View Full Version : What is your hot button on environmental issues?
What really infuriates me is the fact that chemical companies can produce the most toxic chemicals BUT are not legally required to develop means of safe disposal or neutralizing the effect. It seems that the public has to protest vigorously after experiencing negative consequences and then under protest, the chemical companies will start to look at the options but by that time, the losses are dreadful - think DDT for starters and now there are so many that it is impossible to list them all. Include some of the meds in this list as well.
yes stupid here, regular long showers, i take 3-5 minutes showers all the time. running water while brushing teeth, running water in between rinsing or washing dishes, sprinklers that go off in rainstorms, super green lawns in dry climates and of course all the waste of water in industrial and other context. i have lived in high desert regions and we are just fine without wasting water
This is a great question! I sardonically call these "green fetishes!" :)
Mine are:
1. All the people buying tons of cheap plastic crap made in China at the malls and on Amazon.
2. "Happy Motoring"
3. Polluting the fisheries
ApatheticNoMore
8-3-15, 8:24pm
1) xmas shopping
having a clear, large cluster of young patients dying of the same or similar cancers and no one gives a shit that maybe all that GE pollution left behind is leeching into the water or somebody's run off. Calling Public Health Dept several times to report this and other ones, never return calls, just once "that's not enough people to be a cluster", 1 person short. Following year more than one person dies in same cluster, same cancers, no return calls. Called local politicians, absolutely no one cared, in fact I came to the conclusion they wanted this swept under the rug. The city was already broke and a mess, upset residents over cancer clusters needed to NOT happen. I went to my director, maybe a higher up could make those calls and have an actual exchange of words, we are a respected agency. She told me that referrals were down, we would be doing nothing about this and I needed to not talk about it, since it was speculation and I represent the company. An oncologist friend told me of course epidemiologists knew about some of these clusters, they are reportable, let them take care of it and seriously do not talk about it, I could lose my job. Single mom, kept my job because at least I could take care of these young patients, who were leaving behind little kids. And when they wanted to talk about the clusters (people are not so stupid to not notice 40 yo neighbors dropping like flies of the same cancer), I listened. It felt dirty and I was ashamed.
Not a big issue in the scheme of things - and I guess they are biodegradable being paper - but why do so many people think the proper thing to do with a losing scratch ticket is to throw it on the ground?
Overpopulation.
+1 Cheap and effective birth control for everyone who wants it, cover tubal ligations and vasectomies for free under insurance, and leave abortion rights alone.
Flushing toilets with clean drinking water, especially when not all Canadians even have access to safe water.
At least my coworking place has composting toilets, so that's something.
Also the buying cheap crap and cheap food, regardless of income level.
+1 on overpopulation, but socialization overall. Our whole culture is living so low on Maslow's Hierarchy. In my mind's eye I see mainstream corporate/consumer culture pouring a bucket of orange paint over every human on the planet, no matter how well off they actually are. "Be orange. Dream about yellow, wet dream about green, but be firmly rooted in orange fear." We really don't have to live like that, but as long as this is what we're taught, what we teach our children, what we cling to as so important, we can't move beyond the fear/greed that's sinking the world. There are people who really are on the bottom, but if the zeitgeist of the 1st world could evolve to the point where we actually believe most of the stuff on the bottom has been managed, that we have ENOUGH and it's time to embrace the top, if we could let go and move up, we could help them, too. Have some purple, it's good for you! And it's good for everyone else, everything else, including planet earth.
http://www.psych2go.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/psych2-go-food-3.jpg
I couldn't agree more and I love Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, it still works after all these years. It's a long road, I fear, for more people to get to purple, for so many reasons. I may not be wording this the way I want to, but our government and big corporations often act like they want to keep people orange and red and running scared. This is a humongous number of people, if they organized in some fashion and demanded being "allowed" to move up... oh forget it, it's late and the odds of this ever happening makes me sad.
I couldn't agree more and I love Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, it still works after all these years. It's a long road, I fear, for more people to get to purple, for so many reasons. I may not be wording this the way I want to, but our government and big corporations often act like they want to keep people orange and red and running scared. This is a humongous number of people, if they organized in some fashion and demanded being "allowed" to move up... oh forget it, it's late and the odds of this ever happening makes me sad.
