CACTUSJACKmankin
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2006
- Messages
- 279
I am an environmental science major, I know that some of you may find that the term environmental science is an oxymoron. I personally am sick and tired of the environmentalist movement being taken over by the extreme. In many ways it is unscientific or even anti-scienctific.
For example, animal rights groups are often totally opposed to hunting. However, in many cases there are species whose populations are out of control. In upstate NY there is a huge deer problem, the deer are so overpopulated that they eat up much of their food very early and by the time winter comes along there's almost nothing and millions of deer suffer a slow, painful starvation. Hunting not only reduces the damage they do by eating everything, but also is a quicker and less painful demise than starvation. In Australia they have a huge rabbit problem, placental mammals aren't supposed to be in australia, they were introduced by europeans. Their overpopulation effects the native species and to not control them will adversely impacts the native ecosystems. So these animal rights groups are extreme to the point of allowing for environmental degredation.
There need to be more rigorous testing of GMOs and labelling, other than that there is no evidence that they pose a health risk and the few environmental hazards that have been documented are less damaging than the increased use of pesticides which non-GMOs would require.
I think there is a scientific consensus that global warming is happening and less but significant consensus that humans are causing it or speeding it up. Glaciers and tundra that we would predict to remain frozen for tens of thousands of years to come are warming at what I would consider an "alarming" rate. Remember that a 1 degree global average can mean 3 degrees at the arctic or subarctic which could be enough do bring it above freezing. However, The Day After Tommorow scenario isn't going to happen, much of that movie is literally impossible. There is less of a consensus than extreme environmentalists would like to admit and there is more of a consensus than Global Warming opponents would like to admit.
BTW, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels have other benefits. Reducing fossil fuel use will make the air cleaner, will reduce our reliance on foreign sources of oil, and will give us methods of energy generation that are indefinite rather than finite (we can grow more biodiesel if we need it).
The extremist environmentalist groups make all environmentalists seem crazy especially since they control the debate. I think that science and technology are the key to the solutions to these problems, many extremists denounce science and technology as the cause. Ecoterrorists are morally equivilent to any other kind of terrorist, there is no justification for terrorism. There are some very important issues and we can't afford the debate to be marginalized as figments of the imagination of nuts.
For example, animal rights groups are often totally opposed to hunting. However, in many cases there are species whose populations are out of control. In upstate NY there is a huge deer problem, the deer are so overpopulated that they eat up much of their food very early and by the time winter comes along there's almost nothing and millions of deer suffer a slow, painful starvation. Hunting not only reduces the damage they do by eating everything, but also is a quicker and less painful demise than starvation. In Australia they have a huge rabbit problem, placental mammals aren't supposed to be in australia, they were introduced by europeans. Their overpopulation effects the native species and to not control them will adversely impacts the native ecosystems. So these animal rights groups are extreme to the point of allowing for environmental degredation.
There need to be more rigorous testing of GMOs and labelling, other than that there is no evidence that they pose a health risk and the few environmental hazards that have been documented are less damaging than the increased use of pesticides which non-GMOs would require.
I think there is a scientific consensus that global warming is happening and less but significant consensus that humans are causing it or speeding it up. Glaciers and tundra that we would predict to remain frozen for tens of thousands of years to come are warming at what I would consider an "alarming" rate. Remember that a 1 degree global average can mean 3 degrees at the arctic or subarctic which could be enough do bring it above freezing. However, The Day After Tommorow scenario isn't going to happen, much of that movie is literally impossible. There is less of a consensus than extreme environmentalists would like to admit and there is more of a consensus than Global Warming opponents would like to admit.
BTW, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels have other benefits. Reducing fossil fuel use will make the air cleaner, will reduce our reliance on foreign sources of oil, and will give us methods of energy generation that are indefinite rather than finite (we can grow more biodiesel if we need it).
The extremist environmentalist groups make all environmentalists seem crazy especially since they control the debate. I think that science and technology are the key to the solutions to these problems, many extremists denounce science and technology as the cause. Ecoterrorists are morally equivilent to any other kind of terrorist, there is no justification for terrorism. There are some very important issues and we can't afford the debate to be marginalized as figments of the imagination of nuts.
