[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Case]

[Arlo]
But, I'll be honest with you. I am much more concerned about modern
pollution levels as it relates to the air I breathe, the water I drink and
the land I fish/hike/hunt on. Landfills are detestable solutions to over
garbination (like that word). We drop our garbage into the oceans, into our
valleys, into our old mine shafts, polluting our water supplies to the point
where we are USED to buying bottled water! Los Angeles is under a constant
smog. But even the small town where I am from, and the moderate college town
I now live in, are suffering from reduced air quality, smells and pollution
from overcrowding and overdriving.

[Case]
I think it is call fouling the nest. Wasn't there this guy Gav a while back
posting on permaculture?

There is a lot of interesting stuff going on out there. Google Earth Ships.
These are more or less self-contained homes. They are like terrariums for
people. There are also alternative construction techniques out there from
Styrofoam and concrete sandwiched together for walls, to my favorite;
building houses out of bails of hay.

There are solar panels and windmills that hook up to the electrical grid and
your sell electricity when they are working and buy it back when they down.
Theoretically you could over produce and the electric company would owe you
money every month.

There are all kinds of thing going on but since the government is not
interested and some people think we are swimming in oil I guess not much it
going to happen. I am freemarketeer enough to know that there has to be an
economic incentive to make it work. But incentives can come from government
expense for its own needs and/or tax incentives for spending in these areas
or it can come because all of a sudden it cost $50 to tank up. Oh wait that
just happened.

I have mentioned my ongoing depression over the space program to Ian but the
fact the not only has the government not created incentive for alternative
energies we actually provided disincentives by keeping oil prices low and by
not taxing them in accordance with good public policy.

[Arlo]
While I haven't seen Gore's movie, I don't personally find value in the
futurism. The problems, for me, don't revolve around a future global ice
age. They revolve around the quality of my life, air, water and land today.

[Case]
I doubt if you will see anything new in this movie but it is well done and
great presentation.

[Arlo]
Maybe my perspective is as it is because of Chapter One in the Columbia
History of the World, a great chapter that really places "man" in the
context of geo-historical time. Someday the earth will reglaciate, and
someday it will return to its natural state of tropic-like temperatures
(like the millions of years prior to the currect ice age). Whether or not we
shave or add a few hundred years to this is to me not what's worth fighting
over. That our water is polluted, our air is rancid in our cities, and our
ground is littered with trash IS worth fighting over.

[Case]
You know I naively thought I was getting somewhere with Platt on that score:
This idea that we are or could be the planetary immune system. We could stop
the big rocks. We could colonize other worlds. We could act with common
purpose. I think it strikes a universal chord. But he must have
misunderstood. I know I did.