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We Killed the Pacific Ocean

13K views 116 replies 38 participants last post by  theonecalledtom 
#1 ·
#5 ·
It isn't just the Pacific, it's all the Oceans, Gulfs, Bays, and waterways around the world.
If you want proof just go to your nearest local water, see it for yourself!
Mankind, in his 'infinite' wisdom has turned almost all the water in the world into a planet wide garbage dump!
But not to worry, mother nature is bigger than man. She is going to throw it back in our face and just like just as she eradicates species that just don't work in her balance of the nature, man will either evolve or she will eradicate us, buried in our own waste.
 
#6 ·
Obviously, the sailor had little or no experience with the commercial fishing industry practices. By catch, or what I refer to as bykill, has always been ramped. In the commercial shrimp industry, particular in North Carolina and the Gulf of Mexico, the bykill ratio is about 100 to 1. Yep, for every pound of shimp, there is about 100 pounds of other species that are killed.

Same holds true for long-liners and trawlers, but the ratio is not nearly as high. It's right up there, and there is nothing that is done with the bykill other than it's tossed overboard. I've seen 20-acre rafts of dead fish behind shrimp boats as their catch is sorted on the deck of the shrimp boat in the morning sun after a night of dragging nets. As the bykill is tossed overboard, various species of gamefish, barracuda, shark, jacks, blackfin tuna, and even dolphin can be seen ripping through the floating carnage.



Gary
 
#8 · (Edited)
I had a similar experience sailing south from Newport twice and north to Charleston from PR in 2010 and 2011.
These are waters I have sailed at least 40 times on deliveries, north and south (US to/from the Caribbean) between 1979 and 1992, catching fish almost daily.
Results;
2010 south; 2 dolphin both under 16 pounds.
2010 north; 1 bluefin tuna 16 pounds.
2011 south; 2 dolphin both under 12 pounds.
Average trip between 1979 and 1992; 6 or 7 dolphin to 35 pounds plus several tuna up to 30 pounds.
This is the same exact fishing line and same exact lures I used for 25 years, hooking fish whenever we put it in the water.
Also interesting to note; very few flying fish, dolphins, other sea life or birds on all three trips, certainly much, much less than before, even in the Gulfstream.
 
#9 · (Edited)
sailing south from Newport twice and north to Charleston from PR in 2010 and 2011....
very few flying fish, dolphins, other sea life or birds on all three trips, certainly much, much less than before, even in the Gulfstream.
Thats because they LOVE me! Not you!!!

Last year off Norfolk, Virginia, I saw some of the BEST flocks of the lil grey buggers that I've seen anywhere in the world!!!!

here's a couple of photos of the USA ones :)





These pics are a bit big so take a moment to load... but its worth it because the look HAPPY to me!!!!!!!!!!! :D:D:D
 
#10 ·
Mark o sea life,
Just because you see a few dolphins off the east coast means nothing. I sail in waters north of Hawaii and have yet to see Japanese floatsum in the water, and I see dolphins and whales at times. That also means nothing. the Pacific as well as all oceans and waterways around the world are being and have been destroyed. Due to population growth and the demand for marine products from a growing and prosperous asian population, the rate of destruction of the oceans and the Pacific in particular has accelerated at a pace not seen before.

The oceans are being destroyed not only by overfishing and destructive fishing, but also by plastics.
 
#100 ·
Mark o sea life,
Just because you see a few dolphins off the east coast means nothing. I sail in waters north of Hawaii and have yet to see Japanese floatsum in the water, and I see dolphins and whales at times. That also means nothing. the Pacific as well as all oceans and waterways around the world are being and have been destroyed. Due to population growth and the demand for marine products from a growing and prosperous asian population, the rate of destruction of the oceans and the Pacific in particular has accelerated at a pace not seen before.

The oceans are being destroyed not only by overfishing and destructive fishing, but also by plastics.
Casey,
You are absolutely correct. However, if you get off the beaten track, which cruising affords, then you will still see the Ocean is still rich in sea life...it may not last. so get out here while you can!
 
#14 ·
Its very troubling and yet nothing will be done since only developed nations care enough to attempt anything which is usually half hearted at best.
also you all missed a huge destructive factor - run off from fertilizers.. huge swaths of waters made devoid of life bc of run off from farm lands.
 
