Strollerderby

Honestly, I'm a grown woman and I sometimes want to do something just to be spiteful. Its just so obnoxiously everywhere. I am all for saving the planet, but I feel like in the last couple years its went from a nice thought to being crammed down my throat... Every product, place, commercial, business, shopping trip. NO I do NOT want to buy a fifth "ecofriendly" shopping bag. I know I don't have one with YOUR stores logo on it. I'll live. Bleh. But it could just be me.

We just try to do what is right and hope our son will take our lead.

misboots, I totally hear you. The funny thing is, a lot of these "green" products that are being crammed down our throats are ridiculous. All people really need to do is not waste so much. It should really be costing everyone less, not more. The idea of buying something specifically because it was green seemed counter-intuitive to me. Plus, "green" means nothing as far as products are concerned, as there is no standard.

I think that point about just getting out in nature and enjoying it without making it a "teachable moment" is excellent. I know I get really depressed hearing all the time about ice caps melting and polar bears dying and what not. It makes me feel helpless and scared; how would it make kids feel?

I wonder how our kids will feel when they grow up and realize their parents didn't do anything *real* to stop climate change and that all that blather about recycling and bringing your own bags didn't make much of a difference. And now it's their problem. They'll really hate us then, ha ha.

Predictions from the experts at Earth Day 1970 – or Why we should use common sense when it comes to responsible stewardship…

Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich stated “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” He predicted that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the "Great Die-Off."

"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation," declared Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for Earth Day. “By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine" (Far too many people remain poor and hungry in the world--800 million people are still malnourished and nearly 1.2 billion live on less than a dollar a day--but we have not seen mass starvation around the world in the past three decades. Where we have seen famines, such as in Somalia and Ethiopia, they are invariably the result of war and political instability.)

Lester Brown, a U.S. Department of Agriculture agronomist who would later become far more prominent as the founder of the Worldwatch Institute, predicted that "world population at the end of the century is expected to be twice the 3.5 billion of today." (Rather than 7 billion people inhabiting the earth by 2000, there were 6 billion--nearly 30 percent fewer than predicted. That's because total fertility has been dropping nearly everywhere on the planet since 1970 -- and shows no signs of stopping.)

In January 1970, Life reported, "Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support...the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution...by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...." (U.S. air quality has been improving rapidly since before the first Earth Day--and before the federal Clean Air Act of 1970. In fact, ambient levels of particulates and sulfur dioxide have been declining ever since accurate records have been kept. Between 1960 and 1970, for instance, particulates declined by 25 percent; sulfur dioxide decreased by 35 percent between 1962 and 1970.)

Paul Ehrlich warned that chlorinated hydrocarbons "have substantially reduced the life expectancy of people born since 1945." He put a finer point on these fears by envisioning a 1973 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare study which would find "that Americans born since 1946...now had a life expectancy of only 49 years, and predicted that if current patterns continued this expectancy would reach 42 years by 1980, when it might level out." (American lifespans have increased by 20 years, from an average of 56 years in 1920 to 71 years in 1970 to 76 years today.)

Sen. Gaylord Nelson reported, "Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct." (Since 1973, only seven species have gone extinct in the United States.)

Kenneth Watt announced, "The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." (The National Research Council reported that "the Earth’s surface has apparently warmed by 0.25 C to 0.4 C since 1979." Remarkably, the NRC panel also estimates the change in the temperature of the atmosphere as being between 0 C to 0.2 C during the same period. In other words, atmospheric temperature may not have changed at all since 1979.)

Habits are hard to change and they take time.  To change the habits of millions takes an even greater, Herculean effort.  Without the abudance of reminders and awareness, it's unlikely people would be so motivated to change.  When habits become the social norm, the reminders are no longer needed.  I think we still have a ways to go.  

Small habits, such as recycling plastic, turning off lights, limiting water use were not part of the public consciousness ten years ago in the same way they are now.  One hopes in the future, paying attention to the Earth and reducing our footprint on it will be second nature, and the need to raise the collective consciousness about it won't be as necessary.

@ Lee thank you for that incredible well documented info!

"Environmentalism" is the new religion: No wonder why kids are rebelling against it! Environmentalism is the next Christianity (of course, without the avoiding eternal hellfire part).

And it's darn near impossible to find a documentary that doesn't include something about animals or ecosystems on the brink of perishing. Has anyone picked up a National Geographic lately? I read those magazines cover-to-cover, but I've started rolling my eyes at the inevitable "This animal's only enemy is man", or, "If something isn't done now, this animal will die, and the earth will too." I get it, I get it, we need to do something, but the preachiness is SO obnoxious.

Lee: That was interesting.

Yes, of course Lee because some sciences predictions were wrong that proves ALL environmental science is suspect.

I'd love to see where you got the only 7 species have gone extinct data.

I love how folks would rather put their head in the sand than be told that anything is wrong. You saw the same thing with the oil crisis and analysts who predicted our current financial meltdown.

The United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre reports that the United States has experienced less than seven extinctions (all fish) since 1973: long jaw ciscoe, phantom shiner, Maryland darter, sioto madtom, & San Marcos gambusia

I find it funny that many of you complain about not wanting to hear about dire things and how it will take time to change.  Somehow I do not think that the planet is going to just adjust to the schedule of the average Westerner.  Even if you do not believe in global warming, there is still the issue of energy development in the near future (despite what Exxon says oil is not available in infinite amounts).  We create a ridiculous amount of trash in this country.  There is no reason for famine to exist in the rest of the world, considering how much food is thrown away on a daily basis.  We are definitely getting to that irreversible point.

I was raised by an oilman (actally a chemical engineer working in the oil refinery business) and was also raised to be conscientious about our enviroment.  Frankly put, you watch enough nature programs about the rainforest starting at the age of three, you cannot help but care.

And Lee, I do recall reading recently about a Floridian bird that went extinct with the building of Cape Canaveral (that may be spelled wrong).  But our actions do not just affect animal wildlife and nature in general within continental US.  Our behavior affects animals all over the world.