^^
Have you thought of how the air quality (and other environmental stuff) would be today without the “Alarmists” who worked hard to put in place regulations and standards?
Don’t bite the hands that feed you.
One of my kids asked me if I worried about climate change. I said, No, I’m not worried . Then followed it up by telling them how many things previously mentioned have been hyped in my lifetime.
Having lived through the threats of:
nuclear annihilation
acid rain
threats from Russia, China, Iran+
Communism
deforestation
population explosions
water shortage
terrorism (9/11 et al)
solar spots & asteroids
tsunami’s, earthquakes, hurricanes and other storms
ebola, the flu and other pandemics
and my favorite of all : killer bees.
I feel like worry is misspent time.
I think I’m fairly certain that humans have always the propensity to worry about large scale disasters. Worrying about things which have not happened and one does not have a solution is anxiety creating and doesn’t help solve the issue.
What I have suggested to them is, find out about the science behind these issues ( there is real science behind oceans getting warmer for example), distill the science from the politics and make good choices.
I recycle, am concerned about environmental pollution, do not purchase items which have many additives and we compost. I am not moral any of these things.
Are my kids worried? It’s doubtful, though I don’t think they have fully comprehended that there are agenda’s behind most of these stories. Ask yourself why is this person concerned? What is the science? Does it seem reasonable? Has it ever happened in the context of humanity? How do you know?
My kids would be very open to the concept of a new technology that helps move things in the right direction. They are unlikely to ever buy into the idea that the world will end in 10 years unless we do something. Though they wouldn’t dismiss some of voices of the climate change movement as I would.
I’d love to buy quality.
When I needed a new bed, I ordered a very inexpensive low quality but good- enough metal bed frame from Amazon. I purchased the mattress from IKEA. I think I spent $350? total.
We don’t have a lot of disposable income. And what I have? I’d rather go on a hiking vacation and/or visit my kids (or just park it in savings).
There are many, many people in this country just getting by. Even having enough for groceries for a family of four is tough. I enter payroll for a few companies and every time I process it, I wonder how in the world people get by on so little take home pay? Even with so many of our employees working an extra job.
Sure, people buy things “they don’t need”. Sure, stores are over-stuffed with “crap” goods. But many people in this country need cheap options like press-board coffee tables with fake veneer because that is all that is affordable.
My 20-something kids do the hunt at thrift stores, or check out the curb on garbage day – not because of the environment – but because that is all they can afford. I imagine many millennials are in a similar situation.
It’s not a crisis because the people who keep telling us it’s a crisis don’t themselves act like it’s a crisis.
A friend and I were out on a walk in a city, not my own. She is really, really bothered by litter. She picks up litter whenever she walks. So we walked near a river path and there was not just litter, but trash from the street people. I said “Doesn’t this pollution bother you?” She just shrugged.
I had no idea there was such a thing. I googled and found many. Thanks for the tip!
All of those were in fact crises or at least concerns. While major worrying accomplishes nothing, taking action does in many cases. The potential for nuclear annihilation has been reduced by the end of the cold war… Due to concerns and evidence of impact by acid rain, power plants had to add scrubbers and cars got catalytic converters. This reduced the generation of sulfur dioxide dramatically which helped, but did not cure the acidic nature of rain in some areas. Lakes and forested started to recover. This is an environmental success story that was solved by the Clean Air Act.
Yep, acid rain and florucarbons ( sp?) from spray cans were resolved through action. The rest are pretty much open issues.
Our water is much cleaner than before the clean water act when raw or minimally treated sewage was flowing into many of our waters. There are ways to regulate pollutants, especially point sources. The issues we face now are more diffuse (stormwater, air) and so more difficult to regulate.
I feel as though I must have lived a very different life than some commenters. I can remember the snow growing gray from black flecks of ash from a nearby paper mill when I was very small, and hoping more snow would cover it up. I remember learning about DDT and it’s effect on birds’ eggs and reading that bald eagles could be extinct in my lifetime. I remember a time when sighting a deer was a rare thrill, and when no bear had been sighted in the area in decades. I remember the smell of car exhaust in the winter, with billowing clouds behind every car. I remember homes on my block getting deliveries of coal and heating oil. I remember many summers fishing and not catching anything other than carp, and being told never to eat anything we did catch. I remember the beaches being closed because of sewage contamination. I remember a LOT more trash alongside the roads and on beaches. I remember the ozone hole growing.
