Why driving a Prius is really not enough

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SeniorDad @ Aug 31 2007, 03:26 PM) [snapback]505144[/snapback]</div>

Huge cars aren't safer... esp SUVs. Well designed cars are safer.

SSimon, I agree. This isn't a binary thing. I've stared choosing poultry over beef/pork when I go out for lunch (which is everyday). It's not a radical change, but given the differences in efficiency it's a good choice.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Aug 31 2007, 05:35 PM) [snapback]505171[/snapback]</div>

Some huge, well designed cars are safer.

f=ma hasn't been canceled yet, in spite of our good intentions.

 

This has been stated before, but deserves to be recapped. (what a great thread to waste two hours reading! :lol: )

If you want to help the world balance:

1. Eat less meat. I haven't heard anyone on here dispute the claims that meat production takes more resources than grain/veggies. If you can give it up all together, great. If not, cut back. For an adult, it is perfectly healthy and not hard. For kids, it might take more effort.

2. Eat local and/or organic. Again, do what you can. It cuts down on transportation energy and chemicals.

3. Drive less and with more energy efficiency.

4. Have fewer kids. If we can get the population under control, our resources might actually sustain us.

5. Fight for education. Educated people have fewer children in general and make better decisions for the future (environment, government, etc.)

6. Stop playing the all-or-nothing game. If we really want to have a global impact, then we need EVERYONE, red, blue, lib, con, vegan, beefie, hummer, prius, christian, muslim, athiest to try to make changes. Don't belittle someone else's choices. Learn from them and try what you can to help. Make one change at a time. Do what works for you. If you can look in the mirror at the end of the day and say "I did what I could for our children", great. If not, try a little harder tomorrow. But don't give up, and when you make a bad decision, don't beat yourself up about it. If these things were easy, we'd have our problems licked by now (mmm...tasty).

 

what the world needs is more ice cream and light social banter

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Shnepplehead @ Aug 31 2007, 11:35 PM) [snapback]505290[/snapback]</div>

ICE CREAM! THAT'S DAIRY!!! Try some iced soy treats instead.

j/k

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Shnepplehead @ Aug 31 2007, 11:35 PM) [snapback]505290[/snapback]</div>

Vegan ice cream, of course.

Well....I'll admit that one may be pushing it a bit.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tyrin @ Aug 31 2007, 09:10 PM) [snapback]505279[/snapback]</div>

Hmm. I believe I see a problem here.

Educated people have fewer children, and they also suggest to other educated people to have fewer children in order to reduce the population. In the meantime, the uneducated people are having more children.

I don't think this ends well.

 

I looked at the teeth of a horse and I looked at the teeth of my dog then I looked to see which my teeth looked most like and found that my teeth are somewhere in the middle so it appears I have evolved to eat both meat and veg. Most livestock in Australia eat grass not grain so I'm not contributing as much as grain fed meat eaters.
Feel free to be a vegetarian on my behalf.

isn't that a line from a song? Only the stupid people are breeding. Governments are encouraging this with baby bonuses and this is supported by people who object to immigration.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(patsparks @ Sep 1 2007, 05:08 AM) [snapback]505348[/snapback]</div>

I agree. Can I buy a Vegetarian Offset or perhaps a more expensive and perhaps more exclusive Vegan Offset? I think I'd like my offseter to live in some far away tropical location and send me a postcard every once in a while. I can show the post card to my friends and family so they understand how I am contributing to save the world. :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(madler @ Sep 1 2007, 01:17 AM) [snapback]505330[/snapback]</div>

It does if our society helps educate the children of the uneducated. In time, the overall education level rises, and the population declines. It's already happening in Europe, and here as well (US), although we still have a net growth due to immigration and those pockets of society where the education has failed so far.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(patsparks @ Sep 1 2007, 04:08 AM) [snapback]505348[/snapback]</div>

You're confusing stupidity with lack of education. These are not the same thing at all. Education leads to better living and smaller families regardless of inherent intelligence. Do you know people with big families? Would you really call them stupid?

 

manufactured meats are environmentally harmful and can be a health hazard as well ( we currently have a major e coli issue in the Pacific Northwest).

grass fed beef on well managed pasture lands helps to reverse the damage raising cattle causes. if you have not read "The Onmivore's Dilimna" do so... it is fascinating reading and an eye-opening experience.

we have eaten nothing but grass fed beef for over 6 months now. it is tastier, lower in cholesterol, it completely eliminates the possibility of mad cow disease and reduces the e coli threat by over 99 %

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tyrin @ Sep 1 2007, 06:49 AM) [snapback]505389[/snapback]</div>

That's great if being educated and inherent intelligence are orthogonal and completely uncorrelated. However if they are correlated at all (I leave it to the reader to come to their own conclusion), then higher breeding rates among the uneducated and lower breeding rates among the educated can only reduce overall intelligence. We have a situation where knowledge makes you less fit.

Maybe this sets a cap on human intelligence. The smarter you are, the less need you have to breed.

Perhaps that cap makes us on average just smart enough to mess things up, but not quite smart enough to fix it ...

