Guardians or Looters?

few people i know express any sort of concern about the environment, its not seriously affecting their lifestyles yet , so it doesnt feature in their concerns... So often Ive seen the same thing. Meanwhile I life as best I can in my hill suburb soon to be beach front home

@geeves "few people i know express any sort of concern about the environment" It's almost as if we are not allowed to express any concern. Or at least not in a way that might cause inconvenience. I think most people are aware at some level, but feel silenced. "its not seriously affecting their lifestyles yet " That's may be true to some extent, but it's too easy to be cynical. I think most of us just feel powerless and don't quite know what to do.

the voices of big business are still louder than those of environmentalists. They also have bigger pockets and can produce glossier scientific studies promoting there goal

humans evolved as hunter gatherer nomads. today few people are doing any of those things for survival. but the instincts to do them are still there. instead we travel and shop and build, as much because its instinctive rather than because we have to... if you have the money, you can quickly buy whatever you can afford or borrow to buy. look at the drive to buy, look at the property market and how much money people are willing to borrow to own a house... how many people max out on debt to have the lifestyle they want . there's stories of people turning up in expensive cars to food banks because they can't afford food after they've pair all their mortgages and kids school fees... the priority for an expensive lifestyle has eclipsed the priority to be able to pay for the essentials of survival. friends friend is a policeman, he sees a lot of homes in poor areas. there's little food in the houses but plenty of alcohol, big screen TV and a big car... I"m shocking with tramping gear, i've got far too much for what I really need, but I love having the different gear to choose from..

I do my bit but despair when I hear that there are 1,000,000 new cars EVERY MONTH in China. And on a recent visit to Auckland and north I saw everyone using plastic supermarket bags whereas down here most people don't. Why do we bother doing our bit - it feels as if its too late. At least i probably won't be around when the proverbial hits the fan.

Quick question. How many people here have a full house. A young family. It's easy to reflect and do your thing when you are solo. It's bloody hard with a bunch of kids. I'm not justifying this. But this is the problem. We are getting busier and busier every generation. Lives are so much more complex than they used to be. Most educated western families know about the worlds environmental concerns. They are also aware of the role big brother plays in creating these problems and brainwashing us into taking part. But to be honest after a hard days work then an evening cooking cleaning educating and taking your children to their various activities you are shagged. You just wanna jump in the shower and plonk yourself on the couch and check out tramper.co.nz haha. For instance both boys activities are. Rugby times two. League. Basketball. Guitar. Sevens. Rep rugby. Squash times two. Student rep. Every day of the week bar weds are taken up. Thats a lot of driving around using fossil fuels. But I'm not going to deny them this to walk down to the foreshore to pick up rubbish. I have done a lot of volunteer pest control. I did it for years. Nearly everyone I did it with was retired. Because they had the time and energy to do it. I gave up because I wanted to watch my boys play sport and help coach. The retired actually have a large role to play and many do. It is important to keep fit so when your house flies the coup you have the fitness to make the most of your free time and do your bit to pay back the earth for what it gave your family. I work for a catering company that makes over five thousand units a week. The waste is unbelievable. But for the most part totally unavoidable. It is just not profitable to do every environmentally conscious thing. OSH and modern health and safety practices means that we are unbelievably wasteful. Latex gloves alone get thrown out everytime someone touches their body, leaves the room etc. paper towels are wasted washing hands twenty times a day. Cleaning products, food wastage. Packaging the list is endless. As a family we enjoy tramping. It's good to feel the fresh air in your lungs. The endorphins pumping through a physically pushed body feels fantastic. The sounds of Mother Nature clean the soul. The simplicity of evening life in an nzfs six bunk. It keeps us grounded and reminds us of how simply life can be lived with such soul enriching experiences. But it is as wasteful as anything else. Gas canisters. Food packaging. The extremely expensive and short lived clothes and equipment that is constantly outdated and upgraded. Not to mention the huge carbon footprint of driving sometimes large vehicles for hours to get there and back.

meanwhile the arctic permafrost is melting, releasing massive quantities of methane. not to mention all those cows farting away... methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. http://www.iflscience.com/environment/gateway-underworld-siberia-created-climate-change/

@ Gaiters That's a really thoughtful response. You've nailed just how complex and interrelated this challenge is. Fossil carbon lies at the very heart of our industrial civilisation and worms it's sneaky way into almost everything we do. And I'm no better than anyone else ... so much easier to go with the flow and not look too hard at the implications of what we do. And tramping especially. I mean we all value the NZ hills and mountains enormously. We love getting out into them and for me it's an inseparable part of my identity. As I can tell it is important to you. Yet I find I can no longer ignore the cost that comes with it. And I find that pretty uncomfortable.

perafrost melting is both a result and cause. I have as much idea of the answer as everyone else here

Think global, work local. The stuff you do as an individual doesn't matter much, perhaps. But the fact that you are aware of the problems, talk to others, vote with these issues in mind; all that can make a difference - if enough people join in. The primary issue, imo, is population. With, say, 2 billion people on the planet, resource consumption and it's consequences wouldn't be much of an issue. Currently 7 billion (and probably 11 billion by 2100), this is perhaps 3 times what is sustainable, at a European standard of living. Nothing new about this - Paul Ehrlich published 'The Population Bomb' in 1967. However, it's still rarely a topic of discussion.