Even trimming a tree here without a permit will result in serious jail time.
Additionally, we were on the Costalegre last week and the ongoing efforts to protect the sea turtles' eggs and hatchlings are stunning.
Too bad there is no permitted international investment in oil and gas to make Mexico self sufficient.
The emergency plans at the San Diego zoo include "taking out" the Polar Bears first.

OK beachbum,
since you seem to profess in playing the devil's advocate to everyone's theories and responses, let's hear what you think and what you would do to balance the co-existence of man and the environment.

To follow through on lynnjoel's excellent remenders;
here's a good website for anyone interested in getting more active in sustainablility in their own lives:

http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_actionitems.asp

And there are many, many books and publications out there on this subject- you can find some by googling "Things You Can Do To Save the Planet"

beachbum - I've been to Oregon twice 10 years apart, and sorry, I could tell no difference in the clearcuts.

I've seen some examples of re-planting by the sides of highways - they don't look anything like the old growth forests. They look like tree farms.

You state learcutting is an acceptable practice? To whom? Lumber companies?

It seems beachbum is just being combative. He/She asks what can be done, but doesn't really seem to have any desire to do anything but suggest road blocks. It is too bad this has to be political for some people - just because one party may be pushing an issue, it is an issue that affects us all and everyone needs to face that.

Who knows how much we can do to eliminate global warming at this point, but the least we can do is try.

Most forests in Oregon are government owned and managed. Tracts of timber are sold to lumber companies for logging. So yes, karen, clearcutting is an acceptable forest management practice for both lumber companies and government. If tracts aren't clear cut, new plantings have much less chance of survival. And of course replanted clearcuts look like tree farms. That's what they are. But better to harvest trees near roads than to have to build new ones, causing greater environmental harm.

I'm not trying to be combative or make this a political issue, snowrooster. To the contrary, I might think that was your purpose in starting this thread. ;-)

Nor am I pooh-poohing suggestions to preserve environment, divewop. But if your biologist friend is right that overpopulation is the root problem, and the USA comprises only about 5% of the planet's population, no matter what we do, how effective can we be in reversing/mitigating its impacts.

So, the elephant in the room is what's to be done to reduce/reverse population growth? Anyone have suggestions?

A world run by women(I saw it on an original Star Trek episode)..

*I think the men could be selected for breeding, IF they had the right stuff..

*Other than that, they could be used for amusement and excercise

*Okay, sorry gang, I just woke up and hate to see bickering when we should be figuring out what to gorge on for New Years, J

My purpose in starting the thread was to hear thoughts of others on an important issue of which I increasingly became more aware. I was shocked when my father-in-law wrote it off as a "proven farse" and was wondering how others felt.

While the US may contain a relatively low % of the world's population, we consume a significantly higher relative level of resources. The US is one of the few countries that has not signed the Kyoto Treaty which aims to curb global warming.

DebitNM's "uh oh...here we go again" post was because global warming was cussed and discussed in a threads a week or two ago.

No question that the US presently consumes more than its share of resources, and contibutes more to the global environmental mess... But it's not we who are cutting down rainforests in the Amazon basin. And I wonder what happens when China becomes more fully industrialized. And India....

Why are you focusing on global warming when it's just a symptom of the problem?

beachbum~ on the China aspect, I have had a BIL there for three years, heading an American co. trying to sell wood products for home building..

..it has not been successful because they have to import the wood, it's quite expensive compared to concrete and what the materials used prior were, they don't care about quality, etc.etc..

the job location was not of his choosing but an incentive for his career.. I think it was a three year minimum and they wanted five years total on this before they rotate another person..

I guess you could be relieved as it saves many million of trees(many come from Canada I believe)..

Sorry to repeat a topic already discussed. I guess I missed it the first time around - my apologies for not checking in daily.

Global warming is not a sympton, it is the result. The problem isn't all the people, it's what all the people are doing. Why not try to be part of the solution instead of insisting there isn't one?

Snowrooster,

You posted to the orginal global warning thread so you did't miss it.

This topic has been discussed to death in the last month and it got pretty ugly.

Some more stats on how the US rates among resource consumption.

The average American consumes 20 times as much in natural resources as the average African and if all the people consumed at the level of high-income countries, the planet could support only 1.8 billion people, not the actual 6.5 billion.
It is doubtful if measures to encourage family planning will restrain the world's population. Leaders must come up with intelligent, creative, inventive measures to discourage births.
Every 11 seconds another person is added to the US population.
The US has 5% of the world's population but accounts for nearly a quarter of global emissions.

This country is supposed to be the country that sets the example for peace, democracy, prosperity, etc., so why can't we be the country that sets the example for the environment?

clueless - You are correct, however my post was only the fifth in the thread so I was not aware of how heated it had become (I just did a search and read some of that thread myself). My interest in the topic was peaked only just recently after seeing the movie and increased news coverage.

Snowrooster,

My apologies.

I think it's great you brought it up again, snowrooster.
It's such an important subject, but it really doesn't seem to be in most people's conciousness around here... I was talking to friends about recycling last week at a party, and they looked at me like I was crazy, lol! My friend told me it's good I recycle, so she doesn't have to! Jeez! I know, I'm no fun!

Honestly, it really hasn't been in my consciousness until recently. I don't do nearly all of the things on the list of things we should do to make a change, but I'm going to try to do more. I think that's all we can ask - for each of us to try to do a little bit more. Having only recently become someone who brings up this issue in conversation, I am surprised at how little people seem to care. But then again, I shouldn't be, because it is pretty new to me too.

Yes, global warming is in part a result of human activity. But what happens if human activity doubles or triples simply as a result of population growth? What kinds of lifestyle changes will we then have to make to preserve the planet?

Not sure I understand what you're advocating, divewop. What would it take for the US to set an example? Restrict families to two children? Cut back consumption by 50%? One car per family? And how do you sell that? To people on this thread, even?

I think the US is taking a lead role on the environment. I've not been, but have friends who return from China and Korea telling of wearing masks to protect themselves from breathing bad air, and using umbrellas as a shield against acid rain. Are we supposed to impose our regulations on those societies?

I don't have answers either, but I sure hope our kids are a lot smarter than we. Otherwise, I see a big train wreck coming.

"What would it take for the US to set an example?"

We could join 169 other countries and sign the Kyoto Protocol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol

My late dad told me that he thought people who had large families were selfish.. I think he was thinking about the planet's resources and had his reasons.

A tax incentive for smaller families(in the US anyway)and improved birth control education would help.. but some religions are against practiced b.c., so how do you allow people their freedom/reproduction rights and such?

Didn't China change it's policy about one child families? I am not sure.

I am concerned about air quality, food safety and doing things locally to help.
The environmentalist lobby is powerful in Alaska, and with the oil fields up North(Anwar), watchdog groups in Cook Inlet and PWS, and wildlife protection/regulation,(seafood industry as well).

Alaskans have been affected on a large scale by Washington's decision makers.. some good, some misguided..