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Index of Subjects At 07:54 AM 30/04/99 -0300, Paul A Falvo wrote: > it mystifies me to hear environmentalists stick up for cars >-- one of the biggest environmental problems on the planet. I mean, using >them is one thing ... but why go to lengths to defend them? because it's more responsible to have reached a defensible personal philosophy and be prepared to stand by it than to bury head in sand and continue use without thought >More to the point, why does encouragement of environmentally-responsible >transport meet with resistance? It doesn't. Encouragement of ideals which are not practical, realistic and applicable for the majority of people does. >My quality of life is >damaged by the actions of others, and I'm not happy about it. >:-( Your quality of life is also created by the actions (and decisions) of others. You don't seem too disturbed about that. I admit, however, that I'm working on an assumption here that you are typing on a keyboard made by the same environmentally destructive petrochemical process that mine was, sold by the same transnational marketing conglomerates dependant on abused Third World labour to assemble the components, powered by electricity produced by heavily polluting fossil fuel, massively environmentally destructive hydro dams, or (worst of all) the nuclear process, and distributed through wires made of copper mined in some foreign equivalent of Sysco. Have you done an inventory of the sources and processes of production of each element comprising the shelter in which you live? Are you warm in the winter and where does that heat come from? Is the paper you write on, the books you read, the pamphlets you hand out- not produced by the same rapacious pulp empire that mine comes from? The food you eat, the clothes you wear- all originate in organic ethically pure production within walking distance (but not on roads or paths whose construction affected anyone's habitat) ? >Moreover, i think i have a moral obligation to speak up for all that is >defenceless and voiceless ... the critters that lose their homes to >habitat destruction for road-building, and the irreplaceable ecosystems >that are destroyed for the sake of gas production ... the list goes on. then you should also accept the moral responsibility to analyze your own position in that production and consumption continuum and disengage yourself from participation in it before pointing any fingers. Ultimately, I would suggest that standing outside naked, not moving for fear of undue interference in 'natural processes', and unable to communicate beyond shouting distance is not really where you would like to go. >So i stand by my original suggestion urging people to try and go without >using gas one day per year. Maybe even make a habit of it ... walk, bike, >public transit ... even carpool if you must. And of the 25-odd million people in this country, for how many are these choices Available? Applicable? Practical? Where does your information come from? I know for sure that none work for me. My work is a 260k daily round trip, so walking and biking are not an issue, there is no public transit, and carpooling makes no sense because I need to move around during the day, and work between one and four evenings a week. Utopian idealism is a wonderful internal personal goal. Encouraging practical, realistic, and widely applicable alternatives is something entirely different. $.02 TomD I must confess that I know nothing whatsoever about true underlying reality, never having met any. - Edward Abbey -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- You received this because you are subscribed to "sust-mar", the Sustainable Maritimes mailing list. To unsubscribe, send email to <majordomo@chebucto.ns.ca> with "unsubscribe sust-mar" (without quotes) as the body of your message. To post a message to sust-mar subscribers, send it to <sust-mar@chebucto.ns.ca> Posts that are off-topic or excessive length (10K) will be rejected. For help contact <sust-mar-owner@chebucto.ns.ca>
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