I agree that industry is the major polluter however we will be encouraging industry to continue polluting if we continue to purchase their products. Unfortunately there are members of our society who don't give a stuff. There is one member of my family who works in a corporate job who is only interested in having a large disposable income to live in the best of houses, have the best of everthing, at least one overseas holiday each year etc. People like this are very selfish and only encourage continued pollution.

The continued rise of the human population on this planet is adding to this burden.

Right on! It irritates me to no end that some companies claim they are "green" when in fact they are using petrolium based, or non-sustainable ingredients, or that "green bag" that was made in China?
 
I have a cleaning business, I make my own cleaners from Essential Oils, vinegar (grain distilled) and baking soda for scouing. I refuse to buy Clorox Green Works - hey, they are still Clorox. Unfortunately, on rare occasions I do have to purchase some items from manufacturers I think are evil....such as my microfiber mop from...Clorox. Yuck. I hated it, but had to have one for a few persnickity wood floors. I do have to make my customers happy! I am not all about the money, it's what I have to do to make ends meet for my family.

Sometimes we do have to strike a balance to take steps toward caring for the earth....it is really hard...everywhere you look there is earth-killing going on under an "organic" or "green" title. Those of us who really do care for the earth look for the deceptions and try to spread the word, and to do the best we can with what we have.

Yet, when it comes right down to it...the #1 Pricipal is the best...and hardest for most people to come to grips with.....Simplicity. We had very little when I was growing up...and now that we have more....geesh, I wish we didn't have so much!

Heaven forbid someone make you feel guilty.  Do you ever use paper towels when a rag would do?  Do you take your own sacks to the grocery store?  Do you always car pool when you can?  Do you drive a gas efficient car?  Do you take two minute showers?  Do you water your lawn?  Do you support golf courses (they are one of the worst offenders)?  Do you turn off the light when you leave the room?  Do you turn off the TV when not really watching it?  Do you reuse bags?  Do you reuse aluminum foil?  Do you reuse plastic cups?  Do you always use up left over food?  Do you keep the A/C set at 78 degrees or above in the summer?  Do you keep the temperature set at 68 degrees or cooler in the winter?  I could go on and on - you get the point

Nobody can MAKE you feel guilty regardless of what tactics they may use.  You either feel guilty or you don't.  It's your choice.

Even the green companies out there can be some of the most dishonest corporations out there.  They wouldn't be successful if they weren't profitable.  If guilt is working, than using that as a marketing tactic will be used until it doesn't and than the method changes.  Just keep those eyes and ears open.

Go on YouTube and search for "The Story of Stuff." One of the issues that Annie Leonard addresses is the fact that corporations have grown to be larger than government. Everyone should see this video. It would start a revolution. Remember, "Reduce" and "Reuse" are the first two words in the mantra: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Corporation greed is no excuse for the citizen to act like a hog.  The citizen has a responsibility to others and that will never change. In this county we are lazy, greedy and grasping. It please us to have the children in other countries suffer and starve so we can have unreasonably cheap goods, TVs in every room, SUVs that guzzle fuel, too much food we don't eat, closets of clothes we don't wear, alcohol and drugs. We spit on every dime of tax we pay for the elderly and infirm and then vomit out our love for God. We create fake wars, slaughter innocents and continue to glut and whine, glut and whine, glut and whine.

This sounds good in theory but it doesn't seem to work where I live. Few people can afford to sue anybody and most won't sue their neighbors regardless. Big corporations always have the upper hand since they have the funds. I know of situations where people's property value was ruined by nasty pig factories but they have been powerless to stop it. They've either moved (losing money) or stayed put and suffered the health consequences. Can you give more details on how we could protect ourselves in real life, especially when polluting is part of a culture? Thanks.

This is what economists call market failure. Property rights are not well defined in the case of clean air and water, so someone else can usurp your clean air and water wihout paying for it. Coase's theorem, that voluntary bargaining (eg lawsuits) can lead to efficient outcome only works if transactions costs are small. But they are not. It is hard to sue, and even harder to prove that the corporation caused your cancer. It could have happened anyway. So corporations end up polluting for free. So there is a role for government having pollution laws to restrict this bad activity.

Your case for the inefficiency of public lands is much stronger, however. Private firms who use public lands have no incentive to keep it up or to conserve the resource. With private ownership, they have such an incentive.

For intersting reading try: Coase, Ronald "A Problem of Social Cost" Journal of Law and Economics (1960). I believe for an academic article, this is actually readable, and it addresses this debate. This is available at most university libraries.  

Speaking of suing, are you aware that your government dollars are being used to help the "big guys" (Big Pharma in particular) - in lawsuits against the drug companies where a teen killed himself and similar situations.  I never knew they could use our tax dollars that way.  What the heck are they doing involving themselves in our only remaining recourse to justice?  I know there is a campaign going under the guise of "get rid of nuisance or frivolous lawsuits" and unfortunately it seems to be very successful.  People aren't asking themselves nuisance by whose definition - a judge can already throw a case out if he deems it frivolous.  

Personally, I have been thinking we need a movement to get the manufacturers to stop using permanent materials (plastic) for items we only use a few minutes or a short while, like water bottles, hamburger boxes, even plastic bags.  They had me fooled for a long time that plastic bags took no more fuel to make than paper but they didn't mention (or know) that the ocean is filling up with plastic and killing birds and probably fish too.  That leeching we worry about with our food is leeching into the ocean in a big way along with the mercury, etc. We can each stop buying those items, but there is little or no alternative so most of us won't stop buying.  But if we contacted the companies en masse (one at a time), and then boycotted if necessary, then they would listen. If one company changed and they got the lion's share of business for being green - the others would soon follow.  I nominate Coca Cola for first company.

federal government is nothing, they report to black government which arent one of our kind it consist of aliens/cia/nsa entities so all your why federal gov does what it does make no use, there is coming alien invasion along with 2012 planet x dont get involved in riots over food or gas they are waiting for this so they can put you in guantanamo without lawer to gas you