Tell me how American Wealth and Consumption Patterns Enhance the Environment?
553232
Ms. Lil -\n\nThe fact is that our society's need for and willingness to pay for, for example, lumber, has resulted in lumber companies planting and raising more trees than they cut-down.\n\nDon't believe this? Google the "acreage in timber development" and find out that there is more timberland in development now than ever in the history of the country!  Why? Because people who put their money in long-term timber development know that growing more than you consume assures the future.\n\nSimple - eh?\n\nHey - the free enterprise system works better than any ten government agencies!\n\nGood luck with your project - it's a winner!
560087
Protect and respect their habitats.  Help wildlife by building a bird feeder, composting, eliminating the use of pesticides and herbicides, etc.  In your garden use plants native to your area - do not introduce plants that are not native - they may disrupt the natural balance. \n\nPossibly one of the best things we can do is stop demanding so much of the world's resources, which, in one way or another, destroys wildlife habitat - increases global warming, destroys the rain forest, etc.  Use cloth reusable shopping bags to carry home groceries.  Buy at bulk food stores using much less packaging materials.  Recycle as much of what we use as possible - glass, soda cans, food cans, plastic containers, newsprint, etc.  Recycle toys, books, games, clothes, etc. by donating them to goodwill or Salvation Army, and shop for things you need at those stores.  Live a simpler, gentler life style.  \n\nHere are a few sites you may like to view.
435454
I watched a show on the history channel last night and it talked about "darkening" From what I heard it still balances nature. The program said without "darkening" the "global warming" rate would increase 5-10 fold. The whole concept is interesting but I'd need to hear more.\n\nJason
78809
The first thing to do is to have the US manufacture things.  We have a trade deficit because we import nearly everything that we buy.  Americans have traded quality for quantity.  \n\nIf we raise the price of exports, foreign countries won't buy.  \n\nIf we lower savings, well, we can't lower it from pretty much nothing.\n\nPushing the value of the dollar won't work because that's how we fund our government deficits.\n\nWe can't really raise consumption in the US because that's the same as lowering savings.\n\nWe seem to be okay with buying junky plastic toys from China just so our kids can have a house full of stuff that they never play with and that we throw out after 2 years to make room for more junk.
820183
go to www.salary.com and enter environmental in the keyword and the zip where you live.  This will give you some examples.
472268
Americans produce an estimated 25 percent of the world's carbon dioxide pollution. A lot of it would diminish by reducing pollution from vehicles and power plants; our industry should be required to cut emissions of global warming pollution.
668158
oil, water, money, power, Bush, etc.
564465
Define pollution.  \nFrom what baseline are you asking if it has increased?\n\nClearly in the earths past the atmosphere was so "polluted" with various noxious gasses that it was incapable of supporting complex multicellular life forms.\n\nFrom that baseline we are doing very well.\n\n(for a less flippant answer the US and EU countries produce much less green house gasses per capital then they did 10,20, or 30 years ago.  The "problem" is that China and India are industrializing rapidly and have little in the way of environmental safe guards)
328022
I've spent an entire semester in university listening to and researching over this issue ... and yes the "peak" has passed ... if you look at the bell curve, we're heading towards (or already are) on the decline side of the curve ... and soon it's going to be all over.  \n\nbasically we need to look into alternative source... and that's where this thing gets tricky.  oil is, for the most part, needed for transportation... and cars and transport means that do not require fossil fuels are either not fast enough or they're too expensive.  so what to do now?\n\nwell.... the answer lies in changing the minds of the human race... we live in an economy-driven world... they worry about making money, dont care where it comes from... \n\nbut the good news is that there's an abundant amount of awareness about all the environmental issues out there... i'm in my 20s and i don't remember this type of awareness happening 5 - 10 years ago... so we're headed in the right direction... question is are we alreadfy too late?  the answer is: only time will tell!\n\nand i can go on and on, but due to lack of time i have to end here ... if i have more time before u close this q i might add more in! \n\noh, but before i go... here's a recommendation (a documentary):\nEnd of suburbia dicrected by gregory greene\n\nit talks about the peak-oil crises!\n\ncheers!
602324
Drive less (or stop alltogether) and lobby your politicians for renewable energy reform.  Also, turn the lights out, keep your lint filter clean, skip a shower, turn computer and monitor off when not in use, eat organic, use natural cleaning supplies, put furnace on a timer, turn water off while soaping up in shower, reuse everything, read Walden by Henry David Thereau, etc.
42706
The impact of global warming on the US economy.
191201
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumption_%28economics%29
764798
Did the oil companies destroy the environment?  Really?  The environment is destroyed?  Have you been to eastern Europe?  I have, and let me tell you, our environment is not even close to being destroyed.  The environments over there are WAY worse off than they are here, and guess what?  All that destruction was done by their governments under communism (not by 'greedy' companies)!  And who do you think is driving the oil industry anyway?  Everyone who buys fuel, or anything made out of plastic or other oil products, or buys something shipped with oil burning methods is driving it.  You need to learn some basic economics and think about things holistically to see the real forces that drive things.  Good luck with that.\nOur judicial system will never be cleaned up as long as it has so much power.  It is a law of nature that power attracts the corrupt.  If you want a judicial system that is corruption free, you need to drastically reduce its power over the people.  Most people look at government and its branches as a benevolent big brother rather than the necessary evil that great men like Ben Franklin and Jefferson did.  The bigger and more powerful it gets, the more corrupt it will get, period.
441162
Go green... buy a hybrid to reduce your consumption of gasoline... and oh by the way, you'll reduce the polluting emmissions that you contribute to the air.\n\nCarpool.\n\nRide a bike or walk to places that are relatively close.\n\nRequest for your utility needs to be serviced by "green" power options... wind or hydroelectric.\n\nVote! Use the power of your voice as a citizen of this country to demand that our Congress pay more attention to OUR desires and less to the lobbies that line their pockets and reinforce outmoded beauracracies that drive up the cost of EVERYTHING we pay for, especially our taxes (look into the concept of a flat income tax, or a national sales tax instead of an income tax... you'll be surprised how effective those options would be, and how much money our gov't would save by implementing them!)\n\nEncourage others to follow your example by going green, carpooling, riding or walking, etc...\n\n...As a nation, the only way we will truly reduce the skyrocketing prices of gasoline will be to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and eventually, to reduce our country's dependence on oil completely.
1083463
Why not have enough for both? Why not make both? Instead of using money on stupid sh*t (you can think of a lot of things are money is going to waste on), we can make more swamps to control floodings, and it will also help out our eco system.
81704
Consumption and savings.
956284
Either that or they own lots of XOM.\n\nJust to set the record straight...these aren't "natural changes".\n\nIn the past, increasing carbon dioxide (called food for plants) + sunlight would increase vegetation and consume the excess CO2, thereby "cleaning" the atmosphere of the greenhouse gas. That was the natural cycle. \n\nNow we have increasing CO2 (at obviously unnatural rates due to manufacturing, atuomobiles, etc - all human, not ecologically natural, activities) COUPLED with human destruction of forests (the vegetation that "cleans" the atmosphere of greenhouse gas).\n\nIncreasing CO2 + decreasing forests equals unnatural, unbalanced, global problem of massive proportions.\n\nThat's why Al Gore, in the film "An Inconvenient Truth", says the first step in fighting global warming is to PLANT A TREE!\n\nThe folks who preach the "natural cycle" myth are not at all thinking about the issue logically!