Quote Originally Posted by ThisYouWillDo View Post
Sounds defeatist to me. We all know that politicians and activitists tell lies, but that shouldn't divert us from what we believe to be a sensible course of action.
The key word there is, "sensible." In any group of ten people, you are liable to have 12 different ideas of just what "sensible" means. For myself, it's a matter of convenience. If it's easy and cheap, it's sensible. If it's a pain in the ass and expensive, it's crazy.

What the hell, we're all going to be killed by a rogue asteroid anyway. Or by super-volcanoes. Or by plagues from outer space. Or some whacko religious freak is going to "save" our souls by incinerating our flesh in a nuclear holocaust. Defeatist? You bet! I can't do anything about those things. In my opinion, I can't do anything worthwhile about global warming, either.

And like religion, I don't really care if other people believe in global warming and conservation and all that stuff. What pisses me off is those who want to force me to adhere to their rules for making this a better world. Where I live the city pays a "recycling" company to transport trash from "recycling centers" to the dumps. Fine, no problem. But then that company decrees that I must SEPARATE my trash into recyclable and non-recyclable items. Then I must deposit my trash into the appropriate containers. Wait a minute! Isn't that what we're paying them to do, through taxes? It is! So I dump ALL of my trash into one container. Let THEM separate them out if it means that much to them.

It's the same thing with global warming. Al Gore (among many others) tells me I MUST reduce my "carbon footprint" (I hate that term! Makes me want to take a nice, hot bath!) while his own "footprint" grows ever larger. Why should I do what he wants me to do when he isn't even willing to follow his own advice?

It's all a shell game. People will use whatever means possible to try to control other people. Whether it's environmental fanatics, or religious fanatics, or any other kinds of fanatics, they want to keep your attention focused on things which cannot be helped in order to divert your attention from their inability to correct those problems which CAN be helped.