Are you doing your bit to save the envirnoment? or do you feel you are farting against toxic wind?

I do try to print less and use digital copies of documents instead as much as possible.

P.S. I gave you a Great Question just for the “farting against toxic wind” part.

@erichw1504 and I you, for making me chuckle :)

I love to fart.

Truly, I feel like my small household of two, which recycles, saves water, tries to buy productes with less waste, drives gas-saver vehicles, etc., amounts to doing nothing for the enviornment. I see and know very few people who actively do what they can to preserve the environment. I feel like what I do is useless.

love the metaphor

I do what I can. I’m not sure if it makes a difference, but it doesn’t really matter because I do it for myself. “Saving the environment” goes hand in hand with my philosophy of life, lifestyle, values. I do think we should be more outspoken on policies, but I don’t think that will ever happen – the powers at be are too smart to do something so drastic as to start a revolution…they will chip away slowly at their goals instead of making huge sweeping changes “overnight”, you know?

Do what you can with what you have. You can’t force big business to adopt green practices. You CAN stop buying products from those companies that have environmental practices you don’t agree with.

I am less than impressed by ever-encroaching government intrusion into our lives, especially with what amounts to sheer hysteria whipped up for ulterior reasons on a problem that is a natural phenomena…..NOT the direct result of human activity. However, I DO agree that we’re trashing the planet, and DO agree that there is plenty we could do that does NOT necessitate across the board tax increases and…..creative taxation.

I am doing a lot of things that I never did before, yes. When they start charging me a methane fee for farting, like they are doing for farmers who raise cattle, I’m calling for a revolt.

There are many more giant polluters than any lifetime effort of mine could offset (e.g. the carbon footprint of supertankers and the use of depleted uranium in munitions). I’m not going to pay for the sins of the church, but I try not to be a dick.

I get a bit irked by questions of this ilk. (Not at you, @Just_Justine, but at questions like this.)

There is no need to “save the Earth” or “save the environment”. The Earth isn’t going anywhere but ‘round and ‘round the Sun as the Sun directs the movement of its entire Solar System through the cosmos. And ‘the environment’ is a changing thing, anyway—wherever you happen to find it. You can no more “save the environment” than you can “save your life”—your life is changing, too (and it’s going to end someday no matter how much you ‘save’ it—and so will ‘this environment’).

But sure, you can do things to affect your local transient environment for ‘more of the ‘higher-level’ organisms that we like’ such as kittens, puppies, pandas, polar bears—and humans—and make it perhaps less habitable for ‘only’ the organisms we don’t so much care for, such as bacteria, crabgrass and dandelions. Along the way, we generally agree that we want an environment in which coral reefs, plankton, grasses, seaweed and other ‘lower-level’ organisms can also thrive—so that the bigger things can eat the smaller things that eat the tiny things. Etc.

To that end… yeah, I try to waste less water (except that even ‘waste’ water finds a use in ‘the environment’), waste less paper and plastic (because I have to throw it in the trash every week, and I hate taking out the trash) and burn less fuel (mostly because fuel costs money).

Which gets me to the meat of my argument: pollution = waste (and taking out the trash more often). If we pay ‘market rates’ for the things we use, including fuel, water, packing materials and food, then we tend to waste less of it anyway, because that involves direct cost to us. Business is very sensitive to this as well. This is why I disagree with your claim that ‘industry has turned a blind eye’. Most businesses run by rational and profit-driven managers are very sensitive to the lost cost of the waste and pollution that they produce, and take all rational and reasonable economical steps to reduce those costs. (No, not “everything possible”, which would not be responsible in terms of continued profit, but ‘everything rational in order to increase profit’.)

I don’t agree that carbon dioxide is the bogeyman that so many others do, so I don’t recognize steps to constrain its emission as a byproduct of electric power generation and transport (to name two examples) to be ‘reasonable and rational’ in and of themselves.

Aside from that, I pick up the trash in the street in front of my house and in front of my neighbors’ houses (since they don’t seem to mind it so much, and leave it for me).

I recycle and conserve water.
But I feel like I am wasting my time sometimes by the sheer volume off garbage that I generate. Everything is packaged that I use. I was thinking about this the other night at work. Some new morning after pill to prevent pregnancy and it comes in a big old box. For one pill!
Maybe we need a focus group to come up with alternate packaging. Maybe we can find a way to polymerize air temporarily or something…

Well I’ve been recycling for years, although I doubt that this makes much of a diff in the grand scheme of things. It’s become second nature when throwing stuff ’‘away’’ by now that I hardly notice and have long failed to advocate the act or suggest it to others. :/

I recycle and compost so we don’t have too much garbage and I agree about packaging! A bottle of calcium in a box, seal aound the lid and 2 pounds of cotton ball in the top. The bottle could easily be half the size. We try not to use too much disposable stuff but paper towels are so handy!

