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I 100% disagree with the notion of banning fast food. People have the right to pick what food they eat and what they feed their kids. You don't have to like it, but they have that right and to "ban" foods because they are unhealthy and you don't like them is moving us closer to socialism which is not what this country is about. You don't like fast food, don't eat it but stay out of other peoples business and what they eat.
As for "going green"...first of all, going green can be very expensive for people which is why more people who would like to do it, don't. I would love to be able to get solar power. But I don't have the money to buy solar panels or get it all set up. Oh, I know, in the long run it saves....but you still have to get past the initial start up costs.
Recycling I do because if something can be broken down and re used and not sit in a land fill, I'd much rather it be done. Yes, it costs money but the way I think about it, we are not alone, it's not just about us, there are other species on this planet that we are hurting.
For me I think it started when I was a kid and we would always go to a little park when visiting the grandparents in Napa, CA. There was a lake there with ducks. For years, we would look for the same duck with the 6 pack plastic rings stuck around its neck. First of all, because people don't take the time to cut those up so that if they do "get away", they don't get caught on an animal's neck. Second, plastic takes forever to break down and become part of the environment again. So, let's reuse it, instead.
I live frugally and minimally simply because that's my lifestyle. I move around way too much to be acquiring a lot. Makes moving a pain. I also have discovered I don't need a whole lot. Life is more than just gadgets...and that comes from someone who actually likes gadgets. I just don't buy them all.
I also live that way because I prefer to keep more of my own money in my bank account than have it go to the electric company, the water company, the trash company, etc. I worked my tail off for this money, I want to keep it.
I don't agree with everything that is being pushed on us about the "green" movement. First of all, recycling and being frugal is nothing new. It just seems new because suddenly we are all being chastised like children for how we live. Sure, some people do make a lot of waste. Go work in a hotel and be blown away by how much waste is produced in ONE day. One hotel, one day and you start to get an idea of how much is wasted every single day by millions across the country.
BUT, again, recycling and living minimally is nothing new. It's just that everything became easier to get. Everything was faster. Everything was shiny, new, more powerful, greater, better, improved, we must have it!!!!!
I think we are now, very slowly, very, very slowly, starting to return to our sanity and realize that we don't need all of this stuff. Sure, a p*ss poor economy is helping some people find that but it does show people that they can live without having everything.
Just like with everything, there's always some truth to it but when people start going extreme, they've lost me. Keep the balance, shut off the rhetoric, give factual evidence, stop talking to America like they are stupid children and you will get more people to listen, accept and put in to action.
Someone said earlier, if it had been presented as a way to save money, more people would have been for it. Being told we are destroying the planet, we have to offset our carbon footprints, here's a little kiosk for you to put your credit card in to in order to assuage your guilt by the loss of some of your money, you are stupid and suck because you use what we gave you...no...that doesn't work with a lot of people.
Oh, I know, in the long run it saves....but you still have to get past the initial start up costs.
It only saves you the individual money, the taxpayer and ratepayer lose. It's very much like a ponzi scheme, those that get in on it early can save and if you live in my area you can even make money. If it were to expand you'd run out of other peoples money to support it.
Excerpts from Science, SCIENCE VOL 312 23 JUNE 2006
As an illustration, the corn grain ethanol (the primary biofuel produced in the United States) that is produced on 3.5 million hectares of prime cropland (~12% of U.S. corn acreage on soils that are uniquely productive) yields less than 2% of our current fuel consumption. Year-round corn crops, encouraged by biofuel production, cause long-term soil degradation. This type of degradation cannot be repaired by fertilization, nor can fertilizer be used as “soil energy currency” in accounting for biofuel production costs. The real cost of this form of land use will not be realized by this or even the next generation, but will be borne by future generations who have no say in the energy policy of today.