#15 ·
Call me a tree hugger I don't care, I know what I have seen; but in calling me a tree hugger you will now get a tree hugger's rant!
I have lived longer than most of you reading these posts and probably seen more of this world than most of you have ever dreamed of. I have climbed mountains on six continents, walked in jungles that few white men have even seen, sat in long houses with elders in villages surrounded with palacades with human heads atop of them. I have fought in two wars and know the total stupidity of it.
I have also seen miles of dead or dying coral reefs, square miles of clear cut jungle leaving of top soil less than an inch deep bare to erosion. I have seen small mountains of trash brought from rich civilized countries to poor 'backward' nations so their people can pick through so maybe they can find enough salvage to buy enough food to do it again the next day. Go thru a few back issues of National Geographic for pictures.
I have been on rivers in this country where there are posted signs warning people not to eat the fish caught in the river because of polution, walked beaches in this country with signs posted warning that the ocean water was unsafe for swiming because of polution. I know of cities that have directly dumped street runoff and even sewer water directly into streams, rivers and bays. You know, "out of sight, out of mind" and its now somebody else's problem. We have allowed factories and farms to allow chemicals and chemical products to runoff into waterways unchecked and unregulated and mostly ignored. That is in this country! Watch the nightly news.
This country and most of the rest of the civilized, high tech, wealthy nations seem to be of the opinion that the oceans of the world are so big that we can continue to dump all our garbage into them and they will never fill up.
Well guess what, we ARE killing the oceans, changing the climate, and are well on our way to eliminating human and most of the rest of life on this planet. This isn't empty prophetcy, it's visible, measurable fact. It maybe filler stories in the news but the facts are out there. Scientist have measured and remeasured, checked and verified these facts: Rising average tempatures, rising water tempatures in oceans, changing ocean curents, rising water levels, chemical values of ocean water, chemical values of the air. Sure they are small changes so far but it is like a snowball rolling down a hill, it keeps geting bigger and bigger.
Not only are we killing the oceans, we are killing the life in the oceans. Not just the overfishing and poor fishing practices but changing the tempature of the ocean causes fish to migrate to different waters that maynot be able to support them. Chemical changes in the water can and does kill the micro life the fish live off of. And to rub salt in the wound, that micro life we are killing is a major supplier of the Oxygen for the earth.
Go down to the fishing docks and ask the commercial fishermen, Have their fishing areas moved, are their catches the same as they were several years ago, are they seeing more fish that aren't normally seen in their catches?
For the first time in the recorded history of man, surface vessels are making regular trips to the North pole, with paying passengers! And people still are questioning gobal warming?
Major oil spills are occuring because of careless and/or stupid actions, they make the news until something flashier or bloodier comes along, then it passes into oblivion. Ask the people along the Alaska coast if its over, or Texas, or Louisiana, or if you like England. How long will the dead zone be in the Gulf? And fracking off the coast of California, that will be interesting, surfing around toxic gas bubbels in acid water. Radioactive water storage tanks leaking on the coast of Japan, well that's on the other side of the Pacific, not our problem or is it?.
No, I'm not all doom and gloom, just a realist. A friend of mine, he's dead now, told me that from space its suprisingly scarry to see just how small the earth is, a blue marble in all that black. That's us, on spaceship earth, a goldielocks planet the scientist call us, not too hot, not too cold, just right; and from what the scientist have so far discovered, a rather unique rock in the universe. And we, mankind, seem to be doing our damnedist to burn down our own home. Hey people, we've got nowhere else to go!
Let's wake-up and put out the fire before its too late.
I DO believe that mankind is smart enough to figure out ways to stop this seemingly mad rush to destory themselves, but we, you call us tree huggers, are lacking the will power of enough people rational enough to see what is happening and join with us and help turn things around. We are not asking you to parade, carry a sign, or even for money. Join us in small ways, Reuse, Renew, Recycle, Report polution, Repair don't throw away, Reduce use, don't waste. All tiny little things done daily and by millions will make a difference.
Yea, I hug trees, and great grandchildern and I want them to see at least some of what I have seen on this wonderful blue marble.
 
#16 ·
The decline of inland, coastal, and open waters is scientifically quantified. How does someone sailing across the ocean actually "see" the decline? The surface is a minute fraction of that ecosystem.

The ecology of the ocean is hard to "see," but go to any major metropolitan port and you can "see" the effects of coastal pollution. If you read early American descriptions of the Chesapeake Bay, it is impossibly sad to understand what it has become. Go to any third world port and it is positively a sewer. Sure there are birds and fish still, but do we deny there is a problem unless they're completely gone.
 
