Spread the word of Ecopsychology

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by alexander_670, Jul 7, 2007.

  1. alexander_670 Registered Member

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    That's an interesting perspective. I've been reading an article on Ecopsychology by Theodore Roszak et al. Guilt about the abuse of the earth, lack of defining milestones and rituals (spiritual), disconnectedness from the earth all are contributing factors to fanatical behavior (not only terrorists but extreme religious movements, gangs, etc).


    I more troubled with the current situation of our environment. it is continuously deteriorating and we have to move fast. I understand very less work has been done to this direction and world wide mass education is the need of the day. Can someone suggest how best we can spread the awareness?
     
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  3. Klippymitch Thinker Registered Senior Member

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    The reason is becuase most humans are stupid.
     
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  5. fatandlazyfool Registered Member

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    I'm sorry to burst the simplicities bubble on here, but it isn't awareness we need to spread. It is denial that we need to eliminate.
    Yes, we as a human race feel guilt about destroying the most important thing we need; the earth. We understand that our actions have caused entirely too much stress on the ecological relations but feel that there are too many problems to deal with such a petty one as "environment" when that will only effect us in 100s or years. Or maybe at least one generation. This in comparason to other problems occuring, socioeconomic to be exact, means nothing to the time scale. We are stupid, but only because we don't realize that one is causing the other and that the solution is simply switching our paradigm.
    We need to start recognizing the world as a whole as an entirely simply concept and not that myriad of parts that it makes up. That is the beginning of what is needed for education, not statistics that the world is going to fall apart on us someday. Remember, most of the world is childish (immature via age or society) so to use scare tactics or upfront fear would cause panick and not a unity to a common purpose. Instead of focusing on the problem, educate the solution!
     
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  7. Tnerb Banned Banned

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    Sure. Use the word ecopsychology a LOT. Write a book about it. "Spread the word of ecopsychology!"
     
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The culture of the Western world has assimilated environmental awareness and is turning around. Most of the Western nations are making positive progress toward a sustainable economy. America is the big holdout and it's primarily because our petroleum prices have not normalized to world levels. This will probably turn around in 2008 when we get a new President. The current one is a traitor who cares more about our sworn enemies, the Saudi Arabians, and their friends in the American petroleum industry, than he does about his own people, much less the planet.

    The real issue is the developing world. China, with one third of the world's population, is determined to match the USA's peak rate of resource consumption and pollution. Its people can perhaps be forgiven because they're barely on Step Two of Maslow's Hierarchy and caring about anything beyond their basic comfort is a luxury they can't afford. But oddly, the leaders of the world's oldest continuous nation, in which being revered by one's descendants is their equivalent of Heaven, seem to have no care for how history will judge them.

    The destitute citizens of the Third World are already major polluters since they have no infrastructure to clean up their waste. As they become slowly more prosperous enough to consume more resources, their cultures will hardly place a priority on conservation.

    We can preach to the Europeans, Japanese and Americans all we want and they will listen and continue to reduce their footprint on the Earth. Especially when we clean the trash out of the White House and stop encouraging Americans to buy gigantic trucks to drive to the grocery store.

    But the key to the future is the people in the developing nations and especially in the nations that have not even begun developing. They're not listening to our sermons. And we can hardly blame them since from their perspective we're asking them to deny themselves the wasteful, hedonistic lives our people have had for so long. You simply cannot convince people who are a few days away from starvation that their grandchildren's future is more important than their present. We're having a hard enough time getting them to use condoms and circumcise their men so that their own children don't become AIDS orphans.

    Of all the technologies we have, the internet is the one that holds the most promise. If exploited well it can easily reduce humanity's need to travel except for pleasure and socializing. In America around one fourth of our petroleum consumption goes directly into commuting, and that does not count the ancillary industries that spring up to support harried commuters, such as fast food, health clubs and child care. We all have computers at home and the number of jobs that genuinely require on-site work decreases every year. If we can get the Third World wired, they can build economies based on working at home without having to build superhighways, gigantic airports, and all the vehicles and equipment and shopping malls that come with them. China and India are rapidly becoming wired, and it will be interesting to see if this helps them avoid completely duplicating our own wasteful economies.
     
  9. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    This story is probably apocryphal, but I'm sure encounters like this happen all the time.
     
  10. Klippymitch Thinker Registered Senior Member

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    What do you think moves just about everything you buy. Fuel.

    Semi-trucks,trains, and jet planes dont run off of nothing. The raise in fuel prices is causing a raise in retail prices as well. Because America is a big modernized country it takes alot of energy to move our retail to the retail stores. Thus the drop of the American dollar happens and will continue happening until we can replace our reliance on fossil fuels.
     
  11. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Of course. But how much of what we buy is bought as a consequence of our commuter culture? Not just direct accoutrements such as briefcases and wing-tip shoes, but resource-wasting convenience foods and the trips to the heart surgeon that eventually follow their consumption. How much energy goes into the construction and maintenance of office buildings that stand nearly idle for half the day, while our homes stand idle during the other half?

    As I pointed out, a good fourth of our petroleum is wasted directly on the act of commuting, and I'm sure when you add in all of the above second- and third-order effects, it will come out to one half. Petroleum is not our only source of energy but it's the one with the gigantic sustainability problem.

