Benefits of enviromential groups & endless lawsuits?

Question

I am all for keeping America & the world beautiful & healthy but find it a tad frustrating to listen to endless talk & lawsuits sometimes over really silly things just to try to stall this or that mainly in oil drilling but in other things too even in cars or building of buildings & yet people especially the enviromential groups endlessly complaint about high prices & limited resources be it oil or power or again cars or anything else they can paint as evil even cutting trees. Again I'm all for keeping things healthy & beautiful but there has to be some limits after all the cost of the lawsuits do get passed on to us the consumer in higher prices & less supply because it either takes forever or becomes to costly to pursue something. For example oil drilling they complaint about our dependance on foreign oil yet tie up anything oil or energy related in court as long as possible all of which does nothing for adding or solving the supply issue let alone the dependance on foreign oil.

My question again is, is there really any benefit to these so called enviromentialists & their groups other then costing us the consumer more money in so many ways? Lawsuit costs, low supply costs, & other things. I just dont see it. I see responsible drill or whatever but endless lawsuits even over silly things when does it end or become to much....?

Answer 1

no tar on my gulf coast beaches from offshore drilling...that makes it OK by me

Answer 2

AC, then I hope you don't mind $5.00 gas, and huge electric bills, you live by the beach so you probably don't have to worry much about heat.

The whole thing isn't about the environment, it's about power and who has control of it. The environmentalists are about 10% of the population, yet the have the loudest voices in the lobbying circles in congress. There has to be some serious polictical backscratching going on for 10% of the population to get their way 95% of the time.

Edit:
That's great AC, I live in the panhandle and we have to drive alot and can't afford $5.00 gas, btw, we have wind farms up here too, but it hasn't helped the cost of electricity. I wouldn't mind if we went all to ethanol, but California doesn't want to "be at the mercy of the midwestern states".

Back to the question, lawsuits have served a purpose in the past, but recently, lawsuits have been a way for the libs and the environmentalists to get there adjenda through. They can't get it done through the ballot box, so they get it done through the court system. This is what's called legislating from the bench.
People act like oil spills are planned out by the "evil oil companies", get real folks. And what about Alaska? Remember the Alaskan pipeline in the '70s? Environmentalists railed that it would cause the carabou population to plummet, causing the Eskimos to starve. The carabou population has exploded since the pipeline was built, because they go to the pipeline, where it's warmer and mate. How many oil disasters have there been by U.S. companies in the last 20 yrs? one? The only one I remember is the Exxon Valdeze. and guess what, they cleaned it up and the person responsible was prosecuted.
My point is, we have the technologoy now to drill for oil in the frozen tundra,( and btw, ANWAR is not all a pristine wilderness) in safe and ecologically sound ways. I say let them do it. Why not let the people of Alaska decide? It's already been asked of them and they're all for it, and it's in their "back yard". If they don't have a problem with it, why should any of us?

Answer 3

Amen!! The enviros are commie symps left adrift when Russian Communism failed spectacularly. Their agenda is the same as the pinko com symps of the 60's. That is destruction of the Western Democratic freedoms of personal rights and property rights. The enviros feel that humans are a virus on the planet. They have infiltrated the government- hijacked it, by their endless lawsuits over trumped up ESA's, EPA's, Water, air, dirt, etc. They would tear out dams( much like ripping out your own eyeball), they block highway construction(hwy's make it too easy for people to live where they desire), block home construction until 'permits' now cost more than an entire house used to cost, save trees until the developer pays them millions of dollars( then they could care less about the trees), drive industry out of the country, all part and parcel of their grand scheme to destroy the American freedoms and property rights. The enviros want everybody to be like ants, live in ant hives, travel the same places on mass transit, and vote for their idiot Gores, pelosi's, clinton's,. and tax everyone up to their eyeballs.

Answer 4

Lawsuits are the only way to stop someone from causing harm, other than engaging in direct opposition which is usually called "eco-terrorism".

Yes, some lawsuits are frivolous. And some lose. But brining your complaint before the court is the only reasonable alternative.

If we stopped allowing that, then people could break the law at will (no matter how many evironmental protection laws we put into place) and there would be nothing to stop them.

Answer 5

Go outside. Take a deep breath. See the clear sky.

Go to the nearest river, pond, lake. Take your shoes off. Take a dip.

Go to a park. Look at all the birds and animals living there.

Those areas are clean because of lawsuits back at the middle of the last century. Companies weren't willing to reduce/eliminate their wastes. Lawsuits were the only way to get them to stop.

Answer 6

US is one of the countries where more people die before its time due to pollution, much more than in Europe or Japan

Probably, some lawsuits are useless, but probably some saved some people