Uh oh, repost of top 50 list... with added comments

[(BoD) nepenthe]

Okay folks, I posted this six months or so ago and now I've come back to post it again. Why? Well there are an awful lot of new people (er, new to me anyway) and I'd like to see how many of you I can rile up. Only kidding (though I AM donning flame-retardant clothing). These are the "50 Things You Must Do to Save the Earth". A couple of these are a tad dated.

My comments follow. I encourage you to post your own!! And don't take it too seriously.

1. Bury your car
2. Become a total vegetarian
3. Grow your own vegetables
4. Have your power lines disconnected
5. Don't have children
6. Limit the world population of vehicles
7. Don't build cars
8. Stop building roads
9. Replace roads with homes, parks and gardens
10. Halt weapons production and exports
11. Stop the sale, distribution and export of cigarettes
12. Send money to Brazil to provide urban jobs for impoverished workers now forced into the rainforests
13. Blockade a lumber truck carrying old-growth trees
14. Spend a month tree-sitting
15. Live within the World Average Income ($1250 a year) for one month ($104.17)
16. Cut up your credit cards
17. Unplug your television
18. Undertake a "Conservation Sabbath" -- one day a week without consuming electricity or fuel
19. Fast one day each week and send the money saved on food to help feed the hungry
20. Adopt a homeless person
21. Raise the Minimum Wage to a survival income
22. Enact a Maximum Wage Law
23. Tie politicians' salaries to the average working wage
24. Replace majority rule with proportional representation
25. Replace the Electoral College with direct democratic elections
26. Abolish the CIA and the National Security Act of 1949
27. Pass a Nature Amendment to the US Constitution
28. Retire Presidential Advisor John Sununu
29. Plant one new tree every day
30. Go to jail for something you believe in
31. Don't own pets
32. Allow all beef-producing domestic cattle to become extinct
33. Redirect the military budget to restoration work; convert weapons factories to peaceful research; retrain soldiers for ecological restoration
34. Remove US Forest Service from under the Agriculture Department; place USFS, Bureau of Land Management, Fish & Wildlife Service under the EPA
35. Consume only products produced within your bioregion
36. Don't eat anything that comes in a package
37. Don't buy anything that comes in a box
38. Require operators and owners of nuclear powerplants to live within one mile of the site
39. Mandate federal recycling and institute a refuse tax on solid waste
40. Pipe polluted water back into the water supplies of the companies that do the polluting
41. Don't own anything that runs on batteries
42. Boycott the Big Top
43. Travel by bus, never by air
44. Stop using toilet paper
45. Extend the life of your wardrobe by learning to make and mend your own clothes
46. Give money to every single panhandler you meet
47. Democratize your workplace: start a union or a collective
48. Is your job sustainable (i.e. recession-proof)? If not, learn to farm
49. Liberate a zoo
50. In honor of Earth Day, ask your boss if you can take a day off to work on healing the planet ... with pay!

And now, my comments.

(1) I don't think so! Stay the HELL away from my vehicles!

(2) Be my guest. But remember, there's always SOMEONE who's a better/more devout vegetarian/vegan than you are. Moi, I enjoy eating meat and fish and chicken and eggs and milk and cheesecake and ice cream and other dairy products and wearing genuine leather gear. I'm afraid I won't be confining myself to plant consumption only.

(3) Hey I got no problem with that. My mother used to grow veggies back when we had a huge backyard in Houston, and we even took them to market to sell and trade. It was fun and a good little lesson in basic capitalism for a 5 year old.

(4) Erm, yah, there's an intelligent solution.

(5) More power to ya, alot of the people don't have what it takes to raise kids properly anyway. Better to not have them at all than to drown them all in the bathtub and then have perky little Katie Couric declare you a hero and set up a legal defense fund for you.

(6) Limit how?? Sounds like some flimsy UN or EU resolution anyway.

(7) Err, okay, I won't... I'll buy em from someone else who does. Hey, while you're at it, why not vote for a Presidential Candidate who PROMISES, as part of his PLATFORM, to significantly and progressively INCREASE the price of gasoline (yah, that would be Algore)?

(8) I know some places in North Texas that sort of do this: they've stopped REPAIRING existing roads (still collect the requisite taxes though).

(9) Did you know human beings aren't actually flesh and blood? We're actually *flowers*.

(11) Because we've GOT to save you from yourself. So what if we have to change this from a market economy to a command economy? And hey, what about all those kewl 'Green' liberal kids who use their cigs as part of their 'tude? At least this would stop 60 year old lung cancer victims from suing (and winning against) cigarette manufacturers who SOMEHOW duped them into smoking two packs a day for 40 years.

