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Originally Posted by non sequitur
Sorry for the rant, but when I hear people talking about whether they are "for the environment" or "FOR THE ENVIRONMENT", it makes me laugh.
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I disagree. I think there's a lot of gray area involved, especially given the lack of hard data to support, really, anything. From my own observations, I'm pretty sure we're damaging the environment at a faster rate than it can repair itself. But it seems like the earth may be capable of accepting a certain level of pollution. Therefore, there's a difference between someone who says ALL POLLUTION IS BAD and someone who says that it's okay to pollute up to the point where the pollution is actually damaging the environment.
It's one thing to be against the whaling industry and something altogether different to chain yourself to every white tail deer in the Rockies and throw blood on my grandmother. Most people who self-identify as "environmentalists" aren't ready to live without electricity, but others are adamant that everyone should go that extra mile. I'm not ready to stop eating beef, but I am willing to find occupations that require no commuting. Another person might go the other way around. Various shades. Gray area. Just as there is ENVIRONMENTALISM and environmentalism, there's also inconvenience and INCONVENIENCE. Various shades.
Further, it's easy to say you're in favor of the environment in a hypothetical sense, but when trying to bridge the gap between hypothesis and practice, things often get dicey. You start understanding more of that gray area when the absolutist ideals start coming down on you personally. I don't like the trucking industry which pollutes and damages roads to an extent that wastes resources. Am I willing to pay $x more for everything in order to get rid of it? I can't even answer that until I know what x is and no one can really *know* what x is until we outlaw trucking. Huh. Uncertainty. ENVIRONMENTALIST or environmentalist. I don't think most of us are even able to answer that question accurately for ourselves.
At the risk of quoting George Lucas, anyone who deals in absolutes -- well, they probably haven't considered enough of the possibilities.
Being "for the environment" is not a platform. Unless we want to define further and offer up sure-fire litmus tests, being an environmentalist isn't a yes-no thing. And even if we did start testing, then we're really just playing semantics games. Being an environmentalist isn't like being pregnant. There are tradeoffs in everything.
o