Anyone else sick of having "green" shoved down our throats?

There's a bit in one of the HitchHiker's Guide books, where Arthur Dent says some random sentence along the lines of, "I seem to be having some trouble with my lifestyle."

The author then goes into great detail how this sentence actually somehow floated through a wormhole in space/time and materialized right in the middle of the final peace negotiations between two mighty galactic civilizations which had been warring with each other for thousands of years.

As it turned out, that sentence, when translated into the language of the aliens, was actually the most heinous insult possible, and it subsequently hurled the two civilizations into thousands more years of war.

However, they eventually figured out that the sentence had not come from them, determined its true origins, and set off in a coordinated mighty space armada of thousands of deadly warships to come and exact revenge on the source of the insult: Earth.

After thousands more years of travel, they finally arrived to wipe out the Earth, and, due to a staggering miscalculation of relative size, the entire space fleet was swallowed by a small dog.

****

That bit is a perfect allegory to the type of thinking around all this 'earth day' and 'man-made global warming' nonsense.

That is not to say that there is anything inherently WRONG with people conserving, if they want to, nothing wrong with being more efficient, if they want to, nothing wrong with reducing pollution, if possible. Those things are in fact virtues in and of themselves, and are to be commended.

The problem is, those virtues are not what all the propagandizing is all about. Instead, it is more of a kind of new-age mixture of Crusade, Inquisition and Jihad, all rolled together as a big bludgeon with which to pound western nations into lowest-common-denominator equality with the third world. Those things had zero to do with religion and everything to do with small groups of people trying to control large groups of people. And it's exactly the same thing today with all this hysteria.

It is equal parts arrogance and ignorance to think that by browbeating a nation as relatively physically small as the United States will have much of an effect, if any, on the world as a whole, especially when taking into considering exploding industrialized (and much larger and much heavier-polluting) nations such as India and China.

Perhaps these people think to themselves (if they think about such things at ALL, which is highly unlikely) that 'Oh that's ok. We will straighten ourselves out first, then the rest of the world will be brought to bear on the whole 'green' and 'global warming' thing, once we show how we have committed to it ourselves.'. The problem with that is, the only actual accomplishment is not a strengthening of our position and influence, but a drastic weakening of it.

The world is not growing bigger and surrounding nations like India and China, it's the opposite: China and India are expanding exponentially. Who seriously believes that those two countries give a rat's ass about the infantile notions surrounding 'earth day' and 'man-made global warming' - ie that the 'right' thing for nations to do is severely hamstring themselves and their economies in order to 'feel better' about the slim possibility that maybe in 500 years, the earth won't be .05 degrees different from whatever temperature it might otherwise have been.

For the people who buy into it, it's merely sadly moronic. Ridiculous stunts like NBC pulled last year, by darkening their television studio during an afternoon of football games, accomplishes nothing but allowing a bunch of nitwits to sit around feeling good about themselves in self-congratulatory bliss.

But for the people who know better, and push it anyway out of pure self-interest, it's pure cynicism. Yet another revelation about the hoax slideshow film by Al Gore demonstrate that clearly enough. Since he didn't have any ACTUAL footage to demonstrate his point, he simply borrowed some cgi special effect shots from 'The Day After Tomorrow'. It would be funny if it weren't simultaneously pathetic and dangerous.

People need to wake up and realize that the way to 'help the earth' is by ADVANCING our technology and ability, not by dismantling it. Efficiency is profitable, innovating is profitable, leading economies into newer and better areas is profitable. Goods become more abundant, economies grow, citizens prosper, and the cycle of growth and advancement continues.

But none of this happens by government mandate. The government getting involved has the opposite effect - this is why we are paying (currently) $3.50 for a gallon of gasoline ( !!!!!!! ) , why our economy is suffering, why the cost of everything is rising.. not because we are 'running out of' anything (what a stupid thing for a teacher to tell a student, that teacher should be fired) but because government mandate has prevented the use of our own petroleum, has prevented the construction of any new refineries, refuses to allow new nuclear plants to be built, and therefore means we cannot meet demand in 2008 with a supply that dates to 1977 levels.

