What can the average person do to help the environment?

[Ivan Seeking]

What are the most important things that the average person can do to help improve the environment?

For starters, purchase fuel efficient vehicles.

 

[Phobos]

(1) Learn about it.
(2) Understand its importance to our well being.
(3) Set a good example & talk about it with others.

Fuel efficient vehicles are a good thing. So is driving less.
Reduce, reuse, recycle (in that order...i.e., recycling is good, but it's better to not create the waste in the first place)

There's no one thing...it will be a shift in lifestyle.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I agree with Phobos, educating yourself is #1.
I am a big supporter of fuel efficient vehicles, recycling and responsible waste management.

One pet peeve of mine is people with large lawns with hardly any trees or bushes!

 

[wuliheron]

Live simply so that others may simply live.
Mahatma Ghandi

Sometime within the next fifty years this issue is coming to a head. The population is expected to reach its theoretical maximum sustainable level around fourteen billion, the oceans will no longer be commercially fishable, and every wild land animal larger than a dog will either be extinct or only exist in zoos. Currently the US uses half the energy of the world and creates half the garbage. Technological fixes can only do so much. What is needed is a change of heart and lifestyle as much as anything else.

 

[Allah]

lol

What is with you people? Why do you think that the Earth can only sustain 14 billion people when all 6 billion people can be comfortably fit into the land mass of TEXAS?

FACE IT, The environment is far too big for any group of humans to make a difference. NAME ONE ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER THAT WAS STOPPED BY MAN. We are completely at the mercy of the environment.

The only reason to buy a fuel efficient vehicle is to save money when you fill up. Those cars are pug-fugly, however.

Wuliheron--If you did not notice, America LITERALLY makes the world turn. America is an economic capital, military ub3rpower and a cultural capital. Therefore, America will create a lot of garbage, but look at the rest of the world. Most of the rest of the world is not exactly an oasis.

You say that we need a lifestyle change. Should we live more like the happy North Koreans or maybe the Clean Chinese? Screw it, LET'S JUST REVERT TO AN AGRARIAN ECONOMY! LOL

Also, I think that you are quoting Ghandi out of context. Ghandi was about ending the british occupation of India. What he probably meant was adopt a "live and let live" policy.

 

[berty]

Go man go, kick butt!
You are quite right and another thing, don't the environmental alarmists sell Earth and the environment short!
Without technology the Earth can probably only support around a tenth of the present population.
So the question is who do we sacrifice? And befoe anyone asks, no you cannot volunteer other people!

 

[Tau_Muon_PlanetEater]

environment

The biggest thing you can do immediately is to stop buying products from companies like Proctor and Gamble, General Electric, Phillip Morris, etc. These companies openly pollute the environment despite regulation. Since the laws fine them much less than the costs they would accrue from safely disposing of production by-product chemicals like poly-chlorinated phenyls, sulphuric acid, and many cyclic benzenes. In other words, it costs them less to dump their problems into the river, than it would to properly sanitize them before dumping.

Of course, you can't blame the companies, they lobby day and night to minimize fines and penalties. Breaking the law is just a business expense to them, and not even a substantial one at that.

My best advice is to support 'mom and pop' products and local craftsmen in your community. Any time you buy a brand name, there is very little transparency on how environmentally damaging the production process was that brought you that fine detergent, or toothpaste.

P.S. Fluoride brittles your teeth not strengthens them.

 

[J.Troy]

lol

What is with you people? Why do you think that the Earth can only sustain 14 billion people when all 6 billion people can be comfortably fit into the land mass of TEXAS?

FACE IT, The environment is far too big for any group of humans to make a difference. NAME ONE ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER THAT WAS STOPPED BY MAN. We are completely at the mercy of the environment.

The only reason to buy a fuel efficient vehicle is to save money when you fill up. Those cars are pug-fugly, however.

Wuliheron--If you did not notice, America LITERALLY makes the world turn. America is an economic capital, military ub3rpower and a cultural capital. Therefore, America will create a lot of garbage, but look at the rest of the world. Most of the rest of the world is not exactly an oasis.

You say that we need a lifestyle change. Should we live more like the happy North Koreans or maybe the Clean Chinese? Screw it, LET'S JUST REVERT TO AN AGRARIAN ECONOMY! LOL

Also, I think that you are quoting Ghandi out of context. Ghandi was about ending the british occupation of India. What he probably meant was adopt a "live and let live" policy.

Wild assertions with no support.

So what your saying is let all just be irresponsible because hell were the USA and we make the world go round...got it.

 

[physicsisphirst]

Sometime within the next fifty years this issue is coming to a head.

