EcoSpeak’s Recent Comments

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  Unanswerable question

  d41295 is asking a question that no one, not even the most skilled climate scientist, can answer.  This is an attempt to back Andrew into a corner.

  d41295's irritable poking should be ignored.  

  Or how about this:  d41295, how about you provide Grist readers with some credible data that show that human activity definitely has not contributed to the recent increase in global temperature averages.

  You do that, d, and then you can go back to your buddies and whine and complain about environentalists always "talking out of their asses."

  Whatever, dude.  We all know that we don't know everything about climate change.  We never will know everything, even after it's just a chapter in some kid's history book.

  But we do know, with absolute certainty, that things are definitely changing, like it or not.On Warming people believe, humans at fault, not so much posted 2 years, 9 months ago 30 Responses

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  Nucbuddy, I don't get it.

  Nucbuddy says,

  [I]f it were probable that once in a quadrillion gigawatt-electric nuclear-reactor years, an accident would occur in which one-million people would die, would it matter that only once in a trillion gigawatt-electric  wind-turbine years (e.g., 1,000 times more likely for the wind-turbine path) an accident would occur in which the same quantity of one-million people would die? Is it not in fact the case that wind-power is more dangerous than nuclear-fission power?

  OK, somebody please explain to me how windpower has any type of catastrophic consequence associated with it.  

  What, a turbine is going to fall down and squish someone?

  Some poor folk are going to have to suffer through a few hot afternoons without air conditioning?

  Hmmm....

  And then Nucbuddy finishes with the quote,

  But while many people think that doing without energy is the safest strategy, it is probably by far the most dangerous.

  Yeah, because people had such a rough time of it for all those millennia when we didn't have hair dryers, light bulbs, and refrigerators.  Wiped us out, didn't it?  On You know any? posted 2 years, 9 months ago 11 Responses

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  Collective action

  I'm no mathematician, so please point out any errors in my calculations if you should identify them.  
  ---

  There are approx. 243,023,485 registered passenger vehicles in America today, which get around 17 miles per gallon and drive an average of 24.3 minutes to get their owners to and from work each morning.  Going 55 miles per hour, that means each car is traveling approx. 22.3 miles to and from work each day.

  This means an average car in America is eating up 1.3 gallons of gas each day for the commute to work.

  Let's say half of the total number of registered passenger vehicles in America make this average daily commute.  This would mean 157,965,265.25 gallons of gas are being consumed each day just to get Americans to and from work.

  Each gallon of gas burned emits 19.4 pounds of CO2.  So this means that Americans' daily commute to work emits 3,064,526,145.85 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere.  Each day.    

  OK, now say that by some act of god or Congress half of all registered passenger car-owning Americans switched in their current cars for hybrids and made the daily 24.3-minute commute to work each day, averaging 40 miles per gallon, a low estimate for hybrids.  

  Each hybrid would use just over half a gallon of gas for its commute.  So each day American commuters, in their "sexy" hybrids, would expel 1,320,103,570.5 pounds of CO2 into the air, a 67% reduction.

  Of course such a scenario is hardly on the horizon (I am in no way suggesting that such a scenario is possible); and even the CO2 emissions of the hybrids are a jaw-droppingly large number. But get enough individuals to make the same small change and it adds up to massive numbers.

  You and I cannot control the actions of 300 million other Americans; we can only control our own actions, and our own emissions.  But I suspect that most other Grist readers have to make that daily commute to work, regardless of whether or not we want to or feel bad about participating in such a wasteful system.  Driving a hybrid to work at least reduces our output, since we cannot eliminate it altogether.

  Agreed, the focus should be on society-wide changes, not on the miniscule habits of individual consumers.  But certainly we should all do what we as individuals can do, and hope that enough of us are doing it to make a difference.On You may be surprised posted 2 years, 9 months ago 56 Responses

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  Religion is the opposite of environmentalism

  John Kay obviously spent a little too much time poring over Michael Crichton's essays this weekend.

  He practically reiterated everything Crichton said in this 2003 essay.

  Does that mean Kay also denies the existence of man-made climate change?  Or perhaps he just wishes it didn't exist, and he wrote the FT article to make himself feel better.

  I say that articles like this only prove the effectiveness of the environmental movement.  Opponents are getting desperate to find any way to slow the awakening process. "Awakening" meaning, of course, the slow realization that the planet isn't big enough to support the unending growth of populations and economies--and that the wonderful benefits of the economic system a la mode (increased quality of life, increased access to medical care, increased access to education, increased access to fast food in every dark corner of the planet) aren't without equal and opposite ramifications (increased risk of wierd cancers, increased risk of mass extinctions of all types of creatures, including people...). Does that sound too Christ-y?  Wait, do I sound like Pat Robertson describing the apocalypse?

  Religion today, at least the Vatican's version, is commonly used for the denial of truth, the denial that humans too are part of the natural world.  Religion is waiting for one's life on this planet to end so one can get on to the next--Heaven, or whatever you want to call it.  How can one respect our planet, our only habitat, if one only wants to get off from it and take up residence in some other dimension?  

  Religion wasn't always this way...it used to be used for connecting people to the earth, establishing relationships with other living beings and emphasizing our Oneness.  Perhaps environmentalism is a return to this pre-Christian idealogical framework.On Never gets old posted 2 years, 10 months ago 10 Responses

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  LDS

  I've always assumed men in Hummers are making up for a lack of physical presence in the pants--Little D*ck Syndrome (LDS).  Women, on the other hand, drive Hummers in order to make up for a lack of spiritual satisfaction--an unloving husband, perhaps, or an insufficient supply of self-confidence.  Both are filling voids in empty lives and empty souls.

  Of course this assumption is totally non-scientific.  I usually try to avoid interactions with Hummer-driving types, beyond occasionally giving them the bird when I pass them on the freeway.

  Luckily, my husband drives a Prius.  ;)

  (Someone should do a study on the smugness of hybrid car owners.  I wonder which is worse, self-righteous eco-freaks or men with LDS?)On Some are really, really big posted 2 years, 10 months ago 9 Responses