Other - Environment

All this rain is really scary and watching the news is unbearable at the moment. This is the sort of thing we see in far away poor countries and not little old britain. I feel so sorry for all the people without their homes.

2007-07-21 10:35:29 · 13 answers · asked by curlywurly 4

I don't want to use the chemicals the cleaners use to care for it. The lining is part wool, I cannot put it in my washing machine.

2007-07-21 09:00:21 · 5 answers · asked by Threeicys 6

2007-07-21 05:35:39 · 12 answers · asked by Haile 2

Or is it just another in a series of lifestyle choices?

A lot of resources are involved in supplying the pet industry. Are there ways we can mitigate the impacts? Or will we need to regulate the number of pets to ensure human needs are met worldwide?

2007-07-21 03:16:37 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous

i was wondering what we are doing with these used tyres..do we just throw them away? or are they being recycle or made into other stuff

2007-07-21 03:15:43 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous

So therse no confusion im Debating and im the negative side.

2007-07-20 22:41:36 · 3 answers · asked by patav2 2

If you think negative of PETA, why? And please supply your answer with facts and a link leading to why you believe the way you do.

2007-07-20 16:38:59 · 16 answers · asked by bfwh218 4

These things reproduce like crazy. Never live in the marsh. You'll lose all your blood without even having to donate it. Do you think it's possible that these flies could double and cause a whole town to flee?

2007-07-20 12:56:53 · 1 answers · asked by confused_girlie007 1

Mine is, "Woah, look at this bug!"

2007-07-20 11:10:58 · 14 answers · asked by matthimself2 2

For me it is Toilet roll and toothpaste.

2007-07-20 10:42:24 · 27 answers · asked by D 7

A couple of minuites ago, i asked what could be making the strange Loud boom noises from under my house? 3 of 7 said it sounded like my house was buried on top of an Indian burial ground. What does that mean? Are the Indians coming alive? What Do they want from me? My friend and i call the noises the Thing. My parents dont know about it because they havent heard it. They have been at work all day and we have been alone at the house! Plezz help as soon as possible!

2007-07-20 07:55:55 · 7 answers · asked by BethakaKaylee 1

what is going on in england this weather is horrible where is our summer and when will it get here!!!!!!!???????

2007-07-20 04:22:50 · 15 answers · asked by Anonymous

2007-07-20 04:02:08 · 11 answers · asked by ? 7

wars..etc?

2007-07-20 02:45:32 · 10 answers · asked by Racy! 3

I remember most summers being wet as a kid in the UK, with the odd really hot year here and there.

So what's all this global warming nonsense about? Nothings changed!

2007-07-19 22:49:25 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous

We moved into this house and after about a week we started noticing roaches. We have bommbed, baited and tried Boric Acid, but nothing seems to work. I am desperate.

2007-07-19 19:45:24 · 11 answers · asked by mommymystic 4

Honest and creative.

http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb317/ElliotTompson/

2007-07-19 13:09:14 · 9 answers · asked by Quincy Jones 1

2007-07-19 06:44:20 · 8 answers · asked by monti 4

I understand many lake communities have regulations. I live in Minnesota and own a small "harbor" that has access to the lake. This harbor has a lot of weeds / vegetation that make it difficult to swim or move the boat around. Also, the wind doesn't move the surface so algae accumulates rather quickly. I've raked, skimmed and pulled but can't seem to make a dent. How do I rid myself of this issue?

2007-07-19 06:11:36 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous

Were American Indians Really Environmentalists?
By Thomas E. Woods
Posted on 7/19/2007
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The traditional story is familiar to American schoolchildren: the American Indians possessed a profound spiritual kinship with nature, and were unusually solicitous of environmental welfare.

According to a popular book published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1991, "Pre-Columbian America was still the First Eden, a pristine natural kingdom. The native people were transparent in the landscape, living as natural elements of the ecosphere. Their world, the New World of Columbus, was a world of barely perceptible human disturbance."

If we are to avert environmental catastrophe, the not-so-subtle lesson goes, we need to recapture this lost Indian wisdom.

As usual, the real story is more complicated, less cartoonish, and a lot more interesting.

In his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, then-Senator Al Gore cited a nineteenth-century speech from Chief Seattle, patriarch of the Duwamish and Suquamish Indians of Puget Sound, as evidence of the Indians' concern for nature. This speech, which speaks of absolutely everything in the natural world, including every last insect and pine needle, as being sacred to Seattle and his people, has been made to bear an unusually heavy share of the burden in depicting the American Indians as the first environmentalists.

The trouble for Gore is that the version of the speech he cites is a fabrication, drawn up in the early 1970s by screenwriter Ted Perry. (Perry, to his credit, has tried without success to let people know that he made up the speech.) Still, it was influential enough to become the basis for Brother Eagle, Sister Sky, a children's book that reached number five on the New York Times bestseller list in 1992.

Earlier versions of the speech, also cited by environmentalists, are suspect for reasons of their own. But experts say that the intention of Chief Seattle is clear enough, and that it wasn't to say that every created thing, sentient and non-sentient, was "holy" to his people, or that all land everywhere had an equal claim upon their affection. "Seattle's speech was made as part of an argument for the right of the Suquamish and Duamish peoples to continue to visit their traditional burial grounds following the sale of that land to white settlers," explains Muhlenburg College's William Abruzzi. "This specific land was sacred to Seattle and his people because his ancestors were buried there, not because land as an abstract concept was sacred to all Indians." Writing in the American Indian Quarterly, Denise Low likewise explains that "the lavish descriptions of nature are secondary" to the purpose of Chief Seattle's argument, and that he was saying only that "land is sacred because of religious ties to ancestors."

