h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well that's all I wanted to add.

I generally agree to be honest!

Z

Great article...

With being "green" (in other words: trying to keep your environment alive and as healthy as possible) is nothing wrong. Society must be aware of the fragile balance of nature. But nowadays groups like Greenpeace are too "media-focused". Media-focused in a way that they will do anything to get frontpage or a few seconds on the TV. Please give me the scientific method and bring that to the people.

I'm amazed by the amount of postive feedback I've had by this article. I expected to stir up a hornet's nest, but instead I've been blessed with honeybees.

I think the *real* reason why I have not had much negative feedback is because those who would want to do battle with me would have to do it on unfamiliar territory: the battleground of ideas, evidence and rationality, rather than appealing to baser instincts.

To all those of you who have supported my view that the Green movement still has a case to answer, thank you.

You have made alot of good points.

The green people seem to have changed a lot over the years and not for the best I'm afraid.

I agree. Too much dogma and opinion. Direct action, their currently favoured means of expressing their views, requires direct justification.

But on the positive side Enviromental Science, is now a mainstream disapline. Certainly in this county, I know many people (well 4) who studied this, all were inspired by an early involvement in the green movement. 3 aren't direclty involved in the Green movement, perhaps beacuse they feel it's unscienfic. But one is working as a volenteer for the RSPB, evaluating the science behind their campaigns. I know that most repsonsible green chairities have people who do this. Well she's told me that they do anyway.

I think that this is a good thing. But I also think that the people you mention have grown up. The world is a messy place, with lots of imperatives jostling for prominence. Science can help distentangle the arguments,

That's very true, one of things that I'm sure I've gained most from studing science is the abliity to drawn out facts from emotion in a debate.

Notices Zs nickname addition-
Congrats on your weight loss *Z*!

http://www.rollingstone.com/features/nationalaffairs/featuregen.asp?pid=2154&reset=true

Bush and the environment reports here.

Yes, indeed. This is *precisely* the sort of thing the Green movement should be fighting, not GM or nanotechnology.

Great piece FM - I missed it in the Post. Too often people leap aboard the label without reading the contents.

Some GM wants fighting - and I don't even like banannas.

Some, but not all. Funnily enough, fungus resistant GM bananas would be a godsend because at some point there is going to be a fungal disease which will wipe out the banana crop, which are all clones. It's happened in the past and it will happen again, and the Windward Islands can kiss their main foreign currency earner goodbye.