http://www.catastrophemap.com/index.html

Catastrophe Map's Postcards from a pissed off planet graphically shows pollution and polluters, mountaintop mining, the effects of oil spills, endangered species, floods, droughts and other unfortunate events.

A lot of these "unfortunate events" were caused by US "big businesses" around the world. One such "event" was the release of poisonous gas by Union Carbide in Bophal, India that killed 8,000 residents immediately, while they slept and continues to kill and affect many residents to this day! So far, the total death count, exceeds 20,000! The amount that Union Carbide was fined came to $50 per person killed! Isn't it just great to know you are valued that low?

It certainly gives you a different perspective about things you probably never heard of when they happened. Like the nuclear accidents in our own country that you never heard on the news. Such as the Hanford incident where millions of gallons of radioactive water were released in the Columbia River hundreds of miles from Seattle but it empties into Seattle and communities use the Columbia River as their water supply.

Well done, WarTime. All these political threads are going to get us to at least start to catch up to AT. :P

Nature is so powerful, we don't even know it, our planet will eliminate us all before we even come close to destroying it, all we are is dust in the wind

Generally, I think there's some truth to what you say KoH, but I still think it's in our best interests and it is the moral thing to attempt to be the best stewards of the earth that we can possibly be.

But in general, environmentalism isn't one of the big issues that makes me consider myself a Democrat.

Like I said, I just find it amusing that after FFAT has been a generally politics free zone (not because it's a rule, but just because that's how it's been), and in the last couple weeks, we've got the CISPA thread, this one, and the "If I Wanted American to Fail" video.

With or without human intervention, the Earth's biosphere will change into a world unrecognizable to any person alive today.

Do I think we should pollute our soil, air and waterways? Certainly not. I also don't think there should be more than about 3 Billion Resource Consumers on this rock at any one time. Overpopulation and the (should be but apparently isn't) obvious exponential increase in not only required use of available resources, but output of waste as a result is FAR more detrimental to our biosphere than the worst fears of the Carbon Crusaders.

I'm not volunteering to be one of the 3-4 billion people you're going to kill off, Dragon. :/

Their are so many problems, it's hard to know where to start. However, after a lot of research before my wife and I had our child, we decided to cloth diaper. Our son is now almost a year old. I can't even guess how many pounds of diapers we would have gone though in this first year. And diapers are one of the longer products that take to decompose. Not to mention it's actually illegal to throw feces away, but it's obviously not enforced.

Attrition. It is your friend. Embrace it. The notion used to be called Zero Population Growth. No one said anything about killing people off.

Or let's just breed like bunnies till there's 15 billion people on the planet and human suffering climbs to heights never attainable with a sustainable population. :/

"... I'm not insane about it. It's just the world is to crowded and mayybe be Ahma do something mother fluffin' 'bout it"
ICP ~ Bowling Balls~

I agree we need to protect it, i don't believe it's a Democrat vs Republican issue, my opinion is that the Dems pushed so hard that they made it seem like a political divide, in reality it's not, there's not 1 single conservative that i know that doesnt care about our enviroment, there are those i know that go sarcastic saying "who cares" and they do it mainly to piss you guys off ;)

just out of curiousity, why is the population increasing if all of those catastrophes are killing us to detah? and if 99% of all species ever created were wiped out before man industrialized, probably even before man was created, why are we interfering with the natural way of things? why doesn't God care about dead dolphins?

KoH: Seems not like an environment vs. environment haters argument, but big business vs. environment.

I don't disagree that most Republicans if all things were equal would be willing to embrace environmentalism. The question is, where does the line get drawn? Do we force car companies to embrace better fuel efficiency? Do we force industry (the little we have left) to limit their fossil fuel emissions by 10 or 20 or 50%?

Or do we go with the idea that it's another cost that businesses won't tolerate when they can already get cheap labor elsewhere?

That's a question beyond my pay grade on this topic, because I don't know diddly about it and unlike most other topics, I don't really care about to look it up. As I said somewhere above, environmentalism isn't exactly one of my central issues for considering myself a Democrat.

Dragon: I don't necessarily agree that the world can't handle the 7 billion or so people on it, but in some ways, the zero population growth attitude probably isn't entirely a bad idea, (15 billion on the earth with current situations doesn't seem like a good thing at all, I'm with you there) and I do find people who have obnoxiously large families to be somewhat irresponsible (I'm looking at you, Duggars), but that's less for environmentalism reasons than other reasons.

Actually? I think that those who choose to go into business should be responsible for whatever happens. After all, they are supposed to be the "experts" in what they do. If you're strip mining for lead then you have to dispose of the "taleings" properly instead of making mounds higher than the city around your mine holes, such as what was done in Picher, Oklahoma.

If you use PCBs then you should dispose of them properly. Not dump them in rivers that cities draw their water from!

