Environmentalists are liars - Clickbait title; more nuanced perspective.

[Watermelanin]

Let me start by saying that:
No. we aren't losing our honey bees. Honey bees are a managed species. Worrying about them is like worrying about any other livestock; You don't. If something were killing our cows, we'd make more. If something were killing our chickens, we'd make more. If something were killing our pigs, we'd make more. If something is killing our honey bees... I think you get the idea. There might be an argument to make about wild bee colonies, but it turns out that's bullshit too. The bees don't need saving. There are health problems that should be addressed though (such as the varroa destructor mite). None of these have anything to due with pesticides though and solving these problems wouldn't "save the bees." It would just make things a bit more convenient for bee keepers.
Also, no. Animal agriculture isn't really harming the environment all that much. In fact, animals are a great way of converting land that would not normally be suitable for food production into land that is. Plains and prairies can pretty much only support grass and grain. We can eat grains, but not nearly as much of those grain-bearing plants as many animals can. Livestock basically act as tools by which we convert cellulose (which we cannot digest) into meat (which we can). It can actually be argued that it's MORE environmentally friendly to incorporate livestock into farming practices than eliminating it.

That being said: Fuck you; man made climate change is real, the coral reefs really are dying, and we are in the midst of a global mass-extinction event. You don't need to lie or misrepresent data to get the point across that many things we are doing are harmful to the global ecosystem.

 

[BingBong]

depends on the environmentalist.
would you say the same to uncle ted?

 

[Watermelanin]

depends on the environmentalist.
would you say the same to uncle ted?

I took the piss out of the fact that the title is clickbait. I'd call myself an environmentalist tbh. I'm just not a retard who believes retarded things about us losing our honey bees or veganism being good for the environment. I'm just a retard who believes retarded things about other things.
Forgive my newfaggotry; but who's uncle Ted?

 

[BingBong]

I took the piss out of the fact that the title is clickbait. I'd call myself an environmentalist tbh. I'm just not a retard who believes retarded things about us losing our honey bees or veganism being good for the environment. I'm just a retard who believes retarded things about other things.
Forgive my newfaggotry; but who's uncle Ted?

ted kaczynski

 

[Watermelanin]

ted kaczynski

Ah, ok. Haven't actually read his manifesto myself. Maybe it's high-time I give it a go.
I tend to shrug off "technology is bad" style environmentalism though. Tech, as far as I can see, is actually improving our ability to sustain our growing population while doing minimal harm to the environment.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

I took the piss out of the fact that the title is clickbait. I'd call myself an environmentalist tbh. I'm just not a retard who believes retarded things about us losing our honey bees or veganism being good for the environment. I'm just a retard who believes retarded things about other things.
Forgive my newfaggotry; but who's uncle Ted?

if this is newfaggotry it is damn funny newfaggotry.

Also, believing in global warming isn't retarded. Believing that it's a problem we have to fix in the next three seconds is. Humans adapt to their environments over time. 10 more degrees farenheit won't render us extinct.

Ah, ok. Haven't actually read his manifesto myself. Maybe it's high-time I give it a go.
I tend to shrug off "technology is bad" style environmentalism though. Tech, as far as I can see, is actually improving our ability to sustain our growing population while doing minimal harm to the environment.

damn son you're actually kinda right.

 

[Watermelanin]

believing in global warming isn't retarded. Believing that it's a problem we have to fix in the next three seconds is.

Agree 100%.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I used to be a climate change denier until fairly recently in my life. But I guess I can chalk that up to having boomer parents who listen to (((Michael Savage))) and the like every single day. What I'm legitimately embarrassed about, though, is that it took a youtuber (potholer54) to tip the scales and convince me to finally abandon my parents' retarded beliefs and kick my belief system closer to reality.
Still: lefties consistently overstate the problem which is almost worse than when the right denies the problem exists at all. Your opposition being retarded and doubling down on retardation is a speed bump. Your allies being retarded and doubling down on retardation can quickly become a dumpster fire.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

I'd say high-profile environmental activists are liars and hypocrites.

Little Greta with her carbon fiber sailboat which has a lower-than-average footprint when operating, but manufacturing it had a much-higher-than usual footprint, not to mention having to fly back the whole crew to Europe, Leonardo di Caprio using his private jet to travel practically anywhere, activist types driving full-size SUVs (not the comparatively tiny European or Japanese ones) and buying new overdesigned, overpriced, and underengineered Apple gadgets every model cycle because they're plagued by design flaws and are practically obsolete by the time of their release, etc.