I love my new-found purple life. All you can do is share the purple philosophy with others and hope a few catch on. Sadly, most won't.
iris lilies
8-6-15, 2:48pm
my hot button is very low level and relates to something I see and touch almost daily: recycling trash. It's funnry that mine is in such direct contrast to kib's lofty idea (but she is right! and an interesting overview of self actualization in the context of environmental responsibility.)
In my immediate neighborhood where people live in $300,000+ houses and are educated, socially aware, and they mouth platitudes about the environment, too much of their garbage is unsorted. I find cardboard in the compost dumpsters, bottles in the landfill dumpster, weeds in the landfill dumpster, etc. We have three places to sort garbage. And it is so easy because we have huge dumpsters in our alleys that hold most things. And then, the "bulk " items are picked up once a month--that is, if they are placed appropriately where the big trucks can get them.
So the fact that many of my educated, yuppie neighbors can't get it right signals that my ghetto/mixed income neighbors, over where I farm lilies and iris, are helpless idiots when it comes to garbage. Each day when I got over there to weed, I pick up trash on the street around my gardens. Sometimes I make an effort to clean up the smelly, rotting crap that surrounds their large dumpsters. They have double the number of dumpsters, I guess because they are so useless at utilizing them. Yesterday, I picked up gobs of fake hair that would skeeve most people out, but I figured that if I didn't do it, no one would.
To be fair, the mixed income neighborhood borders a busy street where there are fast food and gas mart places, and much of the street trash comes from there. But all of the hair extensions, nope--those are from residents.
We watched the documentary "The True Cost" about the impact of fashion on people and the planet. Next to BIG oil, the clothing industry is the second biggest polluter on the planet. http://truecostmovie.com/about/ If this wasn't a "hot button" before watching, it now is!
We watched the documentary "The True Cost" about the impact of fashion on people and the planet. Next to BIG oil, the clothing industry is the second biggest polluter on the planet. http://truecostmovie.com/about/ If this wasn't a "hot button" before watching, it now is!
I have been wanting to see The True Cost but just have not gotten around to it.
my hot button is very low level and relates to something I see and touch almost daily: recycling trash.
I'm not too worried about that, because I take the long view. All that stuff will most likely end up in a landfill, which will preserve the materials for a loooooong time. Some future generation will use these landfills as very concentrated/rich resource extraction sites. It will all get recycled, just a bit further down the timeline :-)
Of course, at the rate we are going they may be digging it up with hand tools...
Some people already live this way: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/feb/20/worlds-largest-rubbish-dump-brazil
We watched the documentary "The True Cost" about the impact of fashion on people and the planet. Next to BIG oil, the clothing industry is the second biggest polluter on the planet. http://truecostmovie.com/about/ If this wasn't a "hot button" before watching, it now is!
Interesting. I had no idea. Another reason to be a nudist minimalist. ;)
Interesting. I had no idea. Another reason to be a nudist minimalist. ;)
You can't be both?!
Some people already live this way: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/feb/20/worlds-largest-rubbish-dump-brazil
Ayup.
See also:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2013/0815/Hidden-environmentalists-India-s-waste-pickers
Ayup.
See also:
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2013/0815/Hidden-environmentalists-India-s-waste-pickers
Fascinating, though still obviously horribly sad.
I have many hot buttons but they usually go back to waste or inefficiency. The mention of yuppies that can't/don't sort their recyclables sounds familiar. It drives me nuts that many professors and grad students where I work throw their food containers and dirty kleenex in the recycling container or paper in the regular waste basket. Using the appropriate container is not a hard thing to do but it does take presence of mind and I guess theirs dwell on loftier things than trash. Huge houses and cars get to me too. Watering lawns in a drought. Rampant growth that brings on scraping of natural places for more development. Many things really...
