Originally Posted by
Equinox
Let me get this straight. A person in a diesel pick up truck, for no discernible reason rolls coal next to three cyclists who are deferring to the motorist. This means the intentional discharge of a massive amount of black diesel exhaust that enveloped the cyclists and hung in the air and covered both lanes of a country road. I was behind them and I stopped to allow the cloud to diffuse. Why would anyone excuse this as a person, just being a jerk? He did this with the intent of causing harm to people he didn't know for no reason. It's the action of a sociopath , really. I'm also not willing to excuse the environmental impact.We abuse our environment enough without intentionally and unnecessarily bucking out clouds of diesel smoke.
Agreed. But idiocy comes in all stripes, and most of them that dish out the hassle, wouldn't be able to take it. What are the odds that they'd laugh it off if it happened to them? Its the same high-school mindset as throwing fireworks at a pedestrian, or shooting paintballs at the old guy who lives down the street... the ones doing it ignore the potential catastrophe it can cause, because they're caught up in the self-righteous hilarity of it all. Inflicting pain on others can be funny, and that's an unfortunate fact. Making those that do it accountable for it in modern society is another story, however.
As far as the environment goes though... my inner-cynic knows that those who spend that extra effort to go out of their way to damage the environment will never acknowledge climate issues are a real problem, until the ramifications of it become blatantly obvious... and most likely, irreversible. Wisdom dictates that we should be erring on the side of prudence and addressing environmental issues (regardless of their cause) but many choose to recklessly make things worse, erring instead on the side of ignorance-ignited pride... a.k.a. the "acceptable risk". There's no easy solution in dealing with these people; many of them are irrational.