Could you cut your emissions by 80%

[WoodyCT]

I may not share their views, but I don't hate them. And I usually refrain from poking fun at them, silly as they are.

Honestly, I do as much as I practically can to set a good example for my children when it comes to taking care of the environment, BUT

...until the global climate issue is a lot better understood I am not about to make my family suffer financially so that the good old USA can be a global leader in fighting for what might be.

If you have the means to install a new heat pump system or solar panels on your house, or keep up with the latest and greatest hybrid-electric cars, then by all means be the global leader you feel you should be. I applaud and appreciate your motives and actions.

Unless I win Powerball, I'll be spending my modest income enjoying my time on Earth with my family and friends, not trying to save human kind from itself. When the time comes for that, it will happen.


Woody

BTW- Did you hear the Yellowstone super-volcano may erupt in another 100,000 years? Talk about a global catastrophe!

[spence]

Originally Posted by WoodyCT

I may not share their views, but I don't hate them. And I usually refrain from poking fun at them, silly as they are.

It was a joke, look at the numbers in your math

...until the global climate issue is a lot better understood I am not about to make my family suffer financially so that the good old USA can be a global leader in fighting for what might be.

Hence my point above.

I think I said something like "The only real effect this has is to turn people off of the discussion rather than take potential issues seriously regardless of the root causes."

How are people to deal with the more serious issues, and there are very real environmental issues, when everything from real science to tinfoil hat conspiracy is being lumped together and tossed aside in one motion?

I guess your and my kids can just deal with it.

-spence

[WoodyCT]

The kids are alright.

When I was in college I was rabidly pro-environment / anti-human. I was certain that the end was near and we would drive ourselves to a well deserved extinction. And then reality set it. Marriage. Career. Kids. The joys of the simple things in life. Seeing what is right, and not fixating on all that is wrong. The world is an amazing place and infinitely better in many ways than it was for prior generations. No longer to the rivers run red, blue or green, or catch fire on occasion. No longer do foreign factory trawlers prowl America’s coast wiping out our stocks. No longer do sharks come back to the docks only to wind up in dumpsters soon after the flash bulbs have ceased. No longer does DDT wipe out our birds. So much has improved. So much.

I love that our environmental awareness and mindset is changing. Never did I think I would see cars, chemicals or food marketed as being ‘environmentally friendly’, much less engineered to be so. Things are definitely headed in the right direction.

But cut my emissions by 80%? Not feasible, and not necessary. Not in this country. I would like to see the USA take the lead in pushing clean technology on the developing industrial areas of our world however.

The kids are alright. And I’m content to enjoy them and foster their love of nature and learning. They will undoubtedly take our teachings to the next level so that our grandchildren will have a better world still.

Woody