The Old Ones (Found On A Private Forum, Probably Not Exclusive Buit Cool/Kewl)

In the early '70's we didn't know better, we treated TCE as casually as water.

Possibly the cause of my pancreatic cancer :-( ...Jim Thompson

He's around 60 y/o I'd call that _your_ generation too if I'm not mistaken, fella.

Growing up inhaling leaded gasoline exhaust would explain a lot...

examples that he thinks were good, exaggerating them, and ignoring everything else. Of course modern times have lead to many new environmental problems - but the older times had more than enough of their own. "

Thank you for concluding that I am the author of that fairly eloquent and p oignant piece. I am not he, I reproduced it here because I thought it might stir up some conversation among Men of thought. So far so good.

I will agree somewhat with the cherry picking but not "extreme". First of a ll those people only had certain resources. They could not turn water into wine. They could not melt plastic down into a petroleum type substance tha t can be used for fuel. (the Japanese did this years ago, but it is, like m any things, not cost effective) But they did what they could. I REMEMBER ol d folks who still took a spent can of beans or whatever and used the manual opener to remove the bottom so they could crush the can and stick the lids in between. And then for zero money they turned in this steel (which may h ave been tin plated, and tin is not cheap) and all kinds of things just bec ause it was the right thing to do. I have known people from those times and they're nonpareil.

Then with WW2 they asked for hair for the sights in arms for the military a nd people gave that freely. I knew a guy who actually worked on those thing s, he used to be my optician. Interesting when we had the time to talk. I h ave always liked conversations with my elders. You learn things you'll neve r find anywhere else.

these "return to the old ways" thoughts are often worse for the environment."

I think it well established that they did not do so good, in large part, du e to the lack of technology. Rich assholes and rapers of the land notwithst anding, I believe that most normal people did not want to harm the environm ent. I have known enough of them to see that. While I do believe that in so me ways returning to the old way would be good, I am not stupid as to think that we should do that in all things. I guess I don't belong to the Luddit es either...

plastic bags. This is wrong - making paper bags is /more/ costly in total environmental prices than making plastic bags. Paper bags are very rarely reused for anything (despite his claims), and have limited reuse when recycled."

Not so sure about that. You haven't given it all that much thought I suspec t. People today would not find uses for them bu we always had a stack of th em somewhere and they got used. If you wanted to stick say a book in the ma il, just wrap it in that. Need a filter ? It is porous. Might take a while but the cost was not added. Simple protection. Got a fine pristine diningro om table ? Want to protect it ? Try those irradiated PVC onionskin things t o do it. Use a piece of the brown paper and it works. It might even make a decent electrical insulator but I don't know what the UL would say about it .

of pollution is a fraction of what it was in the days of horses and buggies - where horse manure and dead, decaying horse carcases were a huge source of grim, disease, and above all, smell. "

Was it as detrimental to health ? And they didn't have acid rain unless the re was a recent volcano explosion.

farming. "

Certain things are worth it. Others not so much. You can have the richest s oil on the planet and if you grow potatoes and corn it is pretty much a was te. And what they sell as organic farming is mostly not. there are sets of rules for them to be able to put the label on, but those are not exactly th e right requirements.

"organic" are vastly worse pollutants than the usual artificial stuff. "

What do you expect when we got bad science ?

responsibly - modern fertilizers, but not so much that it washes into the rivers. "

That is generally NPK, which fertilizes the plants just fine. But in the gr and scheme of things plants are supposed to be things that retrieve the min erals from the ground for us. They will if the ground has it, but they do n ot need it. Farming noticed that when they fertilized with this limited set of agents, the crop output went up. Fine, but it does not fill the needs o f a human body which has many more functions than a plant. At one time in t he past I was pissed off, because they know this and do not tell people. It still displeases me but I do realize that comprehensive fertilization of t he soil on commercial farms would not be cost effective. A potato might be five bucks. Nobody buys it, everyone starves and they have n o customer bas e. Not quite what a competent manager would do.

responsibly - modern fertilizers, but not so much that it washes into the rivers. "

If you don't think it belongs in the rivers, do you really want it in your food ? Think about that.

When it comes to this shit, you ain't playing with kids.

the waste into a big puddle behind the building. They certainly had a choice. "

Bad. Even in small business there needs to be some sort of control. Actuall y Richard Nixon came up with that. The EPA was his brainchild, and the Man was smart, don't believe the bullshit. But Nixon was not really a "hands of f" republican. The wage and price freeze proves that, though I see no way t o enforce such a thing.

Hmm. Kind reminds me of an ex-friend. He lived on a major street in the cit y with a balcony overlooking the street. You could hear the cars even some conversation, but one thing really got to me. NO BUGS.

as water.

