This topic is ludicrous because we're all hypocritical in some fashion. Putting one's trash in recycling is useless as it requires energy to process it in the first place. How do you think all of those huge rotational bins work? By solar?

Want to really hit the topic head on? How about air travel? The US along burns 17 BILLIONS of gallons of fuel each year because we all have to get to the next pinball show or go see our family or get to Disneyworld. How many people in this very thread went on a plane this year? Hell, that puts the emissions in the freaking atmosphere as well, talk about your carbon footprint.

How many of us own more than 1 car? Or more than 1 TV? Or buy milk from a plastic carton?

It is hypocritical when we won't change the demand (our behavior), but turn around and blame the suppliers, which is what this thread is doing. Many of us have changed our lifestyles, our diets, and the way we conduct business to use less natural resources. Or we can just blame coal industries I guess.

Sure they are.

You want to talk about destruction in the US? Move away from energy and look at what we are doing (and have done) to the soil and water systems in this country. Decades of chemical dumping and animal waste in our country has made the vast majority of our soil poisoned. We feed it to our children and wonder why we have some of the worse cancer rates in the world. And yet we're all happy as hell to get bacon for 1.99lb. We can't even grow non-arsenic rice in this country because of what we've done to it. And yet, we still poison our food and water like it's no tomorrow.

And the best part? The EPA can't keep up and these chemicals come out like there isn't any tomorrow. The laws are weaker than hell and we continue to eat meat and use RoundUp to keep our yards pretty. Can we change behavior? Can we end meat consumption and require 100% organics? It's going that way, but not fast enough.

Nice job! If only everyone else did this not only would we reduce our energy consumption, but increase our life expectancy and quality of life.