Which virus do you prefer? The one in The Stand or the one in Cell? Stephen King has a wild imagination.

How about instead, we all start eating Soilent Green?

Singapore is a tiny island of no import compared to 1.4 billion people who have the most thriving economy on the planet. The Chinese see it as their time. And it is.
I saw hard working, arrogant people, full of desire to prove themselves as the best. It is a heady mix of money, emotion and self belief. The World thinks it is understanding China and its rise but the jaws will drop when the Olympics are braodcast. Then the West will get some idea of the energy, wealth and ego that is the new China. China still has a billion people desperate to step into wealth who will work 24/7.
I believe China will track the growth of Japan. Remember them, they once had more cash than the rest of us combined. China will make them look like also rans.
My partner speaks Chinese and her family are big in politics and that is what I call an insurance policy.

BTW NZ is getting a new 14 foot tri design made there for export to the rest of the World. F18s etc will follow the same path. Chinese made cats.....what's the bet?

Re cows and methane! The government here tried to start up a fart tax! We just could not take it seriously and we try to be green.
Too many people is correct.
What about ballots for children. The rich could buy the ballot winners baby tokens and the poor who won could get ahead.

We would have to stop the more people make more money idea though.
We could have little plastic children for the losers.

I haven't seen Cell, but I'm a big fan of The Stand. Its good to watch when you're sick being its 6-7 hrs long. And yes I've also read the book.

Cell hasn't made it to the big or little screen yet. It'll make you think twice about answering a cell phone.

sorry to put words in timbos mouth its just how i read it, but as for china my point was they know about this, they are very worried about it and investing heavely in green tecnologies, it is just we are in a position to do somthing about this and the chinise would be happy to follow when it is economicaly better for them than burning their dirty brown coal, we don't have to perswade them this is happening they know whats happening, its all down to the economics once low carbon tecnologies are cheeper than coal oil and gas every country will do it

10.000 years ago Neatherthal man walked along the outskirts of the glaciers of the last ice-age. One of which covered new-york and Chicago all year around and was a mile hight. The whole of Canada was covered by a massive icesheet. I think he said much the same thing as you do right now.

How much difference can 1 or 2 degrees make ?

Wouter

Wouter just indirectly called me a neanderthal. Grow some balls.

I'm done with this thread. Wouter is way smarter, educated, better looking than I could hope to be.

The green party in NZ suggested taxing waste instead of production. I am still confused why that is a bad idea. Still provides gov. funds and still gives people something to evade..but it does less damage.

It is a bad idea because people can find all sorts of creative ways to get rid of their trash and garbage -- bury it, burn it, chuck it into the jungle across the street.....

But, illegal dumping is already. . .illegal. Maybe some sort of recycling deposit, like we have for glass bottles and aluminum cans.

How 'bout 2 cents apiece for old cigarette filters!?

Yeah, right. That only matters if they catch you. And can they keep you from burying cans in your back yard? And can they keep you from burning your garbage on your grill? Or flushing it down your toilet? Or taking it to work with you and putting it in your company dumpster?

It's a lot harder to track waste than production. For instance, if you are actually putting all your waste out in cans by the road like you are supposed to, the people who pick up the trash would have to weigh everybody's trash every pickup and keep a record of it, so they would know what to tax you. Somehow, I don't think that is ever going to happen. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

You are right Mary. Since we've started charging fees for trash at New England dumps, litter, and illegal dumping have increased dramatically. Gooseberry Island where I sail, is part of a state "reservation". The state puts out a large trash can to help combat the litter, but some locals bring their trash from home and routinely fill the barrel. I am amazed by the quantity of litter, and that it seems most people in our society think nothing of it. I used to pick up what I saw, but now there is just too much. It could be a full time job at that small beach alone! The streets and highways up here are loaded with trash, most of it plastic. Less and less of the litter is actually recycled. What is collected/picked up, is usually burned up here. I wonder what the effects of all that unnatural stuff in our air is going to do to future generations. Then there is the threat to wildlife. Plastics left outside are the gift that keeps on killing, much like lost lobster pots, balloons, ribbons, fishing line, plastic bags, and things like Yoplait Yogurt containers kill huge numbers of wildlife every year. The trash/litter is so bad at Horseneck Beach, that they use machines to rake the beach, and then build dunes of trash and sand. They don't look or smell nice, but so far they can't process the trash/litter in any more responsible way. There is a strange thing going on in our society today. I see it at every level.I call it "The King's New Clothes Syndrome". It is people failing to see what is right in front of them, and refusing to take responsibility for it. I work for Marriott, one of the best hotel companies in the world. I routinely see management ignoring, or refusing to recognize things that end up costing the company tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't know what can be done. I think perhaps people really need to suffer in order to wake up. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

In Ireland, we have 2 bins and even 3 in some areas. One for refuse which cannot be recycled, the others are for recyclable materials. There are charges for refuse collection in all areas. In some areas (depends on local councils) the refuse bin is WEIGHED and the householder is billed accordingly. Most of us recycle plastic, paper, aluminium and tin cans, and glass. Also there is a recycling charge on electrical goods and no charge for dumping same at local facility. Human nature being what it is, I have seen people dumping refuse in bins at a beach where I holiday.

We had the same problem on Maui. They finally got smart and made dumping free. Now all we have to figure out is how to keep da brahs from dumping their Maui cruzzahs along the roads.

What are "brahs" and "cruzzahs"?

I was talking business waste guys. If IRD had to track it they would. Germany does it and successfully.
Normal house hold rubbish should be done for "free' as the rates should give something back, right? And remember. if the businesses were taxed on rubbish they would not deliver so much to you with what you purchase. : ) everyone wins.
Aren't I just the Pollyanna?

Warbird,
Nobody will ever accuse you of being a pollyanna. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I have lived in a lot of different areas of this country and trash removal is never free. There are just different ways to pay for it.

In the Keys, the garbage and trash pick up is an addendum on your property tax bill. If you only live at your house in the Keys for three or four months out of the year, you still pay for trash pickup 12 months a year. It's a really good deal for the trash-removal company.

When we lived at Catawba in Ohio, seasonal residents could buy blue bags at the grocery store. You paid X amount for each blue bag, and you put those blue bags out at your curb and they got picked up.

At Put-in-Bay (island in Lake Erie), they used to have the greatest free recycling system ever -- sort of a little plateau you drove up on with your "stuff." Radiating out from the plateau were big dumpsters labeled paper, tin cans, aluminum, plastic, clear glass, brown glass, green glass. It made everybody on the island feel good about having a place to take their stuff to recycle it. I used to have at least 10 different trash cans in my garage, all labeled with the appropriate thing for the recycling hill.

And then it got eliminated, so now we have NO recycling whatsoever and just throw everything in together in our trash. It bothers me a lot. And I don't know where all the stuff goes after it leaves the island on the ferry.

Anyway, at Put-in-Bay we have a choice of (at this point) two trash pickup companies, and you have to contract with them yourself.

In many parts of the country you are dealing with private pickup contractors, it can get really "dirty" when they are competing against each other for your garbage. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

There have always been rumors, of course, that the mafia is involved in the trash removal business.

Thanks for seeing through the Pollyanna thing Mary because it is not easy being Doctor Evil.
Seems to be no argument that we make a lot of rubbish.....so......maybe if we made less........??