The Review “The path forward for biofuels and biomaterials” (A. J. Ragauskas et al., 27 Jan., p. 484) presents its most important datum, 10^20 joules per year of sustainable biomass energy, without any attempt to relate it to energy consumption. The United States uses more than 400 million kilowatts of electrical power, or a little more than one kilowatt per capita. If we multiply this quantity by the number of seconds in a year (3600 × 24 × 365), the result is 1.26 × 10^19 joules per year. Production of one unit of electrical energy requires three units of fuel energy; thus, the corresponding demand on biomass energy would be 0.38 ×10^20 joules per year. For itself, the United States would use approximately 40% of the world’s biomass energy just for electricity. The remainder of the energy, and more besides, would be consumed by transportation, space heating, and manufacturing. Nothing would be left over for the rest of the world. Because wind and solar energy have less potential than biomass energy, it is obvious that the global community ( as we know it ) must rely mainly on petroleum and coal ( until inevitable collapse )
The above calculations demonstrate that major reliance on biofuel, even for private motoring alone, would place an additional demand on agricultural production greater than would providing an adequate diet for 9 billion people by 2050. Positive energy gain and reduced greenhouse gas emissions are not sufficient to establish biofuel as an economic and ecologically friendly solution to current problems of energy supply and ecological sustainability. Anything but a marginal contribution from biofuel would pose a serious threat to both food security and the natural resource base of land, soils, and water.
It requires production equivalent to 0.5 ton of grain to feed one person for one year, a value sufficiently large to allow some production to be used as seed for the next crop, some to be fed to animals, and some land to be diverted to fruit and vegetable crops. Compare this value with that for a car running 20,000 km/year at an efficient consumption of 7 liters/100 km. The required 1400 liters of ethanol would be produced from 3.5 ton grain (2.48 kg grain/liter), requiring an agricultural production seven times the dietary requirement for one person.
I think we have a strawman argument here. I don't know of anyone in the fuel ethanol business that believed corn-based ethanol can be scaled up to meet our liquid fuel needs. It's a needed additive to gasoline and a transition fuel to cellulosic ethanol and algae-base biofuels, both of which will scale well.
The assertion that there is not enough renewable energy to meet out needs is just wrong. We have about 100 time the rnewable energy potential as we have current energy needs. The only issue is harvesting the energy cost effectively.
I think we have a strawman argument here. I don't know of anyone in the fuel ethanol business that believed corn-based ethanol can be scaled up to meet our liquid fuel needs. It's a needed additive to gasoline and a transition fuel to cellulosic ethanol and algae-base biofuels, both of which will scale well.
The assertion that there is not enough renewable energy to meet out needs is just wrong. We have about 100 time the rnewable energy potential as we have current energy needs. The only issue is harvesting the energy cost effectively.
We have 10^20 joules per year of sustainable biomass energy, see above, whether it's ethanol, cellulosic, algae-base, etc., etc., etc. it doesn't really matter, Total World Annual Energy consumption in 2008 - 4.74x10^20 J. Sustainable biomass energy potential is less than the current energy consumption.
"We have about 100 time the renewable energy potential" is a pipe dream having no ground in science & common sense.
Just think about it, 2,000,000 years ago when our ape like ancestors carved a tiny piece of ecological & energy pie for themselves, Earth ecosystems and energy fluxes were in fine balance. There were no unexploited "100 time the renewable energy potential" laying around for our ancestors to pick up. Cancer like human growth was made possible by eliminating food, space & energy competitors of other species. We got so successful at eliminating competition we just may kill themselves like yeast in a mash tank. A suggestion that we may extend our "renewable energy piece" 100 times fold is suicidal delusion.
That article was posted by "FloridaSandy" up in the business section, and although they use the example of Carbon Taxes (totally not my issue, either way), the underlying issues of the methods of assuming an end point, and then using "math" to argue it backwards comes out silly once anyone really does the math.
I think that is what I may be seeing in some of what you are presenting?
Again, this is no sort of attack, but rather I am really interested in working through some of the modeling and numbers you are presenting.
Last edited by Philip T; 07-03-2011 at 11:30 AM..
Reason: grammar, mispletings, and general ill-literacy
Until world population is under control, it really doesn't matter what we do here. However, the green movement stopped advocating for this a long time ago.
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