It seems that to many being green or practicing environmentalism is somewhat akin to communist thinking. I would like to think that for America to desire freedom and democracy as the premier political system that economics would have to be the means to keep such a system anything close to orderly, peaceful and or sane. This seems to be a grandfathered in talking point none the less on the right about capitalism and democracy and why the rest of the world should follow our lead in using such.

Well the economy is based primarily on the environment, either current on long term. We can see how disturbances to fossil fuel consumption can have a very high negative toll on many other aggregates of the economy down to the individual family level at the gas pump. So basically its bent on resources. So to me the simple reduction is environmental stability can equate into economic stability.

Giving the reality of how much human life in many cultures becomes intimately tied to technology or tools for day to day survival or behavior then the big question to me simply becomes one of choice and management. Being at the consumption and technological levels is where large scale environmental damage becomes a serious concern. Though the problem is not so simple as the environment is an interactive composite of various ecosystems that can be rated at such levels of organization from a individual forest to the entire biosphere.

So management does induce such a though of constriction but in reality it may be a natural product much like gravity that you sort of have to live in balance with. I think its easily demonstrated by countless realities the impact negative factors environmentally speaking have on modern human life. Anything from deformed children, higher cancer rates, species extinction to even economic strain and ruin have all been found in conjunction with negative treatment of the overall environment regardless of scope. It would be safe to say if not for whale protection measures whale hunting as an industry would have put itself out of business by pushing various specie of whale into extinction. Also rapid growth trees used in various environments commercially can degrade the soil rapidly enough to leave it largely useless save for large scale, very costly and time intensive conversions to try to repair such soil.

Its even been found that nutrient content or energy available for a majority of soil down in the Amazon cannot support any long term agriculture and really only short term. In that the environment as the Amazon itself over time has become a system of variables tuned to reflect the Amazon itself and support it. The ruination of such for human gain holds only to produce another situation akin to the Nile river. This biotic region produces large scales of drinking water along. Enough to support large populations of people. That is but one of many natural benefits that would go away following its destruction. Not only this but mass extinction of various forms of life and global impact from many angles such as being part of the carbon cycle. Estimated damages such would have economically is far more then most any nation could support financially if any nation could for that matter.

So I would think in reality that environmental understanding relating to proper management and treatment could only be a plus for everyone long term. I could also only see it as something that could support stability. Why should any one nation have to pay the price if another nation destroys itself in terms of the environment? Its along the same moral lines of why should a society bear the burden of its drug addicts and criminals. Ideally responsibility should be handled by that individual, yet just as addiction can ruin that in many cases and lead to large scale phenomena of stress on a societal level the factual reality is environmental ruin can do a lot more damage. So in regards to making again a responsible decision even on a moral level I could only see such as the correct one to make.

So again the real hurdle is getting green behavior to become the normal behavior. Much like driving hybrid cars. The hurdle comes into play by stagnation economically speaking to change to such a place even while the market to buy such products continues to grow. I do think in short term this means governmental involvement and global cooperation. Only to the extent that life stays the same yet our same daily behaviors take place in a green context such as with consumption. You could imagine if every commercial light bulb product used 20% less energy on a national level, to relate this to every product would on its own be an enormous sum of money. Such technology is a reality just like the modern fossil fuel powered stuff. So the same reality economically and lifestyle wise can exist in context of being green.

To couple this back with my original thought I could only see this as being a benefit to global peace and stability. One in which democracy and capitalism could actually function as a means for again the global community to conduct life as they want. it’s the only way resources and trade could survive long term in regards to peace and stability. Otherwise I think you invite wars over issues pertaining to such, down to horrors even of war for drinking water. It may sound far fetched but even the pentagon has planning around such.

So questions for debate.

1) Do you see environmental issues as something that needs global cooperation on down to a civic or local level? Please explain why or why not.

2) Does this level of cooperation on its own detail a certain level of law or enforcement that could actually be accepted by modern nations? How could you see this done?

3) Would environmental protection actually equate into nothing but a benefit in time for capitalism and democracy?

4) What would environmental ruin at the hands of modern behavior actually look like in your opinion, what future and history would that give humanity?

I'd personally agree with you. Greens are socialist communists telling everybody to stop driving cars and start taking trains. Then, while saying that, Al Gore goes off to fly a private jet.

A lot of people have become involved with "going green". I think this is maybe something to kind of get our minds off the war; to do something helpful for the world instead. To me though, this enviornmentalism seems to be similar to a fad. When I was growing up, I would hear about recycling and etc, and that was pretty much the extent of it. Now "saving the world enviornmentally" is the popular thing to do. Even Hollywood stars are strongly backing this up. I guess what I think is that we shouldn't be too worried about it, or soon we'll be to the point of paranoia. I know most of the statistics are true, but we're not all going to die from global warming or anything, although to tell you the truth it's good to see that there are people actually care about our planet.