehicle ran clean, didn’t leak anything, was dependable, and did anything we needed
- That engine was long known to be durable
- It was semi-retired to hauling and towing use, never used for city driving or commuting
- The entire program was obviously a plan to boost sales of new vehicles more than any stated “greenie approved” reason; we refused to support it
- A perfectly good engine THAT STILL RAN WELL AND CLEANLY would’ve been destroyed, along with the entire rest of the vehicle—an egregious waste, when manufacturing a new car carries big environmental costs that consumers seem to ignore.
Now it is 15 years later and the same old SUV still runs well, albeit it is now showing its age and miles. It is a 1997 model purchased new in late 1996. Twenty-seven years, never babied, and we still get value from its use, reducing the number of new vehicles that might have taken its place during that span.
I’m not apologizing to the car dealerships for not succumbing to their peer pressure tactics, like the guy who referred to my then-7-year-old truck as “old.” Mindless consuming is killing this country, in some cases literally (eating themselves to death, working to death trying to pay for all those purchases, buying ever-bigger houses to contain all the stuff and getting worse into debt, spiralspiralspiral).
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I don’t claim to be right, but I believe political decisions are designed to influence a political base. The result is that our taxes are used to reward a target group at the expense of another group. Free college, for example, targets college age voters. Although college is expected to increase a graduate’s emloyment potential, the tax burden is added to those who have no intention to attend college. Of course the college bound kid thinks it’s brilliant. It is brilliant, but from my perspective, any college kid that thinks it’s fair to burden anyone else with his or her personal debt, doesn’t have the moral integrity to take advantage of college. I believe that such a sense of entitlement gives the recipient more power than they should be trusted with.
My own children didn’t want me to pay for their education. The oldest daughter told her high school guidance counselor that paying for it would make her appreciate it more. The tuition fees were a drop in the bucket considering the benefit. That isn’t something to brag about, it’s simply true and the right approach.
My 2001 Tundra runs and drives like a new one. The perfect paddler/ homeowner vehicle. It has a few dings for character.
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I don’t mind people who can afford it and trade off their car or truck every couple years as that vehicle goes down the food chain and fill someone else need with less money to spend. Eventually it ends up being a back up car for a family and something for the kids to drive. At the end of its life it hopefully ends up in a salvage lot to provide parts for someone keeping another one going.
One thing I noticed about 20 years ago cars became more fuel economic and lighter and part of that made them easier to total. A ten year old car now will be totaled for a pretty mild crash. They will look at the value and condition and the super inflated price to repair and say scrap it. One thing I noticed when I had full size trucks on frames is I could unbolt a fender or any body part even the bed go to a junk yard and bolt the new part on and down the road I went.
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I agree with much of what’s been said from several of the different perspectives. What I am not seeing is the basic response to the science of what is happening with CO2 being pumped ever increasingly into the atmosphere. What I am hearing are various reasons not to be doing what is trying to be done.
It seems there is one point of view climate change is just a natural consequence of nature with nothing much to be done about. It isn’t the problem it is stated to be. I do agree it is a natural part of nature. Humanity is that part of nature that is driving these changes on an extremely short time scale. I happen to disagree with thinking there is nothing much to be or should be done about it. CO2 is one of humanities many waste products no less than what your body relieves itself of each day.
When it comes to doing something about it There are many reasons not too. it can’t be done without returning to the stone age, politician’s and corporations are making money off of it, it’s inconvenient, it cost too much, or it isn’t the problem it is stated to be.
I can agree there is political and corporate interest in how the choices are made, that some are willing to ignore true cost of the changes, that there are inequalities in the process.
What is being ignored in this thread at the moment is the biology of life on the planet and the laws of nature that drive the biosphere we live in. viewed from space you can see just how thin our atmosphere really is, yet when you look up it seems almost endless. I can see how easy it is to think mankind could never influence a change in the atmosphere, but the science tells us otherwise. Most all life requires input from the sun and an atmosphere. Some life at underwater vents deep at the bottom of the ocean where the earth is separating the continents can survive on only the nutrients coming out of those hot water vents. They need neither oxygen nor sunlight.
If we stopped all fossil carbon pollution today the current amount of CO2 pollution will continue to cause more drastic changes in the weather. The rapidity of these changes, and the much slower rate of evolution are such that many species of life will perish potentially on a scale to be considered a mass extinction.