Perfect poisoned fertilized lawns that are watered!~ Bad enough they are filled with pollutants...but to water them as well with clean drinking water. It makes me furious if I think about it too long. In MD the farmers are fussing about the EPA rules and I have to agree that they are not the main problem, suburban lawns are a big contributor to excess pollutants in the Bay.
Laws/rules against front-yard gardens and clotheslines. Though I tend not to live in such areas.
Industrial farming practices on land and sea
The die-off of biodiversity
The mindset that we are dominators rather than stewards of the natural world
ApatheticNoMore
8-7-15, 1:55am
Perfect poisoned fertilized lawns that are watered!~ Bad enough they are filled with pollutants...but to water them as well with clean drinking water. It makes me furious if I think about it too long.
astroturf, fake lawns - that can't possibly be environmentally sensible, cover a lawn with plastic where no rain that even occurs can sink in and where I suspect nothing can survive (and where maybe the plastic leeches into the soil as well, I don't know). But what survives under dead grass? Well if one does the grass thing, brown grass is often NOT dead, it's often merely brown until it gets rain, many species of grass will do the browner in summer thing without dying (although you may have to water rarely just to keep it alive), but even on a lawn with brown grass or even 100% dead grass or nothing else planted just dirt and a few weeds or something, I'm sure there's some life in the dirt. Maybe a thirsty earthworm or ants or bugs, but at least microbial life. Does anything survive under astroturf? I suppose it has it's limited uses for ball parks or golf courses maybe, but houses with it, I can't see it.
(I interpret this thread as an environmental pet peeve thread - so I can't say this is the most conceivably important environmental issue, but like excessive xmas shopping it upsets me when I see it)
I found this information a few months ago:
16,000 golf courses in the U.S. --- about half the total in all the world.
Audubon International estimates the average American course uses 312,000 gallons of water per day.
In Palm Springs, CA (57 golf courses) eats up a million gallons PER DAY.
Meanwhile, the EPA wants your kids to take showers instead of baths in order to save water. GO FIGURE!!!!
astroturf, fake lawns - that can't possibly be environmentally sensible, cover a lawn with plastic where no rain that even occurs can sink in and where I suspect nothing can survive (and where maybe the plastic leeches into the soil as well, I don't know). But what survives under dead grass? Well if one does the grass thing, brown grass is often NOT dead, it's often merely brown until it gets rain, many species of grass will do the browner in summer thing without dying (although you may have to water rarely just to keep it alive), but even on a lawn with brown grass or even 100% dead grass or nothing else planted just dirt and a few weeds or something, I'm sure there's some life in the dirt. Maybe a thirsty earthworm or ants or bugs, but at least microbial life. Does anything survive under astroturf? I suppose it has it's limited uses for ball parks or golf courses maybe, but houses with it, I can't see it.
(I interpret this thread as an environmental pet peeve thread - so I can't say this is the most conceivably important environmental issue, but like excessive xmas shopping it upsets me when I see it)
FYI - This link is for a type of turf that has a 100% permeable backing. http://www.easyturf.com/drainage/ At least with turf you wouldn't need chemical treatment several times a year, water for irrigation, and a gas/oil powered mower to keep it manicured.
We use a battery-powered Neuton lawn mower ( http://www.neutonpower.com/), which costs 1-cent to charge the battery using electricity, and free using solar. I really wonder about all the pollution from gas/oil powered mowers used. We treat our postage stamp size yard with compost, so at least we turn vegetative waste that would normally go into the landfill into something that is good for our yard and gardens. Most weeds can be pulled or treated with vinegar if you are diligent, and a good layer of compost once a year actually helps keep weeds at bay.
the great hue and cry given over the death of an animal, one specific high profile animal. While very sad it does nothing to help the millions of other animals that are abused and tortured for food.
Industrial farming is nothing more than legal torture and ruins the land and water and air.. Who the hell came up with this idea.
It is time to end it.
ApatheticNoMore
8-7-15, 11:56am
FYI - This link is for a type of turf that has a 100% permeable backing. http://www.easyturf.com/drainage/
i guess that's better for turf
At least with turf you wouldn't need chemical treatment several times a year, water for irrigation, and a gas/oil powered mower to keep it manicured.
