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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: tejek who wrote (138880)	8/19/2001 1:46:01 PM
From: TimF	of 1577139

First, not all environmental reform costs billions...those costs usually occur in the worse cases of degradation, requiring massive cleanup. Secondly, good things usually cost more.....most people don't balk to pay more for a better quality house, so why should we balk to get a better quality environment. The big steps like the clean air act or the Kyoto treaty cost billions or even trillions. People don't balk at paying a little bit more for a better quality house but they usually will balk at paying a lot more for a tiny improvement in quality. And also when they are looking for a house they have a choice to spend more or to not spend more. Its not a legal requirement (at least beyond meeting building codes) Why do you say that....as laws are passed, the environment improves. There will be losses like extinct species but eventually the damage may heal assuming that I am wrong and that we have not gone too far the wrong way. Unless you are going to pass extremely harsh laws and enforce them in an authoritarian and draconian fashion there will still be a lot of environmental damage. Would you not allow people in the third world to build up their economies? Would you "selectively reduce" the population in overpopulated areas and set up armies to keep people from farming or other wise using environmentally sensitive areas in the third world? Would you shut down any polluting industry anywhere in the world? No law can prevent damage from happening. No government would want to or probably could enforce laws that would come close. You would need a level of state control similar to what Stalin had but focused on protecting the environment. It would have to combine that ruthlessness and level of control with a wisdom about what would protect the environment and energy and diligence in the effort. It would be almost impossible to create such a government and even if we did it would be evil and still it would fail to protect us from all environmental damage. What I don't thing you understand is that in some ways the US is the tip of the iceberg..yes we consume nearly 30% of the world's available fossil fuels and that's not good but you don't see that quantity of oil or burning up in front of you. Nor do you see anymore the kind of degradation that was once fairly common in this country where whole hills were ripped down, forests leveled or burned off, streams dammed and rerouted, lakes filled with more and more pollutants etc. Those kinds of things have pretty much stopped here....but in 3/4 of the world they continue. In the wealthy countries progress is being made. In the poor countries things will get worse until they are wealthy enough to care more about additional environmental protection then additional money. When people are wondering where their next meal is going to come from they probably will not spare much effort to help the environment. I further contend that's its as much in our best interest to keep the global environment healthy as it is to keep nuclear war from breaking out. I believe that an unhealthy environment could lead to our demise just as easily as nuclear war. No environmental damage that is even remotely likely would cause the same level of death and destruction as a full scale nuclear war. Most environmental problems or local or regional not world wide. Potential problems that could be world wide such as global warming are mostly uncertain and even if they do prove to be a problem they would not be sever enough to be even close to a nuclear war or an asteroid or major comet impact.

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