Possibly the cause of my pancreatic cancer :-( "

You're up and still working at 100 million years old, I doubt you could show loss in a lawsuit due to that. But if you're greedy there is an internet site something like "classaction.com" or some shit.

Of course people today would die so fast they'd never find them.

Quite "write" :-) but have you seen some of the younger set's writing skills ?

The younger set's? Just _how_ old are you?

Not to mention the advantages of GMO crops.

Well Monsanto thought they were smart and flubbed some research, pulling st rings as far as Scotland to do it - and now guess what. Class action lawsui t. HAHAHAHAHA ! I hope their P/E goes so far negative that they have to get a fast food franchise to pay the bills. And I want fries with that.

Often it is very poor - whether you mean their penmanship, their language skills, or even what they write about. Skills change, and many are good at other things, with enough of them able to write well enough to keep the planet turning.

But have you looked at your own penmanship recently? I know mine is appalling compared to 20 years ago.

Then let me correct it to be "The author's tale...". I did suspect it was a quotation or paraphrase from somewhere - the content was the kind of nonsense that you are known for, but the eloquence of the writing was suspicious.

Still, you are right that it stirred up a conversation.

When you pick all the examples from one side and ignore everything else, it is extreme.

The same applies to every generation of people throughout human history. People do what they can with what they have.

I rinse out my cans and collect them, then take them to the recycling point - for zero money. What makes those "good old folks" any different? The fact that they opened the bottom of the tin, while modern recycling plants are happy with the bottom still on? (And who uses anything but a manual tin opener? Elderly or disabled folk might need an electric opener, but not a normal person for home use.)

Of course people give what they are asked when the country is at war (/real/ war, where your own country is threatened). That's nothing new, and there is nothing to suggest that people would not do so again.

It is not just lack of technology - it is a lack of knowledge, and a natural egotism that everyone has. And it is not new. When humans first came to North America, they quickly burned down the majority of the forests that had covered almost all the continent, and they exterminated most of the large mammal species. They had the technology to do it - or to live without such gigantic environmental damage. But they lacked the understanding or the consideration for the future.

What is new now is we have a good deal more education and awareness of the long-term consequences of pollution, rampant fossil fuel usage, forest burning, over-fertilisation, over-fishing, and all sorts of other environmental damage we do. Unfortunately, while we have steady progress on the technology and knowledge sides, there is still far too much egotism around - and it is the egoists who run the world. (Like the US president, who has stuck his head so far into the sand that he can't tell his arse from a hole in the ground - if you don't mind a mixed metaphor.) And unfortunately we still have far too many people in the world who have no choice but to be egoistic about the environment, because they can't afford anything else.

Yes, I /have/ given it thought and read the data.

Sure, there was /some/ re-use of paper bags. But it was minimal - there simply wasn't enough need of them. And there are so many things that they are useless for, including as rubbish bags, because they can't tolerate water.

(Many plastic bags never get reused either - but the total environmental cost of making them, transporting them, and recycling them is lower than paper bags tough enough for similar use.)

Yes, absolutely.

Of course they did. The prime cause was coal burning - just as it is today.

It is not bad science - it is bad economics and weak leadership (well, in the US you have fairly strong leadership, but since your leader is a megalomaniac ignoramus, it does not help).

There is nothing wrong with fertilizers on farmland to improve yields. Biology is just chemicals moving around - and plants can do so fine using simple artificially produced chemicals. The problem comes from having too much, or putting it in the wrong place.

Like all technologies, gene modification has its advantages and disadvantages - its good uses, and its abuses. It can be used to make crops that grow on otherwise useless land, or that resist pests or disease without the need of additional chemicals. It can also be used to force farmers into being dependent on massive multinational suppliers because the plants are specifically engineered to be sterile, and it can risk getting unwanted plants or plant genes out of control causing unexpected environmental damage (like getting wild plants that are strong insecticides).

Problem is, if you don't have a good command of your native language, you can't think well either.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I like most younger Americans are simply waiting for the boomers to shuffle off this mortal coil before we invest too heavily in any one particular task.

Once the last "good ol' days" story has been told the thousandth time perhaps we'll be able to concentrate better and actually get some work done.

Well, _your_ glory days are already over then. Imaging getting to be 75 and not having any good ol' days stories to bore gum popping youngsters with. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

There - fixed it for ya. :)

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I'll tell 'em about how the major American cultural event of the 1990s was Pepsi being sold in a clear variant and in the 2000s it was electing a has-been game show host president. That'll be plenty of verbal Valium to sedate even the most rambunctious teenager.

That seems likely, but which is cause and which is effect?

Clifford Heath.

By then you won't be good at anything. Too late.

No interest in history either? Technology has been around for thousands of years, electronics for over a hundred. Lots of useful and interesting stuff was invented before either of us were born.