/end rant

So, am I sick of having 'green' shoved down my throat? You bet, because it is not a reflection of the virtues it should be, but rather just a sign of widespread and growing stupidity.

Now I know that the people out there who have already bought into the new holy religion of 'green' and 'global warming' and 'carbon footprints' (ROFL) will snidely dismiss any such talk as 'denier talk', like the Pharisees they are.

To those people, I have only one request: Don't reproduce. Seriously. Think of the good you'll do the planet by reducing the carbon footprint of your entire bloodline. Do it for the planet. Feel good about yourself.

 

Green is just a way to make money and seem like you care about the environment.

It's like when Football Night on NBC went "Green" by turning off all the lights and using candles. They didn't turn off any of the neon signs touting their advertisers in the background. Executives know that green sells because people like to feel good about themselves.

I also love the use of the term "rape" when describing our use of natural resources.

 

*cough*ticket*cough*sales*cough*... <- green smiley

<-green smiley

 

hmm, the fact that "go green" has become ridiculously trendy kind of bothers me, but hey, if it's helping the environment, i have no problem with the motivation behind it.

I agree with the kids thing. Now, I don't like children, in fact, I loathe the little boogers, but everyone keeps telling me that i'll feel a bit different about my own kids. Ok, cool. But I DON'T UNDERSTAND how people will actually have more than 3 or 4 kids. This coworker of my dad's has 11 kids, all pretty close together. And they home school them all. This boggles my mind. I'm worried 2 will be too many.

 

mother earth

 

Whatever helps the uneducated people to be aware how we're slowly destroying the environment...

I must admit that I'm more aware now than before.

Did you know that your cell phone chargers at home use energy if you're not using it? That goes with any plugged in appliances. So unplug any appliances that you're not using.

Turn your computer off when you're gonna be away for the day or more than 2 hours.

Buy energy saver appliances.

Turn off lights when you're not using them.

Buy fluorescent blubs but be careful when disposing them because they contain mercury.

Recycle (I need to get a bin for this because I have a whole load of magazines)

Buy fuel efficient vehicles.

A lesson for the day!

 

MILF.

 

If you're not green, these guys comin to whoop some azz

 

What the heck is that picture supposed to mean?

*cough*yourmom*cough*isahooker*cough*

 

Done all of these for 12 years I've been married.

And?

I got another one...

Turn your engine OFF when waiting in a school zone to pick up a kid, or when waiting on a prescription pick up at a pharmacy...

You basically get 0 miles per gallon while idling.

 

Don't you actually get negative miles per gallon while idling? I thought a car burns gasoline as long as it is turned on even while idling.

 

Technically it is 0 miles per gallon. Cause you burn gas but travel 0 miles. You would have to drive in reverse..... actually let me rephrase that, it is impossible to get a negatie mpg.

 

You will decrease you're overall average mpg for that tank of gas. However, you aren't actually gettin negative miles per gallon. At that moment you are getting 0 miles for every gallon you're burning.

In other words, when idling your current mpg is 0 but your average mpg is decreasing (assuming it was ever higher than 0 that is).

Edit: oops took to long to write the post.

 

Am I the only one that thinks gas isn't really that expensive? It's just more expensive than it use to be. I can get in my car and drive 400 miles for 35-40 bucks. I find that amazingly cheap.

 

Wow, you are out there dude. Not only does global warming not exist, the price of gas for I dunno over 50 years rose to about the $1.50 mark but has more doubled in the last three years because we can't drill in ANWAR. That's awesome.

 

As much as I wish to live on a green earth, I am not going to wear that "green hat".

Don't put on any "green hat" (applicable to men only) when you are visiting Hong Kong.

 

I'm with you. It's definitely more expensive than before and it feels like it's expensive b/c we consume so much, but it's actually not that expensive. Compared to milk, Red Bull or most any other liquid we normally buy, it's rather cheap.

 

Be thankful you don't live in Europe.

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Interesting take on Earth Day.

NSFW language.

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