(14) Hehehehe. Tree-sitting.

(15) 60 cents per hour of work IS pretty bad... Darn, now I feel ashamed that I live in a free market economy, and I think every penny I earn should go to feed those less fortunate (who don't live in a stable capitalistic environment with a healthy entrepreneurial spirit and the freedom of self-determination). Hey, maybe Nike and Dole and others should export some more of their jobs. You know, the ones the liberals are always complaining about?

(16) Now this one makes some real sense to me. Except I think they're coming at it from a different direction than I. I think they think credit cards represent desires and private ownership of property and that YOU don't need to own anything or utilize any more of your own income than you need for basic life maintenance. Hey, the whole reason we need economics is because human beings have unlimited wants and needs and only scarce resources to fulfill those wants and needs--it's all about allocation of resources and choice. But, if we can only get people to not have ANY wants and fulfill everyone's needs equally (from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, right?), then we can have successful totalitarian rule and live in total, centrally-planned harmony and equality. Of course, this would involve some extremely heavy mind control and/or alteration and we might resemble the Borg more than a society of human beings at some point, but hey we'll be a TRUE DEMOCRACY. Yay.

(17) Done. I'm sick of listening to the liberal television media (although I do miss Mr. George Will on Sunday mornings) and the number of shows I'd actually watch this Fall could be counted on one finger (ST Enterprise).

(18) That is, if you haven't already had your power lines disconnected, eh?

(19) Just don't forget to drink lots of fluids. I think this would amount to about $5.00 a week for myself. I have a better idea. Why don't I finish school, start a business, and HIRE some of these hungry people?

(20) Liberalism is so easy. It's all about feelings. All you have to do is feel sorry for someone. Feed the homeless for a week at Christmas and you don't feel quite as ashamed that you or your family have succeeded in achieving a modicum of wealth in our free market economy (while others, for whatever reason, haven't even achieved enough to be able to afford a home). How much harder is it to find a way, through private enterprise, to give the homeless who want to work a job, and to realize that some of the homeless are where they are because of repeating patterns of behavior, of volitional choice?

(21) Oh please. Let's ratchet up the government control of private business so that those who stay at "minimum wage" perpetually have a "survival income"? No, thank you. Minimum wage increases are/would be detrimental for a number of reasons (artificial wage floors, elimination of lower-wage jobs, severe government interference in private enterprise, etc.); BUT... are mostly a vote-garnering tool.

(22) THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST OFFENSIVE SUGGESTION IN THIS WHOLE LIST.

(24) Why not replace them both with Individual Sovereignty and Self-Government?

(25) Political Campaigns would take place entirely on television and the interests of 90 percent of the counties in the country would be ignored...

(27) Excuse me?? A Nature Amendment? Hey, did you know some bedwetter in California (one of Gray Davis' cronies) a few months ago proposed an Amendment to the US Constitution declaring it ILLEGAL to make a profit by offering a public utility? This the same state that screwed itself over by simultaneously refusing to build any new power plants and adopting haphazard deregulation? HAHAHA!! The Left Coast is always good for a laugh. And now Texas is eeevil because we provide them with power they can't make themselves.

(28) He's been gone a long time. See how old this is? But I have a possible substitute: Let's retire bigoted race-baiting demagogue Jesse Jackson, the single most divisive entity in the US.

(30) Probably will at some point. It probably ain't going to be because I think a damn subspecies of salmon is more important than the lives of four firefighters though (for example).

(31) Wha?!? Not even domesticated dogs and cats? Screw that, when I own a house I'm going to have a loyal inside dog and possibly a well-behaved kitty.

(32) Genocide eh? I take it they'd include chickens and pigs as well? Maybe all domesticated animals? Sheep, horses, etc.?

(33) And then we could all hold hands and put flowers in our hair and ask those mean ole Syrians and Iraqis and Libyans and Chinese and Afghans and Rwandans and Israelis and Palestinians and Sudanese and Indians and Pakistanis and the IRA and Hamas and the PLO and Bin-Laden to also disband their armies and to please please please not attack us. [[snort of contempt]]

(34) Because the EPA does SUCH a GREAT job with their current jurisdictions.

(35) Does anyone know how far my bioregion extends? What if I said it included all of North America?

(36) Doh!! That rules out Little Debbie snack cakes in all their wonderful varieties! Also inclues granola bars, Mrs Baird's bread, corn flakes, potatos, strawberries, pasta, carrots, yogurt, etc.