Environmentalists who have cultivated the myth of the environmental Indian who left his surroundings in exquisitely pristine condition out of a deeply spiritual devotion to the natural world have done so not out of any particular interest in American Indians, the variations between them, or their real record of interaction with the environment. Instead, the intent is to showcase the environmentalist Indian for propaganda purposes and to use him as a foil against industrial society.

The Indians' real record on the environment was actually mixed, and I give the details in my new book, 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask. Among other things, they engaged in slash-and-burn agriculture, destroyed forests and grasslands, and wiped out entire animal populations (on the assumption that animals felled in a hunt would be reanimated in even larger numbers).

On the other hand, the Indians often succeeded in being good stewards of the environment — but not in the way people generally suppose.

Although we often hear that the Indians knew nothing of private property, their actual views of property varied across time, place, and tribe. When land and game were plentiful, it is not surprising that people exerted little effort in defining and enforcing property rights. But as those things became more scarce, Indians appreciated the value of assigning property rights in (for example) hunting and fishing.

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"The real story is more complicated, less cartoonish, and a lot more interesting."

In other words, the American Indians were human beings who responded to the incentives they faced, not cardboard cutouts to be exploited on behalf of environmentalism or any other political program.

In some tribes, family- and clan-based groups were assigned exclusive areas for hunting, which meant they had a vested interest in not overhunting, and in making sure enough animals remained to reproduce for future years. They likewise had an incentive not to allow people from other families and clans to hunt on their land. In the Pacific Northwest, Indians assigned exclusive fishing rights that yielded a similar kind of stewardship: instead of catching all the salmon, some were left behind with an eye to the future. Whites who later established control over salmon resources unfortunately neglected this important Indian lesson.

Indians have not always recalled that lesson themselves. Consider the Arapahos and Shoshones on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation, who in recent years (and with the help of all-terrain vehicles and high-powered rifles) have all but wiped out entire animal populations. Whatever happened to their spiritual kinship with nature?

In fact, this is the predictable result when wildlife is said to belong to everyone. There is no incentive to preserve any stocks for the future, since anything you might leave behind will simply be killed by someone else. Without property rights in hunting, there is no way (and no incentive) for anyone to prevent such short-term, predatory behavior. That's why Indian tribes assigned these exclusive rights — it was the best way to preserve animal species and provide for the future.

Say, doesn't this lost Indian wisdom bear repeating?


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Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is a resident scholar at the Mises Institute. He is the author of 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask. His other recent books include The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (a New York Times bestseller) and How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. Send him mail. See his archive. Visit his website. Comment on the blog

2007-07-19 06:01:11 · 8 answers · asked by MIkE ALEGRIA 1

Who are they try to fool? The official report says: "the asbestos in not in the air but in the dust". Alright and what do you think it's in the air? Well dust gets in the air with just a little of wind, so if you do a sampling of the air with no wind and assuming the dust stays on the ground (which doesnt happen) then the air is safe. Fooled again by another "Official Report"? I think the truth is: "ooooops its a mess, and now we have to come up with a story to prevent the panic to spread and people leave NYC". What do you think?

2007-07-19 04:18:02 · 5 answers · asked by Umpalumpa 4

Do you agree that humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity of the environment except to satisfy vital human needs? Please List vital human needs and if you agree or not.

2007-07-18 16:30:01 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous

I'm doing a research on McDonald's packaging.
What are they made of?
Are they recyclable?
Do the produce anything?
Do they allow water vapours?
How do they affect the environment?

2007-07-18 10:03:34 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous

what term would you use to best describe YOUR view of man's relationship to nature? has it changed since you were younger? how have you arrived at this view? (events, influences, insights, etc.) thanks for sharing.

2007-07-18 09:56:58 · 6 answers · asked by patzky99 6

2007-07-18 09:36:09 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous

And why?

2007-07-18 06:53:11 · 12 answers · asked by nofear_intrepid40 1

metres from any residential property in the country....or would you rather set a limit on the [population/] size that any city can grow to.[and scale back those that have ballooned to an inhuman size and density]

or couldnt you care less if the whole planet is concreted over...as long as YOUR morally grubby little family can afford to live in a nice leafy haven?

2007-07-18 06:51:14 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous

I find 4 leafed ones all the time, but 5 leaves! This is a first. How rare are they, and are they also said to be good luck?

2007-07-18 06:44:24 · 9 answers · asked by thebabysardine 2

I mean, last week it only rained twice - once for 3 days and once for 4 days!

Seriously though, this has got to have been a pretty bad one!

2007-07-18 06:38:22 · 11 answers · asked by nettyone2003 6

This high school teacher (formerly a worker at NASA) claims to have come up with a calculation for how it wastes less gas to have the air conditioning turned on versus rolling down the windows. I told my friend this teacher must be a complete moron, but my friend insists that I should "broaden my horizon." So, do you think this theory is pathetic or not?

UPDATE: I have not seen the calculations, but my friend says the teacher has come up with them. My point is that the theory is pathetic to begin with and therefore the calculation must be flawed too...

2007-07-18 06:24:04 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous