Atheist views on the environment.

Personally, i am extremely passionate about the environment, but i want to see what atheists think in general. Leave a comment when you vote.

I care enough about the environment where I'll recycle regularly, but it's not the number-one thought on my mind.

As long as the air is see through and not black, or smoggy I don't care. I'm not going to go to the Amazon and tie my-self to a tree. My passion is finding Immortality here on earth through genetics, nanotechnology, Embryonic Stem Cells, Human cloning, Whole Body Transplants.

[Rhinoqulous]

I'm lucky that I live in an apartment building with a recycling program. I know too many people who don't even bother recycling when it takes so little effort.

I feel that environmental damage is one of biggest problems that the US is not addressing at all. I think it's absurd that we refuse to sign the Kyoto Accord.

Rhinoq

our enviornment is very important, but like openly68atheist said, i'm not gonna tie myself to a tree either... i do my part recycling, and not wasting piddly stuff. the past 5 years i noticed a drastic change in weather and all that carp. (and yes there is a huge difference living in smoggy LA vs everywhere else i've been.) I'm concerned about the conditions my son is going to be living in 50 years from now, muchless his kids 100 years from now. And what is immortality if there is no world to survive it in? True, genetics and stem cell research and all that jazz can lengthen and improve our lifestyles, but what if we never had to worry about the health factors that cause us to be researching in those areas? I think its great that we have the capabilities to create and develope such marvels, but that is a huge cost to our enviornment too, factories and biotech labs create lots of workplace and enviornmental hazards. biohazard waste itself from there can be tremendous.

think of it this way, the enviornment is our home, where do you want to live when you retire?

Acromnion wrote

our enviornment is very important, but like openly68atheist said, i'm not gonna tie myself to a tree either... i do my part recycling, and not wasting piddly stuff. the past 5 years i noticed a drastic change in weather and all that carp. (and yes there is a huge difference living in smoggy LA vs everywhere else i've been.) I'm concerned about the conditions my son is going to be living in 50 years from now, muchless his kids 100 years from now. And what is immortality if there is no world to survive it in? True, genetics and stem cell research and all that jazz can lengthen and improve our lifestyles, but what if we never had to worry about the health factors that cause us to be researching in those areas? I think its great that we have the capabilities to create and develope such marvels, but that is a huge cost to our enviornment too, factories and biotech labs create lots of workplace and enviornmental hazards. biohazard waste itself from there can be tremendous.

think of it this way, the enviornment is our home, where do you want to live when you retire?

True, I will vote for people who want to take care of our enviroment and also those who are pro stem cells, both important causes but Immortality is a more pressing issue since I will probably live for another 80 yrs but the enviroment changes very slowly.

openly68atheist wrote

True, I will vote for people who want to take care of our enviroment and also those who are pro stem cells, both important causes but Immortality is a more pressing issue since I will probably live for another 80 yrs but the enviroment changes very slowly.

In 50 or so years America will be about as wealthy as Brazil. Countries like Brazil will be third world countrys again, and third world countrys will have dissapeard. This will happen because there are to many humans on earth, and we are using up our resources unsustainably. (The only reason it hasn't happend already is because we are living of borrowed time - the resources we consume now are not going to renew themselves for later use). Once this happens the worlds economy will fall, and their will not be enouph money to do all this scientific research anyway.

The 'enviroment' has no value except as a resource. Get rid of the State and its meddling and all problems resolve either into private property rights (water/air pollution, 'overfishing' etc) or simply decline into aesthetic disagreement in which case I think you and your 'intrinsic values' can go to Hell. Mans survival is based on beating nature, which is perpetually trying to murder him, into some controlled and orderly shape. And unless the monkeys who believe in the magic of gods and politics get us killed beforehand, I'm sure some c36 nano-tube computers will be laughing hysterically at our incompetence and fear about the 'enviroment' as they live off of nuclear fire and keep animals only as a source of amusement - if at all.

I agree that taking care of the environment is a necessary long term goal, but should not be placed ahead of good economic practices. In many cases, they are one and the same. Recycling is a perfect example. Many people think they are saving the environment when they recycle their beer cans, and while this is true to an extent, the economic reality is that energy is expensive and extracting aluminum from raw materials takes a lot more energy than just melting old cans. It's briliant propaganda on the part of aluminum companies to get people to recycle, as they save production costs and increase their own profit by making other people provide their resources.

The Kyoto Accord, on the other hand represents a major failure of technology and polotics. While many environmentalists attack the US for refusing to sign it, the economic pressure it would cause can only hurt everyone. Reducing emissions by such a small amount would be incredibly expensive right now and while it would be a great way for the government to spend money from the view of Keynesian macroeconomics (more money to engineers :) and eventually the rest of the population as well as a great investment), what we really need right now is worldwide economic pressure to make much more drastic steps. I believe that the recent surge in oil prices (remember when gas was just $1? I pay almost 3) could be the start of a process of nature simply taking its course. It may be incredibly naive, but the economy behaves just like any ecosystem, and has a tendency to hover right around its long term carrying capacity. The United States and most other developed countries show that this is happening. While world populations and environmental attrocities continue to grow, most of both are occuring in underdeveloped, undereducated countries. US forrests have been stable for over a century; we know that it makes economic sense not to destroy all of our valuable resources but instead to plant a new tree for every one we cut down. Many African and South American countries don't have the ability or understanding to prevent their forrests and other resources from being permanently wiped out.

I'm not saying that everything is peachy; we need to do a lot of work on creating renewable resources. Whether that's by developing solar or wind technologies or by switching to nuclear fission or potentially fusion with a fuel standard switch to hydrogen or ethanol remains to be seen, but it won't happen until the economic conditions are right and we shouldn't push it.

Plus, there's always Mars. It could go for some pretty serious global warming right about now.

NihilistThug wrote

The 'enviroment' has no value except as a resource.

The environment has no value as a habitat? How did you come to that conclusion?

openly68atheist wrote

As long as the air is see through and not black, or smoggy I don't care. I'm not going to go to the Amazon and tie my-self to a tree. My passion is finding Immortality here on earth through genetics, nanotechnology, Embryonic Stem Cells, Human cloning, Whole Body Transplants.

Assuming you achieve immortality, don't you rather hope you're ona habitable planet?

NihilistThug wrote

The 'enviroment' has no value except as a resource. Get rid of the State and its meddling and all problems resolve either into private property rights (water/air pollution, 'overfishing' etc) or simply decline into aesthetic disagreement in which case I think you and your 'intrinsic values' can go to Hell. Mans survival is based on beating nature, which is perpetually trying to murder him, into some controlled and orderly shape. And unless the monkeys who believe in the magic of gods and politics get us killed beforehand, I'm sure some c36 nano-tube computers will be laughing hysterically at our incompetence and fear about the 'enviroment' as they live off of nuclear fire and keep animals only as a source of amusement - if at all.

The environment has values as many things other than a resource. As a habitat it provides life for every living thing on this planet. You cannot view the environment as something there for your taking (thats going down the christian line of thinking).

We nead the environment for our survival, and therefore we must manage it better. Even if you have no moral attatchment to the environment, you still nead it there, because (as you said) it is an essential resouce. We nead to have the environment, even if it only be for resources.

Mans survival is not based on beating nature - we are nature. We can't live without nature, because everything we use comes from nature. We can't simply bite the hand that feads and expect to be fead tomorow.

whoneedscience wrote

I agree that taking care of the environment is a necessary long term goal, but should not be placed ahead of good economic practices. In many cases, they are one and the same. Recycling is a perfect example. Many people think they are saving the environment when they recycle their beer cans, and while this is true to an extent, the economic reality is that energy is expensive and extracting aluminum from raw materials takes a lot more energy than just melting old cans. It's briliant propaganda on the part of aluminum companies to get people to recycle, as they save production costs and increase their own profit by making other people provide their resources.

The Kyoto Accord, on the other hand represents a major failure of technology and polotics. While many environmentalists attack the US for refusing to sign it, the economic pressure it would cause can only hurt everyone. Reducing emissions by such a small amount would be incredibly expensive right now and while it would be a great way for the government to spend money from the view of Keynesian macroeconomics (more money to engineers :) and eventually the rest of the population as well as a great investment), what we really need right now is worldwide economic pressure to make much more drastic steps. I believe that the recent surge in oil prices (remember when gas was just $1? I pay almost 3) could be the start of a process of nature simply taking its course. It may be incredibly naive, but the economy behaves just like any ecosystem, and has a tendency to hover right around its long term carrying capacity. The United States and most other developed countries show that this is happening. While world populations and environmental attrocities continue to grow, most of both are occuring in underdeveloped, undereducated countries. US forrests have been stable for over a century; we know that it makes economic sense not to destroy all of our valuable resources but instead to plant a new tree for every one we cut down. Many African and South American countries don't have the ability or understanding to prevent their forrests and other resources from being permanently wiped out.

I'm not saying that everything is peachy; we need to do a lot of work on creating renewable resources. Whether that's by developing solar or wind technologies or by switching to nuclear fission or potentially fusion with a fuel standard switch to hydrogen or ethanol remains to be seen, but it won't happen until the economic conditions are right and we shouldn't push it.

Plus, there's always Mars. It could go for some pretty serious global warming right about now.

If the world leaders took action now to better the environment, it will have only mild (but immediate) negative economic effects. However, if we wait longer before taking action, it will be worse. As you said, poor countrys do not manage their resources at all, so when they run out, their economys will collapse. That will also cause massive problems for wealthy countrys, because they would not be able to trade goods. Therefore, their economy will suffer immensly as well.

You talk as if the kyoto protocol will have negetive economic effects - you are correct. But the econoomy will suffer much more when the climate is fucked up. If the climate is up shit creak, so is the environment, and therefore the economy will be fucked too. If the environment suffers, so does the economy, and if the economy suffers, we all do.

You cannot view the environment as something there for your taking

The fuck I can't. The 'enviroment' is nothing but a collection of stuff. Either someone has transformed if with their labour (in which case it is theres) or I have transformed it with my labour (in which case it is mine) or no one has done anything with it yet and it's there for the taking.

Damn eco-terrorists.

"The 'enviroment' is nothing but a collection of stuff. Either someone has transformed if with their labour (in which case it is theres) or I have transformed it with my labour (in which case it is mine) or no one has done anything with it yet and it's there for the taking."

So, you're saying that anything in that you haven't transformed with your labor is free for the taking, like, say, a cattleman's cows? I could grab someone's cow (which hasn't been 'transformed'), take it home and grill it up, no problem? What about food grown organically, without pesticides or irrigation? What about the water in my local resorvoir? What about General Sherman? What about you? Have you been 'transformed by someone's labor'? Does that mean you belong to them? Or, if you haven't, does that mean I can chop your ear off, thus transforming you through my labor, and that you then belong to me?