Why are you Green??? what do you dislike about the green Movement?
 

I'm green because-

1. I'm cheap, i like saving money.

2. I hate seeing energy, and resources wasted.

3. I love nature, don't want too see the planet destroyed.

I hate-

1. i believe man made global warming is a HOAX.

2. The far left acts like they are the only people that want to preserve the planet.

I have to go along with the first post on the reasons for. Spent too much of my life not having much of anything to enjoy wasting what I do have, like the outdoors & places without a lot of people, etc. In other words, my motivations run about 20 parts selfish to 1 of altruistic.

Now for some few for the many things I dislike about the "green movement", at least as presented by its noisier spokesworms - a full list would bore you, and likely give me a bad case of carpal tunnel syndrome :-)

1) In honor of the first poster, I really dislike the way they go around believing things. I'm an empiricist: don't talk to me about what you believe. Learn the science, understand the engineering, and show me your data.

1a) As a sub-instance of this, their hysterical "omigawd it's nuclear we're all gonna DIE!" anti-nuclear religion.

2) The watermelons. The ones with the green exterior that's just a thin skin over a red heart, who try to turn every environmental question into a left-right political issue, and a justification for leftist propaganda. Though I'm not all that fond of the right, especially the religious variety, I really, really detest the left.

When I was a kid, the closest kid around my age lived 5 miles from where we lived. The forest was my playground and the animals, well, my friends. Sounds like a cliché, but that's really how it was. So I guess I'm green because of the environment I was raised in.

I'm also green because I don't like what I see when I look at that picture
http://therawfeed.com/pix/beijing_smog.jpg

Had Sunday dinner with the Hari Krishnas tonight and there was a guy at the table organising an 'earthday event'. He was methed up, and a bad ambassador, maybe putting many people off.

The Cruelty Free Shop in Auckland sells really expensive merchandise and crap like frozen lentil pies($4.00, microwaved on a paper plate with plastic utensils), cheap canvas sneakers for $120!!!!(okay they are free trade sourced, but you can buy things same as these at walmart type stores for $19), and overpriced books and foodstuffs.

Many consumers are looking for help in making lifestyle changes, but the alternatives are often just as crazy as the bull they are trying to get away from. Sad.

The worst though are charities like 'Help the Kids' type things which have a Director on a big salary and a big car, and you like look at them a couple of years after they began and often things havnt changed for the better at all, sometimes even getting worse. Sad.

No wonder youth are losing it with drugs and stuff. Corruption seems everywhere...even with the 'good' guys.

Our national zoo puts on free concerts with top music acts. Now they achieve tacit approval from the celebrity youth sector. Before, animal cruelty issues were in the for...

Save the world? Save your fat ass!

However, things do change slowly. I have seen real improvement in some areas, but...Deforestation and loss of topsoil do not get better for a long long time. Look at the old centers of civilizations like the Euphrates Delta. Too many people in too small an area, centralization...cities....like a factory farm.

Rather than answer that, I would recommend some reading on why people bother other people, in or out of the Green, Red, or Blue movements. Index of /jeanaltemeyer/drbob

What I like about the changes that I have made to go green is that I am doing them at my own pace and seeing the changes affect my pocket book in a positive way.

What I don't like are the hippies representing this movement and getting no respect. Yet the engineers that design a highway system to reduce emissions through a city get no recognition or very little to commend their effort.

Right now the crazies are being singled out as promoters of the green lifestyle, not the everyday american like those of us here, except for you Bennelson and all your wacky videos .. LOL J/k

Vwbeamer and jamesqf -

I am basically one of the people you detest. On one hand I don't really care about nature; I'm not pining to camp or hike or spend time enjoying it's timeless beauty. On the other hand I recognize the reasons to preserve the environment for you, me, and future generations. From my POV, it is rational to look for *sustainable* solutions to problems. I want problems to be considered in the context of life cycle assessments that lead to cradle to cradle solutions.