The cost to the biosphere is what is being ignored. This cost will also impact us. I believe we are basically ignorant as a culture when it comes to the complexity of life on this planet, but expert on how to make money at all costs.
I think most of us that paddle have a great appreciation of the natural world. That we can be so at odds on solutions I find worrying.
I understand that the population of an organism which has no restraint on growth will always expand to the point of a drastic population collapse. What causes the collapse is the destruction of the very things it needs to survive.
Happy New Year everyone!
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I tend to not take people seriously who want to destroy their own way of life ‘for the good of the planet’ and completely give a pass to the two culprets, China and India, who cause much, much ,much more harm to the planet than countries in the west.
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It’s a tool. It has to have dings.
The problem with C4C was that the end of the discarded vehicle’s life was really its end. The engines were filled with something to make sure they could not be revived or reused.
That had to have been done to make sure no downstream vehicle buyers could benefit from the cast-off used one. People who could not afford a new vehicle then had fewer used cars to consider buying. Killing the “clunkers” artificially boosted the new car market while simultaneously destroying what might have been suitable ones for buyers with less money.
The program turned a durable good into a throwaway long before its mechanical lifespan was up.
Some people collect old used trucks of the same make and model to keep as parts donors. Avoids having to scrounge for good luck in searching junkyards.
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I don’t want to destroy our way of life and don’t think that is a requirement. The fact is we have reduced our CO2 emissions by about 11% since 2010 without destroying our way of life. Nor do I give China and India a pass. China produces about 2.5 times as much as we do, and we have been slowly bringing ours down while China’s has been increasing. Indian’s CO2 is also increasing and is a little over half of what we produce, but both have a population more than 4 times ours.
However, I also don’t give us a pass. Here is why. We are the second largest CO2 polluter after China. India is third. We produce 8 times more per capita than India and 2 times per capita more than China. Historically we have produced almost twice as much as China and over 5.5 times that of India.
Rather than “not to take people seriously” who don’t have a grasp of the facts or take the time to check them out for themselves. I would rather provide the actual data for them to consider.
Here are a couple items that show these comparisons.
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There is no dispute that climate is changing. The earth has gone through many temperature swings. It went through a tropical atmosphere into the ice age and has done it several times, apparently. There were no factories back then. There’s a narcissistic or god-like arrogance to the hucksters who think we cam switch the temperature of the planet like it has a thermostat. I recall as a school kid when the scientists talked about seeding clouds to produce rain. How do you know some do gooder isn’t creating monster storms in the process and cover the folly. When humans begin experiments, we end up with things like covid. Everybody knows whst happened there. We financed that. Thst research was done here and we sent it to China because it was too dangerous. Some huckster like Gucci Foochie gets rich on his fat ego, because he spearheaded reseach that turned a bat virus into something that infected humans. You call be a doubter, but call the opposit a denier. It was covered up with lies from immoral cheats who slink away leaving snail track so thick an idiot could follow it, yet the vast majority simplyn ignores it. Swine flue, bird flue, MERS, SARS, and all the other plagues are man made, but think of the wonderful benefit to society - Did millions die to save the planet??? DID MILLIONS DIE TO SAVE THE PLANET!!! You can follow these snake oil salesmen down the rabbit hole. I will not. The VERY SAME fools offering salvation impose strick rules on us. OUR elected leaders don’t just strap us, but they reward the WORST polluters. Oh, its a small price to pay. My home heat is at 65°; I replaced the lightbulbs with LED which cuts the energy use from 60 to 8 watts; my water bill shows I use 30 gallons less water each day on average than I did 10 years ago; I replaced every appliance with energy efficient appliances; I added a room and replaced every window and door in my house with energy efficient products at the same time. Despite energy prices rising, my energy bill has remained at $171 for the past 15 years. I’m doing my part. In the meantime, officials that I DID NOT ELECT, are borrowing money from China, making decisions that cost me more to survive, and suggesting thst we owe China 2 billion dollars to China so they can clean up their act, while the whole world knows that they’re doubling down on polluting everything. Why? Because the old boy network is lining their pockets with cash to look the other way. Fat cats live in 10 bathroom homes on 10 acre waterfront lots, get ushered around in armored limos. Fly on private jets, because their contributions are