Lil G.... the only reason why The United States asks you guys for water is because the states around the great lakes have banned giving out water from the great lakes, for the most part. States like Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, etc heav banded together to stop the transporting of water to other parts of the country.

Lil_G, I didn't mean to say "Americans ignore their ecosystems" - that would be bs... after all their are some of the worlds nicest national parks, and if it seemed that way, I apologize. And it was definitely not directed towards Canadians, you guys surely play an enormously protective role (even though you were fighting hard to get your will through, when it came to the Kyoto agreement :-).

In one point you stand corrected, though: at least the Germans are extremely environmentally conscious (other countries, like the Swedes or Norwegians are even more and the French, Italians or Spanish are less)- just for the simple fact that living with 80 million people on a territory that is half the size of Texas forces people to watch for resources.
It is nice of you that you don't preach others on how to deal with the environment, but I think that raising consciousness, which is all I intended to do, is not necessary preaching and not necessary a bad thing either. After all environment does not stop at borders (as you experienced with the Spanish fishing boeats). I just happend to note certain things and mentioned them.

Don't get me wrong here - I am not an environmentalist and I never was. It feels odd though that moving from one country to another you move from being an average caring guy to being almost at the far end of the spectrum of awareness.
All I meant to do was to point out that a little more awareness in this country (the USA) when it comes to water and energy certainly could not hurt. It does NOT mean it could not hurt in other (eg. European/Germany) countries either, but I was addressing it mostly to USAmericans because they are basically the only ones on this board - except for a few Greek nationals that stumble in once in a while ;-)

I hope that was clarifying.

You wouldn't want to drink from Lake Ontario.
TRUST ME on this one! http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/tongue.gif
It is polluted and it smells! Eeew!!

fix me two hot baths a year, right after the spring and fall cattle drives, sets me right for meetin the ladies.
reckon don't need much more fixin up than that.

Very true. As well as the skin. This is why Americans have more skin problems than the rest of the world (AKA acne). Not only are we stripping the skin of the bad oils but of good ones as well. More Americans have acne problems than Europeans.