johnngxe Once again I find myself amused and amazed by what humanity has to offer.

The article raises an intriguing question: Have we been pampered by technology? If so, how do we take steps not to become over-reliant on it?

Anyway, the best course of action would be to educate the masses and hope that enough people get a good upbringing to mitigate the damage caused by ignorants like these.

angrysnail From their point of view, the gentle methods of educating society on the detrimental effects of environmental damage has fallen time and time again on deaf ears. Thus, they have chosen to take the radicalized methods "for the greater good".

nzyjordan no they're not. they're attacking ships which hunt minke whales which are totally not on the endangered list. The japanese whaling industry kills less than 600 minke whales a year on average. There are some 100,000 minke whales in the wild. Now it would be different if Sea Shepherd were attacking ships that actually hunt endangered species, we'd have something to talk about. As it is right now, they're antics are nothing more than a pathetic cry for attention.

johnngxe "For the greater good" is the first step down a very slippery slope of justification, in my opinion.

Now, in this particular case, I'd say that aggressive tactics are extremely detrimental to the environmentalism as a whole. Not only do you affect the livelihoods of the whalers, you waste so many resources such time, money, effort, raw materials in used in building/repairing the boats, and so on.

From a legal perspective, you generate even MORE hostility on both sides, and thus, everyone loses.

angrysnail I don't really agree with this system because it will just allow the more affluent to dispose of more waste using their money. It is true that the affluent purchase more items due to their ability to, thus, it will just be another sort of tax for everybody.

This system may cut down waste production and disposal, but will undoubtedly put the less affluent at a disadvantage because they will have another "bill" to pay.

sandyyy Though true, this system has its loop holes as it might not affect the more affluent who are capable of paying, however I do see the advantages of this system which undoubtely is working well. The most evident one would be the significate reduction of trash.
Regarding putting the less affluent at a disadvantage because they will have another ''bill'' to pay, as mentioned by angrysnail, my point of view differs. I certainly don't see it as a disadvantage for the less affluent as the implemention of this system would likely be a pushing force for them to learn more about recycling and reusing so that they can keep their trash consumption at the lowest and might even help them save more money in the process.

firstbornunicorn Is it really the consumers' fault for constantly demanding more, more, more from the environment? Or is it the manufacturers and corporations that only cares about profits and returns? Is it that they are often taking the easier way out by purchasing raw materials that are cheaper but more harmful to the environment? That it is cheaper to allow their factories to spew noxious fumes instead of spending a little bit more to install cleansing mechanisms?

Yes going green begins with us, the individuals and the community. But what we do must also be backed up and supported by those who are doing the most harm, shouldn't it?

dtyw Not much to say on this one, good points! Going green certainly does involve more parties than we think it does.

angrysnail @firstbornunicorn

Nobody is really to blame in this situation. Corporations create products for consumers to buy, but they themselves are consumers too. It's all down to how we can create more with less.

cmo Who is responsible for this situation that is the deterioration of Mother Earth? Scientists answer—humans. A true answer, but a bit incomplete. Humans have lived on earth for many millennia, but atmospheric carbon dioxide levels became dangerous only a few decades ago. In reality, the fault lies with the capitalist system—its absurd and irrational logic of unlimited expansion and capital accumulation; its obsessive drive to increase material production in pursuit of profits.

The narrow-minded rationality of the capitalist market, with its short-term calculus of profit and loss, is intrinsically contradictory to the rationality of the living environment, which operates in terms of long, natural cycles. It is not that “bad” ecocidal capitalists stand in the way of “good” green capitalists. It is the system itself, based on pitiless competition, demand for return on investment, and the search for quick profits that is the destroyer of ecological equilibrium.

Of course, radical change involves consumption as well as production. Nevertheless, the problem of industrial capitalist civilization is not—as is often claimed by some environmentalists—“excessive consumption” by the masses, and the solution is not a general “limitation” of consumption, not even in the advanced capitalist countries. The problem is the prevailing type of consumption based on “false needs”: display, waste, fetishism of commodities. What is needed is production aimed at the satisfaction of genuine needs, beginning with those that might be called “biblical”: food, water, shelter, garments.

dtyw Not to be a pessimist, but the only way we're gonna save our planet is if everyone makes a conscious effort to Go Green - use recycled paper, re-use plastic bags, etc... you know the spiel.

Instead of trying so hard to recruit soldiers to join our crusade for a greener earth, I suggest we start with ourselves by showing a good example. No point throwing the biggest "Go Green" party or having the loudest event just for show if nobody really cares about the environment in the first place!

firstbornunicorn I guess it is hard to "market" the green cause to young cynics like many of us are. What I see is that although many individuals or organisations can take noble steps towards "going green", the reality is that there are still many other huge multinational corporations and powerful organisations that simply do not give a hoot about energy conservation and the green cause. They exist for the sole aim of reaping as much profits and sales as possible, and would not stop at any cost to achieve that aim. Spewing noxious fumes? Polluting lakes with biohazardous wastes? Chopping down forests in developing countries in dire need of funds? Such big organisations do not care and will not care.

What we are doing as individuals and small organisations will not work if they are not supported by the big boys - the REAL polluters. Otherwise, shoppers using less plastic bags a week or home-makers switching off the lights when not in use simply won't be able to reverse decades of environmental pollution and degradation caused by huge corporations with their eye set only on conquering more market share.

nic Nope. The world hasn't change, nor has our lifestyle.
After all the farce, cars are still spewing crap.
Us humans went back to our daily life that will occupy us for the next 65 years, leaving us, well, 'life-less'.
Yea...

michelleang i actually think its really good to reflect on the green march. While not trying to be cynical on one hand, i do think that the green march inevitably generated much waste on its part while perhaps necessary for the movement to succeed.

cmo I think that, working with the Green March for so many months, we won't really be able to put it behind us so easily, even if we want to. It's always at the back of our minds, from the green tips we learnt, to reading up on environmental issues so that we could have intelligent debate on his forum, to the actual green march itself. I think that, whether we like it or not, we will always be reminded of The Green Cause and find it working its way into our actions. I've refused plastic bags whilst shopping ever since Green March came into our lives.

So even if Green March didn't make an impact with ANY participants, I'm sure it impacted us, and there's 100 over of us in this cohort. Doesn't that make a difference?