I have a "what if" GW argument that I formulated over the years. However, this person explains what I have been thinking in a much more educational way :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8...ADC5B&index=22


CarloSW2

For the likes, I have to echo what others have posted but will sum it up as It's just the right thing to do.

What I dont like is the extremism of it. I dont like when people pre-formulate their conclusions and then try to prove it with science, usually what I refer to as propaganda lies. I dont like the fantasy land where we will all have pet unicorns and there will be no need for fossil fuels because we will power everything with solar power! I dont like the proposition that there will be a wholesale re-engineering of society where we will all live in high density appartments that are only walkable communities. I think this unnecessarly turns a lot of people off of the enviromental movement because it is unpallatable and it deserves the ridicule it gets when it goes that far out on a limb.

Anyone seen Palin's latest diatribe on ANWR drilling? How about the forum responses to it? Man, people can make my blood boil... they are so FREEKING STUPID! :mad: Totally immune to rationality and logic!

That's what I need to see, rationality and logic, from BOTH sides.

I don't detest you, we have many common goals we share. :).

We just disagree on one subject.

I doubt people are as farsighted as the guy in the video (but I agree with his logical breakdown - which is nothing new really, but nice to see him paint it out for the skeptics) but maybe I'm wrong or just overly cynical.

I'm "green" because I hate waste. I don't care for the extremism either way or the assumptions that people latch onto as "truths", when they don't know the difference between those and testable hypotheses or verifiable facts.

I don't think I detest you. Nor do I object at all to those life cycle assessment & cradle to grave solutions. Indeed, I'm quite in favor of them. What I detest are the people who have their own set of... not assumptions, but "facts" that are only true in the alternate reality that exists only inside their heads... that they use as input to the models so as to get them to give the answers they want. GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out. The sort of reasoning that makes nuclear power unacceptable, but covering a large part of the open space in the western US with solar mirrors a good green thing.

I'm not green, plain and simple.

I like saving money, I like reducing my fuel usage (if only by a little bit), and I think that breathing, on the whole, is not overrated. Look at L.A., for instance, and compare it to 30 years ago. You can actually see L.A. most of the time nowadays, unlike back then.

I also like the challenge of trying to beat my own personal best mileage.

But "Green"? No. Much of the "Green" movement seems to be about greenwashing, and almost as much seems to be about pushing unrelated agendas in the name of the ecosystem.

Then again, I think of myself as being left of center politically, so there's probably some hypocracy in there.

-soD

I do what I can to reduce my consumption/waste because I'm selfish and don't want to give all my money to someone else and/or live in a filthy environment.

To address Vwbeamer's #3 green point: The likelihood of the planet getting destroyed is incredibly small indeed! The planet will continue to orbit the sun with or without human (or any other) life on it, it is indifferent to us and what we do, or do not do to it. Sure, it can become uninhabitable for humans and many, if not most/all, life that we currently know, but that won't destroy the planet, just us.

My hates?

1) - People that deny the impact that we as humans have exerted on our environment. Are we totally responsible for "global warming"? I doubt it as the earth goes through periodic cycles of higher and lower mean temps. However the CO2 levels (as measured by polar ice cores which I have seen at the Ice Core Lab in Colorado) are currently higher than they have been in the last 20,000 years. I can't understand people that don't think that will make an impact on the global environment.

2) - "Buy Green"
If you want to be "Green", don't BUY! And yes, I do know the impact of that mindset to our current economic situation, and how our economy relies on consumption (some say over-consumption). As a disclaimer, I am spending A LOT more money than I would like to be spending to repair/refurbish/build what is necessary on the farm that my wife and I purchased earlier this year, so we are definitely doing "our part" to help the economy recover. :)

Why be green?
1) I spend less money
2) I produce less waste
3) I take a strange amount of pride in efficient use of available resources.

What's not to like?
1) Pseudo-science. Whether it's about what is or is not environmentally friendly or sustainable or about the causes/effects of global climate change. Show me accurate, reproducible, real-world empirical data with sources or I assume you're lying and have an agenda.
2) Single solution myopia. One single change isn't going to do it all, people.

