Zereo wrote: |
---|
What I will debate on like you said is if we are the cause of it or if it is just part of a natural cycle that the earth goes through. |
While I don't think we are the direct cause of it (which is what I feel is unlikely), I certainly do think we are accelerating the natural process. In any event being environmentally conscious is not a
bad thing.
I find it difficult to understand why so many people get in denial over our possible role in it rather than just be a freaking adult and accept responsibility and do what we can to fix it.
Humans have only been here for a VERY short time or the earths total life, |
I think you underestimate just how much of an impact humans make on the global environment.
In that short time... hell.. in just the past 300 years... look how drastically we've changed the face of the entire Earth. I'm not just talking about climate change, I'm talking about other environmental impacts such as forest and other natural habitat destruction, light/sound pollution, water contamination, etc, etc. And it's been getting exponentially worse with time.
That is arguable but i'm pretty sure you realize that if you make the car companies do that they will just pass the extra expenses off to the consumer. Know the gas saved probably would outweigh the extra price, but can't be sure. |
I do realize that, which is why I said cars would get more expensive ;P
But the point of doing this would not be financial, it would be environmental. The attitude of doing things that are of benefit financially is the biggest problem with capitalism. If all you can look at is the dollar signs, you're blinding yourself here.
- We don't make cars safer because it's cheaper (in fact it makes them more expensive)
- We don't reserve land for wildlife/national parks because it's cheap or profitable (in fact it's very expensive)
- We don't enforce laws because it's cheap or profitable (in fact it's very expensive)
We do all these things because they improve the quality of life for the population. It's not about money.
If you get so focused on the cost of something, you lose sight of what is actually important.
Yes... cars would get more expensive. But so what? The air would be cleaner, there'd probably be less cars on the road (reducing risk of accidents), and we might even slow down climate change. Life would be better.
So basically your argument is that it is not the persons fault that they go to McDonald's everyday and stuff their face with bad food and get fat, its McDonald's fault for serving it? Instead of putting responsibility on the person at fault (IE The person that eats unhealthy and gets fat) we try and blame someone else for it. |
1) You don't have to stuff your face with McD to get fat from it. It's calorie dense and nutritionally vacant, so when you eat it you feel like shit preventing you from being active, and you pack away tons of calories which don't get expended. It's like a double-whammy.
2) Many people have extremely limited choices when it comes to what food they can eat. They are limited by what's available in their area, how much money they have, and how much free time they can spend on food preparation.
The good thing about McD is it's everywhere and is fast and relatively cheap. The bad news is that means that it's pretty much these people's only option for food.
There's a reason obesity is more common among low income households. That's no coincidence.
3) Fast food restaurants arguably don't even serve food. Taco Bell was semi-recently in a class action lawsuit for having too much
wood pulp in their meat. They actually use wood pulp as filler.
Read that again: When you eat their "food", you are eating wood. I'm not making this up:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10984822/1/yumstaco-bell-meat-prompts-law-suit.html
The thing is... just about everybody does it. Not just Taco Bell:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11012915/1/cellulose-wood-pulp-never-tasted-so-good.html
So yeah. It's the restaurant's fault. But it's also the government's fault for allowing the restaurants to do this crap.
And yeah, it's also the consumer's fault for not knowing any better. But this stuff isn't exactly advertised -- nor is it taught in schools. In fact... what people get from school is a taste for McD because of McD installations selling lunches to school kids.
How can we expect people to know any better when we don't teach them and when we encourage them to be duped like this?