What do you you do for our Earth ?

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Dist

But one can only do so much. In other words, barely nothing. Even if I dedicated my life to taking care of the earth, it would barely, if at all have any change. So why bother when it's useless, people like you will do my '' share ''.

I know it's selfish, but I am not ashamed of it. And I do know I will not have any children, so that is not a problem either. But the point here was, like I said before, why bother when your actions will have little to nothing effect anyway ?

I'm not sure why you think that you can't make a change. Sure, you alone are not going to be the reason why the average temperature of the Earth rises or falls by even a fraction of a degree. But have you ever examined how much water you consume, how much trash you generate? The trash is particularly an eye-opener. When I lived with my parents they always took out the trash, so I never got to see it for myself. When I started taking out my own trash, I realized that there's a load of junk that I was generating. It all goes to a land fill somewhere. The land fill isn't in my back yard, nor is it my job to manage land fills. But think for a moment on that one - surely there's a limit to how many land fills we can dig, how much crap we can bury. The solution is to recycle more, reuse things where possible, and ultimately cut down on how much garbage you generate.

Does doing things like that make a difference? Over time, sure - every little bit counts, and if you half the amount of garbage that you're putting out per week then you're cutting out loads of garbage. Unless you're planning on dying tomorrow, that really adds up over the course of your life.

But perhaps more importantly, you're setting an example to others by not being wasteful. Not everyone will gawk over you and immediately rush out to mimic your lifestyle. It's possible that nobody will notice you at all throughout your entire life. But if even one person is inspired by you, then for all intents and purposes, you've doubled the amount of savings. Sure, you're technically not doing anything extra, but it was your actions that caused someone else to become more conservative, and thus those savings can be attributed to you.

I don't ask people to do anything major, nor am I asking that of you. Just consider conservation a bit in your day-to-day affairs. When you wash dishes, maybe consider running the sink at slightly less than full blast. When you're out driving, try not to hit the accelerator quite as hard. When you leave a room, turn off the lights. Those are all relatively easy, and if you do it often enough, it does add up to make a fair bit of difference.

If nothing else, you can consider yourself as doing the work for some selfish slob who couldn't be assed to do a single thing, right? Even though you're confident that things will turn out well due to the efforts and sacrifices made by people like me, someone has to do something, and clearly the environmentally conscious aren't the majority just yet. So go ahead and give it a try. You don't need to do much - just make small changes here and there, whenever you remember to. That's good enough. And if you feel like doing more, go right ahead.

Should the efforts of everyone combined not be good enough, then don't worry! We'll all be forced to suffer the consequences and make the necessary sacrifices of living with a limited resource (if we even have the resource at all). Human ingenuity can only go so far, and when something is gone, it's gone. That's a harsh reality that we in our modern societies have come to forget.

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Originally Posted by Dist

But one can only do so much. In other words, barely nothing. Even if I dedicated my life to taking care of the earth, it would barely, if at all have any change. So why bother when it's useless, people like you will do my '' share ''.

I know it's selfish, but I am not ashamed of it. And I do know I will not have any children, so that is not a problem either. But the point here was, like I said before, why bother when your actions will have little to nothing effect anyway ?

That shouldn't be an excuse to not help in the cause. If you believe its the right thing to do to help stop global warming, then there should be no reason to not try and do your part. You may not see change in your life, but that doesn't mean change will never happen.

I think many people are unable to occupy their minds with events they reason will occur after they're dead. If people do care about the survival of our species, climate change is literally the biggest problem that we should be expending our energies on. Social justice, the economy, weapons proliferation—none of these matter much if we can’t figure out how to keep the globe habitable. Right now, we have a series of tiny, partial fixes in mind, and we can’t even muster the political will to implement those stopgap measures.

[OceanBlue]

I don't really think about it, so I'm similar to Dist in that regard [although I don't take the same attitude]. Its just that I'm not conscious of it. I think they only thing I do is never use the bath and watch the lights [although my monitor probably compensates].

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I don't ask people to do anything major, nor am I asking that of you. Just consider conservation a bit in your day-to-day affairs. When you wash dishes, maybe consider running the sink at slightly less than full blast. When you're out driving, try not to hit the accelerator quite as hard. When you leave a room, turn off the lights. Those are all relatively easy, and if you do it often enough, it does add up to make a fair bit of difference.

A lot of that would also be beneficial to your budget, it seems.

[C.A.]

Yep, just doing simple things like switching off lights, saving water, recycling, multiply it by a miilions or even a couple of billions and people will make a real difference.

You don't just save your own cash, but it will stack up to benefit the economy and the global climate itself.

[Mushi]

Oh, that's right, I've switched to using CFL's.

[Claies]

Originally Posted by Dist

But one can only do so much. In other words, barely nothing. Even if I dedicated my life to taking care of the earth, it would barely, if at all have any change. So why bother when it's useless, people like you will do my '' share ''.

I know it's selfish, but I am not ashamed of it. And I do know I will not have any children, so that is not a problem either. But the point here was, like I said before, why bother when your actions will have little to nothing effect anyway ?

First of all, I'm not doing your share. I'm doing my share. You have yours like everybody else and you not doing it is what's annoying some of us.

