I am sorry shuma-gorath, but continuing to quibble about the paltry amount of garbage a new baby makes is both ridiculous and asinine, I'm not sure why you fixate on something a crazy hostage taker thought was incredibly important. It isn't.

The real issue isn't how much garbage a child makes, it's how much garbage a person makes. Again, and I stress, over-population is not the primary issue. Our population in developed nations is already stable, not really growing (or at least not too quickly). Finding ways to reduce our dependency on non-renewable and destructive forms of energy is the biggest issue, finding ways to re-use things we typically get rid of in landfills is another really important issue. How many diapers a new child uses in a hospital is really just the very first snowflake on the tip of the iceberg.

Quote: Original post by Yann L
Well, it's over.

Dpadam450, did you see/hear anything ? Supposedly some explosive device went off.

The article about the incident in this morning's local newspaper said that Lee had several bombs strapped to him and that one of them detonated when he was shot. That suggests he had one rigged to a "dead man" trigger, perhaps with the expectation that the detonation would trigger the other bombs to detonate. It also suggests that his funeral will be closed casket...



TLC clown car show?

Educational programming is so rare these days. Everything is so dumbed down it's pathetic.

Quote: Original post by shuma-gorath
Was that child born in a hospital?

It was my understanding that they went with a mid wife at their home instead, along with my classmate's mother (A surgeon) being there.

I've been to his place, helped with preserves the fall their baby was born, and the bulk of the trash they seem to throw out is from stuff companies send to them. Promotional items, the plastic on bill envelopes, etc. They make the choice ahead of time before buying something, and don't buy anything with excess 'garbage' attached to it.

To produce garbage and to negatively impact the world we live in is a choice we make. Humans are not a virus or parasite on this world, but like any other creature we can do vast amounts of damage if allowed to get out of hand.


Oh, and just so everyone is clear, my classmate is Not some Tree-Huger-Save-The Earth tie dyed Hippy, some kind of backwards darkage technophobe, or Amish. He is majoring in Computer Sciences, works part time in the summer doing contracts for some Tech company, and lives in a state of the art modern house. They live basically off the grid, but other than the 'earth ship' style home with grass growing on their roof, their house feels like any other you would be in.

Except most of the furnishings are all hand crafted by him or other members of his family, and are of excellent quality you won't find in some big box store.

Quote: Original post by Talroth

Garbage is a Choice, not a fact of life. That child has added NOTHING to local landfills.

Ah... But this style of living only supports a fraction of today's population.

The only way to start living like that would be to remove 6 billion people and go back 200 years.

But here is where big picture gets ugly. People back then died from plague. Starvation. Sifilis (no antibiotics, they take pharma industry to produce them), miscarriages, scurvy and million other issues. As population density increased just marginally, health issues arose. If it weren't for the whole education/research/renaissance, Pasteur wouldn't have existed. Antibiotics wouldn't exist.

And in order for those few discoveries to have been made, foundations of modern society had to be laid.

This is precisely the view of all proponents of renewable energy sources. Yes - it powers their house. But they don't see beyond their own yard. Solar cells don't make themselves or grow on trees. They consume absurd amounts of energy and resources to make. A million people or more is involved in making them. Miners, smelters, manufacturers, obviously. But also people who provide education, who run universities, their spouses who help pay taxes or cover the debt of this, the police and other security forces which keep country safe enough for such infrastructure to exist....

And this child will grow up healthy because polio has been eliminated through industrial application of vaccine and major strains of TB were mostly subdued through organized action of global society. He will not have to worry about health problems due to lack of salt, which was a rare commodity. He will need not worry about water, since government regulations control what may or may not be dumped. And environment they live in is controlled from surrounding land, once again regulated, so that outbreak of disease is prevented.

And they can go to sleep every night, knowing that their shotgun will keep them safe. But the reason militant leader from neightboring village doesn't come by and rape or kill them just because he needs to break in some of his own kids is because of $2000 billion military infrastructure that secures steady supplies of oil and other wealth to keep country safe.

That is the cost of that one family's "sustainable" living.

C'mon. Try to find out how that hamburger is really made.

No man is an island. Do not wish for alternative to modern life. If modern infrastructure weren't there, this type of life style would be a misery called dark ages, ruled by the strongest, where life expectancy was 30 years.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
TLC clown car show?

19 Kids and Counting

I always wonder about people like this. Aren't they aware that most people will never bend to such ridiculous demands? It almost seems like they are on a suicide mission to make a statement.