(37) Well, there you go. If it was in a box at any time during the distribution chain, it's off-limits. There go most or all of my possessions. Which I s'pose is the point. Individual ownership of property is unnecessary and even counterproductive to the goals of the collective community as a whole, right? And how dare you have something your neighbor doesn't have?

(39) This is already mandated on a local level in some areas. Fort Worth, in particular, has some pretty Draconian recycling laws! I was just amazed to hear of some of them. Liberals on the rampage. And I think YET ANOTHER tax is just what we need, don't you? We surely don't have enough money confiscated by the coercive power of the state yet.

(41) Wow, first no electric power, now no battery power either. Guess we'll tell time by sundial in this little Bohemian Utopia we're building here.

(42) When I was a small child, we went to the Ringling Bros circus in Houston. I had nightmares. We had some kind of "backstage pass", so I got to meet the clowns. The whole long, dark evening scared the **** out of me! Some of it was like seeing my fevered nightmares brought to life.

(44) Ewwwww! Not only are they a bunch of ridiculous hyper-tree-huggers, but they smell bad too!

(45) This idea has a bit of merit--the mending part I mean. But I don't really want to make my own clothes. See, this guy named Adam Smith wrote this book called The Wealth of Nations in which he discussed specialization and division of labor and the fact that in a market economy, each person's self-interests guide the general economy "as if by an invisible hand" toward the ends most advantageous to all. When I buy a shirt, an exchange, beneficial to both parties, is occuring. I'm handing over money I've earned elsewhere in exchange for the labor that's been done to create the shirt by those who've specialized in creating shirts. I get what I want--a shirt, which is more valuable or as valuable to me as the amount of money I pay for it; the creator of the shirt gets what he wants--money, which can be used for any purpose and which is more valuable or as valuable to him as the amount of labor expended in the creation of the shirt. Mutual benefits through individual self-interest. I specialize in something which I am able to provide to others in exchange for money, and I use that money to exchange with others who've specialized in a variety of other enterprises. IT IS ONE OF THE KEYS TO THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. It is why this country (and Western Europe et al) is great and why its productive citizens enjoy unprecedented quality of life. I feel sure alot of the "intellectual" ultra-liberal-cum-socialist "thinkers" I've come across haven't even grasped this simple concept.

(46) Go ahead. Make ya feel better. They are victims of the system. It isn't their fault. And remember, they Will Work For Food.

(47) I just LOOOOVE unions. Screw that. The more I think about, the more #47 pisses me off. "Start a collective". Nope.

(48) Um, yah, I was going to suggest "learn a separate set of job skills or earn a second degree". Perhaps they mean you should "learn to farm" so you can collect government subsidies and feed at the public trough.

(49) Oh how quaint. Look, they're suggesting you set all the animals free at your local zoo. Didn't I see a movie like that? I'm not sure it would be safe to have lions and bears roaming the streets (err, parks and gardens--see #9 above).

(50) After he finishes laughing, you can ponder what "healing the planet" would really entail--and just what the hell it is it needs to be healed of.

[Lizard Of Oz]

Never mind.

[Lyndsay #2337]

blaw blaw blaw. RED on BLUE is hard on the eyes.

[(BoD) nepenthe]

Originally posted by Lyndsay #2337
RED on BLUE is hard on the eyes.

It sure is.

[Lizard Of Oz]

Yellow works well.

[Allison]

Hey Nepper!

[_Zd_3s_]

Pfff.... That's an awful lot of text.
Also, there's a problem with the way you're commenting: (DS does this, too, when he's debating) you should add the comments immediately after an item. This way, I keep scrolling up and down to see what you're referring to with your comment.
(DS is worse, actually, because he adds numbered comments to a text that isn't numbered... )

And for CHRYSt's sake, change that color!

Okay, I'm gonna try and read some of your comments now.

[_Zd_JOLT1r_]

I just printed a version to read
More easy then scrolling up and down..

And I can give my collegues a copy how they should save mommy earth

[_Zd_3s_]

Originally posted by Kokensu in the Firefighter-thread
I think that if it were somehow conveyed that every little thing each of us did HELPED the environment. And if it were conveyed that we SHOULD HELP THE ENVIRONMENT. Then maybe something could change.

Originally posted by Deepsy
Your actually happy with the fact that our own race is on the brink of a disaster not to mention the rest of the ecological system? Wow... im stunned.. ...

I'm glad you posted this list, Nep. Now I finally understand how to help out the environment and how to stay away from this disaster!

[SimplyCosmic]

Deepsy might want to read the work of Bjorn Lomborg, an environmentalist who has done extensive research on the actual claims of environmentalist groups.