They're using sensationalist language to describe very nuanced things and inflammatory language to browbeat John Q. Public to dance to their tune. These, coupled with their blatant hypocrisy, makes them actually harmful to the movement. Great opportunity for every sceptic to ask "well dear activist, you told us the ice caps would melt by 2000 and now we're in 2020 why should I believe you this time?"

Edit: missed a zero. Sorry.

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

@Watermelanin The issue with livestock farming is more about how it takes significantly more land per kilo to produce animal protein than it does vegetable protein and therefore massive chunks of the Rainforest are being removed to produce cheap, fat beef cows to satisfy an insatiable demand for meat worldwide. That habitat loss is driving a number of extinctions as well as having a detrimental affect on the environment as a whole. The meat issue isn't about the fact that meat farming is destructive per-se, but doing it on an industrial scale certainly is. People need to stop eating their body weight in beef and pork every week, have a salad fat cunts. As for honeybees, you're kind of right, in that managed honeybees aren't hugely at risk BUT in terms of general pollinator loss, we dun goofed. Where I live is in a sheltered little valley with farmland on either side. My property is protected by a disused railway embankment on one side and a forest on the other. We experience no over spray from fields or liquid runoff. The pasture land has been traditionally managed since managed pasture was a thing. Because of this the square mile on which my tiny little hamlet sits is designated by the UK government as a site of special scientific interest because we have populations of pollinating insects which are otherwise extinct as well as the extremely rare plants that go hand in hand with them. I get entomologists and botanists turning up to my house and asking if they can get through to the woods in the back. I can see with my own eyes the difference these insects make just purely based on the population levels of flowering plants when compared to the neighboring area.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

Animal agriculture is the biggest source of pollution and climate change gases to date. Just to pick out a handful, the references for all of these quotes and additional ones are included here.

COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret

www.cowspiracy.com

Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation.

Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

Cows produce 150 billion gallons of methane per day.

Methane is 25-100 times more destructive than CO2 on a 20 year time frame.

The stats dont lie. However that does mean you can't really be an environmentalist and not be a vegan. Hence I'm not an environmentalist.

If you actually gave a damn, I'm not sure why you wouldn't see this as a call to action. As the Earth warms, it's going to become impossible to farm or find reliable sources of water. And even if you are lucky enough to not be directly affected, if you thought the migrant crisis was bad....

 

[Watermelanin]

Great opportunity for every sceptic to ask "well dear activist, you told us the ice caps would melt by 2000 and now we're in 202 why should I believe you this time?"

I'm going to be that dumb/autistic person to explain to other dumb/autistic people that this is, in no way, a refutation to modern climate science. The vast majority of even the older predictions were pretty accurate for their time. It's only retard activists and politicians that frame this as an urgent issue that needs to be addressed RIGHT FUCKING NOW!
Arguably the best case studies for what will actually happen are found by researching the geologic time scale. The early carboniferous was warm with little glaciation at the poles. It was also full of rain forests and swamps which are the source of our coal today. Plant life sequestering carbon by sinking into the oxygen deprived swamps before decomposing resulted in global cooling which caused the Carboniferous rainforest collapse. (Imagine if we burned millions of years worth of that stuff in the range of hundreds of years...). Then there was the Cretacious, which was full of plant life, but also full of water. There was NO ice at the poles until the K/Pg (or K/T for non-American savages) event which resulted in massive cooling that brought us basically where we are today.
Bottom line: the world certainly wouldn't end if we let climate change go into full swing. It would just be a pain in the ass for us and everything else on Earth.

@Watermelanin The issue with livestock farming is more about how it takes significantly more land per kilo to produce animal protein than it does vegetable protein and therefore massive chunks of the Rainforest are being removed to produce cheap, fat beef cows to satisfy an insatiable demand for meat worldwide. That habitat loss is driving a number of extinctions as well as having a detrimental affect on the environment as a whole.

You missed the point: Land suitable for animal grazing is not the same kind of land which is suitable for other crops. Calorie-per-calorie, yes, using that land just for grain would be better. But the vast majority of the world doesn't have a calorie deficit. They DO have a nutrient deficit though. Meat is MUCH more nutritionally dense than grain. Therefore, meat is better.

Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation.

You might actually want to read my sources. That one in particular explains how that (false) conclusion was came to and why it's dumb and autistic.

 

[ColtWalker1847]

Animal agriculture is the biggest source of pollution and climate change gases to date. Just to pick out a handful, the references for all of these quotes and additional ones are included here.

COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret

www.cowspiracy.com

The stats dont lie. However that does mean you can't really be an environmentalist and not be a vegan. Hence I'm not an environmentalist.

If you actually gave a damn, I'm not sure why you wouldn't see this as a call to action. As the Earth warms, it's going to become impossible to farm or find reliable sources of water. And even if you are lucky enough to not be directly affected, if you thought the migrant crisis was bad....

How are people still not getting this? It is the unlocking of carbon sources buried for millions of years and pumping it into the atmosphere that is the basis for the problem. Not shuffling around the carbon that is already in the cycle.

Livestock are mostly playing with house money here. It is already active in the cycle. We aren't feeding them coal. They graze and/or eat agriculture production byproducts. Consider that without livestock the uneaten plants rotting on the ground would contribute pretty much the same amount of CO2.

 

[Watermelanin]

How are people still not getting this? It is the unlocking of carbon sources buried for millions of years and pumping it into the atmosphere that is the basis for the problem. Not shuffling around the carbon that is already in the cycle.

Livestock are mostly playing with house money here. It is already active in the cycle. We aren't feeding them coal. They graze and/or eat agriculture production byproducts. Consider that without livestock the uneaten plants rotting on the ground would contribute pretty much the same amount of CO2.

For the sake of fairness: methane is more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. And methane is the main byproduct implicated in the negative effects of animal agriculture. Of course, methane is also produced by decomposition of plant matter. But the ratio is different. Tilling a rain forest and replacing it with a cow farm isn't necessarily good for the environment and it certainly isn't net neutral. But advancements in pesticide use (and pesticide resistant crops) have helped us for miles by introducing "no-till" farming. Which is an idea that was once thought unfeasible. Tilling releases a bunch of carbon and getting rid of that step has actually shown to be a VERY environmentally friendly way to farm.
Still, the overall climate would be more stable if we let those rain forests be. Though, of course, they'd just be replaced with corn farms (and arguably at a higher rate) if they couldn't use meat.
I've digressed at this point, though. Methane is worse than CO2 and animals produce more of it than bacteria/fungi/plants.

 

[DumbDude42]

if environmentalists were actually serious about their climate concerns, they'd be the biggest supporters of nuclear power on the planet, because nuclear is literally the only energy source that can actually compete with and even outperform fossil fuels.
however, they are overwhelmingly anti nuclear.

this crass contradiction alone tells you that their goals aren't really about the climate and atmosphere situation. in reality, all that shit is just a flimsy excuse to push anti-industry, anti-western, anti-capitalist, anti-white policies, with the goal of bringing harm and damage to our nations.

 

[ColtWalker1847]

For the sake of fairness: methane is more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. And methane is the main byproduct implicated in the negative effects of animal agriculture. Of course, methane is also produced by decomposition of plant matter. But the ratio is different. Tilling a rain forest and replacing it with a cow farm isn't necessarily good for the environment and it certainly isn't net neutral. But advancements in pesticide use (and pesticide resistant crops) have helped us for miles by introducing "no-till" farming. Which is an idea that was once thought unfeasible. Tilling releases a bunch of carbon and getting rid of that step has actually shown to be a VERY environmentally friendly way to farm.
Still, the overall climate would be more stable if we let those rain forests be. Though, of course, they'd just be replaced with corn farms (and arguably at a higher rate) if they couldn't use meat.
I've digressed at this point, though. Methane is worse than CO2 and animals produce more of it than bacteria/fungi/plants.

Methane is a short term problem. It degrades away. Active carbon isn't a long term issue. If it was we would be shitting ourselves over rotting vegetation on the ocean floor which produces methane in quantities that dwarf all the animals on land.

Also, the rainforest thing is Brazil specific. It is not representative of how most meat is produced. A propaganda red herring.

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

Conservation biologist here: Can confirm.

"Environmentalists" always pick the most anthropocentric issues (climate change) and always shrug off some of the more pressing ecological concerns (invasive species). They always talk a big game about how much they love all the nature and wildlife then when push comes to shove their priorities are always muh coastal communities (even better when they find a way to make it about race) and muh resource depletion, rarely ever is it actual ecological health and preservation of biodiversity. Even worse, some of them get their ego and their fee-fees so wound up they end up being just as destructive as the forces they claim to oppose (animal rights activists are known to cock-block lethal invasive management when they can).

