Reading the comments on this pinkbike page: https://m.pinkbike.com/news/6d-x-fusion-carbon-valve-stem-interbike-2017.html got me thinking about why am I concerned about the environment?

From childhood I’ve felt morally obliged to look after the environment in the small ways we do such as recycling, litter picking etc. But (selfishly?) I’ve now got two children suckling from the earth’s teat and have lived a good, meat eating western life I.e. I’ve not really made major sacrifices for environmental sake.

So why give a shit? Buy stuff, reproduce, drive fast. What’s going to happen?

*glitchy*

All good things come to an end.. usually in a blazing fireball like inferno

Ah well I think I’m the more righteous one in that I don’t have any kids. So I should be able to use the resources of my non-existent descendants myself.

Because people are tribal, someone has to make a stand. Others will follow.

Drink driving was socially acceptable before the 70’s.

Social change comes slowly, possibly too slowly for climate change but it is happening.

I wonder what biscuits we have in the cupboard?

Predictions…

18 pages, brexit on the first page but Trump reference and Dear Leader get in first possibly with a mushroom cloud meme. Large amounts of Tory bashing before someone mentions Corbyn being badly dressed and/or a communist.

3 flounces, something left field from chewkw, a warning for someone and no conclusions or agreement reached.

The op will get severely bashed on the way.

A hidden planet is going to slam into earth in a few days and destroy us all anyway.

I’m going to light a tyre fire for a laugh.

The litter thing, I’ve always despised it. Over the course of the last few days Ive been out in the semi-wilds I took pride in leaving no trace, save for the odd tyre track.

I’ve done my bit. I’ve had the snip

Humans are scum

I don’t mind a bashing, but my moral is irrelevant to any politician or political movement.

Killing myself would save some resources but why is it that I even care. Do any other animals manage their worlds beyond the requirements of their selfish needs at the time?

I too have now had the firing pin removed…

Going by the craze for buying pointless crap for bikes on here, zero chance of saving the planet.

#endurosavingtheplanet

A super massive binary black hole system has been discovered.

We are all going to die.

https://m.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/20/closest_supermassive_black_hole_binary/

[/existential crisis]

More seriously

Doing something is better than nothing but I’m sure I could do better. I try to reduce and reuse and I’m big on recycling but my job involves driving a lot and I take the view if someone needs to do that travelling it may as well be me (at least I don’t speed and I like to get good economy!). We tend to buy low energy electronics, boiler etc, our house is well insulated but I’m sure we could do other stuff.

They’re all little differences but the more people do small things the bigger the overall effect. I will not be the one who does not try at all.

Of course if Trump and Dear Leader will cause Armageddon we could all do whatever the hell we like.

Don’t overthink it, just do it. Even if the threat of impending environmental catastrophe turns out not to be true then surely living your life in a way that minimises waste and impact on the environment is just a good way to live?

Do any other animals manage their worlds beyond the requirements of their selfish needs at the time?

Interesting point but I think what’s different about animals vs. humans is that animals have not developed some of “save our own skins at the expense of others” technology.

Look at what happens in third world countries in terms of famine and mortality rates. The lack of funds and technology that results in humans starving to death or dying from illnesses through lack of resource is much closer to what the animal kingdom experiences.

Hopefully I got the sense of that right.

If you enjoy hobbies that need the outdoors, mtb, surfing, skiing etc best to look after them 🙂

Quite simply, be the best you can be. 😀

Whatever your purpose

They’re all little differences but the more people do small things the bigger the overall effect. I will not be the one who does not try at all.

Exactly. That’s what it’s all about. Consumerism is what’s really driving all this, supply and demand, if enough consumers are prepared to be a little bit more prudent and sometimes pay a little bit more for more environmentally friendly products, the problem will resolve in time.

The question is, is there enough time for that social paradigm shift to take place on a global level.