#18 ·
Amazingly enough, most of these problems can be fixed rather quickly if we, as a species, decide it is important enough for us to allocate more money to fighting pollution and over fishing. Sadly, it is not likely to happen because even sailors from developed countries trivialize this very real problem.
 
#22 · (Edited)
FWIW the number and variety of birds and animals have increased in the area I grew up and the water is cleaner. It is possible to turn this stuff around.

On the other hand I had the misfortune of finding myself swimming through a "garbage patch" on a local lake a few years ago while training for a triathlon. This was after a storm. Obviously this isn't just a third world problem. The city has started to divert storm sewers so that they don't run straight into the lakes and rivers and instead goes into holding ponds.

For several years on Earth Day my family along with hundreds of other volunteers would pick up the garbage around nearby lakes and beaches. You feel good about helping to clean things up but at the same time distressed at how much junk ends up back there in just one years time. When I first moved here I couldn't figure out why the concession stands at the beaches wouldn't give out straws (the restaurants that have taken over do now I think). After picking up what seemed like thousands of them, I know why.
 
#19 ·
It looks as if people are beginning to take the issue of over-fishing seriously. Maybe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/business/international/as-eu-subsidies-vote-nears-fishermen-cling-to-way-of-life.html

Even the Union's executive arm, the European Commission, has acknowledged that the subsidies, worth hundreds of millions of euros each year, support a fleet that is two to three times as large as is ecologically or commercially sustainable.

A vote by the European Parliament, set for Wednesday in Strasbourg, France, could determine whether those subsidies continue to support the big-fleet approach or, instead, help pay for changes meant to steer the European Union's saltwater fishing industry toward a more environmentally sound future.
 
#26 ·
I thank all of you who took the time to read my rant. I appoligise for loosing my temper over some who call us 'old hippies'- sorry, I am too old to be called a hippie and was busy in SE asia at the time. Yes, things are being done to combat the problem. Little projects, here and there and big projects, all having their effect. But the problem is huge and we need to do more. So thanking you in advance for your support and aid, now lets get back to work.
 
#29 ·
I think that instead of subsidizing residential communities and large scale farming in the flood zones we could subsidize turning part of these flood plains into well designed stormwater runoff management areas which would absorb the extra nutrients and pollution which is killing aquatic life all the way to the sea. It is already happening using local funds because cities and counties have no choice but to deal with these issues.
 
#31 ·
My family and I do beach clean-ups here in Hawaii routinely. Here are some pics of stuff we find. We filled that dumpster in a few hours with a lot of voulunteers. The large orange thing next to the dumpster is a highway barricade. It is plastic and had Japanese writing on it. Probably from the Japan Tsunami. The truck is full of discarded fishing gear- some huge poly lines in there. Rountinely here in Hawaii humback whales get tangle in this discarded rope. NOAA will attempt to remove from the whales when they can. Last year a just born calf died along the side of its mother after getting tangled in discarded line. Most of the fishing line is from ships operating thousands of miles away.

We also collected thousands of fragments of plastic down to the size of 1/8" x 1/8". This is what happens to plastic- it never really disapears, it just get smaller and smaller. What happens when sea life eats this stuff?
 

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#32 · (Edited)
One thing I do not understand (well I do really understand- its all about making more profit), is why a pepermint patty candy (or many other cadies)has to have a mylar wraper? Or why all the excessive plastic packaging that exist now? Some of this packaging is so strong that you need tools to open the item (like the clear heat sealed clam shell type packaging), and you can end up getting a nasty cut from the sharp edges of the cut packaging.

A lot of this packaging does not get recycled or disposed of properly. It eventually goes to a waterway where it has a life span of hundreds of years.

We really need a world wide regulation on plastics. Either ban plastic packaging or use somthing that will bio-degrade in a short time. Same for other plastics- they need to be biodegradeable.

Back in the hippie era of 60's and 70's we did not have all this plastic, and we all lived a good life, and the oceans and beaches were a lot cleaner. Now plastic is used for everything and discarded everywhere.

Here in Hawaii when the grow pineapple, HDPE plastic tube is layed in the ground to water and fertilize the pineapple. After harvest the plastic tube is cut up by the plough. It eventually winds up in the ocean- just crazy.

We cannot continue to litter the earth with plastic.
 
#33 ·
I would guess the candy keeps better in the mylar wrapper and it's also lightweight.