Turns out most of the claims that things getting worse are based on little or no evidence other than paranoid claims and scare tactics to convince politicians that their extemist views are the truth.

In fact, he presents a boat load of evidence that the environment is doing alot better than it was even 20 years ago, thanks to more efficient technologies. Also world population studies show that while the number of people is growing, the rate of growth is slowing down, as some of the larger countries, including China and the US have shown significant decreases in their birth rates.

His research also shows that the majority of environmental harm comes from third world nations who don't have any of the better industrial technologies that the 1st world nations do, and that increased investment in these countries (opposed to by the anti-globilization protesters that seem to appear everywhere now) would not only help their economy, but local environment as well.

But hey, some people won't be happy until we all live in mud huts and go naked again.

[_Zd_3s_]

Originally posted by SimplyCosmic
But hey, some people won't be happy until we all live in mud huts and go naked again.

Sounds like fun! Let's do that!

[Thrakhath]

Good to see you Nep, and that's a good list
/me copies it to his funnies folder

[SimplyCosmic]

Sounds like fun! Let's do that!

Well, the naked part can be both good and bad. For every person that being naked would be a good thing for us, there'd be several people you'd rather not be that way.

Besides, how many mud huts have a DSL connection?

[pine]

I'm pretty sure it IS true that in the United States air quality, at least, has gotten better in past years. Pollution in general has definitely decreased. But.....urban sprawl is still occurring at an alarming rate, and the fact remains that while growth is slowing, population continues to increase.

What really bothers me is that people in the USA blindly ignore the fact that our oil reserves are a limited resource while they drive around in their big ugly SUVs and live in HUGE homes that suck down the power to heat in the winter or A/C in the summer....then complain about gas prices and the people in California & their power crisis. A wise man once said "stupidity is the unfortunate side effect of too much privilege." Describes the situation perfectly.

We had some visitors from England recently who were absolutely apalled to find out that my house is really quite small by American standards (and it's wood-heated btw ). It was a totally accurate statement, but to the Brits our house seemed enormous.
Why do we have to use so much more than we need?

[SimplyCosmic]

What really bothers me is that people in the USA blindly ignore the fact that our oil reserves are a limited resource while they drive around in their big ugly SUVs and live in HUGE homes that suck down the power to heat in the winter or A/C in the summer....then complain about gas prices and the people in California & their power crisis

Except that in neither case are the problem being caused by an actual physical inability to produce these resources, but instead by the basic greed of each of the power conglomerates.

There's plenty of crude oil, but OPEC is using their usual "crunch" excuses to bleed everyone dry, and the problem in California was due to power companies not wanting to pay other companies high prices.

There simply are not enough SUV's on the planet to warrant the supply "shortage" in such amount as to justify the current prices.

No, our problem now won't get fixed until the President stops wanting to play Star Wars or waving around a smoke and mirrors tax "rebate" and steps up and does something real for the country for a change.

[_Zd_Phoenix_]

aww, I though 'assasinating George 'Dubya' Bush' would make the top ten at least

[Silver_Dragon]

Yay I can read now.

Oh and I don't know much mud huts that has DSL connection.

[(BoD) nepenthe]

Originally posted by Pineconeboy
Why do we have to use so much more than we need?

A valid question and one I'd like to comment on. May I ask another question?

Let's assume the alternative is to provide to each citizen only what he needs. Where then is the reward for excellence, for achievement, for productivity, for hard work and perseverance? What incentive is there for someone to work harder, to go to school far longer than others, to create better products than the competition? What will motivate a citizen to accomplish more than the status quo? How can we justify alloting the same amount of goods and property to the doctor as to the janitor (no offense intended to janitors, I've done my share of janitorial-type hours)? How will design achieve innovation and manufacturing improve in efficiency if at the end of the day there is no premium for success?

Conspicuous consumption (equating acquisition of material goods with social prestige) is one thing, but can we really find fault with the person whose partial motivation for achieving more, working harder, designing more effective products, or becoming better educated (all arguably economic/societal goods) is to reap some of the benefits our free market economy provides for such virtues?

