i'm very happy to concede that i may be wrong - certainly that i failed to get an accurate point across in my quick remark. > First of all, environmental probl

i'm very happy to concede that i may be wrong - certainly that i failed to get an accurate point across in my quick remark. > First of all, environmental problems are not of black and white type. It's not something where "humanity puts effort", then suddenly the problem disappears. I'm sorry if I implied that - I never meant to. Its not just about putting in effort - its about putting in a lot of effort. 'properly' is a vague term and i know what it means to me but nobody else does - its best demonstrated what i mean with examples: not proper effort: + trying to reduce emissions to reduce pollution + no littering signs + banning environmentally damaging behaviour proper efforts: + building plants/factories/machines whose sole purpose is to capture and fix or otherwise convert nasty gasses and particulates + actively cleaning existing damage, e.g. dedicated missions to get some of that plastic out of our oceans + outlawing the burning of petrol, shutting down the petrochemical industry (in total, even the good bits), stealing its assets and using them for projects to repair existing damage to use a horrible analogy if you get lung cancer you don't just quit smoking - you want to cut the cancer out and throw it away. quitting smoking at that point is just a bad joke... * maybe i came across too strongly (do you mean disingenuous as 'dishonest' or 'wrong' - lots of people use it as 'wrong' to sound clever which is horrible...?) especially in light of this argument which shows another difference of perspective: > It's perfectly plausible instead, that nature as we know it today is going to disappear, to be replaced by wasteland, while still having the capability to acceptably sustain human life. This had entered my head - this is very possible but its also not what i consider to be the real enough consequences to kick us up the ass. A gradual decline in quality of life is easy to ignore... an immediate threat to your life is not. I don't think people will magically be motivated if their quality of life degrades - unless its rapid and potentially fatal. This is a real problem. Actually climate change has already caused this to some degree... ironically via global dimming rather than global warming. (those famines from drought in africa have been quite definitively linked to pollution from europe afaik) > Second, environmental problems are not primarily technical problems. I'm confused here - I hope I never implied this because I was trying to state the opposite. I believe that we have all the technology to maintain the environment and to reverse any significant damage we have done - just that it is unaffordable to implement it at the moment. What I believe is that in a survival situation the 'artificial' financial cost has to give way somehow to the costs enforced by reality like available time and (actual) resources and the desire to survive. > Last one, and this is disturbing, it's not "human nature", it's your nature people will ignore future problems and underestimate them - immediate temporary gratification is very often more appealing than long term or permanent benefits unless those benefits are excessive. i'm very certain that this is true and i believe that there is considerable evidence. today we have a capitalist economy which almost entirely relies on exploiting this mentality - that people will generally do what is in their best interest /now/ - even at the expense of long term gains. most smokers do this i'm sure - they know smoking kills them but the risk is remote and intangible. drinkers do this too - drink drivers especially who do not think about the intangible risk of death when they drive to their death. driving at all requires some of this attitude because driving 'safely' is a risk and one that is really quite likely to kill you in the long run. naturally i can feel myself thinking that these are unrealistic arguments but they aren't - they are quantifiable in facts and figures to the point where society tries to reduce the problems... there are more examples everywhere... gamblers will bet themselves into bankruptcy with similar mentality - their greed for the immediate winnings outweighs the very real risk of losses - especially that continuous gambling might ruin you a very 'remote' risk. teenagers have unprotected sex because the risk of pregnancy or an STI seems 'remote' compared to the immediate gratification of sex. 'i won't be that unlucky, its just the once' is not uncommon thinking. its everywhere and we exploit it too - quick fix beauty products that cause long term damage to your skin, stimulants to stay awake at the expense of tonight's sleep, a loan so you can have an instant pile of money at the expense of having less income for the near future. you need to make a very convincing argument to change my opinion on this... much more than bold unsubstantiated claims wrapped in ad hominem. ... too long.