When we have things like things like Trump and Brexit going in totally the opposite way (someone call Bingo!) it’s difficult to see how the humans can progress much further, the relatively affluent ‘West’ is in a perfect position to lead on this and set an example.

Fozzie cares, just look at him..

At present there are 7 Billion people on earth, this number is rising rapidly, if you think there are enough resources to sustain this demand, good luck with that.

Stephen Hawking is heading for Mars, a one way ticket please, i wonder what the trails are like on Olympus Mons, the Tweed valley on steroids!

The great thing about Mars is it helps you work, rest and play.

Bit lacking in atmosphere mind.

There’s still much we can do in agriculture terms but we have got to get to grips with population growth. How we do that’s a mystery to me!

I have quite the nihilistic outlook really. Not happy, or sad. The sun’s gonna engulf the earth at some point. There’s too many people on the earth so breeding more is just selfish and pointless. Let’s just have a massive party and smash the joint up. I’d rather live in some post-apocalyptic Mad Max scene, fighting and fcking and driving awesome cars, than some hand-wringing prius-driving recycling scene. Talking about property and taking photos of your dinner for ever and ever and e v e r . . . .

It will never matter to you. But it’ll **** the poor and oppressed forever.

Btw quickest route to stable population is education and economic enfranchisement for women

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Frightening.

Love and non selfishness.

Doh!doh. ..

Eventually there will be no humans, its just logical, therefore anything we do, say, think is of absolutely no consequence

At all

Always makes me feel better when I remember that

When they first started pushing multiple bins and recycling on people it was estimated only 10% of all waste was general public so barely a drop in the ocean, speaking of which there was an article on the bbc about the largest 16 boats in the world cause more poluution than every car in the world together, this makes it hard for me to get too worked up about it, although in principle I care

^^ this.

Shipping is absolutely horrendously horrendous, then add planes in and then trains and you’d be better off thinking more about those weeds you kill by splattering them with BnQs finest “kill everything now killer stuff” in a squirty can..

Humans are vile, with very limited redeeming qualities.

Creativity and human ingenuity are non-finite resources. There is hope. But the changes will be on a big, structural level, I don’t think separating your rubbish into three different boxes does much in the grand scheme of things.

Well this is a cheery Friday thread. Happy place, happy place

Life is meaningless and we’re all going to die

Lets just datum ourselves for a moment. In terms of killing natural things and causing global environmental devastation there is no more formidable force than mother nature. Before Humans ever lit their first fire there had been multiple mass extinction events that wiped out entire species in one go, massive volcanic activity that spewed out cocktails of toxic gasses and green house gases that caused periods of global warming lasting for millennia and wiped out more species and drove those few who did survive into holes in the ground and cracks under rocks. We can never unleash such devastating power as a Super Volcano, or a meteor the size of Manhattan impacting the Earth. So really in the context of what mother nature has done, and will do again for certain, we humans have barely made a scratch in comparison despite our CO2 emissions, slash and burning and industrial scale manipulation of our environment for our own means. And the beauty is we now understand our impact on the planet and are, slowly but surely (maybe too slowly)changing our ways.

I do my bit…rather than throw things away, I put them on Ebay for 99p and someone else uses them. Which reminds me, next up is the Guinea Pig cage and stuff, following its sad demise!

In terms of killing natural things and causing global environmental devastation there is no more formidable force than mother nature.

We’re heading in the right direction to put ourselves in the same league though: holocene extinction. Estimates extrapolate our extinction score to over 50% of species by 2100. We’re getting up towards 10% already. Most scarily, the rate of extinction that we’re causing is 10 to 100 times higher than any previous mass-extinction level event. Incredibly, we’re worse than a supervolcano or a giant meteorite on that count.

The really idiotic thing, putting the extinction of fluffy critters aside for a moment, is that ultimately if we carry on like this we are the ones who will bite it. Life will bounce back, the planet will recover, it always does eventually. Ultimately, it’s the human race who are going to get it in the neck, and it’ll be our own stupid short-sighted fault. Serves us right.