CaptainHaplo
11-11-08, 09:54 PM
This goes to the heart of some of the "Change your ways" arguments made about how Americans need to modify our lives. It unfortunately means slaughtering some environmental "sacred cows". It also is based purely on ia vew from INSIDE the US - because if we are talking about US changing - then we should start with the US don't you think? In other words - its just futher proof that the tree huggers get it all wrong.... again......
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#1 Turn off the AC because its inefficient and wasteful - harming nature!
Ok - it seems to make sense on the surface. But actually HEATING your home is much more inefficient. A comfortable 70 degrees means you need alot more energy to heat your home when its 0 degrees outside - vs it being 110 and you wanting to cool your home. The average home in Phoenix, AZ creates 900 lbs of CO2 a year in heating and cooling. The same home in the Northeast - 13,000 lbs - due to heating. Fact is - it takes less energy to cool a given space by one degree than it does to heat the same space by one degree.
Cooling the US during the summer heat produced 110 metric tons of carbon. Heating the US for the same period of time - 8 times as much....
#2 Speaking of heating - avoid gas or electric - go natural!!!
Oh boy what a wrong answer - burning wood releases all the CO2 it had absorbed back into the environment. The chemical reaction of fire itself also creates carbon dioxide as it absorbs oxygen. Petroleum based heat (Natural Gas or Oil) does create CO2 as well, just not as much. Electric heat creates virtually NO CO2 during use - the only time it does is when the electricity is created - but more on electricity at the end.
#3 Leave nature alone - go ORGANIC!!!!
God if people only paid attention. "Organic" cows for example - takes 25 of them to make the same amount of milk that 23 normal "industrial" cows do. More cows = more methane. Oh - and organic cows release 16% more gas PER COW than regular ones. Can you say double whammy? Well lets just eat grass fed cattle - only problem is that it takes them longer to reach slaughter weight - meaning they pollute longer than your regular Black Angus. Pasture beef also burp up almost twice as much greenhouse gas as grain fed cattle according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. What about vegetables and such you ask? Well, the vast majority of organic food is grown by "BIG AG" - in hot houses - and then shipped thousands of miles to your grocer. Think of all that CO2 from vehicles just so you could scarf down dinner and feel good about eating "organic".
#4 Leave nature alone - again!! Agro Genetic Engineering is BAD!!!!
6 BILLION people in the world - feeding them creates more so called greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, trains, ships and planes put together. Agriculture creates nearly 15% of those gases. Thats according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The largest single Agro source is from nitrogen based fertilizers. The solution, wonderful things like genetically engineered crops. For example - Arcadia Biosciences has worked on a genetically engineered gene that - introduced into rice crops alone - could save 50 Million Tons of CO2 annually. Genetically engineered corn can create higher yields from lower nitrogen soil - meaning less fertilizer. How about those crops currently in development that will allow the stalks and leaves to be turned into biofuels more efficiently? Lets not forget genetically friendly meat - without feet. Keeps us from being cruel to animals and saves the planet.... but all these things are supposedly EVIL!
#5 - Do your part - Ditch the SUV and buy a hybrid!
You have GOT to be kidding me. Not only are you not going to get me into a Prius, the real fact of the matter is even making the thing is harmful to the environment. Get this - pound for pound - making a Hummer results in LESS carbon emmisions into the atmosphere than a Prius does. The nickel used in the battery of the Prius is the biggest culprit. And you have to replace those on a regular basis - meaning your repeating the cycle and wiping away any gains you had made with an "eco" friendly car. Want to cut down on emissions? Buy a 1998 Tercel. Making a new Prius uses 113 Million BTUs according to one leading sustainability expert - Pablo Paster. A gallon of gas contains 113,000 BTU's - so that Tercel has a 1000 gallon "emissions" lead on the Prius to start with. Since the Tercel gets ~35MPG - the Prius has to go 100,000 miles just to CATCH UP! Buy a 1994 Geo Metro XFi (one of the most fuel efficient cars ever built) - and the Prius can never mathematically win the emissions race as it gets the same mileage. These numbers don't even factor in that the original owner has already "paid" off the carbon debt.
#6 Embrace the world - sign the Kyoto Protocol and help save the Earth!!!