If you choose to build a nuclear power plant then you shouldn't be dumping millions of gallons of radioactive waste water into the Columbia River that empties into Seattle and supplies water to smaller cities and towns before it even gets to Seattle!

Big business crys that there is too much regulation. The Republicans say the same thing, they're always crying for deregulation, BUT, if you can't be responsible in a moral kind of way you shouldn't be protected by less regulations. It only makes sense that you shouldn't be making tons of cash while you're killing people and the environment and still expect to not be prosecuted.

It all sounds great, now go tell that to the Chinese, while you're at it, take a trip Northwest to Russia, then go South and tell the African Nations to stop using leaded gas, my point, a country of 300 million can't and will not stop pollution, we over regulate here and we do it to "look good" to the rest of the world, its a HUGE p.r epic fail stunt!

/me yawns

WarTime, can you give me a guesstimate on how many people get to live a better life because of all them irresponsible business owners?

The naked truth is that every day we sit here and take sides and play politics and hurl insults is one more day where we chose not to adapt.

Just sayin' :/

Part of survival is adaptation.

The value of all the chemicals in the human body doesn't exceed $4 anyways, that and it might be possible that those who died didn't make for than $50us a years anyways lol

To play devil's advocate: If we're going to try to get CHina and Russia to adopt more environment-friendly regulations, won't it be harder to convince them if we haven't adopted those regulations ourselves?

Twain, go to California (the uber regulated state, #1 in business unfriendly list) try and start a business there, then come back here and tell me that's the model the rest of the US and World needs to adopt ;)

Sounds like California is too far the other direction. Doesn't mean regulation is a bad thing, though.

There is a reason I identify myself as a Midwest Democrat, KoH. :)

The reason it looks like a huge pr epic fail is because your "god", Reagan, totally gutted the FDA and the DEC. He left them with a bunch of regulations but NOBODY to enforce them! He also gave big business taxpayer money to move their companies and our jobs to 3rd world countries where the labor was cheap and the regulations NON-existent because those countries didn't have a clue!

So, indirectly, HE was the cause of a ton of deaths GLOBALLY! It's no wonder that when Americans go overseas they find WE are hated and despised.

You republicans all say he was so great because he lowered taxes. You forget to mention that he actually raised taxes 6 separate times AFTER the tax cuts! You also seem to forget that the idiot couldn't read his own economic data!!!

http://zfacts.com/node/104

Funny how you "WarTime" change the subject right away when gettn smoked LOL!

wth? you do know that Reagan isn't responsible for how other Presidents decide how they're going to dish out the cash that is handed to them by Congress, don't you?

Just a cautionary word....

Just because nations decide to build nuclear reactors on or near geologically active and unstable areas that result in earthquakes, tsunamis and subsequent "nuclear disasters" does not render Fission Power null and void.

The intelligent application of nuclear power when due diligence has been done is a positive thing on a planet that feels the need to breed itself to extinction.

Japan should have and should be tapping Geothermal energy as opposed to nuclear.

That said, people just continue to miss the bus.While it takes a couple Gigawatt power plants to support a city of 17 million, a significant percentage of that population's energy needs can be met in situ with solar cells and wind generation as opposed to megalithic, monster power plants. The whole notion of centralized power distribution has become a recipe for a catastrophic failure of our civilization as we know it.

I have a ton more to say about the subject and in this case, it's backed by a degree in Electrical Engineering as opposed to just a simple opinion.

I agree with your assessment. I was living in Philly at the time of Three Mile Island. There were people affected by the accident but it could have been much worse than it wound up being. After doing some research about nuclear power I found that to this day we have NO way of properly disposing of the spent fuel rods. I also found out that the US was using the spent fuel rods as warheads on the missiles we were using in Iraq. Pretty lame but novel idea, give our nuclear waste to them and make it their problem.

On a different note, my partner got his electrical engineering degree at Cornell. He opened up a retail store here in NY called the Empire Solar Store. It is owned by him and his wife and I work there. Where the partner comes in is that we're trying to bring a solar industry to this area. The idea being that we could help jump start the local economy and make some money to boot. The only problem being that nobody wants to part with any start up cash. :(

That's a shame, WT. I wonder why a Central Government would spend $3 Trillion bailing out banks, other financial institutions and automakers but NOT grant cash towards building an infrastructure that reduces reliance on fossil fuel as well as the aging Grid.


As far as missile warheads, do you mean depleted uranium? The military has been using depleted uranium for arms and armor for a very long time now. Especially in 20mm rounds for gatling guns. I think they also use it in AP tank rounds as well. There's a ton of studies going on about the health effects of exposure to depleted uranium but the health problems are due to possible toxicity as opposed to radioactivity. That said, lead is toxic too and a lot more lead ammo has been used in the last 600 years.


It even gets used in keels of sailboats ad aircraft for counterweights ad stuff.