There's been something of a backlash against the blister packs and I've seen some movement away from it. There's a surprising number of emergency room visits that have resulted from people trying to open them with knives and scissors.
 
#34 ·
I would guess the candy keeps better in the mylar wrapper and it's also lightweight.
I am sure you are right. The question should be does the benefit of having a fresh perpermint patty 1,000 times in a row offset the detriment to the planet? Or could one live with getting a stale pepermint patty 1 time out of a hundred, but with the benefit of not having 500 mylar wrappers blowing around in the wind? Even when someone throws these mylar wrappers in the outdoor trash can, they end up blowing out.

Interesting while everything in our lives is regulated by the government, the materials and method companies package goods is not one of them.
 
#35 ·
I live on a tidal creek here on the Gulf Coast of Texas and the sheer amount of stuff (garbage) that floats up onto just my little bit of land is amazing. Literally garbage bags full every month. After every big rainstorm it's even worse. This stuff is being washed out of town and floats out to the bay with every rain. After Hurricane Ike there was literally tons of stuff washed up onto my property and I'm still finding that stuff back in the woods every winter. People are nasty is what I am learning and there are simply not enough of us who want to reduce, re-use, recycle yet. BUT, things have actually gotten better. My little creek was once filled with oil derricks and the waters ran like chocolate milk. The area has been cleaned up for the most part and wild life has come back. The water is much cleaner but there is still too much trash being thrown down and washed into the water shed but I have hope that as industry has gotten it's act together around here that people will too.
 
#37 ·
People are nasty is what I am learning and there are simply not enough of us who want to reduce, re-use, recycle yet. BUT, things have actually gotten better. My little creek was once filled with oil derricks and the waters ran like chocolate milk. The area has been cleaned up for the most part and wild life has come back. The water is much cleaner but there is still too much trash being thrown down and washed into the water shed but I have hope that as industry has gotten it's act together around here that people will too.
far too true. Living on the southern end of NJ, i can remember days when you could not swim in the ocean when the tide and currents would bring NY's sewerage down the coast, causing fecal counts to climb through the roof. Now it is rare to see a beach closed (and NJ has some high standards on what they consider a clean beach, beleive it or not) and in a lot of cases the once murky green ocean has become quite clear.

Here in the US the problem is no longer big companies polluting. We have largely taken care of that.. it is the everyday folk who keep tossing their garbage wherever they want. I live on a corner lot and constantly find trash in the grass. I also do some offroading into the Pine Barrens the amount of "heavy" trash I find deposited out there is just sickening.
 
#38 ·
When it's all said and done, it's about people - too many of them. And still we spend trillions of dollars finding ways to enhance opportunities to multiply, save infants that ordinarily have no chance of survival or even a normal life, keep people alive long after they should be dead, negating nature's process of thinning out the species. All in the name of humanity. All in the face of an exponentially growing global population.

All the pollution on the planet, be it plastic or CO2 or anything else, is derived as the result of people. Plastic in itself is not a problem - it is the vast quantity of it that has to be produced to satisfy the clamoring masses. This from a website called "Treehugger" (FWIW) "Out of the 50 billion bottles of water being bought in the US each year, 80% end up in a landfill, even though recycling programs exist." (This is not a dig at the US, this is a global phenomenon). So accelerate the population growth - accelerate the pollution. More people, more power stations, more CO2, more plastic.

The planet has only so much it can produce. When we have consumed that, it's all over. Two movies from my youth come to mind - Soylent Green and The Hellstrom Chronicle. When we saw those movies we thought "science fiction" - now they are fast becoming reality. Whilst we can genetically engineer crops to produce more, we can't genetically alter the oceans to produce more fish. We can't genetically alter the people who will continue to rape the resource in search of another dollar. And we can't genetically engineer people who already have no food to stop them from creating another mouth to feed.

Humanity as a species is nothing more than a blip in the life of Planet Earth. We have this arrogance that allows us to believe that we will continue to exist forever and that this planet needs us when we all know that humanity is just another snapshot in Earth's great picture book. The encouraging thing in all of this is that the planet will always survive. Humanity not so much. When we're all long gone, the planet will rehabilitate itself and start afresh. Who knows what it will have as its inhabitants but then again who cares? It just won't be us.

Maybe our collective wisdom will carry through and the next species will be better at preserving their version of the planet than we are/ were.