I’m not that old, but environmental laws have made a huge difference that sometimes we forget.
I see so many deer now that they are an annoyance. There are bear in our county. The snow is white, car exhaust is practically nonexistent. Bald Eagles are all over the place. Sport fish are back. The beaches rarely close. Our homes are heated with cleaner, more efficient methods. I personally see much less trash alongside roads. The ozone hole has nearly closed.
All the urgent warnings of the past worked and continue to work.
My kids and I are on the same page on climate change. It is real.
Yup, its only a matter of time that someone wanting to do harm fills those dispensers with some really bad liquids.
One environmental problem that is much worse since my childhood is the loss of open space.
Areas that used to be farms, ranches and orchards are now malls, warehouses and subdivisions.
Its the 100 million more people in the US since I was a child.
So true. I’ve watched my state change a lot and I’m not crazy about it. I’d give up the modern conveniences for more green space. And less trees and more pavement, buildings, people definitely contribute to climate change.
----I have to drive to Houston this week and I know I’ll be passing through a petrochemical hellscape from Lake Charles all the way to Houston.----
Long as the rest of the non-hellscape nice parts of the country depend on plastics for their toys and houses - straws ain’t really in it, and windmills don’t make plastics - Southeast Texas will continue to disappoint out of towners. Don’t know that most of the residents care, since more people move in than leave.
----There are ways to regulate pollutants, especially point sources. The issues we face now are more diffuse (stormwater, air) and so more difficult to regulate. ----
Point sources have been regulated, with great effect, though mission creep by environmental lobbies tends to obscure that. (That NGO’s never die, since too many people’s livelihood depends on their mission never being achieved, is a truism.
As far as diffuse sources: storm water pollution is usually a result of urbanization and it doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves (can think of a reason or two why but I doubt they’d be appreciated here).
^^ Not sure what you mean by mission creep? Are you saying the point source regulations are going too far?
Non-point source pollution is very difficult to control. In my state new development is required to control quantity and quality of stormwater, but there is no good mechanism to require the necessary maintenance. And so far nobody has come up with a feasible way to control runoff from existing, historic development. Things like rain gardens or modified storm catch basins can only do so much. This has been a focus of lot of clean water efforts over the last decade, but very difficult to tackle.
Of course curious what you mean by your last sentence.
What I meant by mission creep is that: once you’ve had an activist body that’s achieved it’s goal of a regulatory framework to make changes… think EPA, Clean Water Act, etc… the process assumes a life of it’s own. The environmental lobbies continue to fund raise for problems with increasingly small payoffs for correcting, The regulatory bodies continue to find smaller things that need regulating. To the point they’re claiming authority over what you can do with a piece of property you own that won’t drain.
As to the last sentence: The problem of storm water run-off is more tied to development than anything else. Concrete won’t perk, there’s not enough green space to cover for the non-perking concrete, and catch-basins extensive enough to matter aren’t something the urban dweller wishes to live alongside. Because natural ones, the kind the EPA would like to make the rural folks keep, hold water long enough to kill most vegetation. Then, they dry out to bare, cracked mud flats, ringed with some seriously rank vegetation that’s pretty difficult to mow. Unless it’s darn near a drought, you’ll need another tractor to pull the first one, the one you buried to it’s frame, out.
What I meant by the last, in other words, was: I suspect the reason storm water runoff isn’t as aggressively demonized by the environmental lobbies and regulators is because to do something about it will cost too many urban dwelling people a good bit of money, not to mention the problems they’d have with the aesthetics of the solution.
Not to mention the mosquitoes.
Every time there is a heavy rain in California, there are warnings to stay out of the ocean. The rains have washed bacteria from fecal matter into the water. Plastic waste and other garbage are also washed into the ocean from the storm drains. The storm drains here have painted warnings not to dump trash in the storm drain complete with a cute little dolphins. But…