You don't have to be a tree hugger to appreciate this amazing film

[knothead]

Originally Posted by Siamese

...all that tripe about wealth being concentrated in the hands of 2% of the world's population.

I forgot to address this.

The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.

BBC NEWS | Business | Richest 2% own 'half the wealth'

The richest 2 per cent of adults own more than half the world’s wealth, according to the most comprehensive study of personal assets.

Richest tenth own 85% of world's assets - Times Online

[johnnyandjebus]

For what little it is worth, I am with knothead on this one. Let the moderators decide where it belongs but it is a film you all should consider watching(IMHO) with open minds and the best interests of your grand kids at heart. After all they will be the ones cleaning up our mess and paying off our debts. Hopefully they will be spending more time sailing the oceans and less time cleaning them up.

John

[tdw]

Ok....thus far I'm only 1/3 of the way through the film...it is a work day for me so I keep getting interupted.

As to where this belongs I am seeing enough water to come down on the side of it being relevent to the one common cause we all share....sailing.

Without the oceans, rivers, lakes....we don't sail and surely no one in their right mind doubts that we are doing immense damage to that very thing we floats our boats in.

So.....here's what I'm going to do. If the comments in this thread become more politcial than they already are then this thread will be moved to off topic.

If it is moved then I am going to re post the link, with a thank you note to Knothead for bringing it to our attention, in a locked thread in General Discussion, Sailing Related. Then everyone can go at it hammer and tong in OT should they so desire.

td

[RTB]

Originally Posted by knothead

I want everyone to know that this is all Ralph's fault.
He's the one who turned me onto this film in the first place.

After recently sailing from Florida to Colombia where we saw all kinds of mans trash in the water, I have been doing my best to change some of my ways. It is not easy to change age old habits (I'm 58). But this is where we begin...with ourselves. Anything more you are willing to do is a bonus.

I am trying to get a recycling program started at our marina. We have over 1000 slips, and more are being built today. There are many other marinas this size in the Kemah/Clear Lake/Galveston area. 50% of what is in our dumpsters is recycleable. That is most likely very conservative, as most of what people leave behind from their boat is going to be plastic, paper products, or cans mostly. These recycleable items are filling the landfills. Why is that? Don't you think it makes more sense to recycle it, rather than bury it in our earth?

Keep in mind that we as cruisers/racers/liveaboards/daysailors certainly need to do our part while on the water, but most of what we see out there comes from the land. How can one not see that what we do on land has a direct impact on our oceans? How can we ignore our own ignorance about what we are doing to our planet?

Surely, you "get it". So do something. PLEASE.

PS-thanks td. They work you hard over here, huh?

Ralph

[tdw]

We've already received one complaint in regard to this so I'm going ahead as per my previous post.

When all the mods are on duty we'll have a chat about this and decide if the locked thread stays or if we simply leave it in OT.

Personally I believe this is a fabulous bit of film and that it does have relevence but as has been noted in the complaint, the thread is already drifting and it will end up turning into a bunfight.

[RTB]

THIS IS OFF TOPIC? You're kidding, right?

Ok, I'm cool. Anyone that sees this film as political, or off topic, doesn't sail!

Ralph

[PalmettoSailor]

Originally Posted by DwayneSpeer

I don't believe I said anything about not wanting people to watch the video. What I said is I don't believe that we humans have that much of an impact on the earth as a whole. Nature itself is amazingly flexible and has come thru events that we humans couldn't have come close to short of an all out nuclear war. Look at the huge crater in New Mexico. Look at the results of the several ice ages we have gone thru.

The recent oil spill in the Gulf was bad but mostly from an economic standpoint, not an environmental one. A year from now you will be hard pressed to find any environmental affects that are current and a year is but an extremely short period to the earth.

I did say that we could make conditions uncomfortable for ourselves if we didn't do anything to stop or limit what we do to our environment. But I don't believe we, as humans, can destroy the earth.

And by the way, what does this all have to do with sailing?

Man you must really have your head in the sand. You can find oil from the Exxon Valdez an inch below the surface of the beaches where it washed up even today. I'll tell you now it will be decades before we know the impact of Deep Water Horizon. You are almost certainly correct that things will seem normal in a year of two but the long term effects of living in the affected area and for the rest of us eating seafood exposed to all that oil and toxins will not show up for years and when they do, there will be plenty of people like you that deny there could be a cause and effect relationship.

Nature is resilient and you are likely correct that mankind isn't capable of destroying the planet, but I have little doubt that we as a species are capable of making it bad enough that human kind could not survive. Our species has a very narrow range in which we can survive. A little hotter or colder for example and man goes the way of the dinosaur, yet life goes on for more resilient species and temperature is only one factor we may be be influencing.

Its a fact that mankind will reach zero population growth, Possibly even in our our lifetime. That is how nature works. Populations grow to the point resources can no longer sustain them, then they shrink. Destroying resources by polluting them hasten's this inevitable process.

[tdw]

OffTopic was always going to be the best place for the discussion. We all know it is going to get way too heated for it to survive in the General Interest forums.

This way we can beat ourselves to death as per usual, blood will flow, angst will be the order of the day, all will be well.

[RTB]

That is the SN way?

Personally, I think the message is lost and means little in OT. Shedding blood over this movie gains us nothing.

Happy sailing everyone.

Ralph

[tdw]

Originally Posted by RTB

That is the SN way?

Personally, I think the message is lost and means little in OT. Shedding blood over this movie gains us nothing.

Happy sailing everyone.

Ralph

Ah come on . You know that the discussion was going to run off the tracks. Once that occurs, there is a very real possibility that the whole thread gets flicked.

To my mind, as a token bleeding heart liberal commie bastard, this movie is important. The more people who see it , the better.

The movie link sits in the Sailing Forum where it was before, anyone and everyone can link to it. There is even a link to the movie home page (a home home page if you like ) and a link to this thread for discussion.

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/genera...gger-film.html

Shedding blood ? Hey..it's only virtual blood after all.....but the angst, whoa...now that is very real !!