You just aren't grasping the concept are you tight-ass,...

We could sit here and argue for another millennia, as to who is ultimately liable for what and why.... fact is, blame is subjective.

Or, we could bury the hatchet and agree it's time to contemplate something doable.

An environmental- population toll is a workable and fair alternative, ... blame-game aside. It's time for environmental-sustainability-population action,  there's not an individual in this world who could argue they don't in any way take their toll on their habitat, in some small way, even if it's just eroding the soil to and from their letterbox for 75 years once a day like you Dave

Think of it as a butterfly effect, you may have wiped out a rare species of beetle on your way to your letterbox unbeknown to you at the time, which resulted in a destructive chain of cataclysmic events which has given rise  to a destructive plague of other deadly insects, the one you wiped out with your slipper-shoe used to feed on...which kept the now plague-bug in check, ...1000 years after you trod on it.

Does it really matter who killed the very last insect Dave, the point is it's lead to disaster, a problem we now all share, and need to get sorted, so should I dig up your carcass, 1000 years later, this or hunt down your living descendants to pay the bug-catcher because you happened to be that guy who trod on the last bug which fed on a pre-evolved come-deadly flesh-eating pest?

This toll is about individuals taking personal responsibility for their own toll on our planet here and now...while they as a single unit, not a nation, or a government make way for a more environmentally sound tomorrow for generations to come.

...  Failing this... we should impose a space exploration levy, because the rate we're going, we  are going to need a liveable alternative if we continue populating and polluting the rate we are.

Dave, we are that plague.

i

I agree it was a lousy hypothetical, but so is this whole argument.

China didn't create the problem. We western nations pumped all our pollution into the air, enjoyed all the benefits of that uncontrolled waste, and now want China to pay the penalty that we haven't yet paid.

Please delete wrote on Oct 12^th, 2010 at 11:48am:


that all depends on whether it is important to you to be 'fair' (as you perceive it) or to solve the problem. you actually cant do both.

Please delete wrote on Oct 12^th, 2010 at 11:48am:


Yes, but China has and IS contributing to the problem, so China should also bear some of the penalty.....