I'm not an advocate of grass, as opposed to trees, drought tolerant plants etc.. But if people are going with grass even in a dessert ... I don't think grass necessarily needs chemical treatment several times a year or at all. To look greenish it needs water that's about it. Like everyone pretty much I grew up with lawns and I know how we maintained it. But we didn't use chemical treatment. One could use manure of course (more natural). Or one could use nothing at all. It may not be optimal for soil health to use nothing, but the grass will be greenish if it is watered period. Those using chemical treatments are probably pursuing some ideal lawn or something, antiseptic, a Platonic idea of a lawn, an emerald city lawn, more dead than alive. The gas/oil powered mower isn't necessary if your health allows a manual mower. That's how it was done growing up. But with age one might prefer to hire out or used powered motors. Golf courses might try to pursue this type of perfection on a commercial property - that's again why astroturf might be better for them. To keep the grass alive but not very green in summer (if you give up on that aesthetic ideal) you may not be using much more water than to keep trees on the property (if you have them) alive and green. And there's a lot of reasons to keep trees alive despite drought and everything. The problem is partly that people have grass but partly that instead of going with species of grass that naturally get browner in summer they go with much higher water requirement grass that stays emerald green all year.
I like weeds better than astroturf, actually I do. They speak of life not plastic at least. I've always been friends of weeds, those poor underdogs and castoffs, that noone wants, so falsely maligned. If I had a lawn (don't think I would but) and it had some weeds, unless they were taking over the entire lawn, I might just let them be (but dandelions will take over the entire lawn if you let them? actually I haven't seen that happen and we let them go sometimes, maybe even "ecosystems" like lawns tend toward balance, but I suppose if conditions were just right for that particular plant species ...). At the very least clover has always been natural on lawns, can't even "roll in clover", if your lawn doesn't have any. I like those old fashioned lawns where clover was part of the mix.
i guess that's better for turf
I'm not an advocate of grass, as opposed to trees, drought tolerant plants etc.. But if people are going with grass even in a dessert ... I don't think grass necessarily needs chemical treatment several times a year or at all. To look greenish it needs water that's about it. Like everyone pretty much I grew up with lawns and I know how we maintained it. But we didn't use chemical treatment. One could use manure of course (more natural). Or one could use nothing at all. It may not be optimal for soil health to use nothing, but the grass will be greenish if it is watered period. Those using chemical treatments are probably pursuing some ideal lawn or something, antiseptic, a Platonic idea of a lawn, an emerald city lawn, more dead than alive. The gas/oil powered mower isn't necessary if your health allows a manual mower. That's how it was done growing up. But with age one might prefer to hire out or used powered motors. Golf courses might try to pursue this type of perfection on a commercial property - that's again why astroturf might be better for them. To keep the grass alive but not very green in summer (if you give up on that aesthetic ideal) you may not be using much more water than to keep trees on the property (if you have them) alive and green. And there's a lot of reasons to keep trees alive despite drought and everything. The problem is partly that people have grass but partly that instead of going with species of grass that naturally get browner in summer they go with much higher water requirement grass that stays emerald green all year.
I like weeds better than astroturf, actually I do. They speak of life not plastic at least. I've always been friends of weeds, those poor underdogs and castoffs, that noone wants, so falsely maligned. If I had a lawn (don't think I would but) and it had some weeds, unless they were taking over the entire lawn, I might just let them be (but dandelions will take over the entire lawn if you let them? actually I haven't seen that happen and we let them go sometimes, maybe even "ecosystems" like lawns tend toward balance, but I suppose if conditions were just right for that particular plant species ...). At the very least clover has always been natural on lawns, can't even "roll in clover", if your lawn doesn't have any. I like those old fashioned lawns where clover was part of the mix.
I have a ratty lawn with random ferns and ground cover. I'm sure the neighbors will celebrate when I move. I share your admiration for plucky indigenous plants (aka weeds) and try to keep as many of them around as possible. I have lived here for 25+ years, and have never watered. (So I can take showers until the hot water runs out. My next place will have an on-demand water heater!)
the great hue and cry given over the death of an animal, one specific high profile animal. While very sad it does nothing to help the millions of other animals that are abused and tortured for food.