@Symbeline Incorporating so many new things into your life takes some getting used to. If everybody did their part, no one would have to be reminded, right?

I recycle, compost, use safe cfls, am a vegan, use little power, research constantly, don’t drive, and shower only occasionally (mind you, only because I don’t find the time often with a small child). I am looking into new insulation and roof repairs, as well as considering creating a green roof, down the road.

@faye if it helps – you can compost those paper towels… might make you feel a little better about them at least!

I have always “done my bit” since I was a child. So no, I haven’t had to make any changes. I have always recycled and composted, I walk or ride my bike when feasible. I hang clothes to dry etc. I am a very frugal person. Not just because I have had to be but because I have always wanted to be.
waste not want not

I believe I should be a good steward of the earth God gave us, so I don’t litter, but cars are how people get around. And unless someone makes a Hybrid Jeep with 4 wheel drive and great mileage. I’m not buying hybrid

My farts are toxic!! :-/

Setting an example and influencing others is very important. People sometimes say, hey, with your job why don’t you drive a bigger car. I don’t need one, so why should I? is what I reply. When people complain about gas prices filling up their tanks I tell them, well, this doesn’t bother me that much. I actually think it’s a good idea the barrel of oil costs $150 or more. My Ford Fiesta gets me 65 miles a gallon. Higher oil prices are inevitable with the growing middle class in Asia. We can’t keep up drilling.

I’m a hippie at heart, I don’t recycle every little thing these days, as my recycle stuff is very miniscule. I use no pesticides or herbicides on my property, create little havens for the wildlife, ‘recycle’ all my leftover foods to the woodland friends and my chickens and geese.

I use the tiniest amount of chlorine in my spa and conserve water as best as I am able on a property with animals and lots of plants to be watered.

I also rescue any creature in need and take it to wildlife rehab.

My newest goose was pulled out of a mountain resevior with a fish hook in her eye, that resulted in the loss of such.
She is a delight and I am so in-joying spoiling her and giving her a great home. :-)

My biggest non-conserving behavior is my fetish for mood lighting so, admittedly, I do like having all my cool lights and lamps on in the evenings. Still, my home is very efficiant and I have never had an energy bill over $75

I have many outdoor solar lights and torches that make my space magical at night!

@phillis Yeah, I figure that too. When I get around to talking about it though, everyone says it won’t change anything because the state is in too deep a shit. I wouldn’t know, not an ecologist, but you loose nothing to try…and people call me a nihilist, haha losers.

Everyone in our building does it though…only four apartments, but still.

@Symbeline I think people feel completely overwhelmed when viewing this issue, from two different fronts. It’s hard enough to imagine global change because it’s so huge, and so much needs to be done. That is discouraging to people. They sense failure, so they want no part of it. Too, it’s awfully daunting, the prospect of changing your whole way of life. People don’t like change, especially in massive chunks.

Those who stand to gain the most from this (while leaving the rest of the world in the dust) manipulated the shit out of law makers, ecologists and media conglomerates with promises of being paid back handsomely for playing their roles. Unfortunately, they seriously overplayed thier hand when they hyped this shit, and now it’s come back to bite them in the ass.

Instead of taking a human approach to solve a supposedly human problem (oh, the irony!), they overestimated what people could handle when they deliberately crossed the line into playing the alarmist toward their own selfish ends. But that’s the whole POINT. It never was about human interest in the first damn place. It was about money, baby! In the end, Law makers will simply force us to comply under the guise of purely philanthropic intentions, regardless whether the future bears out these climate change allegations or not. By the time we have proof that they are wrong they’re wrong, it will be way too late to do jack about it. They already know that! In fact, they’re counting on it.

I saw an email showing- supposedly- Gore’s house, a guzzler of power, and Bush’s house with solar panel, recovery water system, etc.

@ Faye That was not an erroneous, anti-party falsity. It happens to be an inconvenient truth.

No matter how much foil I save or how little I turn on the dishwasher I’m still waiting for that comet to hit the earth. Then the dishwasher will go up in flames but that foil? I guess it’ll still be here, all black and icky.