So to the belief that we can collectively do something to reverse the destructive trend - for each one of us that cares there are 1,000 people who either couldn't give a toss or are unable to. Those are not very positive odds.
 
#39 ·
When it's all said and done, it's about people - too many of them...

So to the belief that we can collectively do something to reverse the destructive trend - for each one of us that cares there are 1,000 people who either couldn't give a toss or are unable to. Those are not very positive odds.
Always get a chuckle out of this argument. Too many people and we need to do something about it. You don't need permission to do something about it. If you feel so strongly about it you have the capacity to make us all proud.

But I suspect your actions despite your vigorous call for urgent action will reflect the title of that old country and western song ..."Everybody wants to go to Heaven; but nobody wants to go now."
 
#40 ·
Our whole economic system is tied to growth (including growth in population) so that is a tough problem to solve.

On the other hand, I think we could cut consumption of bottled water to a small fraction of what it is today even if the population continued to grow and without having any serious consequences on our quality of life.
 
#45 ·
I got news for you MarkofSeaLife. Polution is the cause of Gobal Warming. Air polution by the exstream continued use of fossil fuels can and is changing the chemical make up of the air we breath; seen pictures out of major Chinesse cities on the TV new lately. The changing of the chemical make up of the air is allowing more radiation through to heat the earth and oceans. The earth is a huge heat sink that takes billions and billions of BTU's to change even 1 degree in tempature but we have been changeing the air for a hundred years now and now the earth is heating up.
Larger problem, if we don't stop this heating soon the tempature will continue to rise faster and faster. (Thermo class 101) We humans live in a rather narrow tempature range. The things we live on, i.e. food, live in about the same range. When the dural tempatures start exceeding that narrow range continuiously we die, our food dies, get it..
 
#46 ·
Polution is the cause of Gobal Warming.

Global warming or climate change? Gotta keep those terms straight otherwise the rubes will catch onto the fact that the whole issue is a political scam that uses emotion and shaky "science" to prove that Lincoln was right..."you can fool some of the people all of the time".

Air polution by the exstream continued use of fossil fuels can and is changing the chemical make up of the air we breath; seen pictures out of major Chinesse cities on the TV new lately.

The air we breathe is a mixture of gases. CO2 is a trace gas among a host of them that make up a miniscule part of the air we breathe. What you see in the pics of China are mostly colloids that will settle - like dust - a localized problem that can be handled with a local solution. Used to be widespread here...then we stopped manufacturing stuff and passed the Clean Air Act and enforced it and scrubbed most of that stuff out of our air.

The changing of the chemical make up of the air is allowing more radiation through to heat the earth and oceans. Huh? I think you need to revisit this opinion.

Larger problem, if we don't stop this heating soon the tempature will continue to rise faster and faster. (Thermo class 101) Is that the fourth law of thermo? Guess we never studied that one.

We humans live in a rather narrow tempature range. The things we live on, i.e. food, live in about the same range. When the dural tempatures start exceeding that narrow range continuiously we die, our food dies, get it.. Yeah...narrow temperature range. For example folks can only live in the Arctic at 0F or so...and in the deserts of Arabia at 120F or so...real narrow compared to absolute zero or the boiling point. But on the scale of anticipated/modeled changes or observed changes it's like cranking up the thermostat a bit.
Why do people travel to the warmest spots on this blue orb to vacation? There are a few people who enjoy activities requiring snow and ice but - for the most part - we all dream of sailing to tropical or near-tropical places. Must be because warm is bad!!!

Wouldn't it be great if the entire planet had a 365 day growing season? Then we could grow a LOT of the things we live on i.e. food.
 