so critical, while they line up their private jets to attend gala parties and eat quail eggs and fancy fish eggs (do you think they’d care if the caviar came from an endangered species), they drive fast boats or large sailboat that run on diesel engines rather than under sail. The people hired to protect us shut down US oil production while sending money to other countries to develop oil production. Its a lie, it’s an elaborate scheme and we’re the fish. Look at the bank rolls of our elected officials. Millions and billions go into their bank accounts, bogus companies, the accounts of their kids and grandkids, and they grin, pull you close, sniff your hair and say, we’re making it a better place, while we sit here on our computer accusing each other of being deniers, zealots, dreamers. I saw the ICE figure of 18 million border crossers. You tell me to stop having kids because the country is to overcrowded. My kid has to pay out of state tuition to go to a college in California, but a person with a deportation hearing pending for 10 years can go at a discount, and free health care thrown in as an added bonus, along with a free plane ticket under an unverified name, when I had a drivers license for 50 years a d had to take four pieces of ID to establish my bona fides, then I find out EVERYBODY has a right to drive, but your constitutional rights are not guaranteed. We need the slave labor, who is going to clran our toilets as Nancy put it. We need every previous soul. Aghh! Go ahead and tell me I’m ignorant. I agree. I’m just as ignorant as all the other fools. Im
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There is a larger and larger number of accredited climate scientists coming forward every day that indeed realize there is active climate change going on and that a large part of the source of the change is mankind’s use of fossil fuels. On the other hand they are assessing the affects of the change differently than what we coming from IPCC and COP reporting of the problem. Some of these same scientists have served on these agencies and even were in on writing the early reporting. The counter narrative is often brought forth by non scientists types and reducing the data down to their version of laymen’s terms and that information is cropped by the media into sound bites of even greater moving away from the truth.
Some of us feel there are two sides to every story and that climate change has been hijacked in many ways as a way to influence change in more ways than trying to heal a dying world.
I don’t know any clear thinking person that wants too willing pollute the world and make it a worse place to live. I also don’t know people that want to see vast amounts of mankind suffer from lower standards of living than would be possible. We would like a equal quality of life for all people on earth, but some feel the way to achieve that is by lowering the standard of living for some to meet or maybe raise the bottom. We feel there is ways to maintain life in one place while improving it in others.
The scientists that are pragmatic and looking at the wider picture and doing risk reward calculations with IMO less bias for ulterior motives are largely canceled and discredited by the vocal climate change “authorities” and the very well documented bias media. We now live in a world of cancel culture and bias media and I will admit it sometimes goes both ways. Not too many people will acknowledge that fact and on one side of the argument almost no one will stray from true belief. To have any kind of honest debate both sides need to view the issue from both sides and that doesn’t seem possible in this case of the ultimate best wide reaching response to climate change.
I have two sisters and two brother in laws that are polar opposite in belief on this and other subjects than me. Any discussion we have always ends with me being told I have been brainwashed by my media and even my facts. I stop short of telling them they are the ones being brainwashed because I don’t think in their case it is as much brainwashing as group think and fear of being canceled for even entertaining other ideas let alone god forgive changing their mind even a little. None of us are climate scientists or even global economists, so we are only processing facts and fiction to the limits of our abilities.
I was trained to adapt and change when the situation leads me to feel I’m wrong. I would love to see a world where some new form of clean energy could replace all the messy stuff we do to survive and prosper and evolve in a direction of improved standard of living and a cleaner planet for all of mankind. Kind of like how it was in Atlas Shrugged. But I know that like the book for now is mostly fiction.
Where I live in NW PA farmers are being contacted non-stop to convert their land from agriculture to solar farms. The contracts are like reading a book written by a Philadelphia lawyer. My friend took his to his lawyer and the lawyer said it was above his pay grade. Most just don’t feel right about doing it even though the quick start guide to the contract says they can make more money sitting on their front porch looking out at a field of mirrors than they could ever make busting their butts working their land 16 hours a day. The outspoken ones say it is all a plan to remove private ownership of the land from the people. I don’t know about that but I can also see where they could be correct. What the heck 10% of our cars fuel is now food so who knows.