I basically like the same things as you, about being "green". It seems the green movement is the only one that places a value on old growth forest for example.

I dislike the green generalizations of people. My wife and I hunt and fish for food purposes, as its the "greenest" meat there is, and it's the only time in my life I've ever sat in one place in the woods for 4 hours at a time paying attention to my surroundings.

My biggest dislike is that many "green" solutions tend to be aimed at the middle upper class. Also green washing, like organic food from 4,000 miles away, crap like that bugs me.

I do vote for the Green Party here, not that I really hope that they will be the government some day but so the mainstream parties adopt some of the green policies to attract green voters.
Ian

I'm only accidentally green. I think being poor might be the easiest way to be green ever! I rarely drive my car, less than 100 miles/month on average these days. I bicycle or use the biodeisel powered bus to get to work everyday. I live in a tiny efficeint apartment. All my furniture is no longer fashionable, in other words, junk that i rescued from going to the dump. I pay electricicy, so I minimize use of that. other than the fridge, the biggest electrical appliance is the 55watt tv (old enough to have no phantom drain :)

What i hate about the green movement,

all the rich people faking green, buying another spare car isn't being green, even if it's a prius. stuff like that.

GREEN??? Nope! I don't do marketing hype.

I do conserve but I don't do it because of Al Gore, or any other doom-or-gloomer. What the heck does the food guy EMERIL do different now (aside from the XXXL GREEN TEE-SHIRT) compared to his days on the FOOD NETWORK. Nothing except use the word GREEN a few times each show.

In the mid seventies it was the doom and gloom pending ICE-AGE. In the nineties it was the HORRIBLE CANCER CAUSING "WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE" OZONE HOLE.

Then it was the HORRIBLE TERRIBLE GLOBAL WARMING.

WOOPS! The global temperature peaked in 1998. Somebody tell GORE.

QUICK change the term from GLOBAL WARMING to CLIMATE CHANGE. Different term, same political crap.

More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims Scientists Continue to Debunk “Consensus” in 2008

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...d-6e2d71db52d9

I'll continue to conserve because I choose to conserve.

GREEN is nothing more than the guilt trip cliche from the OZONE-GLOBAL WARMING-CLIMATE CHANGE-THEORY de JOUR MENU. :turtle:

If in doubt, follow the money! :thumbup:

I conserve for many reasons, the largest of which is that I hate waste and that I am cheap.

I hate that there are people who do not take the potential threat of climate change seriously. Is it real? How can we know? But how can we afford to treat it as if it is not?

I find it ironic that so called 'Conservatives' are the ones most often the least concerned about conserving the future of our planet. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or climatologist) to know that the chance not taken reduces the chance of things going awry.

Perhaps nothing we can do will change the climate future of the planet, but what if it can?

i agree with pretty much all of the first post,

for me personally the "real green guys" have done more damage than good by associating being a reasonable human being, with being a crazy nut with a beard and un-washed hair. because of them it has been a "cool" thing to waste and over-consume in last decades.

and to all that i would like to add that even if im in my early twenties, i sort of lost confidence in humanity. and i don't exclude that being more green, to the point of becoming auto-sufficient myself, instead of hoping my country or world will become, that it may be the only way in the future to survive or keep a human-worthy life standard.

For me it's about efficiency. Being efficient just happen to make me what others consider "Green". Why use a sledge hammer to drive a nail.:turtle:

I'm green because nobody proved that saving non renewable resources is bad :cool:

Denis.

I don't think making generalizations about bearded hippies or wealthy yuppies or business executives or whoever, actually helps the green cause at all.

Good and bad people can be found everywhere.

Agreed. We've got our conservative friends at least looking at the option of bio-diesel or ethanol powered ski boats. :P

And hippys on benefits, driving around in a stoned, holier than thou haze, with an old fumer than leaks more dirty oil than Paris Hilton doing the splits.