#47 ·
Jwing and unimacs
It has been proven that we can change, you in your lifetime have seen it. Can we change it more and faster? Yes I belive it can be done. I have a feeling that mother nature is going to give us some assistance and soon. I assume that you have seen the picutres in the new out of China, Much more that level of polution and people will start dying, not just a few but hundreds perhaps thousands. Remember the furrer after the earth quakkes destoryed the schools in China? Think about it, if California had not push through air polution limits LA could be looking like that now too.
You mentioned solar power in Europe kicking our butts, How many wind farms have been built resently? Solar power plants are in the works too. Electric cars are being built and bought as fast as they build them. Major car companies have changed entire production lines to produce more efficent carbon base fuels vehicles and hybrids that are even better.
You are too young to remember WWII but after the shock of Pearl Harbor sunk in This country, good old U.S. of A. turned an entire national econome around in less than two years and became the biggest war materials producer in the world. We invented more, produced more and better than any country or nation in the world had ever seen or know
could be done. It wasn't easy or cheap, we did without a lot to make it happen but we did it.
This situation is like that in many ways. Many people before the war predicted it was coming, but as a whole the nation and its leadership would not listen. The problem is not ours, it's somewhere else, it isn't effecting me and mine,. ignore it, it's been that way for years, what do you expect me to do about it. Sound like 9/11 to you.
Well I see it this way, sooner than we think something major is going to happen and wake this country and the rest of the world up to the fact that something has got to be done. The more people that are doing the little things, proveing that it can be done the better off we will be, and the faster the bigger things will happen.
What are the little things? Some one in these posts mentioned candy wrapers made of mylar, and plastic bubble packaging. What would happen is several hundred people simply wrote a letter to the company stating I like your product but I will not buy it because it is packaged in a non biodegradable wrapper. Believe me, it will get some attention. If and they probably will send back a letter telling you that their packaging is that way to keep it fresher longer or something to that effect simply tell them that's all well and good but I will eat it in less that a week and a biodegradable wrapper will keep it fresh for a week but the mylar wrapper is still be here a hundred years from now, or something to that effect.
Remember these companies are in bissness to sell their products. They are constantly taking surveys to modify as necessary their product to meet the wants, likes, demands of the customers. Unsolisited comments have a big impact, more than 10 to 1, of company spondsered surveys, a few hundred letters bout the same thing is the equivilant of thousands.
Want another little thing. Not to long ago it was announced that standard incondesant light bluds were being phased out of production because small flurecent bulbs could be
produced that used markedly less power and lasted longer. (Everybody cheer) But they didn't bother to make a big deal out of the fact that these bulbs contain mercury and should not be put into the trash but should be safely, properly desposed of. OK, aaah where? The store that sold them didn't want them back, they didn't know what to do with them. City, county dumps would not take them, though they did for awhile before somebody informed them that they contained mercury and they were contaminating run off into streams, rivers, lakes and ground waters. Hey, thats our drinking water.
Well letters to city and county government asking to provide us with a place to dispose of these light blubs and you find a desposal or recycling center, its part of your job or we will replace you with some one who will. Polite, simple, little things done by many will and can make a difference.
Do the little things now and the bigger things will happen
 
#49 ·
What are the little things? Some one in these posts mentioned candy wrapers made of mylar, and plastic bubble packaging. What would happen is several hundred people simply wrote a letter to the company stating I like your product but I will not buy it because it is packaged in a non biodegradable wrapper. Believe me, it will get some attention. If and they probably will send back a letter telling you that their packaging is that way to keep it fresher longer or something to that effect simply tell them that's all well and good but I will eat it in less that a week and a biodegradable wrapper will keep it fresh for a week but the mylar wrapper is still be here a hundred years from now, or something to that effect.
It was not that long ago that the Peppermint Pattie and the Hersey's chocolate bar were sold in paper and foil packaging. I don;t remember getting any more or any less fresh tasting candybars back then. Heck, the Hersey's minutures are -still- wrapped in paper foil.

You are right about automobiles too, in my lifetime they started mandating seatbelts in the cars (took a law to make us actually use them) and people always said that "safety doesn't sell".. well, now you could not sell a car without 2 dozen airbags and a 5 star crash rating.

Same with Fuel economy. The days of gas guzzling V8s is about done. Not when Smaller engines can make similar amounts of power and still get good miliage. Even those few cars that still come with big V8s are getting better and better economy as the years go by.

In many cases it was done through economics. People did not start taking fuel efficent cars seriously (who wants to drive a Hyundai Excel again?) until gas hit 5 dollars a gallon. Suddenly mid-sized cars are getting 40mpg. (makes you think the potential had always been there).

We -can- save the earth.. many people want to, but to get everyone on board, you have to make it economically feasable (ie, an incentive) to do so.

Take trash for instance. My trash pickup is once a week in a HUGE can. I can throw anything in there that is not hazardous as long as the full can does not weigh more than 300 pounds. It is all taken out of my taxes and I have the same bill wether I throw out thousands of pounds worth of stuff of almost none at all.

What if we started weighing the garbage? You pay by what you throw out.. but recycling is free.... it does not need to be government mandated, it can be done through Waste Management (who picks up my trash) as a way to cut their own costs.
 
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