I don't care that individually my actions mean nothing, as long as I'm exerting my potential. One can only do so much, yes, but you're not doing exactly so much even when you can. That's what's bothering me. You can be more efficient yet you choose to waste.

[Evil Rick]

I always make sure to turn off all the light or devices like t.v. or radio when I'm nit using them.

I save water, I just buy the food that I know that I'm gonna eat (never buy more of what I can eat) and I never throw trash on the streets.

[Throne Invader]

I plant flowers and our family doesn't own a car. We don't usually like to travel to those far away malls.

[Gordy Lechance]

Well:

1) Use public transport; Full Stop. Will not learn to drive until I can buy an Electric Car.

2) Shut off all the lights at night. Sort of difficult considering, shame on me, I am still afraid of the dark at 28 years old.

3) Since people are part of "Earth" too; Do a random kind deed for at least one total stranger a day, with no thought of personal rewards.

[Alchemist007]

^Unless you know you'll be using electricity from clean sources, you'll probably be using coal power plant type which are bad too.

I myself will either get a high mpg car or wait for better technology to develop (apparently hydrogen is already in 'beta'). But till then I'm on a need to use basis with my Camry.
Also I turn the damn lights off.

[X10A_Freedom]

My recycling habit really depends on the facilities available.

UK: Lots of recycling bins outside my residence, so I did paper, cans and bottles.

Hong Kong: A bit awkward to get to the bins for just a single can, bottle so it's reduced to accumulating paper and dumping them into the recycle bin of my apartment complex in bulk.

Beijing: No formal collection points. Sometimes hand over empty plastic bottles to people collecting them for a living if I encounter them, and have a bottle in hand.

I cycle (Beijing, UK) and use public transport.
I find it common sense to switch off lights and be fairly efficient. I use energy saving bulbs, only because they lower bills. I actually don't believe in Global Warming 100%.


In a nutshell:
1. No, I don't earn an income yet.

2. No. Organics cost around 4x as much as the Basics line in the UK that I worship. For those who buy "local", the food has to be truly local. "Exotic" foods are sometimes grown "locally" in greenhouses using lots of energy to create the required environment.

3. Shower - but only to save time.

4. Yes.

5. Where feasible. I must be the only nutter to do this in Hong Kong.

6. I bet no one in my family recycles the paper now that I'm not around - it automatically became my responsibility back then.

Poll answer - technically null. "Only when feasible"

[FateAnomaly]

Nothing will help unless humans are no longer keen on procreation.

[SaintessHeart]

1. I sleep more, work less, and produce less carbon dioxide. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

2. I don't grow plants or domesticate animals, they produce extra and unnecessary waste and put a cut to the world's food supply. All the food you feed them can do the same to a starving child in Ethiopia.

3. I don't own a car, not even a hybrid one as it is a waste of metal processing (making steel produces carbon and nitrogen oxides, it is true). Screw the auto industry, let them fail.

4. I talk less and exercise less to produce less human waste. Burn less energy = less food consumed = less waste produced.

5. I freeload off my friends and family members for meals and daily items. Whatever can be shared will result in less waste products for the Earth.

It is true. Saving the Earth starts with you as an individual.

[Solais]

So. Let's see. While I'm some sort of a believer of this Global Warming, and I care about pollution and stuff, but that not means I do special things about that. It's mainly because I'm an Eastern-European. Here it's more like "if it means lower bills, then we do it". Because in Eastern-Europe, everything is expensive, and some of your "normal" things is a luxury.
So.

1. Bio or local food. It's because we live in the very outskirts of the town, we can grow that. So it's more cheaper. Also, I have Selective Eating Disorder and I can't eat those "fake" food. I never ate a hamburger in my life.

2. I only shower. Because it's faster, and because it awakes me in the mornings.

3. I only use public transport, because I'm afraid of learning to drive. Until flying cars or airbikes are available, I'll use public transport.

4. We rarely sort the wastes. But there's a little more to it: we try to keep all newspapers, magazines, etc, because we can use those for something else later. We also always sort glass bottles. As for plastic bottles: we keep the little 0.5l ones for taking tea to school or work. We also keep the 2l ones for milk; because we buy our milk from someone in the neighborhood who has a cow. That's also bio food and cheaper than those fake milks in shops.

5. As I see, my parents use those CCFL lightbulbs. My room have special lamps what use special lightbulbs, so I dunno. I mostly shut the lights when there's nobody in the room, but I don't when I'm using the computer at night; I have night eyes, and a bright monitor in the dark blinds me.

6. Laptops are too expensive. My father has one, but without some expansion it can't play games, and that would be expensive. Also I don't like their monitors, if I don't look in the perfect way, I can't see anything. I dunno if the LCD monitors are like that, never seen one before, but if they're like that, then I prefer my old CRT. And LCD monitors are far too expensive here.

And I think, that's it. However, I'm somebody who actually curious about what this Global Warming will cause. I mean, maybe in a really long run it's better for all humanity, to get a big slap to its face and learn to live more... responsible.

