Rah!
I actually like environmentalists if they are willing to listen to the horrible truth.
Sadly, most are human and therefore incapable of or unwilling to accept the horrible truths that Kai wrote so eloquently aggressive.
Kai said in the OP the real environmental progress was made in the 70s, and then sort of stopped. Was the Netherlands late to the party, you think? Cause I remember the environment being real big in the 80s and sort of slipping from public eye halfway the 90s ... ? Though of course I wasn't alive in the 70s.
Until we figure that one out, it's as Kai says, this other stuff is trivial, feel-good nonsense. Imagine if all the people who spent so much time recycling and buying organic, instead, put all of that energy into writing Congressmen and testifying at hearings and protesting our continuing addiction to fossil fuels.
Completely agree, except all that consumer-environmentalist recycling and buying organic doesn't
really cost them that much time or energy. That's the entire point, why still so many people do it. If you make enough money, buying organic food is just as easy as buying normal food. As for recycling, again the most effort is reserving the extra storage space, not the habit of putting your trash into separate bins.
Compare that to political activism, that actually requires people to think, and spend real effort and energy.
If we want to go for efficiency, I've got the perfect solution. However, it's very unlikely to happen given how unpopular it is, even on this forum. So I'm not even going to say it.
Is it something to do with the ratio between the numbers 11 and 12?
This is where I kiiiiind of disagree. Yes, the environmental movement is essentially slacktivism, but little things do add up and buying organic, using less plastic and recycling what you do use are useful things. It just shouldn't be all you do, imo.
Useful =/= the efficient way to stability. Or even A way.
I neglected to read a prior post you made, which more or less covered my thoughts. 
My bad. So feel free to ignore that part of the post...
If by "prior post" you mean the OP ... Because it was pretty much
exactly the point of his thread.
However, NET does bring some interesting thoughts ..
It seems to me that the increasing awareness that we should be doing something to benefit the environment is a good thing, even if this manifests itself in relatively meaningless things like spending millions of dollars building bike lanes or buying recycled toilet paper.
Good point. While it's not immediately apparent, because Kai is absolutely right that consumer-environmentalism doesn't exactly "puts any sods to the dyke" [as we say in Dutch], small acts of environmentalism
does put the environment in the minds and hearts of the public.
Think for example kids at schools doing environment projects, maybe they plant a couple of trees (at National Tree-planting Day), sure it doesn't
really help the global environmental apocalypse we're facing, but it does teach kids about the environment, which is a step in the direction of those kids possibly growing up to become politically active about it and do make a real difference (or at least make a real attempt at making a real difference).
Now one may think, "yeah okay, for kids, this is important". But why not for adults? Apparently they need it, because they have the means, but they're still not doing much about it. (And uh neither am I, it seems)
Reading and hearing on the news about it is one thing, but actually
doing something, even if it's a meaningless token gesture, also anchors environmental awareness in a really powerful way.
However, getting back to the point in Kai's OP, where it goes wrong is when that becomes a kind of cargo-cult. And that's why I like the OP, a lot, because it's a cold hard reminder of how recycling your stuff and buying organic food is NOT going to save the world, and it NEEDS saving, and nobody wants to hear it and I dunno maybe it helps if we buy MORE energy-saving lightbulbs?! NO!!
Yes Kai, I'm going to echo Regret's RAHHH! about this.
This is important.
But what is also important is that those consumer environmentalists you despise so much, they may have the wrong ideas in their minds, but a lot of them
do have the right idea in their hearts. So instead of getting pissed off at them for being schmucks, and writing them off as the next tribe of useless gibbering monkeys, these are people that already care about the environment.
And if you tell them they're doing it wrong, that not even if "everybody starts doing it" we don't have a remote chance of saving this planet, and if you manage to get in their face, and perhaps
piss them off in just the right way, they might get MAD in the right way, maybe drop their organic sacraments, and start thinking about better solutions, about bigger solutions.
If the desire for ______ is genuine and you get tricked into buying a low quality fake you'll get pissed off if you realize you've been scammed and be more careful in your next attempt to acquire this thing. The same is true with the greenwashing of the world that is occuring right now.
THIS. Don't make those environmentalists pissed off because you disagree with them,
make them pissed off because they bought into a low quality fake.Anyway, great thread, great discussion.
