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I consider myself mostly a conservationist rather than an environmentalist simply because of my observations of how little most environmentalists understand either about how modern technology works or how the environment works.
On the modern technology side, a lot of what they want would make modern technologies unworkable. You simply cannot power an entire city with wind and solar — both of which are dependent on weather. If they were in favor of nuclear and hydroelectric power it’s plausible, but you need a lot of power to run a city. And the acres of wind turbines or solar panels needed for the task destroy the environment anyway.
On the environment side, most environmentalists I have talked to are urban or suburban dwellers, often quite well off. They don’t spend much time in rural areas or in nature— to the point where many of them didn’t seem to understand that carnivores eat other animals. They don’t understand that rotting things are normal.
I think the way to save the environment is through finding balance between what people need and what nature needs and doing so with technology.
There's definitely a massive disconnect among pretty much everyone between how much they sympathize with and care about any animal they see or hear about, even just in a book or video, and how much meat they eat. I'm not a vegan, but I'll whole heartedly admit to not actually consistently following my principles in real life, and I respect vegans who shape their lives around their beliefs.
I just accept that most people are not very self-aware.
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If they're suburban, they're not paying much attention (which is rather likely). Rotting things are really common (even if most of the rotting animals are roadkill). And literally in my own back yard (in northern New Jersey) I've seen a juvenile hawk take a squirrel, a cat take a chipmunk, and a fox teaching its kit how to hunt using a (presumably just-caught) rabbit as a prop.
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