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>You're right, Simon. Folks who smoke should quit and do something proven >safe. Like scuba diving, for instance. As I mentioned in my posting I don't care what people do to themselves. People don't die by passively absorbing nitrogen from their diving friends. >And while your at it, Simon, lets outlaw alcohol,.. Fine with me!! Don't drink. Think it would be better to educate people though last time they tried to ban alcohol in your country it didn't work too well did it. Alcohol in moderation is probably better than non at all but try telling that to a group of year 12 students on the Gold Coast or New Years revelers at Bondi beach (Australians will appreciate this). > ...fast cars, sand Not sure about that one (maybe just convert them all to gas or electric). >blasting, coal mining, all chemical processing, welding, brake repairs, >painting, sky diving, airplanes, swimming pools, meat,do I dare add scuba All human activities have impacts the only reasonable approach is to realise this and work to minimise these impacts. Realistically this planet has a limited future. Technological advancement is necessary if life (human or otherwise) is going to survive beyond the inevitable destruction of this planet. The planet we have inherited is already degraded ultimately it's a race against time do we drown in our own crap (literally) or fly off into the sunset. You may have gathered I'm not optimistic. It's a pity because this certainly is a beautiful planet. If you subscribe to a religious or spiritual view of the universe rather than my agnostic view what other purpose could mankind serve but to appreciate and bare witness to the beauty inherent in the universe, a capacity which appears to be sadly lacking in other organisms which go about the business of surviving. >diving? ALL things which have a proven detrimental immediate or long term >effects on humans associated with these and hundreds of other activities. >Lets face it, this cig issue is another fashionable, PC, bullshit issue >you liberals are using to prove, once again, that us stupid, pitiful, >ignorant masses are too clueless to take care of ourselves. It's another Read "The tragedy of the commons". It would be great if everyone on the planet shared a rational logical view of how to live and preserve whats left of the planets limited resources. I don't understand why people from one ethnic group would want to kill people from another because of what they had done to ancestors a hundred years ago. I don't understand why loggers, who baracade parliament house demanding more areas be opened up to harvesting, are unable to comprehend that in 50 years or so their children may live in a world where wilderness, wildlife, clean air and going to the beach without 60+ factor sunscreen are foreign concepts. Is writing this intellectual snobbery or a way of proving I'm smarter that these people? No. It's an alternative to throwing a brick through my TV at the moronic smile on Keatings (our Prime Minister, a socialist by the way) face when he tries to explain why building a new coal fired power station (rather than gas, solar or wind) is necessary when Australia has a glut of power or why Australia won't meet the goals for reduced green house emisions set at the Rio summit. It's an alternative to beating the crap out of the selfish moron who believes his/her personal freedom is more important than the health of his/her children or friends. It's a result of standing impidently by watching all this and knowing that for every one person who cares there is 100,000 who couldn't give a shit. It's interesting how when intelectuals are saying things that people want to hear they are given acelaids but as soon as the message is unpopular they are condemned. I grew up in an environment where being intelligent or different usually meant being treated like a perriah. Is being well informed such a crime. Certainly ignorance is bliss. >issue, like AIDS, which you shameless, wining socialists are using to try >to prop up your failed policies. A liberal socialist, interesting concept, but what has AIDS got to do with anything?. In this country the Liberal Party is a conservative party (right wing), socialists are generally on the political left (Labour). Actually I don't subscribe to the views of either side of politics. With parents in small buisness and seeing how the tax system and inefficiencies of burocracy that develops under socialism affect these people it's hard to have any love for socialism. But then the right wingers would mine the Barrier Reef to make the concrete breakwalls needed to stop the soil washing away when they clear fell the Daintree for wood chip. So from all us a-political wining academics, sit on it and rotate you narrow minded red neck facist. I love this list, Simon "..fear creates it's own reality." - Simon L Hartley (in response to debate on French nuclear tests and a rebute to rampant nationalism in all it's guises) "You can't change a light bulb from outside the house!!" - Yep! I said that too!! (or perhaps I'm being optimistic thinking it's possible to change anything) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Simon L Hartley o o Oo o Associate Lecturer oo o o Faculty of Resource Science and Management o oo _____ o oo Southern Cross University o (_/-\_) oo P.O. Box 157 ===(S) o Lismore NSW, Australia 2480 Ph: (066) 203 251 or (61 66) 203 251 Fax:(066) 212 669 E-mail: shartley@sc*.ed*.au* ----------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.scu.edu.au/ressci/staff/shartley.html
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