    If we could educate our Industrial Era managers into the methods of supervising people they can't physically see so most of us could work at home, our fossil fuel usage will plummet.
    You're thinking inside the box. Why do we need to drive to the shopping mall and pluck our purchases off of the shelves? To some extent this is both a social and recreational custom, but if our gasoline prices were raised to world levels we would quickly realize that it is as obsolete as "going to work" every day.

    Shopping on the internet is going to need some improvements as well as some cultural changes in the way we think about shopping. But it already works pretty well. It eliminates one and possibly two or more levels of warehousing and saves all the fuel that's expended schlepping goods from one warehouse to the other. The final purchases are delivered in bulk by FedEx, a far more efficient system than each of us driving to and from the same stores.

    I understand that this probably won't be enough to solve the problem, but it will make the problem solvable. Alternative energy technologies don't seem to be as promising as we hoped they'd be, at least not in the time we have available to solve the energy problem. If they can provide half the solution, then reducing our energy demand as much as we can may provide the other half.
     
  12. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    No, it don't, actually. Let's take an example;

    Fraggle orders product x via the Internet. It's collected by someone, packaged, then taken to the airport for shipping. The plane takes Fraggle's package to an airport close to his home, then it's picked up by someone and delivered to Fraggle's front door. Fraggle didn't have to leave his home, and the package didn't have to be stored in some big warehouse. Sounds pretty neat, huh?

    But wait, let's continue; Fifty of Fraggle's neighbors all order the same product x via the Internet, and they order that product five days apart. Now, that same system as described above must be done fifty separate times, five days apart. Now it don't sound too neat, does it?

    The other way, those fifty x products could be all delivered to a single location close to Fraggle's home for a fraction of the cost in fuel and labor, and Fraggle and his fifty neighbors could all drive down and pick up their product x whenever they were in the area.

    And notice that we still have to maintain roads, streets, bridges and airports just like now, so there's no savings involved in the infrastructures.

    Well, it might save on the warehouse cost, but the "schlepping" costs are much greater because the products are being hauled separately to your house, plus every five days it's hauled separately to each of your fifty neighbors. I don't see the cost savings at all, Fraggle.

    The goods won't be delivered in bulk unless you and all your fifty neighbors order the same product at the same time! What are the chances of that happening? No, ordering via the Internet is making each item be handled and shipped completely separately ...running up the cost of fuel enormously.

    I don't see how, Fraggle. It seems to me, that instead of spreading the cost of the fuel delivery over a big bunch of the same item, delivering the products your way cost much more in fuel per item.

    Baron Max
     
  13. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    The trucks that deliver the products to the airport are full of products from the same retailer or others in the same vicinity. The trucks that deliver the products to my home are full of products being delivered to my neighbors. I've seen the towering stacks of packages inside the truck and I've watched the number of stops it makes within my field of vision.

    With computerized order-entry systems, the packages don't have to contain identical or even related items to be efficient.
     
  14. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    23,053
    Yeah, sure ....but those same trucks would only have to make one delivery to the retail store instead of to fifty different addresses.

    In reality, as far as I can tell from your suggested system, is that the fuel costs, as well as handling costs per product would go up ...way up!

    Fraggle, I can't see where you're actually saving any money, and certainly not fuel cost, which is what this thread is about. Instead, I see it costing more money and more fuel.

    Baron Max
     
  15. Ripley Valued Senior Member

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  16. johnathan99a5 Registered Member

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    I’ve been doing online degrees on Ecopsychology from ecopsych dot com “Institute of Global Education” special NGO consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It makes a landmark contribution to personal, social and environmental well being. For the benefit of person and planet, we must support those who want to learn, use or teach this wide-ranging science. View the film trailer via ecopsych dot com/DVDvideofilmkey html
     
  17. Sci-Phenomena Reality is in the Minds Eye Registered Senior Member

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    Revenge of the Planet

    Our Earth has an infinite supply of love for us humans which seek to control each-other and yet we continue to destroy and thieve the only thing we have left: Human Self Awareness, we destroy it with our pollution, with our drugs, with our advanced technologies which can now top secretly interact and take control of the human brain and consciousness itself.

    I remember back in the day I saw a science show which showed man creating technologies which could remotely control a cockroach with electrical impulses. That was 10 or so years ago, now they've taken it to new heights: Science can openly remotely control rats with electrical impulses and computer chips, now just imagine what they can do in the top-secret arena! (follow the link to a National Geographic article)

    The Earth and Sun have become "offended" so to speak. Believe it or not, technology has allowed the most powerful and fowl humans to implant computer chips in other humans to control them like an R/C toy. Personally I believe the Earth has a consciousness, and this consciousness has spent EONS evolving humans to the point where we are now, the point of self awareness, and now that is being taken away by extremely greedy-white-fat-old-sons-of-bitches at the tops of the Power Pyramids, with us, the civilians, the employees, the soldiers, the slaves in the dirt, being forced to be at the bottom of the pyramid.... The Earth will have her revenge against these atrocities, I guarantee it!!!

    Let it be known that us, the bottom dwellers have ALL the power. Some say they are but one powerless man, but each drop of water fills the bucket, each bucket fills the Ocean, and now our Oceans are rising from global warming. And so should you!
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2007

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