Absolutely, kally. There was an article several years ago about a cow that broke rank and file and fled the line that led to a slaughter house in Brooklyn. They caught her and rather than slaughter her after the media had already made her the story du jour, they supposedly sent her to a farm in upstate New York to live out her days.
So what about the other cows that met their end that day? Their lives have less value because they didn't have the opportunity to entertain? Very egotistical to make a decision on the life and death of an animal based on the relationship you've developed with it, even if it's just via a human interest blurb in the Daily News.
(I recently posted a thread on Cecil and a great article in The Atlantic on that very issue.)
Twisting science issues to conform to some sort of political grouping or interests is about the hottest button on my console. Apathy is not far behind.
Watched a PBS show last night about the "harvesting" of sand around the world. I had no idea that coastlines are being dredged at an alarming rate. And then when the tourist coastlines disappear, they bring in dredged sand which has to be done fairly often at great expense. When they scrape the sea floor, they completely upset the ecology. Are humans the dumbest animal on the planet where our resources are concerned?
Oh, here's my small-scale pet peeve. People who mow their lawns and then put the clippings in plastic bags.
iris lilies
8-10-15, 8:22am
astroturf, fake lawns - that can't possibly be environmentally sensible, cover a lawn with plastic where no rain that even occurs can sink in and where I suspect nothing can survive (and where maybe the plastic leeches into the soil as well, I don't know). But what survives under dead grass? Well if one does the grass thing, brown grass is often NOT dead, it's often merely brown until it gets rain, many species of grass will do the browner in summer thing without dying (although you may have to water rarely just to keep it alive), but even on a lawn with brown grass or even 100% dead grass or nothing else planted just dirt and a few weeds or something, I'm sure there's some life in the dirt. Maybe a thirsty earthworm or ants or bugs, but at least microbial life. Does anything survive under astroturf? I suppose it has it's limited uses for ball parks or golf courses maybe, but houses with it, I can't see it.
(I interpret this thread as an environmental pet peeve thread - so I can't say this is the most conceivably important environmental issue, but like excessive xmas shopping it upsets me when I see it)
Apparently this is an outdated view. Just thought you should know. :D Our young, environmentally friendly neighbors covered their tiny back yard with faux grass. They drive a hybrid, they carefully sort their recycling, they installed $$$$$ worth of solar panels on their roof.
I believe they did this because with their two small dogs, their real grass lawn was dead most of the time, anyway.
I think their choice is strange, but lawdy it is green.
mayspirit
8-14-15, 11:58am
When people throw things on the ground. And when people don't turn off the water, while teethbrushing. It's killing me.
Here in the Seattle area, the powers that be are requesting 10% voluntary water conservation. I guess I'll stop doing the dishes...:)
In Palm Springs, CA (57 golf courses) eats up a million gallons PER DAY.
Meanwhile, the EPA wants your kids to take showers instead of baths in order to save water. GO FIGURE!!!!
I was looking up water usage stats for a different thread a few weeks ago and among the things I learned is that Palm Springs uses roughly 7x as much water per resident than San Francisco. (700 gpd vs. 100) The reason, I assume, is golf courses and swimming pools.
iris lilies
8-16-15, 7:43pm
I was looking up water usage stats for a different thread a few weeks ago and among the things I learned is that Palm Springs uses roughly 7x as much water per resident than San Francisco. (700 gpd vs. 100) The reason, I assume, is golf courses and swimming pools.
Some time ago,I asked our friends in Palm Springs if their water use was rationed, and one of them said no, but he wished that it was. now, this was a couple of years ago and maybe since then water rationing has kicked in.
Ive lived in in the desert. You couldn't pay me to live in a super arid place. I would barely consider the arid states at all, unless it was SF, either one of them.*
San Francisco or Santa Fe.
I'd like to know how much voluntary conservation the golf course down the street is practicing. It still looks mighty green to me.
I have a love /hate relationship with Dollar General
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