Feel free to rate me MATI but "environmentalists" are just hippy socialists who want to use the environment as an excuse for anti-capitalist shit and don't actually care about ecosystem health.

if environmentalists were actually serious about their climate concerns, they'd be the biggest supporters of nuclear power on the planet, because nuclear is literally the only energy source that can actually compete with and even outperform fossil fuels.
however, they are overwhelmingly anti nuclear.

this crass contradiction alone tells you that their goals aren't really about the climate and atmosphere situation. in reality, all that shit is just a flimsy excuse to push anti-industry, anti-western, anti-capitalist, anti-white policies, with the goal of bringing harm and damage to our nations.

Basically this.

Its telling when you get articles like "okay sure maybe nuclear might solve the carbon crisis, but it doesn't dismantle white supremacy so we need a different plan".

 

[The Sauce Boss]

if environmentalists were actually serious about their climate concerns, they'd be the biggest supporters of nuclear power on the planet, because nuclear is literally the only energy source that can actually compete with and even outperform fossil fuels.
however, they are overwhelmingly anti nuclear.

this crass contradiction alone tells you that their goals aren't really about the climate and atmosphere situation. in reality, all that shit is just a flimsy excuse to push anti-industry, anti-western, anti-capitalist, anti-white policies, with the goal of bringing harm and damage to our nations.

Nuclear power is so much safer than people give it credit for. The only reason we've had accidents to the extents that we do is because it's still a young science. The problem is that governments and society as a whole doesn't want to invest in it, despite the fact that we have physical data proof that it's one of the most efficient, environmentally-friendly forms of power generation, if managed correctly.

 

[DumbDude42]

Nuclear power is so much safer than people give it credit for. The only reason we've had accidents to the extents that we do is because it's still a young science. The problem is that governments and society as a whole doesn't want to invest in it, despite the fact that we have physical data proof that it's one of the most efficient, environmentally-friendly forms of power generation, if managed correctly.

it's also very profitable. initial capital costs for constructing the plants are high, but once it's up the energy production cost is extremely low, much lower than any other type of power plant (except hydro maybe but that doesn't scale up very well), and after a few years of operation this more than makes up for the large initial investment.

the reason people don't want to invest in it is because you really do NOT want to make that huge initial investment when politicians could just push the "fuck nuclear lol shut it down" button at any point (like they did in germany after fukushima) - because if that happens you'll be losing billions of dollars.

from the safety angle, modern nuclear plants are pretty much completely harmless. TMI was basically the absolute worst case scenario, with multiple things going wrong all at once, but the containment buildings we have nowadays are so strong that the effects on the environment were completely negligible, even though they had a literal core meltdown (the worst possible thing that can possibly happen to that type of reactor)

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

if environmentalists were actually serious about their climate concerns, they'd be the biggest supporters of nuclear power on the planet, because nuclear is literally the only energy source that can actually compete with and even outperform fossil fuels.
however, they are overwhelmingly anti nuclear.

this crass contradiction alone tells you that their goals aren't really about the climate and atmosphere situation. in reality, all that shit is just a flimsy excuse to push anti-industry, anti-western, anti-capitalist, anti-white policies, with the goal of bringing harm and damage to our nations.

Actually a lot of grass roots environmentalists are tentatively pro-nuclear pending a better decision on how we store the waste (or Trump giving up on stopping Bill Gates fucking magic nuclear reactors that run on spent fuel). It's the group leaderships that tend to be the hardcore nuclear haters. The UK Green Party has an anti nuclear message in its party policy but most of the actual membership will happily acknowledge that nuclear of some description is the only viable way forward. The issue is that nuclear plants are for the most part totally safe until they're suddenly really REALLY not. Nuclear plants have to be immune to human stupidity and they aren't. Russia KNEW that RBMK reactors were dangerous, Japan KNEW that Fukushima Daichi's design was vulnerable to tsunami but political sperging, cost cutting, lies and vanity let those problems go unanswered and now we have two huge areas of land that are uninhabitable. There's also the issue that the waste is around for a long, long while. The people that design nuclear waste dumps genuinely have to put actual thought into designing them in such a way that if an archaeologist in a few thousand years is digging around and finds one, even if they've got zero point of reference for our language, culture and writing, will understand that trying to break into one is a bad idea.

 

[DumbDude42]

The issue is that nuclear plants are for the most part totally safe until they're suddenly really REALLY not.

with modern reactor designs, that is no longer the case (if it ever was the case in the west to begin with)
like i said, the worst possible scenario already happened at TMI, and the ultimate security measure (the containment building) proved that it's good enough to contain that. and since TMI there has been a lot of advancement in reactor and plant design, to the point that there are now passively safe reactors that basically can't ever have a meltdown unless there is some serious act of sabotage or outside attack on the plant