What are we protesting this week?

Nancy posted on Van-Goth another of her "cause-du-jour" ( rambling forwards )

On this one I felt compelled to ( reply )

I didn't bother addressing some of the crap in the forwarded post, knowing full well that there'd be no point in a full rebuttal directed at Nancy since she neither inistigates nor follows through with any action. One point in particular is especially annoying the statement "the Liberals rationalize that a phase-in of a higher AAC can occur due to 'increasing yields,' implying enhanced silviculture, fertilization, and perhaps genetic modification on company tree plantations." The company I work for is very actively involved in researching and implementing enhanced silviculture and I've worked for a research lab that actively worked on "genetically modified" trees (by doing such monsterous things as selectively breeding disease-resistant trees and propogating cuttings from trees with desirable disease resistance - the horror!). I could go on at length about forestry practices and research in general, but what really has my goat at the moment is another issue.

This and a some threads on The Smoke Pit(notably this one, and one that referred to this) have, as of today left me feeling particularly annoyed in general at the gits who endlessly pay lip-service to fashionable causes but fail to live up to any consistent ethical stance whatsoever. I laughed at the "Nature Challenge" because I routinely do all the things on the list, not for pie-in-the-sky ooh-I'm-saving-the-world reasons, but because of simple practicality, verging on laziness, and -- far from conventional environmentalism -- a love of urban spaces and large cities. ( My inadvertent environmentalism )

I'm sick of people who are long on talk and short on action. The advice in this post by Isaac on his Dark Vancouver board apply to far more than just clubbing - people need to quit whining and just do something about building what they want. And if one is not willing to put an effort into one's goals, don't whine about how other people are "doing it wrong" and, even worse, don't go around demanding people do things that one isn't willing to do oneself. Put your money where your mouth is. Put up or shut up. Or the very least, just shut up.