Simon

Hello and welcome to the forums Kris! Hopefully this community can help you find new and interesting ways to live a greener life. I am looking forward to exchanging "green" tips and discussing various other topics with you. Thanks for joining! :)

Thank you! :)

I won't add back those features in this theme. But I plan on adding a second theme that people can use. I'll just need to finish the current theme first. Yes I am aware of this problem. Later today I plan on adding a proper menu so that it will be easier to navigate between the main blog and the forums.

Now this is weird. I just tried to activate my Gravatar photo and as you can see it works just fine. Do you get any error messages of some sort when you try to upload a photo?

I kind of see your point. But consider this scenario: A member on this forum keeps posting misinformation and lies about climate science - saying global warming is fake and so on. You know, a little annoying troll. It is now that the downvote button comes in handy. We just simply downvote all his misleading posts. This way people who are reading his post will see his low reputation and understand that what he is saying might not be correct.

Just like the Young Messiah says, an iphone app would be a bit unnecessary when this website already has a great user experience with our mobile theme. It's also so much easier to just simply visit the forums using a web browser in your smartphone than downloading an app in my opinion.

I've never heard about this Sapindus aka "soap nut" before but it sounds interesting. But I doubt I can find it in any store here in Sweden... <_<

Welcome to the forums Dee! I am sure you will have a great time here discussing various green and non-green topics. :)

Hmm I see. But like you say, the current concept with the red and green vote buttons kind of serves the same purpose. If you find a post that you think is helpful, funny or interesting you can "thank" the author by clicking on the green upvote button. :)

Hello Guardian and welcome to the forums! Do you perhaps read the Guardian? ;)

Hello Kat and welcome to the forums! And like I said in another thread:If you have any questions on how the forum works or anything like that please don't hesitate to ask. This forum is still very new so if you have any ideas on how we can improve it you are more than welcome to share those ideas with the rest of us. Hopefully you will have a great time here discussing various environmental topics and meeting lots of new people. :)

Hello Shopy and welcome to the forums! :)

Hmm yes I could add a Facebook Like button. But what do you mean with a "thank you" button? :)

No I have never collected anything. Don't know why really, but I've never felt the need to collect anything. :)

Why do some people deny the overwhelming evidence for anthropogenic climate change? I think there are many different answers to that question. Their denialism could for example be supported by religious beliefs. Especially Christians have this weird belief that we humans have the right to do whatever we please against nature because we are above the animals. Some also believe that it doesn't matter if we destroy our planet and nature simply because the rapture / judgement day will soon come and that they will come to a better place after their death. I wrote a blog post in 2009 about how Evangelical Christians in USA help spread climate denial and confusion. A study done by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life showed that among white evangelical Protestants in USA only 34% believed the earth is warming due to human activity, and over 30% of them don’t believe in it at all. Another example of this is Congressman John Shimkus (R-Ill) who in 2009 said that God will decide when the earth will end during introductory remarks at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment. The denialism could also stem from political views which are often mixed with religious beliefs (see this post: The Norwegian terrorist is a climate denier). People who adhere to conservative, neo-liberalism and general right-wing politics are often negative against pro-environmental policies and laws. These people base their climate denialism in right-wing ideology. A survey done earlier this summer clearly showed that right-wing libertarians and conservatives doesn’t like environmental regulations while being more supportive of corporations. I quote: "While 39% of the general public agree with the statement that “stricter environmental laws and regulations cost too many jobs and hurt the economy” as many as 79% of libertarians agree on that." "The only ones who rather want to see more investments in the fossil fuel industry than the development of renewable energy sources are “staunch conservatives”. Libertarians also misses a majority agreement on this issue." There is also the example of denialism funded and supported by huge corporations that invest heavily into lobbyists who tries to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping climate change or improving our environment. The Koch Industries is a great example of this. Volkswagen is another example. Another reason for denialism could be simple ignorance or lack of education and knowledge about climate change.