I truly WANT there to be rewards commensurate with what I'm able to achieve in life. How demoralizing would it be to continue on this hard road knowing there is no personal gain to be had whatsoever? That my neighbor will receive precisely what I will receive despite his failure to achieve a fifth of what I've accomplished or will accomplish? That I may work much harder than others but I cannot aspire to reap any additional rewards from that hard work. I guess what I'm trying to point out, is that to a point, greed is good.
-----------------------------------------
That's about all to be said about that for now, , but about those SUVs: nobody despises those things more than I, but I support everyone's right to own the vehicle of their choosing. *I* wouldn't want one, but that has more to do with the flabby brakes, the soggy suspension, the tepid throttle response, and the extreme roll-over risk. I have other vehicles I'd like to own (sports cars, sport bikes, etc.); but for all intents and purposes, my desire to own a sports car is the same as someone else's desire to own an SUV (although I personally believe some of the boom market for SUVs is due to desire for prestige and false beliefs about the safety an SUV provides; and I think they should be called 'UVs', as I don't see much 'sporty' about a 4 ton behemoth with inadequate drivetrain, suspension, brakes, steering, etc.). Purchasing a vehicle which gets 10 miles to the gallon downhill with a tailwind and then complaining about rising fuel costs seems a little incongruous. But if the price of gas continues to rise and SUVs continue to be popular (barring government intervention, such as Congress' proposed new minimum MPG standards for SUVs which were voted down two months ago), what can be said other than that it's still worth it to buyers to drive the vehicle they want to drive despite the higher costs and the wretched fuel economy? Now if war breaks out in earnest in the Middle East and gas shoots up to $10/gallon, we'll see some absolute shifting of resources as the opportunity cost of driving a gas guzzler becomes too great for many to justify.
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Agree or disagree?: Much of California's energy crisis was due to state government interference in free market forces over time, manifested by its strict prevention of the building of more power plants.

[little darlin]

Good post nepenthe. One point though....

Where then is the reward for excellence, for achievement, for productivity, for hard work and perseverance? What incentive is there for someone to work harder, to go to school far longer than others, to create better products than the competition?

LOL. Well, at least in America you'd be hard pressed to convince me that the people who are receiving all those rewards are receiving them for the reasons stated above. Nice to think that people get exactly what they deserve for their efforts, but sadly it just ain't so. Case in point: Teachers!!!

[(BoD) nepenthe]

Good point. Ahh, but now we're entering the domain of non-monetary rewards or externalities. And I'm going to both agree and disagree with you, if you'll allow me and follow. I'll use teaching as my example.

It's widely thought that teaching is a relatively difficult (and often dangerous ), and/or skilled profession, that teachers provide a societal good, and that teachers aren't paid all that well. Correct?

I have a rant all saved up about the NEA and government schools, but you know, I think I'm going to forgo that for the time being. I think my general feelings are clear and my opinion on the subject more or less deducible.

Anyway, we have teachers being paid this comparatively low salary. But is there a shortage of teachers? Can I contend that if there WERE a shortage of teachers, base salaries would INCREASE as a result as districts attempted to attract more to the profession? Can we then say that teachers are currently paid what the current market for teachers will bear in any given area?

So why are people still attracted to the teaching profession? Intangible benefits. Nonmonetary rewards. Desire to enlighten inquisitive young minds. Desire to push some agenda. Love for children. The "teaching bug". And a hundred other reasons. This is part of what makes teaching such a "noble pursuit". No central planning body has preordained that some members of society will become teachers, yet many choose to follow this path, despite the poor salaries. The expected intangible benefits to those specific people outweigh the opportunity cost of pursuing some other field which might yield not only greater monetary rewards but other types of intangible rewards. If the intangible benefits were even greater, we might have even more of a supply of willing teachers, the salaries might be even lower, and the market might still be in equilibrium.

Now, one of the things I sharply disagree with President (and former Governor of the great state of Texas) Bush on is his strong support of the use of standardized testing as an accurate measure of the performance standard of a teacher, a school, a school district, and an entire region. I think it's BS, basically. What ends up occuring is you have schools devoting 40% of the school year to teaching the TAAS (Texas' basic skills test). This is akin to preparing someone for an eye test by handing them the eye chart to study (memorize) one week before the test--he may pass, but have you accurately measured his ability to see? Government school district funding becomes partially dependent on TAAS scores, individual apportionment within the district becomes dependent on TAAS scores, and individual teacher salaries and performance reviews become dependent on TAAS scores. I simply don't believe average scores on standardized tests have ANYthing to do with how able a teacher is to impart knowledge to her students, or how caring and concerned she is, or how patient, or how clear-spoken...

What I'm trying to say is that yes, I agree that within the career of teaching itself, there is little to no commensurate monetary reward for being a great teacher. The intangible rewards that draw a teacher in the first place must continue to suffice as reward for being excellent. Unfortunate, and I could probably make the point that the fact that our schools are government-run enforce and ensure this outcome.