I watched Animal Planet on our new TV last night with my daughter. The infrared sensor on our old TV had pooped out. I'd lost the ability to channel surf, and with it a part of my manhood.
Fed up with my inability to flip, I jumped on my hybrid-electric bike, sped down the bike trail to Fred Meyers, bought the cheapest 20" flat screen they had, loaded it into my bike trailer, and was watching commercials within an hour of having set out. The bike, the electric components on the bike, the TV, and the wind-up flashing diode lights on the bike were all made in China.
Two commercials in particular caught my attention: one for organic Sugar Frosted Mini-Wheats (about time I say) and the other for Dawn dishwashing liquid. Apparently its new and improved grease-fighting formula works great to clean crude oil off of penguins. I don't know if commercials like this are good for the image of environmentalism. The ad execs obviously don't think we're all that bright.
My old 20" TV must weigh about 80 pounds. The new one is flat screen and weighs about eight pounds. That is a ten-fold decrease in material and mass (an order of magnitude). It is an example of how we might be able to bring billions of humans out of poverty and still save our biodiversity.
Compare this technology to the old wooden console TVs of my youth and you will see that it is several orders of magnitude more environmentally friendly. And it isn't that way out of concern for the environment. It is that way because of competition on the free market. Environmentally friendliness is a side effect, with government regulations creating level playing fields for competition (nobody can use mercury switches -- game on). The same can be said for plywood, which consumes orders of magnitude less wood (with glues that meet EPA standards) and millions of other technologies out there.
My children may one day watch TV on holograms projected from devices the size of a cell phone, reducing the 300 pound television consoles of my youth down to intersections of light beams, having virtually no mass, and that's no joke.
Comments
View as Flat
kmp Posted 3:17 am
02 Oct 2006
Perhaps this was a question for Umbra. But even I can understand that the status-seeking male suddenly finding himself sans remote might just panic and willy nilly buy the first 20" flat screen that falls to hand, rather than wait for the advice of an environmental columnist. Especially a female one! <g>
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David Roberts Posted 4:10 am
02 Oct 2006
www.grist.org
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bookerly Posted 6:52 am
02 Oct 2006
Gee, David, I think that's bigger than my room.... sigh....
There was a great cartoon (I forgot by who!) which showed a boy sitting on a stage in front of a television, remote in hand.
Caption "talent shows of the future".
(or something like that!).
Hopefully some of the money sent to China will go to paying for English lessons (grin).
patrick
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deardancer3 Posted 10:53 am
02 Oct 2006
What town, what kind of electric bike, where did you get it?
Good for you!
D
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Robert Delfs Posted 1:04 pm
02 Oct 2006
It may be less surprising since I don't live in the US, but it occurred to me the other day that I no longer own a single manufactured product made in the US. I think the last things were a pair of levis that wore out in the mid-1990s, and a pair of Ikelite underwater strobes that never really worked. (I use Japanese strobes now.) A few items (mostly clothing, things like running shoes) branded by US companies, but all manufactured abroad, mostly in Asia. The only things I own that come from the US are books (recycled trees).
To the extent that this becomes true even for people living in the US, the "enviromental friendliness" of industrial products that biodiversivist talks about becomes largely a matter of other countries' environments and their governments' regulations.
It also implies, among other things, that we should not become too self-satisfied because problems related to industry-based air and water pollution and solid waste disposal appear to be improving slightly (or getting worse less rapidly) in the US.
Consumers of wide-screen TVs, running shoes, toasters and "organic sugar-frosted super wheat thins" in the US export polluting processes and the pollution itself to Asia, along with the companies and equipment that have moved from places like Ohio and Indiana to Shenyang and Wuhan over the past 20 years.
That won't save us. The carbon emissions, mercury and sulfur - all the so-called "invisible exports" from China that can now reach across the Pacific to the US West Coast and the rest of the world is not just China's pollution. It's also ours.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/13/content_567...
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5058
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=7590
Robert Delfs
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:37 am
03 Oct 2006
Your intuition cuts like a knife.
Mr. Delfs
Your mind, she is like a steel trap. And yes, those commercials for organic sugar frosted mini-wheats and the soap being used to clean penguins are for real, and I agree, we are for the most part a bunch of idiots. It is the hand we have been dealt and we must do the best we can with it. I tried to find video clips of both commercials but came up short.
Dave,
How big is yours (if that's not getting too personal)? Don't tell me you don't have one (a TV).
Patrick,
You might try contacting our family friend through her blog if you are serious about looking for an English teaching job.
Deardancer3,
This post should bring you up to date:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/9/8/82015/17778
I live in Seattle and there is an electric bike store a few miles from my house. I made my own with a kit from the Internet.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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David Roberts Posted 5:11 am
03 Oct 2006
I don't have one.
That's not to say I don't watch TV. I watch numerous shows regularly. I just download them onto my computer.
Legally of course!!! Totally legally.
www.grist.org
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bookerly Posted 10:49 am
03 Oct 2006
Dear Biodiversivist,
Thanks! Actually, I was joking. I am already teaching more hours than I can stand, and turning down work regularly.
But I hope your friend enjoys her time here.
(And my room is a bit bigger than that!)
Did you try YouTube for the commercials? They have folks who snip about everything.
There was an interesting show on Chinese TV last night about how wind and solar power are being used to provide electricity to poor areas in the West of China.
Waiting for basketball season to start....
patrick
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