I really don’t think you should be surprised that it appears the biology of life seems to be ignored in these threads. If it were only that simple. Chemotherapy would be great if it didn’t almost kill you.
Happy New Year all!
I’m convinced that we are being lead down a “primrose path” while they line their pockets, do nothing to solve the problem, and wet our backs as we follow blindly be ause its good for us. I paid my water bill today. My usage went from 100 gal per day, to 70 gal per day to 66 gal per day average. I’m thining its because I stopped drinking water and bathing, don’t clean the house or wash my clothes, and just use water to water my plants to use up the Co2 and produce oxygen. I’m doing my part.
You could bath and wash clothes w/ the water before you gave it to the plants. No need to go “black or white” on that.
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If it were just being lead down the primrose path to make someone else rich would be bad enough. My fear is the money being made is only the incentive to forward a bigger plan.
Now what that plan entails is of course only theory or supposition and like all plans of dubious nature isn’t revealed until it is over or too late to stop. In a thinking world making any suggestion of such nefarious shenanigans going on in the name of something as honorable as saving the world would provoke quite the debate. In today’s world it is quickly and quietly shut down as conspiracy theory and go back to wearing your tin foil hat you crazy person.
The people of Sri Lanka followed the plan and banned chemical fertilizer going cold turkey into a new and better world. What they found out the hard way is they ruined their economy and nearly starved their country.
Germany laughed at the UN warning to not rush into only green energy and expecting energy channels to remain unchanged. Now they are in a rough spot trying to regroup.
The examples of consequences following strict adherence to “Doing the right thing.” are many. We did pretty well as a society here by following a set of laws that provided for both visions to be heard and debated and solutions falling someplace in the middle.
Time will tell. I know being retired I’m feeling real pressure on my family financially. As far as climate change and environment impacting my life I really don’t feel much different than I did in 1960 except maybe Lake Erie is much cleaner along with our inland creeks, rivers and lakes being much healthier. I remember back in the 60s the noxious smells of my dads big automobiles and being able to run a hose from tailpipe down a groundhog hole and he was done in short order. Someone told me they tried that recently and it didn’t even phase the rodent.
I understand that breathing clean air and paddling in clean water is different than killing the earth with CO2. But I also know going to buy a weeks grocery or a months needed drugs and feeling like I was held up at gun point is a real thing. They tell me the answer will be rather than eating Chicken, Beef, Fish and Pork I should be eating items made from Bug protein. That one I will have to work on.
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Cook your food in it first then bathe then flush the toilet then water the garden.
Or do what country people all across the country do. Pump it out of the ground use it and return it to the ground to start the cycle again. Works great unless the population density is too great. Saw a show on TV of a city on a large river and they take their water from the river clean it up and send it to the city. The city uses it and pumps it back to the starting point and they are required to clean it again only 100 times cleaner than the river water then putting it back in the river downstream. The host asked the guy if it is that clean why not send it back to the city again. The guy said no one wants to drink cleaned up sewer water. They dump it in the river and the next city down river starts over. There is no such thing as new water it has been here from the beginning of time just going around in circles.
Watch out the latest thing in some states is to make rainwater harvesting a crime.
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You’re suggesting a reality check!? 50 years ago, I learned in grade school that the mid west (now refered to as flyover country) was the world’s breadbasket. In high school my Uncle the farmer, told me about goverment programs paying farmers not to grow crops. A year ago, a filthy rich congress representative was screaching about saving Ukraine, because Ukraine and Russia are the worlds breadbasket . . . Uh . . . Did . . . What . . . Something change? Did Russia get favored nation status while our farmers were paid tax dollars to stop growing crops. Bud, if you believe any elected American politician would sell the little remaining self respect they . . . I smell a doubter with a conspicacy theory forming.
When a person lies to me, I expect the next thing I hear to be a lie. I don’t care who follows the green people. I don’t trust the people leading the pack. I take care of my green the best way I know how.
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Ouch, isn’t that bizarre? Is that inconvenient truth, or someone elses shtick. Not saying they’re lying, just saying I don’t trust them. Like on the Princes Bride: “I give you my word as a Spaniard!” No good, I’ve know too many Spaniards (not my feeling). “Is there any way you will trust me?” Nothing comes to mind.