"We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."

in friendship,
prad

 

[Wes Hughes]

It's like the price of eggs in China, it's beyond my control. Wes Hughes

 

[FaverWillets]

The argument has been seriously put forth by bean counters at the Vatican that we can safely put all 6 billion people on Earth today within the boundaries of tiny Rhode Island and still have 3 feet of comfort in all directions between each and every one of us. Trouble with that argument and the one I just read about the boundaries now being within the state of Texas is that we must account for the total volume of fresh water needed per person per year and also the following: sewage treatment, waste disposal, acres of land to feed one person per year, raw materials for clothing, housing, energy for warmth in the cold of winter, newborns, etc... we need what we have not seen, visonary leadership at the highest levels of our government for the future of our own nation...an energy policy that awards massive incentives for industry giants such as oil, automobile as well as energy producers, to shift over to a hydrogen based energy/economic system. Buying fuel efficient automobiles today is merely a bandaid on a gaping wound that is most probably festering. [We were able to successfully fulfill the Kennedy Mandate of putting men on the Moon within a ten year period when our technology was still primitive and mostly unproven...we can do the same with a hydrogen economy in nearly as much time.]

Though I too argue that the world is already overpopulated, I am selfishly happy about having six grandchildren fathered by my two sons. I am not made happy by some quasi religious driven mandate [that I consider founded in ignorance], but rather by the simple human emotion of joy whenever I share time with these miracles of life. There is no easy solution to world overpopulation, and ultimately, Mother Earth will be the one to draw straws for us as a species. Let us all hope that when She does, it will not be by some device of our own invention.

 

[juju]

Hi,

I have read of studies done by reputable scientists, not environmental alarmists, that state that the Earth can support 2.5 billion people with a comfortable US middle class life style, and 10 billion people with an indonesian peasant life style.

Solutions: Birth control; as close as possible to 100% recycling of all resources; very strict pollution control laws; use of as many renewable sources of energy as possible; conservation (for eample, turn the light out when not in use) and efficiency (use compact flourescent lights, for example)

juju

 

[selfAdjoint]

Check out the "demographic crash". Population isn't increasing as fast as alarmists pretend, and there is every reason to believe that it will increase even more slowly in the future.

 

[Jeebus]

Check out the "demographic crash". Population isn't increasing as fast as alarmists pretend, and there is every reason to believe that it will increase even more slowly in the future.

How did that reason come into play?

 

[selfAdjoint]

I don't understand your question. The demographic crash arises because once women get even a little education and independence from partiarchy, they cease being baby factories. So increasingly rapid population growth is confined to the most ignorant and backward segments of the world. And it is under constant pressure there, as the oppressed women learn about opportunities. The US, arguably a little backward, is the only first world country with a birth rate over bare reproduction. The acual population estimates follow this treand.

 

[KaneOris]

You see, i would try and help the environment, but hey why should i spend more money on eco friendly cars, solar panels, etc, if no one else is, i will only reduce the destruction of the environment by 1 or 2 minutes max, yes i know if everyone puts in then that's a lot of 1 or 2 minutes, but not everyone is putting in, so why should i spend more money on helping the environment just by a nanometre when other people spend less money and only ruin it by a couple of metres. They have more fun and money being less eco friendly. Now I am all for saving the environment, if everyone strated being eco friendly well so would I.
Look i plan to make millions of dollars with my life, maybe even billions(Hey if your negative you'll never get anywhere). And although a lot of people go in saying they won't turn into a rich snob, well I am pretty sure i wont. I am fairly down to earth. And with about 70% of my money ill donate to helping the environment. I know quite a lot about global warming and i know this. If we keep going like this in 2150 abouts breast cancer and heart disease won't be a problem, because we'll all be dead!

 

[Dayle Record]

One thing that the Utah Department Of Agriculture is doing, is promoting the local production and sale of produce, at least in season. The State has a huge interest in making the state self supporting as much as possible. The less farmers have to pay to get their produce to market, the more money they make and the more likely they are going to remain in farming.

Another thing we can do is grow crops locally that require less water, and less tending, in marginal areas. So, for instance with water shortages this year, corn died in the field or wasn't planted by some farmers. If they had been growing millet, it would have done well. Millet gets made into couscous, in many low tech societies. Couscous is a nice grain dish, that requires little energy to cook. If we can alter our patterns of consumption to match our resources, then less energy is used. The State is really pursuing having enough food within the state to keep us going for a week or more in the event of a major breakdown. Most of our food comes from 1500 miles away, and we have what it takes to grow a lot of it here. This summer I bought only from local sources, at local markets.

Gas efficient cars aren't ugly, and if we raised our children to find gas efficient cars appealing, and ethically sound, then we will do better in the future.

 

[Adrian Baker]

Best thing you can do? Find a way to control the Sun's varying output... or just stop whittling on about something (CO2 emmisions) that has no proven effect on the climate whatsoever.
Ever heard of the Maunder minimum of the early 1700s when sunspot activity ceased and we experienced a mini ice age? If that was now, all the tree huggers would be saying that we had to clear the forests, burn the oil and prevent Global cooling!

Do Science, find out how the climate really works on a long time scale (we have no real idea at all at present) and stop worrying.

 

[juju]

z

Hi all,

Global warming is a fact. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. CH4 is a more potent green house gas. More green house gasses in the atmosphere mean more heat build-up in the lower atmosphere and cooling of the upper atmosphere. This is happening. Deny it at your peril.

juju