1) Farming becomes impossible. Either because the government, developer, etc takes over your land and MAYBE gives you some money (this is a big maybe too, lots of times you just get the snot kicked out of you by the Triads until you leave). Or the factories near or upstream from you have polluted the air and water so much that you're basically toast.

2) There's a high probability you can't read or write Chinese. You might even speak some obscure dialect that makes your job prospects pretty much nothing.

3) All you know is how to farm, since you probably didn't go to school.

So for these people, yes getting $8 a day melting off gold and silver with liquid mercury is well better than nothing. It just goes to show how bad 'nothing' can be for most people in the world. There aren't any social nets or organizations that even remotely care about the poor and destitute.

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1) Find someone else to re-use the product. Whether it's an old monitor, or computer, or cell phone. You can donate cell phones to women's shelters so that they can dial 911. You can call up nursing homes or local charities and ask if they could use the hardware.

2) Over-buy a little. Sure you may not ever need that quad core 2.6 ghz cpu for 6 years, but it if keeps you from buying a new computer every 2 years and you pay an extra $400, why not? Then, go to step 1 when done. Why by an 8 gig iPhone when you'll probably want the 16 gig model in a year? Why buy a desktop and a laptop, when you could buy a laptop that is capable of serving in both capacities?

3) Research a reputable electronics recycling plant. Take it there.

4) Bring your own bags or skip the bag altogether when you go to Best Buy to buy something. Most of the time I'm guessing you've purchased maybe 2 items, and they're not bulky or heavy. Why waste yet another plastic bag? Same goes for groceries, bring your own bag.

5) If you're going out of town for a bit, unplug your electronics. Not only will you not have to worry about brown-outs/power surges damaging your equipment, but you don't pay for electricity use when you're gone. Just leave the DVR plugged in if you're worried about missing your latest episode of Queer as Folk.

Your old iPod can serve as a portable hard drive. Or, you can donate it to a kid who may not be able to afford an iPod, or give it to a niece/nephew, or relative, or send it to someone in the army stationed in Iraq.

Sure, not everything can be recycled, but you can do a lot to keep how much you pollute to a minimum. And maybe, just maybe, you'll offset that asshole who throws his plastic cigarette wrappers, and mcdonald's bags out the window.

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They do this with cars, tv's, everything. When I hear about people saying they bought carbon offsets, I laugh. It isn't about polluting less, though that helps. It's about using as little as possible, reusing what you can, and recycling what you can.

It is just as important to use less as it is to use "green" items. It's why I laughed so damn hard when how much electricity Gore's house used. But, people said "It's all green, and he purchased carbon offsets for his private jet ride, and the jet was more efficient than the commercial airliner" Yadda. Sorry guys, it's about using LESS. Less energy, fewer resources, not finding ways to pay money to feel better about your faux eco-consciousness.

You can put CFL's in your house, but just not turning the lights on unless you need to uses far less electricity than your CFL does.

I don't drive a prius, I don't recycle absolutely everything, but then again I buy probably about 1/3 as much crap as the average consumer. When I buy something I buy high-end and keep it around for 5+ years.

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