You know what the KP actually does? Between the bait and switch fallacy of "carbon offsets" (which we will touch on momentarily) and its industrial scale brother "emissions trading" the real end result intended in Kyoto? An admirable reduction of CO2 emmisions by 2012 of 175 Million tons. Now thats total - from what we would be doing then if we do nothing - vs what we would be outputting then by signing onto Kyoto. Seems like a good thing? Well, for all the cost and hardship it will cause - guess what - that amount will slow the rise of carbon emissions by... hold onto your hat now ... all of 6.5 DAYS! (Source - Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado). Lets wreck our economy further for the whole difference of less than ONE week of the worlds CO2 output. Yea right......
#7 If you can't change - buy carbon offsets!!!
Anyone need any "Snake Oil"? Same thing with emissions trading. Its all a sham. Ok your paying someone to plant a tree in TimbukThree to make good on that airplane trip you just HAD to take. Who says it really gets planted? And who is gonna be watching over that tree to make sure it lives long enough to suck up the requisite carbon before some guy chops it down? Besides - planting trees as an offset doesn't work - though we will tackle that next. So what else are they going to do to save the carbon? Anyone? Anyone? Why is it all I hear is crickets?????
#8 Save old growth forests - stop logging and tree farming!!!!
Could they be MORE wrong? (Well yes - but thats #9 :smug: ) Sure, trees absorb carbon right? Well - kind of. The late, Great Communicator - Ronald Reagan himself once said "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles." While tree huggers will scoff - the facts are he was right. In warm weather or zones, trees release chemicals that contribute and can cause smog. It gets worse. Letting old growth forests be turns them into carbon FACTORIES!!! A tree is able to absorb carbon very well - until it hits about the age of 55. After that, its ability to absorb carbon diminishes rapidly. Canada signed on to the KP we talked about earlier. Then they did a study, thinking that their 583 MILLION acres of woodland would get them an easy offset that would keep them well within the KP mandated greenhouse gas emissions. Guess what - instead of being a net gain - those old growth forests were actually PRODUCING more carbon than they were absorbing. The carbon emissions were mainly from decomposing wood. Fires also contributed.
Want to make the woods into a real carbon sponge? Don't tell a tree hugger, but it would mean cleaning out old growth forests, planting seedlings, and harvesting them in about half a century and repeating the cycle - perhaps using them to make high quality durable goods like furniture and houses.
#9 Alternative energy is the answer - NOT NUKES! (Can you hear the "NO NUKES, NO NUKES, NO NUKES" chant in the background???)
OK - check out the US EPA's CO2 per KWH map. 2 places are immediately noticable as low carbon emmision areas. The Hydroelectric powered Northwest, and Vermont. (There are others, but these are examples.) Guess what's in Vermont.... She is called the Vermont Yankee - a 30 yr old Nuke plant that powers almost all the state. The darkest area - Washington DC. Now the scientists say its because of all the coal fired electrical plants - but personally I suspect its all the hot air politicians. Either way, you get 520 TIMES as much carbon pollution in DC than you do in Vermont. Why? Because Nuclear Power has an almost non existent carbon footprint. The environmentalists stamp their feet and yell about the waste - but we have the technology to build and use reactors that use 99.9999% of the energy in the reactants. Europe has mandated all new nuke factories be this type. The waste from them is not enrichable so no fear of it being used for weapons either. The only things that are as environmentally friendly? Hydopower is already mentioned, but isn't available everywhere. The other is wind - but sometimes the wind doesn't blow..... The UK government says that factoring in everything from mining the uranium to the day a nuke plant is decommissioned results in between 2 and 6 percent of the carbon emissions of a natural gas plant. Natural Gas is the cleanest of the "fossil fuels" by the way. Electrical power emits 26% of the worlds "greenhouse gases" - though the US electrical generation only emits 9% of our total - still - worldwide energy making is the largest single contributor to "global warming" gas release. Kill this no nukes tree hugging sacred cow, and solve at least 25% of the "problem" immediately.
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For sources sake and in the interest of full credit - this numbered items above are a paraphrasing of an article in WIRED magazine (June 2008 edition) written by Spencer Reiss with the additional sources listed in each paragraph.
************************************************** ************
Ultimately the "fixes" that so called enviromentalists call for are simply not reasonable solutions. To often its a matter of "feel good" policies that accomplish nothing. While I am not a convert to the whole global warming theory, the fact is that answers exist that could keep it from being a problem if it is real.
All of these "save the Earth" ideas are not going to do any such thing. They will however stifle economic strength, innovation and true progress. One could argue about the merits of the pro's and con's of the global warming arguments. What does that do? Nothing. Telling me or another person we have to change our lives based on flawed reasoning doesn't do more than cause friction. Instead, lets look at what alternatives there are out there. Take each with a critical eye, examine the realities of the ideas instead of embracing them immediately due to a "it feels good" mentality. Do that, and we as a country, or a world, could make real progress on many fronts, not just environmental.
