Your Questions About Green Living

Wave/ Tidal power debate ..need solid defense!!!?

My chemistry class is having a huge debate on the different types of power generation…which is the best most sustainable, enviro friendly etc… tommorow i present on my topic–wave/ tidal power..and basically i get a minute or two to present my case and then the class bombards me with questions trying to point out flaws..its RUTHLESS! …i need a rock solid defense and arguments to dispute the weak points of my proposal—i need to make the disadvantages look good, even!… i’d be grateful for your two cents worth on the subject, and possibly some debate tips 🙂 thanks!

Does it drive you batty when people say “Environmentalists won’t be happy until we are all living in caves.”

I know I’ve asked this before, but I keep seeing it over and over again! Even from Top Contributors to the environmental section!

Unreal!

In terms of embracing new technology, who is more for stagnation and regression? Environmentalists want to move forward to the next best thing, the next wave of technology.

Why is there still this idea that to be sustainable, you have to live in a cave? There was no electricity in the rennaissance, no oil or cars or TVs either, and yet look at what humanity was able to accomplish during that time period!

Do you think that people who say things that polarize technology and lack of technology are just throwing a huge insult at thousands of years of human development?

Is the U.S. Economy Far Worse than what the Media and Politiicans are Saying?

The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time. When things start to go sour, when Barack Obama is exposed as a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave, the United States could plunge into a long period of precarious social instability.

At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed.
(Chris Hedges)

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/125192

Over the last 20 years, America has degenerated into a nation of consumers, with 72 percent of Gross Domestic Product (sic) now being accounted for by consumer spending—most of it going for things that are produced overseas and shipped here.

That is not an economic model that is sustainable, and it is a model that has just suffered what is certainly a mortal blow.

What we are now seeing is the beginning of an inevitable downward adjustment in American living standards to conform with our actual place in the world. As a nation of consumers, and not producers, with little to offer to the rest of the world except raw materials, food crops, military hardware and bad films (none of which industries employ many people), we are headed to a recovery that will not feel like a recovery at all. Eventually, productive capacity will be restored, as lowered US wages make it again profitable for some things to be made here at home again, but like people in the 1930s looking back at the Roaring 20s of yore, we are going to look back at the last two decades as some kind of dream.
(Dave Lindorff)
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01302009.html
“If news reports are right, the bank rescue plan will contain two main elements: government purchases of some troubled bank assets and guarantees against losses on other assets. The guarantees would represent a big gift to bank stockholders; the purchases might not, if the price was fair – but prices would, the Financial Times reports, probably be based on “valuation models” rather than market prices, suggesting that the government would be making a big gift here, too.

And in return for what is likely to be a huge subsidy to stockholders, taxpayers will get, well, nothing.”(Paul Krugman)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/03/EDDS15LDM1.DTL&hw=Krugman&sn=001&sc=1000

world issues economy. do you know anything about the following people?

•Karl Marx and Fredrick Engel’s Communist Manifesto (political / economic / social)
If (intellectually) communism makes sense whereby resources are distributed amongst the people somewhat equally, why does this system of government always seem to fall apart?
•The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth and Beyond the Limits to Growth (resource use / future)
If there is no hope for the future, then why try to solve any of the problems at all?
•J. M. Keynes government role in the economy (economics)
Since governments have a tendency to be big and desirous of getting bigger, isn’t this system of economic intervention just playing into a bureaucracy’s hands?
•Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (economic)
Everyone knows that if left alone, big companies will squash little companies and will dominate the economy so much that they can actually affect and dictate government policies and planning. Surely the national government must play some role in a country’s economy.
•Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock (future)
What do you think the Fourth Wave will be? Why?
•Gro Brundtland’s Our Common Future (economics / environmental)
Can we truly have ‘sustainable development ‘ or is it just a utopian dream?

Are these ideas for economic survival too radical?

The status quo is not sustainable. We’ve heard that often enough. So what? Some “brainstorming”, “outofthebox” thinking may be in order to meet a dramatically different future, than what we have enjoyed in the past. What do you think of these ideas? And I welcome yours (before I wave my magic wand)
1. All efforts, appropriate, to eliminate illegal immigrants from our jobs, our schools, emergency rooms, courts and jails. Secure the Southern border.
2. Women who have chosen to be Mothers and have a working spouse, go home. Your absence from the workplace and your presence at home with your children will be the greatest contribution to your community that you can make.
3. Social Security benefits paid only to those actually in need of it to prevent poverty. (This was its original intent anyway) Also, eliminate the cap on FICA taxes. Everybody pays on all income earned.
4. Police, firemen, teachers, union members and others on pensions and retirement programs agree to cuts in benefits appropriate to the crisis, until it is passed. Soc. Sec. too.
5. Abolish our present system of taxation. Adopt either a “fair tax” or a flat rate system. This would free up TRILLIONS of dollars presently in offshore taxhavens, which would return to the US. giving our economy the biggest possible shot in the arm.
6. Toss out ALL incumbents in Washington, elect new blood, not career politicians who are bought and paid for by special interests. Both parties have abandoned The People.