 

Humanity is very clever, and resourceful, and innovative. But intelligent? I think the jury's still out on that one.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(madler @ Sep 1 2007, 12:35 PM) [snapback]505466[/snapback]</div>

I'm not sure how they could be related. Education is training. Completely environmental. Inherent intelligence, is, like it says, inherent, or genetic. There might be some correlation right NOW between intelligence and education, but my point is that we can change this with directed education (we don't do too well right now). So, yes, your scenario could happen, theoretically, but it's more likely that as less educated people reproduce, we have a less educated populace, not less intelligent. Still, this is definitely a problem.

Since we can't accurately measure genetic predisposition for intelligence, we can't see your scenario as it happens, and would we really want to combat it if we could? Imagine the society deciding that you are not intelligent enough and making you sterile. It's happened before, and it's not pretty.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tyrin @ Sep 1 2007, 01:49 PM) [snapback]505527[/snapback]</div>

You didn't say education. You said educated: "educated people have fewer children". Someone exposed to education is not necessarily educated. Whether they get educated is, I maintain, correlated to intelligence.

My concern is the opposite: that, as you have pointed out, the educated people are self-sterilizing. It seems to me that that results in a bad trend.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(madler @ Sep 1 2007, 07:34 PM) [snapback]505582[/snapback]</div>

Education results in being educated. It's not an all-or-nothing situation, just like the veganism. I don't disagree that there will still be a discrepancy in intelligence, but having less children is a result of wanting a better lifestyle for you and your children, and realizing how to achieve it. I don't think this requires rocket-science level intelligence. I can't find a specific source online, but type "how education effects birth rate" into google and there are a lot of references that suggest that, yes, increased education (not measuring the result of the education, but the fact that it is offered) decreases the birth rate.

Interestingly, if you look under fertility rate on Wikipedia, it seems to suggest that the socio-economic status is more important than the education, although I'm not sure how you can really realize one without the other.

So I still think you are saying that the more intelligent are choosing not to reproduce, not those with more wealth and access to education. I'm not disputing that there could be some correlation, only that the overall trend is not likely to have a large impact on human intelligence in the gene pool. I maintain that there are plenty of genetically intelligent people who, for reasons of location, family, lack of education, etc., cannot escape poverty, and continue to have many children until they and their less intelligent neighbors are lifted out of poverty together.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tyrin @ Sep 1 2007, 06:45 PM) [snapback]505609[/snapback]</div>

If only ...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SeniorDad @ Aug 31 2007, 04:09 PM) [snapback]505180[/snapback]</div>

Compared to what? I suggest having a quick look at the Consumer Reports.com website and viewing some of the crash test videos. Some of the safest vehicles were smaller midsized cars (Prius, Lexus, BMW etc)or sub-compacts like the Civic. Then take a look at the 99-2005 Chevy Silverado 1500. That thing is a joke and constitutes a large percentage of the vehicles on the road in my area. I know because until last month I owned one.

So from an ethical standpoint, if car size is not an indicator of it's safety then if you choose to drive a large car you are needlessly wasting fuel and endangering others lives with your extra mass. Arguments can be made for needing more storage capacity or large families etc. but that wasn't the point of this particular argument.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Sep 2 2007, 10:51 AM) [snapback]505856[/snapback]</div>

I think a look at the IIHS study showing increased fatality rates in smaller cars would be more instructive. Of course, you could say that my kids and I being run over by a lifted F-350 Duramax with Squirrel Squasher All-Terrains would give some comfort to the vegan/anti-fascist/anti-breeders (I used to be an anti-breeder, too) amongst us.

The same study also showed that SUV's aren't as deadly as they're being made out to be by the Earthmursters. In fact, for the year covered, 2005, the lowest driver death rate per million miles was in, you guessed it, Very Large SUV's. I would much prefer that people only drive the vehicles they "need." Such as the lady in the Hummer H-something or other taking up two parking spots at TJ's today. But it's their life and their Gas Money.

But we all remember what Mark Twain said about statistics.

But that's not the point here, or maybe it is.

I still maintain that the greatest environmental risk that my children faced today was the five mile drive to Trader Joe's to pick up some more Organic Tofu. (God only knows what's in this stuff) It certainly wasn't the Fish Sticks ala Ketchup they had for lunch.

It's about excess. And excess comes in all forms. Yes, some might even think it's excessive to believe that purchasing $20K+ of nifty Japanese technology will save the World. Or being a vegetarian that consumes too many vegetables.

Have you seen a picture of "Captain" Paul Watson? He sure looks like he could do with less kcal intake. Being lectured by a Fat Vegan on Morality and diet is similar to being lectured on Morality and Sexual Hygiene by a certain Republican Idaho Senator.

That's the difference between me and someone who views "Nature" as this benign thing that "Man" can destroy. As surely as God made me and Ebola, we ain't destroying nothin'. Maybe, the nicer I am to my environment, the nicer it will be to me, but I'm not counting on it.

As the saying goes, our arms are way too short to be boxing with God.