This ends todays lecture here in Reality 101. :know: Have a nice day.
************************************************** ***********
#1 Turn off the AC because its inefficient and wasteful - harming nature!
Ok - it seems to make sense on the surface. But actually HEATING your home is much more inefficient. A comfortable 70 degrees means you need alot more energy to heat your home when its 0 degrees outside - vs it being 110 and you wanting to cool your home. The average home in Phoenix, AZ creates 900 lbs of CO2 a year in heating and cooling. The same home in the Northeast - 13,000 lbs - due to heating. Fact is - it takes less energy to cool a given space by one degree than it does to heat the same space by one degree.
Cooling the US during the summer heat produced 110 metric tons of carbon. Heating the US for the same period of time - 8 times as much....
#2 Speaking of heating - avoid gas or electric - go natural!!!
Oh boy what a wrong answer - burning wood releases all the CO2 it had absorbed back into the environment. The chemical reaction of fire itself also creates carbon dioxide as it absorbs oxygen. Petroleum based heat (Natural Gas or Oil) does create CO2 as well, just not as much. Electric heat creates virtually NO CO2 during use - the only time it does is when the electricity is created - but more on electricity at the end.
#3 Leave nature alone - go ORGANIC!!!!
God if people only paid attention. "Organic" cows for example - takes 25 of them to make the same amount of milk that 23 normal "industrial" cows do. More cows = more methane. Oh - and organic cows release 16% more gas PER COW than regular ones. Can you say double whammy? Well lets just eat grass fed cattle - only problem is that it takes them longer to reach slaughter weight - meaning they pollute longer than your regular Black Angus. Pasture beef also burp up almost twice as much greenhouse gas as grain fed cattle according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. What about vegetables and such you ask? Well, the vast majority of organic food is grown by "BIG AG" - in hot houses - and then shipped thousands of miles to your grocer. Think of all that CO2 from vehicles just so you could scarf down dinner and feel good about eating "organic".
#4 Leave nature alone - again!! Agro Genetic Engineering is BAD!!!!
6 BILLION people in the world - feeding them creates more so called greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, trains, ships and planes put together. Agriculture creates nearly 15% of those gases. Thats according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The largest single Agro source is from nitrogen based fertilizers. The solution, wonderful things like genetically engineered crops. For example - Arcadia Biosciences has worked on a genetically engineered gene that - introduced into rice crops alone - could save 50 Million Tons of CO2 annually. Genetically engineered corn can create higher yields from lower nitrogen soil - meaning less fertilizer. How about those crops currently in development that will allow the stalks and leaves to be turned into biofuels more efficiently? Lets not forget genetically friendly meat - without feet. Keeps us from being cruel to animals and saves the planet.... but all these things are supposedly EVIL!
#5 - Do your part - Ditch the SUV and buy a hybrid!
You have GOT to be kidding me. Not only are you not going to get me into a Prius, the real fact of the matter is even making the thing is harmful to the environment. Get this - pound for pound - making a Hummer results in LESS carbon emmisions into the atmosphere than a Prius does. The nickel used in the battery of the Prius is the biggest culprit. And you have to replace those on a regular basis - meaning your repeating the cycle and wiping away any gains you had made with an "eco" friendly car. Want to cut down on emissions? Buy a 1998 Tercel. Making a new Prius uses 113 Million BTUs according to one leading sustainability expert - Pablo Paster. A gallon of gas contains 113,000 BTU's - so that Tercel has a 1000 gallon "emissions" lead on the Prius to start with. Since the Tercel gets ~35MPG - the Prius has to go 100,000 miles just to CATCH UP! Buy a 1994 Geo Metro XFi (one of the most fuel efficient cars ever built) - and the Prius can never mathematically win the emissions race as it gets the same mileage. These numbers don't even factor in that the original owner has already "paid" off the carbon debt.
#6 Embrace the world - sign the Kyoto Protocol and help save the Earth!!!
You know what the KP actually does? Between the bait and switch fallacy of "carbon offsets" (which we will touch on momentarily) and its industrial scale brother "emissions trading" the real end result intended in Kyoto? An admirable reduction of CO2 emmisions by 2012 of 175 Million tons. Now thats total - from what we would be doing then if we do nothing - vs what we would be outputting then by signing onto Kyoto. Seems like a good thing? Well, for all the cost and hardship it will cause - guess what - that amount will slow the rise of carbon emissions by... hold onto your hat now ... all of 6.5 DAYS! (Source - Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado). Lets wreck our economy further for the whole difference of less than ONE week of the worlds CO2 output. Yea right......