[KimmyChan]

Me & my family do a lot of energy saving around the house

Which kinda helps really as my dad works full-time for an energy saving electrical company anyway

[-KarumA-]

*sigh* What I do for this Earth... I voted I don't care because I'm not going to brag about what I do or try and get a star for it, seriously...
I can give money to some charity and feel good about it but why should I when nearly all that I give goes to their administration and not to the country... the cash I pay I see return in more adds and envelopes that beg people for more money (trust me I deliver those letters I see how many of those a household can get if they ever fall for that crap, every week 4 different funds for the same house...) if all charity would've been fair and honest then there wouldn't be a conflict >.<
I do the usual, separate trash, use my bike and public transport etc etc etc. but thing is it doesn't do nada cause if we really were doing something "for" the earth we would be seeing changes >.<
people should realize that this planet has existed longer than us, how can we people expect to control that which isn't ours... whoever labeled the Earth as human property is an idiot, the earth has existed for millions of years and when us humans came around it started to crumble, why? because we idiots try to control everything we have and now we are doing it again by thinking we an stop it

[C.A.]

lol, thinking that doing something for the planet is charity is way off. It is our duty and also a need to make up for the environmental damage we have caused.

And its exactly because the Earth is not human property that we have to make up for the damages. The Earth belongs to everything that's on it, all living things and nature itself. We have damaged nature and caused unnatural damage to nature, this has lead to the death of many species and we eventually lead to our own.

People need to have a better perspective on things.

[-KarumA-]

Originally Posted by C.A.

lol, thinking that doing something for the planet is charity is way off. It is our duty and also a need to make up for the environmental damage we have caused.

And its exactly because the Earth is not human property that we have to make up for the damages. The Earth belongs to everything that's on it, all living things and nature itself. We have damaged nature and caused unnatural damage to nature, this has lead to the death of many species and we eventually lead to our own.

People need to have a better perspective on things.

the damage has already been done, there is no way to fix it because the big guys up the top office won't let you
in case you haven't noticed there is no democracy in this world and unless you want to do something I suggest you plant your own trees for the rain forest cause all money you'll donate will go to those men and not the trees
it would help more if people would do terrorism on the polluting companies in China and the rest of the world

society isn't able to do anything beside give other men more money, look at bankers, politicians and more, if you had any idea of what was happening in this world then you would see how pointless it is to get a good shoe at things. No I'm not saying separating trash is useless I do those things as well, if it was truly useless I would have my lights on by day and be lying in a bath while typing this with the tap running. Ask yourself why did people start polluting in the first place, in the end the answer is to make more money and have more control, in this age companies are trying to milk out everything for even more money there are tons of green power companies telling people it is better to use their power and cheaper, well after a year the ratings change and people find that they cannot afford it, does that do any good? no cause they have less money to spend on things that make a difference as well: like biological food etc.

biological food is also a nice subject: US company creating genetic manipulation in plants so that they wouldn't need any pesticide sprays, good for the environment, global rules on this project: you can't use grown seeds you need to buy new ones -> farmers with a bad stock have to buy new seeds with cash they don't have (yes very good for the earth and their pockets), in India farmers are even killing themselves because of it and in South America farmers who use this ruin their soil as well which forces them to burn down the rain forest anyway: the soil they use these seeds on is so polluted because of them that the water has become polluted and you have animals dying if they drink it, not to mention that these mutated plants crossbreed with the originals, which happened with manipulated corn in Mexico which then caused the biological corn to get in danger cause the manipulated crap isn't healthy

you want to do something about the Earth then do something about the still existing companies that are trying to make more money out of things by doing stuff like this. Bankers are resigning from their work and take millions as a bonus as if it is all for free, other people make millions a year an amount that you can life off your entire life. You never ever wondered why charity would even exist if these people would stand off a part of that money to 3rd world countries?
This will never happen because there are selfish bastards all over the place trying to milk you out, Al Gore is a brilliant example: guy goes rage mode about the Earth and everything and what does he do for a party? serve endangered fish species on his buffet and own a house that lights up as if it is Christmas. Why did he rage, to get more money, he doesn't care about this all either he's just a pocket filler like the rest of them.

I suggest you do a little research before thinking this planet can still be saved from change, cause saving it from change is also control, the Earth isn't a bike with a flat tire, you can't replace it when you have nothing to replace it with

[Let'sFightingLove]

Originally Posted by fateanomaly

humans

Originally Posted by fateanomaly

no longer keen on procreation

DURRRRRRRRrr

[C.A.]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

I suggest you do a little research before thinking this planet can still be saved from change, cause saving it from change is also control, the Earth isn't a bike with a flat tire, you can't replace it when you have nothing to replace it with

And I suggest you also do a little research on how the planet can still be saved.

Who's talking about fixing, we're talking about making up for damages.

There are lots of upcoming green technologies that are much more energy efficient, reliable and produce significantly less to no pollution. If people want to make money, they can make money off these technologies as well.

And what's wrong with control? Is control only bad and nothing else? If we can set up controls to preserve environments and save species, is that a bad thing?

There lots of people harming the environment, lots of people who just fill their pockets with cash. But there's also lots of people who are actively trying to save the environment. And what about those who don't care? They're just selfish, if not ignorant.