Hi there. I'm a hippie (yes, a real one from the 1960's -- see the 'retired science teacher' reference in my sigfile) and I'm here to answer
your questions.
Originally posted by theubermensch
Has anyone noticed that the worlds biggest problem is hysterical do-nothing do-gooder hippies?
Environmentalists are the worst. These morally superior people want us to go backwards. Sometimes I wonder wether they are more interested in reducing
our standard of living than mantaining the environment.
I think you may not know much about primitive lifestyles and standards of living and the environment.
Fact is, poor standards of living make the environment worse -- just check out the level of pollution in the Ganges River in India. Or the waterways
of Vietnam. There's no hippie environmentalists there -- are you SURE you want your cities to look like those? Because without hippie
environmentalists kicking up a fuss, they WILL look like that.
And what motivates someone to protest something like the Keystone Pipeline?
Many things. The pipeline was rushed through without a good study being done, for one thing. It crosses earthquake zones with no design components
to allow fo this (not a good idea, IMHO). While you talk about a small impact on the boreal forest, it's going to run through wetlands (very fragile
and susceptible to pollution) AND run across the biggest aquifer (source of water) for the nation -- in spots where leaks can go down and contaminate
the water supply.
And that'd be those earthquake fault zones.
The US economy is a mess and these hippies have nothing better to do than stop something that will create jobs?
Environmentalism is actually a source of jobs -- jobs of the future. Land management, game management, hunting areas, fishing areas, water resource
management, sports, recreation (inclulding recreational boats and other recreational vehicles), renewable resources (tree farms) provide logging jobs,
grasslands management provides food (and jobs that go along with it), renewable energy (solar, wind, water) power jobs, etc, etc.
A pipeline creates temporary construction jobs (and afterwards can create lots of jobs if there's a spill and cleanup is needed, but I don't think
those are very good industry moves.) Creating more efficient cars (moving technology ahead) and more efficient lightbulbs (and so forth) creates
jobs, creates demand, improves technology.
Hippies dont want us to be able to afford electricity or fuel or even water.
Actually, we're the ones pushing for "green energy" and for cleaning up the trash out of waterways and out of our oceans (there's jobs there,
too.) I don't know if you've seen your local rivers (and how trash-filled they are) but large city governments ARE worried about running out of
clean water. This "let's not care about the environment" model isn't working and IS making clean water less affordable.
So if we all turn a bit environmentalist and pick up trash and stop companies from dumping chemicals in the water, it's easier to clean and is
actually a lot cheaper.
They want us to pay 'carbon tax' and feel bad about our 'carbon footprint'.
Right. So you won't be wasting electricity and water. So we can have cleaner air. I'm not fond of cancers and asthmas and other diseases caused
by living in heavily industrialized areas. I don't know of anyone who likes Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease -- which can develop if you live
near a cement plant or near other plants that put out a lot of air pollution.
If these hippies want conservation they should stop being fooled by the likes Obama and vote for a conservative.
Really? I saw Ron Paul put up a bill to EXCUSE a cement plant (ever live near one of those? Lime dust all over the town) from pollution control.
I've seen conservatives force the EPA to lower its standards on pollutants. I've seen conservatives scream about preserving wetlands (which
actually clean up polluted water.)
Why would I vote for someone who doesn't want to limit business' ability to dump toxic chemicals and inconvenient waste (like old insecticides) in
our rivers (before you think I'm making this up, I've participated in several river cleanups and we did find these things.)
I don't think that poisoning our water supply with insecticides is a good thing, but apparently it bugs some conservatives that we hippies want it to
stop.
Thank you for reading
--- Indellkoffer, hippie chick from the 1960's