Hey Snax, dont know a guy in Eugene called Sterling? carpenter who rides an electric kickscooter with a biodiesel house bus by any chance?

Heh, I think we have about a hundred people like that here! ;)

You know, I'd think that if a person was a real conservative, they'd be in a sailboat. And if really conservative, a wooden-hulled one :-)

I'm not nessicarilly green...I'm a conservationist. I like the environment, I like clean water.
I ecomod to save gas because for the longest time finances were very tight for my wife and I so every extra bit I could squeeze out of my car helped.

I keep doing it because ecomodding is cheaper than performance mods and challenges the engineering side of my brain because these are things I have to come up with on my own specifficaly for my car.

I personaly feel that there is something going on with the environment but the global warming movement tends to show temp trends from the past 20-30 years. Were if you look back to the 30's you will see the similar temp trends and some hotter summers than we have now.

There is also alot of deception in my opinion. Al gore in an inconvinent truth used satelite images of melting polar ice caps that were CGI images from the day after tomorrow.
The WWF has a comercial about polar bears were it shows a parent and baby polar bear on a small chunk of ice. the parent at the end of the commercial jumps off the ice and the comercial leads you to belive that because of us they are leaving the baby behind to die.
However this is a game for polar bears, they ride out on chunks of ice that break off the glaciers. They will get miles out from shore and then jump in the water and swim back to land and its easy for them because their fat keeps them afloat so they just have to kick in the water.

My main thing is that for the global warming side the science is settled. And if you can validly point to some flaws it results in the most angry responses I have ever recived...so much for open mindedness.

RFK jr has said that if you disagree with global warming you are a facist and pretty much inline with those who deney the holocaust.

So much for open minded debate.

So what's to debate? It's physics. It's like asking whether the Earth goes around the sun: you can "debate" all you want, and if you have the political power, threaten people until they quit annoying you with facts that challenge your comfortable world view, but in the end, the universe is the answer, and all your debate won't keep the world from moving, or from heating up.

Well it could help to stave off global socialism.

Why can't people agree to disagree...you believe that we cause the earth to heat up...I believe that the earth just heats up and cools down on its own the way that it was designed to.

I don't want the govt telling me to buy certain light bulbs, or forcing disproportinatly unfair global carbon taxes on us.

Huh? That is possibly the dumbest statement I've seen from someone not running for public office :-)

Well, they can. Last I heard there's still a Flat Earth Society.

That's where you're wrong. It has nothing to do with belief. You seem to think physics is just a matter of belief, so why not try a small experiment for me? (You can even make it a thought experiment if you like.) Find a handy cliff, or a tall building. Tell me how high it is, then jump off. I'll use physics to calculate how hard you'll hit the ground, and you can try not believing in gravity.

So you'd rather waste your money by buying inefficient light bulbs? Or pay disproportionately unfair income, sales, & property taxes?

See this is exactly what I'm talking about. You can't make a point with out emphasizing how stupid I am.

I know when it comes to math and science I'm a moron. I have the transcripts to prove it. However, as with anything in life you do a little bit of research and you can get a decent idea as to whats going on.

There are mathmatical formulas way beyond my comprehension that are used to calculate exactly what an object will do when you exert a force on it. It started out as a theory and became fact through experimenting.

The only proof I have seen for global warming is some made up charts from al gore. Yet when someone trying to prove global warming does an experiment it often ends up proving the opposite.
As an example:
Scientists have put sensors in the worlds oceans to monitor temp increases and they found that nothing has changed.


Home - Global Warming Petition Project
This is a website for a petetion of over 31,000 scientists who disagree with global warming.

From that website...
"Enclosed is a twelve-page review of information on the subject of "global warming," a petition in the form of a reply card, and a return envelope. Please consider these materials carefully.

The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds.

This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful."

There are top people within the AMS who have said that meteorologists who disagree with global warming should have their meterological certification taken away.