[Edited by - Beverly Mcadoo on September 8, 2010 8:55:59 AM]

Quote: Original post by Antheus

Quote: Original post by Talroth

Garbage is a Choice, not a fact of life. That child has added NOTHING to local landfills.

Ah... But this style of living only supports a fraction of today's population.

The only way to start living like that would be to remove 6 billion people and go back 200 years.

But here is where big picture gets ugly. People back then died from plague. Starvation. Sifilis (no antibiotics, they take pharma industry to produce them), miscarriages, scurvy and million other issues. As population density increased just marginally, health issues arose. If it weren't for the whole education/research/renaissance, Pasteur wouldn't have existed. Antibiotics wouldn't exist.

And in order for those few discoveries to have been made, foundations of modern society had to be laid.

This is precisely the view of all proponents of renewable energy sources. Yes - it powers their house. But they don't see beyond their own yard. Solar cells don't make themselves or grow on trees. They consume absurd amounts of energy and resources to make. A million people or more is involved in making them. Miners, smelters, manufacturers, obviously. But also people who provide education, who run universities, their spouses who help pay taxes or cover the debt of this, the police and other security forces which keep country safe enough for such infrastructure to exist....

And this child will grow up healthy because polio has been eliminated through industrial application of vaccine and major strains of TB were mostly subdued through organized action of global society. He will not have to worry about health problems due to lack of salt, which was a rare commodity. He will need not worry about water, since government regulations control what may or may not be dumped. And environment they live in is controlled from surrounding land, once again regulated, so that outbreak of disease is prevented.

And they can go to sleep every night, knowing that their shotgun will keep them safe. But the reason militant leader from neightboring village doesn't come by and rape or kill them just because he needs to break in some of his own kids is because of $2000 billion military infrastructure that secures steady supplies of oil and other wealth to keep country safe.

That is the cost of that one family's "sustainable" living.

C'mon. Try to find out how that hamburger is really made.

No man is an island. Do not wish for alternative to modern life. If modern infrastructure weren't there, this type of life style would be a misery called dark ages, ruled by the strongest, where life expectancy was 30 years.

So items that were designed to fail and end up in the trash so the customer needs to buy another to replace it are oh so important to health care and public safety?

Shipping tomatoes across the country from California, rather than using a locally grown food source magically cures AIDS and gives muggers heart attacks?


Can humans live with zero impact on the earth? No. Can they live with far less than the average human does? Hell yes!


How much garbage do you produce? How many chip bags do you throw out in a month? How many items do you buy in bulky plastic containers that are likely going to end up in a landfill?

The massive amounts of Needless wastes have nothing to do with the cure to polio, or protecting nations. It has everything to do with lining pockets with meaningless cash.

When I was little my mother had two clothes washing machines: an old washing machine that dated from the 1960's, and a Maytag from the mid 80's. The Maytag was a standard modern washer, and the older one was a roller-wringer washer that was great for doing lots of bedding and such at once. The old one weighed about 4 times as much as the Maytag, and everything was solid steel or brass, or heavy gauge tube/sheet. It was a tank, and as far as I know it is still running today after my uncle swapped a motor. (The 60's machine was left behind when we moved.)

About 5 years ago the older Maytag broke, and my mother decided it was time to replace it rather than try and fix it. Her reasoning was that if one thing broke, other things would likely just break later. The new mid ranged Maytag lasted till a few months ago, and then some plastic bracket cracked, and a few gears ground a little. Called a repair man, and the word was the whole unit was toast and it would cost more to repair than replace.



Waste today is a Choice. Companies Choose to use cheap pot metals fabricated in factories over seas. They choose to use weak plastics that break down over time, and degrade the life of items. Why do they choose these options? Because it cuts the cost to build by about 10-50%, and makes the life of the unit between 1/2 and 1/100th of what it would be if they actually built it to last.

Quote: Original post by Talroth
How much garbage do you produce? How many chip bags do you throw out in a month? How many items do you buy in bulky plastic containers that are likely going to end up in a landfill?

Strangely enough, I happen to have a very accurate answer ever since recycling replaced garbage collection.

I personally produce one ~50 liter bag of plastic waste a week, and a similar bag of general office waste around every two weeks.

The total family output comes to one bag of glass a week, some paper, mostly newspaper and some junk mail. Kitchen waste is about 3-5 bags a week, almost all of it organics. EU banned use of those kitchen sink trash disposals.

