“While we’re in the business of doing all these great things, lets go one step further. Lets end poverty. Lets provide all people with clean water and all the healthy food they need. Free health care for everyone! And to top it off we’ll end all violence.”

without once mentioning the protection of the mental and bodily autonomy of all people.

Thus speaketh the healthy, educated, white male, full to the brim of privilage and yet grimly sanctimonious towards the genuine effort of others to both live well and live honestly.

You call it naive to try to change the current structures of society and yet claim to live without consuming or producing waste. I call bullshit. You eat. You shit. You type away on the computer that you can afford both access to and services for. It’s the internet. It don’t come free.

And those cute little animals? They pollute too. In fact, I defy you to find a single organic being (sentient or otherwise) that does not pollute, murder, overpopulate, or destroy. Animals are in the business of living, just as humans are, and existence comes at a price.

I in no way deny that people are the cancer of the earth. But even when we’ve decimated both ourselves and all the flora and fauna we can take with us, the earth will survive. It’s too big for even humans to blast to smithereens.

You have a choice, then. Continue to live and knowingly participate in pollution and destruction – but allow your ethical principles to guide you toward a lighter, less damaging way of living – or don’t.

Your pessimism serves no purpose. You save no lives (animal or vegetable) by it. You improve no conditions by it. Pessimism does not ensure a living wage, establish an Equal Rights Amendment, end discrimination against LGBTQ or disAbled people any more than it provides universal healthcare or clean air.

The only thing that does work is honest self-examination and change. And yes, a willingness to do so is a step up the ethical ladder. Being dour but self-righteous is nothing less than inciting against activism – which is fine if your goal is to ensure the vast divide between the poor and the wealthy, the continued discrimination against the oppressed, and eventually the extinction of all known life.

All I ask is that people going green get rid of the illusions that they’re somehow saving the planet, adverting climate change, and protecting cute baby animals.

Oh and those same people also need to get off their high horse and stop looking down on SUV driving, wasteful, meat eating, republicans as scum. If that cute baby animal had any sense, it’d slap us all for being so naive.

You’re right, population control is where it’s at, but I think there is more to it, like you said, education. People have to understanding that we are earth’s virus. But I don’t think we have to destroy the earth, I’d like to think that there is a way to live here without destroying it. Maybe i’m to optimistic.

It just seems pretty selfish to give in. What I love about this conversation that you and I have is that we have different views. I just think we need to work on a solution. It sounds to me like we may agree on education and population control, do you think there is anything else that would help?

In the mean time, do you think that individuals taking their own personal steps to be cleaner and greener is a waste of their/our time?

I’ll just say this, and it’s selfish as you say, I much prefer living in SF air then LA air. It feels good to breath here.

Oh wait, that’s now. The irony is that this city is “going green”

But still, I still take issue with your idea of what it takes to “be green”. Going by your lists, being green revolves around low energy consumption, low waste generation, and sustainable eating.

Lets imagine the best case scenario for this new GREEN world.

Humans cut back their energy use to the point that all energy needs are obtained from renewable sources with zero emissions.

Humans generate zero waste, everything consumed is reused and recycled.

All food is grown organically. No polluting byproducts. And hey while we’re at it, no one eats meat anymore.

Great, amazing, we’ve done it! No pollution, no waste. We live happily ever after?

In my mind, the only thing it accomplishes is it enables the human species to go on living without sacrificing anything of major concern. It makes the earth a little prettier for our selfish enjoyment (Sure, the lack of pollution would preserve a few ecosystems, specifically in the ocean).

While we’re in the business of doing all these great things, lets go one step further. Lets end poverty. Lets provide all people with clean water and all the healthy food they need. Free health care for everyone! And to top it off we’ll end all violence.

Really, the green movement is about making sure that the human species can go on living (and growing, and growing, and growing) in it’s current state without fear of things going bad for us.

But what about the planet, which everyone says the green movement is really about… how does any of this help the planet?

Why isn’t there a movement to get rid of all the roads which cover this planet like scars. Or houses. Or entire cities. Are any animals other than fish and birds able to migrate anymore? Our own desires to have our own space and to move around has taken that option away from everything else.

To put it simply, 6 billion people, no matter how “green” they are, will never coexist with the planet without dominating everything else on it. So just as you argue that everything you’re doing is helping to save the earth… I could argue that we should screw it up for ourselves as much as possible so as to knock ourselves off our throne and let nature get back to doing business as usual.