This is being forced on us. Obamas very likley to waste billions if not trillions of our dollars on carbon taxes. This money would mostlikley be given to the UN to help fight global warming. What was the last thing that the U.N. did well? Covering up the fact that the blue helmets were raping the women in Africa that they were sent to protect?

I'm all about efficency. I have done everything I can to make our apartment as efficent as possible, including switching to CFLs.

I just don't think that governments should mandate that you use a certain type of bulb.

Then you can't have looked very hard. There are similar formulas used to calculate what X amount of CO2 does in the atmosphere. They were first figured out (with pencil & paper) by a guy named Svend Arrhenius (not sure if that's the correct spelling) back around the year 1900 - long before Al Gore came along. CO2 has been measured at the Mauna Loa observatory since the '50s, about the time Gore was still in diapers. See here for more: The Discovery of Global Warming - A History

But your experimental example does nothing of the sort. Ever try to boil a pot of water? When you set it on the stove, does it boil right away, or does it take time to heat up? Same with global warming: the ocean is the last place you'd expect to see evidence.

In addition to which, looking for evidence of warming is like figuring out about gravity from examining the squashed corpse at the foot of the cliff - the point being that if you'd bothered to understand and use the physics, you could have predicted the results, stayed well back from the edge, and avoided the squashing.

Including such distinguished names as Drs. M. Mouse and D. Duck :-) Really, that thing has been around for years, and has repeatedly been shown for what it is: a fake. Why are you so ready to believe obvious frauds, without doing any sort of checking?

The reality is that your energy use and so on are rationed now, by your ability to pay your power bill and so on at the end of the month. Using energy more efficiently means that in fact you would be less rationed, since you could e.g. have light for a lot less cost, or drive further on a dollar. And if the energy you use comes from wind, solar, nuclear, or geothermal instead of coal & oil, how does that threaten your freedom or quality of life? Seems to me that if they're affected at all, they'd be improved.

Can't you see this and all the rest for what they are, nothing more than pure scare tactics? Fear those black helicopters, folks, and keep sending your money to Exxon, Peabody, and the Saudis.

I'm not green, but my lifestyle has always been lagom.. "enough" has always been enough for me and generally what saves energy saves money, what reduces waste saves money. It just seems like the right thing to do on its own obvious merits.

What I hate is nearly everyone "green"'s denial that the solution to man made problems is to reduce man.

If we are to admit that we are inseparable from nature, then anything we do is natural.. so there's no reason to care one way or another. To tell another man he can't pollute is like telling a lion he can't roar, you know?

But if we are to declare that we are a separate entity from nature somehow, then we must acknowledge that what harm we do is in direct proportion to how many of us are doing it. 100% of everyone on earth could drive a hummer everywhere with no impact on the earth's atmosphere.... if there were only a million of them. Dig? But we have >6 billion people and it shows. The solution to man made problems is to reduce man. Until we do that, we may as well be shoveling sand against the tide with a teaspoon.

I don't have children. I have ensured surgically that I can't have children. My net impact on the earth with my <20 mile per gallon SUV is microscopic compared to someone who rides a moped, has kids who ride mopeds, and whose kids' kids ride mopeds ad infinitum. Frankly I don't want to hear any environmental snobbery from anyone who has made more humans because there's nothing they can do to be greener than my terminal bud of the family tree.

Another thing about "greenies" that infuriates me is their refusal to accept partial solutions. As an example, ethanol to fuel internal combustion engines is often contested because it isn't as low-impact as solar presumably. No duh! Ethanol is not a complete solution to the fossil fuels problem - but it's a bridge in the right direction and it's one of the easiest ones to implement - because it distributes, pumps, and burns in every piece of infrastructure we already have. Nobody needs to buy a whole new car and throw away their old one, any gasoline car can be retrofit at a negligible cost - a cost that becomes far lower if mass acceptance breeds mass production. "Green" folks who oppose partial moves in the right direction only because they're incomplete... they make me spittin' mad for sure.