Hello Joy! Welcome to the forums. Hopefully you will have a great time here meeting new people and debating various topics. :)

Hello Kerry and welcome to the forums! Hopefully you will have a great time here discussing various topics and meeting new people. If you have any questions on how this forum works please don't hesitate to ask. As you can see this forum is still pretty new so if you have any suggestions on how we can improve the user experience here please let me know in this thread. If you find something that isn't working as it should you can report those bugs here. Thank you for joining! :)

Yes! All the time! A few weeks ago I even purchased this for my bicycle:

Solar panels and other renewable energy solutions might seem expensive at the moment. But the more we invest and research into renewables the cheaper they will get. According to a report by Ernst & Young the price of solar panels will "drop to $1 by 2013" thanks to a combination of rising fossil fuel and falling solar prices. "Prices of solar panels are falling so fast that by 2013 they will be half of what they cost in 2009, according to a report from Ernst & Young that argues solar electricity could play "an important role" in meeting the UK's renewable energy targets."

Ah, yes sorry. I should have added some more details about the graph... The graphs comes from New Scientist who did a special report last year on how our economy is killing the earth. Unfortunately you need to be a New Scientist subscriber to be able to read the actual articles. But if you are interested you can find the references to the article here. Basically this graph shows with 12 different variables how much our consumption, economic growth and pollution has increased from between 1750 to 2000. The 12 variables are: Northern hemisphere average surface temperature Population CO2 concentration GDP (Gross domestic product) Loss of tropical rainforest and woodland Water use Species extinctions Motor vehicles Paper consumption Fisheries exploited Foreign investment Ozone depletion As you can see all of these variables are connected to each other. For example: From the graph we can see that our consumption of paper has increased and as a result the loss of tropical rainforest and woodland has increased. We can also see that the use of motor vehicles has increased and so has the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere. And so on... From the graph we can also see a major increase in the consumption of various resources and economic growth around the time of the industrial revolution during the late 18th and early 19th century. In the report several “key thinkers from politics, economics and philosophy” gave their opinions about why they disagree with the current growth dogma. They write: “Most of us accept the need for a more sustainable way to live, by reducing carbon emissions, developing renewable technology and increasing energy efficiency. But are these efforts to save the planet doomed? A growing band of experts are looking at figures like these and arguing that personal carbon virtue and collective environmentalism are futile as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth. The science tells us that if we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our economy.” Simply put: The only way to save our planet is to change our economic system.

That's a good suggestion! I've actually considered adding a chatroom. But I think it will be better to wait a little until the forum grows bigger. I mean, what's the point in having an empty chatroom? ;)

Hello Manolis and welcome to the forums! "Destroying the nature is like destroying your own home." Yes. I completely agree with this statement. We only have one planet, one home. So why not treat it the best we can? It's just common sense! You have an interesting profile picture. May I ask why you decided to use that picture? :)

Yes, and it's worth noting that those money are public funds coming from the Japanese people. The Fukushima disaster shows one of the main arguments against nuclear power: When an accident happens at a nuclear plant the nuclear industry is unable to pay the huge sums that are involved in the clean-up and repairs. So basically the whole nuclear process, from its construction to its de-construction, is subsidized by taxpayers money. And yet the nuclear industry is able to profit huge sums from this dangerous and heavily subsidized energy form. It's kind of like the economic crisis. Why is it that the profits are always private but we must pay the debts together?

As you probably can see this community is still very new. It's really just a few days old and I am still working on setting up everything and fixing all these annoying bugs. If you have any ideas on how this community can be improved please share those ideas here in this topic. Maybe you think the design is awful? Or maybe you think the forum categories are too obscure, too many or even too few? Maybe you don't like the navigation? Or maybe you just hold a simple grudge against the innocent smilies? If you find anything that looks weird or doesn't work please let me know about that in this topic instead.

Welcome to the forums Zararina! Hopefully you will have a great time here discussing various green and non-green topics. If you have any questions on how the forum works or anything like that please don't hesitate to ask. This forum is still very new so if you have any ideas on how we can improve it you are more than welcome to share those ideas with the rest of us. :)