The case for recycling

[DblBarrelJ]

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Yeah, screw that guy. A minimal percentage of death by starvation is perfectly acceptable in glorious Libertopia.

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You think you're shaming me, but you're not. This statement I whole-heartedly agree with. It's called Darwinism.

[Roland32]

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Yeah, screw that guy. A minimal percentage of death by starvation is perfectly acceptable in glorious Libertopia.

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You think you're shaming me, but you're not. This statement I whole-heartedly agree with. It's called Darwinism.

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That would be social-dawinism, different than natural selection.

[pvn]

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Yeah, screw that guy. A minimal percentage of death by starvation is perfectly acceptable in glorious Libertopia.

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Standard.

This is basically the same "logic" that looks at something like the Enron debacle, sees problems caused by *partial* deregulation, and concludes that deregulation is a disaster.

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Its the same logic that should prove, beyond doubt, that statism is evil, since all we need to do is inline a picture of Hitler. I wonder why its less persuasive in that context than in this one?

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Good point, sort of. I post pictures of hitler (in front of the Eiffel Tower) inline when people claim that an ACish geographical area would vulnerable to some wacko conquering.

When I want to use the "here's a picture that shows statism is evil" argument, it's almost always in response to someone saying "AC is bad, just look at somalia." In those cases, I usualy use Kim Jong-Il, or a picture of the North Korean military marching in the capital.

"Statism is bad, just look at North Korea."

[pvn]

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Recycling paper is just stupid from what I can tell.

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It may actually be *bad* for the environment, from a greenhouse gas perspective.

Trees are carbon sinks. But young trees suck up a LOT more carbon than old trees. When trees are harvested, new trees are planted. The carbon in those old trees is then "locked up" in wood products (trees in a forrest can still re-release their carbon if they (e.g.) burn in a forrest fire, while things like houses and furniture don't really burn that frequently). And paper in a landfill is pretty dang locked up - it's got a very low probability of burning and re-releasing it's carbon back into the atmosphere.

When you recycle paper, you're reducing the rate at which trees are cut down and replanted. You're slowing down the carbon sinking process.

[Borodog]

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When people here say that landfilling is "less efficient" than recycling, what they really mean is cheaper. It doesn't account for all of the negative environmental externalities that people here like to pretend don't exist.

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Elaborate. Exactly what "negative environmental landfilling externalities" are you talking about?

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Take plastic recycling. People complaining about "peak oil" aren't exactly wrong: oil is likely to become more scarce over time,

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The price of oil, which is a direct measure of it's real scarcity, has been (more or less) falling in real terms for 160 years. There is nothing on the horizon that remotely looks like it will change this trend.

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which will impact our current auto driven economy. It would be nice to think ahead to that day and try to cut our petroleum consumption.

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The price system does this automatically. If entrepreneurs believe that prices will increase dramatically in the future, they will buy up supplies now, bidding up the current price and forcing conservation by consumers, smoothing out prices in time, extending the availability of supply into the future, and incentivizing substitution and the development of alternatives. All of this information is *already* built into the current price.

There is a current artificial inflation in the price of oil that will probably collapse within the next few years just like prior collapses, driven by peak-oil type hysteria and the huge market uncertainty created by the US's policy of perpetual Middle Eastern war. Government might be able to prevent this collapse in the price of oil, by things like "excess profit" taxes, artificially limiting supplies, etc. This would be gigantically wasteful, of course. Literally wasteful of tremendous amounts of real, physical resources. How this is supposed to be in the name of "conservation" is never quite made clear.

[tame_deuces]

A brief stint in the coastguard made me see firsthand what uncontrolled corporate behavior can do to the ocean in terms of destroying the foundation for one of the most important food sources this planet has, and one which we in all likelyhood must at one time depend heavily on (destroying seabottom ecology, use of bottom trawls, violation of season rules - and trust me these things are _truly_ dramatic and not some greenpeace save the whales nonsense), you must forgive me if I am more than vary of the market's ability to make proper adjustments. I'm sure it can help, but if that experience is an indicator we definitively need something more.

[pvn]

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A brief stint in the coastguard made me see firsthand what uncontrolled corporate behavior can do to the ocean in terms of destroying the foundation for one of the most important food sources this planet has, and one which we in all likelyhood must at one time depend heavily on (destroying seabottom ecology, use of bottom trawls, violation of season rules - and trust me these things are _truly_ dramatic and not some greenpeace save the whales nonsense), you must forgive me if I am more than vary of the market's ability to make proper adjustments. I'm sure it can help, but if that experience is an indicator we definitively need something more.

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Who currently owns the ocean?

[DblBarrelJ]

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A brief stint in the coastguard made me see firsthand what uncontrolled corporate behavior can do to the ocean in terms of destroying the foundation for one of the most important food sources this planet has, and one which we in all likelyhood must at one time depend heavily on (destroying seabottom ecology, use of bottom trawls, violation of season rules - and trust me these things are _truly_ dramatic and not some greenpeace save the whales nonsense), you must forgive me if I am more than vary of the market's ability to make proper adjustments. I'm sure it can help, but if that experience is an indicator we definitively need something more.

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Who currently owns the ocean?

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There in lies the answer, Sir.

No ownership = No one cares.

Ownership immediately creates a responsibility for proper maintenance and care, as no one wants a ruined investment.

[tame_deuces]

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A brief stint in the coastguard made me see firsthand what uncontrolled corporate behavior can do to the ocean in terms of destroying the foundation for one of the most important food sources this planet has, and one which we in all likelyhood must at one time depend heavily on (destroying seabottom ecology, use of bottom trawls, violation of season rules - and trust me these things are _truly_ dramatic and not some greenpeace save the whales nonsense), you must forgive me if I am more than vary of the market's ability to make proper adjustments. I'm sure it can help, but if that experience is an indicator we definitively need something more.

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Who currently owns the ocean?

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If I wasn't clear in my post what I witnessed was violations that had to be stopped by force, and forgive me if I don't for one second believe that if that force wasn't there then things would work out anyway - this clearly isn't so when you look at uncontrolled waters.

This isn't an issue which can be trivialized - when there is no control these things happen - and yes, it can destroy one of the worlds's greatest resources.

[mosdef]

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If I wasn't clear in my post what I witnessed was violations that had to be stopped by force

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Violations of what?