Anything else, such as old appliances, bulk waste and such is delivered to the local collection site, where they sort it out. They organize free collection about twice a year, otherwise you need to deliver it to them and it's free, might just be inconvenient for large items. I don't think they deliver anything, or much, to landfill. They always have some 20 different containers there collecting sorted trash. Not sure why they would bother sorting it just to dump everything into landfill. They get anything chemical related as well, as well as almost everything metal as well as electronics. I think that dumping any of the above into general trash is illegal now anyway.

Gardening waste may also no longer be dumped, so it's collected about 3 times a year and taken to whatever place takes care of it. I think some of it goes for biomass for power generation, there was a talk of building such plants a while back.

The recycling containers are controlled, dumping incorrect items may result in a fine.

And I have nothing with eco awareness or such, it's just that over years they made all of this very convenient to do, with a choice of up to 3 different containers per household, and some 7 different communal recycling containers. There's also various laws and such, so it's not like I have a choice.

Construction materials are regulated anyway so companies take them to controlled dump sites or risk running into big fines.

And if it's relevant, my 6 year old car gets 54 mpg on diesel. I'm somewhere in the middle as far as choice goes. New model would get over 60.

One thing you might dislike above is that there is a lot of talk about laws and enforcement. That might not sit too well with everyone, but there's worse things in the world.

Quote: Can humans live with zero impact on the earth? No. Can they live with far less than the average human does? Hell yes!

Average human earns $20 a month, has 6 children (3 have already died, 3 more will), and has life expectancy of 33 years. (numbers made up - but hopefully they make a point). Average human is not a California resident living in a 5 bedroom house with $270k yearly income, 3 cars and a swimming pool.

Your perspective seems skewed from over-consumption that is incredibly local to selection of first world countries. I'm not sure what the recycling laws are in US these days, but I can say that as far as increasing number of countries in EU goes, recycling is enforced by laws.

It's not perfect, and people do violate it, there are illegal dumps, the whole thing can be inefficient, but increasingly the times of landfills are over. Partly because there's simply no room - requiring communal consensus to place them mostly prevented building any more and existing ones have filled up. And there were stories of problematic waste simply shipped off to other countries and dumped there, but after media got wind of it it became less viable.

But one needs to look at good and bad and in general, awareness is growing and things are improving. Society doesn't turn on a dime.

But any radical solution, especially one that rejects commodity goods, simply isn't going to work.

Quote: Original post by Talroth

Waste today is a Choice. Companies Choose to use cheap pot metals fabricated in factories over seas. They choose to use weak plastics that break down over time, and degrade the life of items. Why do they choose these options? Because it cuts the cost to build by about 10-50%, and makes the life of the unit between 1/2 and 1/100th of what it would be if they actually built it to last.

Fact is, capitalism is a large part of the problem here. If Company A produces awesome washing machines that cost 50 monies and last 30 years, have good labour and environmental practices, then Company B will produce washing machines that cost 5 monies and last 2 years. Meanwhile, Bob the worker earns 200 monies a year, precisely because his work is devalued by the likes of Company B who make their cheap washing machines in the 3rd world. Bob is going to buy Company B's machine and spend 150 monies over 30 years (not even accounting for inflation), because he simply can't afford 50 monies up front. Where's his choice?

"Ahh, he can start a business! Make his own way in the world! Innovate, think outside the box, etc" says the capitalist. Well, no, he can't. Bob is just not that smart. He's not stupid, and he's a hard worker, but he's just doesn't have the smarts to start and run his own business (at least to the point where he is significantly better off than he would be working).

I don't have the solution. Clearly, communism doesn't work. But we have to at least recognise that capitalism does not evolutionarily select for traits that are conducive to ethical/environmentally friendly business practices. And to be blunt, the majority of the world are not in a position to change that.


I can't wait for someone to come in and explain how the free market will solve this.

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine
I can't wait for someone to come in and explain how the free market will solve this.

About the only way for it to work is basically to spread the word, form a movement, and have that movement fund new start up companies to produce products in a responsible fashion.

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine
Clearly, communism doesn't work.

Yeah, but almost no one has actually tried doing real communism in the last 200 years. Many people have dressed up lies and called it communism, but true communists are few and far between, and rarely survive a rise to power.

Personally I want the world to go back to a feudal system. It really isn't that bad of a system when your lord can't randomly decide to raise an army and run off somewhere to plunder for his own wealth.