#7 If you can't change - buy carbon offsets!!!
Anyone need any "Snake Oil"? Same thing with emissions trading. Its all a sham. Ok your paying someone to plant a tree in TimbukThree to make good on that airplane trip you just HAD to take. Who says it really gets planted? And who is gonna be watching over that tree to make sure it lives long enough to suck up the requisite carbon before some guy chops it down? Besides - planting trees as an offset doesn't work - though we will tackle that next. So what else are they going to do to save the carbon? Anyone? Anyone? Why is it all I hear is crickets?????
#8 Save old growth forests - stop logging and tree farming!!!!
Could they be MORE wrong? (Well yes - but thats #9 :smug: ) Sure, trees absorb carbon right? Well - kind of. The late, Great Communicator - Ronald Reagan himself once said "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles." While tree huggers will scoff - the facts are he was right. In warm weather or zones, trees release chemicals that contribute and can cause smog. It gets worse. Letting old growth forests be turns them into carbon FACTORIES!!! A tree is able to absorb carbon very well - until it hits about the age of 55. After that, its ability to absorb carbon diminishes rapidly. Canada signed on to the KP we talked about earlier. Then they did a study, thinking that their 583 MILLION acres of woodland would get them an easy offset that would keep them well within the KP mandated greenhouse gas emissions. Guess what - instead of being a net gain - those old growth forests were actually PRODUCING more carbon than they were absorbing. The carbon emissions were mainly from decomposing wood. Fires also contributed.
Want to make the woods into a real carbon sponge? Don't tell a tree hugger, but it would mean cleaning out old growth forests, planting seedlings, and harvesting them in about half a century and repeating the cycle - perhaps using them to make high quality durable goods like furniture and houses.
#9 Alternative energy is the answer - NOT NUKES! (Can you hear the "NO NUKES, NO NUKES, NO NUKES" chant in the background???)
OK - check out the US EPA's CO2 per KWH map. 2 places are immediately noticable as low carbon emmision areas. The Hydroelectric powered Northwest, and Vermont. (There are others, but these are examples.) Guess what's in Vermont.... She is called the Vermont Yankee - a 30 yr old Nuke plant that powers almost all the state. The darkest area - Washington DC. Now the scientists say its because of all the coal fired electrical plants - but personally I suspect its all the hot air politicians. Either way, you get 520 TIMES as much carbon pollution in DC than you do in Vermont. Why? Because Nuclear Power has an almost non existent carbon footprint. The environmentalists stamp their feet and yell about the waste - but we have the technology to build and use reactors that use 99.9999% of the energy in the reactants. Europe has mandated all new nuke factories be this type. The waste from them is not enrichable so no fear of it being used for weapons either. The only things that are as environmentally friendly? Hydopower is already mentioned, but isn't available everywhere. The other is wind - but sometimes the wind doesn't blow..... The UK government says that factoring in everything from mining the uranium to the day a nuke plant is decommissioned results in between 2 and 6 percent of the carbon emissions of a natural gas plant. Natural Gas is the cleanest of the "fossil fuels" by the way. Electrical power emits 26% of the worlds "greenhouse gases" - though the US electrical generation only emits 9% of our total - still - worldwide energy making is the largest single contributor to "global warming" gas release. Kill this no nukes tree hugging sacred cow, and solve at least 25% of the "problem" immediately.
************************************************** ************
For sources sake and in the interest of full credit - this numbered items above are a paraphrasing of an article in WIRED magazine (June 2008 edition) written by Spencer Reiss with the additional sources listed in each paragraph.
************************************************** ************
Ultimately the "fixes" that so called enviromentalists call for are simply not reasonable solutions. To often its a matter of "feel good" policies that accomplish nothing. While I am not a convert to the whole global warming theory, the fact is that answers exist that could keep it from being a problem if it is real.
All of these "save the Earth" ideas are not going to do any such thing. They will however stifle economic strength, innovation and true progress. One could argue about the merits of the pro's and con's of the global warming arguments. What does that do? Nothing. Telling me or another person we have to change our lives based on flawed reasoning doesn't do more than cause friction. Instead, lets look at what alternatives there are out there. Take each with a critical eye, examine the realities of the ideas instead of embracing them immediately due to a "it feels good" mentality. Do that, and we as a country, or a world, could make real progress on many fronts, not just environmental.
This ends todays lecture here in Reality 101. :know: Have a nice day.