Originally Posted by: quickfingers...and given with our increasing abuse of the environment, the affects would be increasing so much faster than before, and with worse concequences.

That's just it -- in every conceivable measurement, the major industrial nations of the world are much cleaner and more environmentally sound than we were even ten years ago. Deforrestation [in the first world] is a myth; we have more forrests now than we did 100 years ago, the water is cleaner, the air is cleaner and landfill space isn't a problem.

What I do find concerning is the way in which Recycling is being pushed upon us; in most cases, recycling is MORE polluting, MORE expensive and LESS energy efficient than throwing out your newspaper or plastic bottle and starting over from scratch. It's not that the idea is bad, it's that in most cases the TECHNOLOGY isn't ready yet and so we're subsidizing something which is harmful and inefficent rather than funding the research we need to make it something viable.


And yes, the Scientific debate about global warming is a farce; I refuse to take a side in it simply because there has been no real debate and only the hysterics (who were wrong about a human-induced ice age) are getting the research dollars.


Penn and Teller have done a couple of good episodes of their show, BULLSH*T that I recommend to anybody here if they want to be more informed on these issues.