I feel bad about the dirty planet we are leaving to the next generation.

[undeterred]

How many children will grow up free of any environmentally induced diseases? How many will grow up being able to swim in a lake, fish in that lake, and eat that fish?

[Bobbieo]

1. How many children will grow up?

[undeterred]

2. Thirty or forty years ago we thought the biggest danger

was a nuclear war, but there are so many other ways to ruin the environment in stages.

[WinkyDink]

3. Next generation? You optimist!

[eShirl]

4. so glad I didn't have kids

I couldn't be that cruel

[HillbillyBob]

5. What kills me is the people who have kids or grandkids

who are still leaving a mess.
One lady who is a great grandmother now said " oh hell I won't be around much longer, I'll do what I want".

My partner and I are a middle aged gay male couple. Our 'kids' are 4 rescue dogs.
We are doing our best to leave the planet a better place.
We are not wealthy..we are hand to mouth as are many folks. Gays are not wealthy as a norm.
That is a stereotype.

Making big strides in making our home more energy efficient on a short budget is not easy. Mostly we are doing the lower cost stuff, insulation, insulated curtain liners, water saver faucets and shower heads. I buy one or two LEDs on the first of the month payday, as the old appliances die off we replace them with high efficiency ones. The front loader washer has saves us a lot, in water, power(well pump and elect water heater)soap and wear on clothes. We are trying to lower our power use to the point that our bills are very small then start putting in solar panels out of the savings. We will need about a 20,000 system that includes back up battery power.
We have invested 3700$ over a bit over 3 years, and that saves us 2400 in power bills alone ..money that we don't have to come up with.
We grow organic veggies on what used to be a tobacco field. When the 18 yr old mini van trans went for the 3rd and final time, we limped it into the Nissan dealer and traded it for a Versa. We did look at the other brands including American no one would foot a loan for us except Nissan since we had bought the house on a shoe string 7 months before. What we save in repairs and gasoline covers the cost of the car which gets 37 mpg and its dependable.
I try to buy least packaging and don't buy the latest gadget..can't afford it.

[undeterred]

6. I had a co-worker with that same attitude as the older lady.

He voted Republican because of the abortion issue. He said that he didn't care much about the environment as long as he could find a nice place in Florida to vacation. I asked him "so you care about babies being brought into the world, but you don't care if they can breathe?" And he laughed, because nobody frames it that way. Anyone who really cares about children has got to take notice of whats happening.

I applaud your simple lifestyle- lots of people are turning in that direction a little at the time. At least you're not contributing to the collective mess.

My rescue dog still drinks from and swims in the lakes... he loves it. It would be sad to have to keep him out.

[mrcheerful]

7. It's a lot better then the world my parents and grand parents left us

You need to put things in their proper prospective. Back before the EPA and the massive clean ups of land, water and air we that were born in the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's grew up in a toxic waste land of unregulated pollutants that no body even questioned. The answer to air pollution was build taller smoke stacks, what factories dumped in the rivers was unbelievable, I seen rivers that wouldn't freeze in sub zero temps and the only types of fish in those rivers were carp. Mercury, lead and god knows what else was dumped.

Land fills had untold toxic crap dumped into them with little thought about what long or even short term hazards they would cause. A lot of them were built by rivers and streams. Oil products were dumped down the drain, businesses and people that did oil changes would dump the old used oil where ever they pleased. Road ways were trash filled were people just tossed whatever they ate or drank out the car window. People once heated their homes with coal and there were no filters on chimneys and black coal soot covered homes, yards and were breathed by everyone. Cars had no anti pollution devices and they burned lead based gas. Homes were painted with lead based paint.

Asbestos was used on everything that needed a fire proof or sound proof environment. A mess like whats going on in the gulf would have been left to let nature take its course and there would have been little or no thought of anything except capping the well. Whatever escaped would have been left where it was with not one thought of a clean up, well they might cover it with a few layers of sand to make it look better, but thats about all they would have done.

[undeterred]

8. Well you certainly picked the right username!

:hi:

[mrcheerful]

9. Facts are facts and what has my user name have to do with

speaking on what life was like before the EPA?