Comments bottleman has made

  • low mileage and moms, all around

    Ok, yeah, SUV's suck.  But I wonder if they are primarily to blame for reduction in automobile gas efficiency.  In the past decade or two even the mileage of SEDANS and small cars has flattened: check out ads for sedans touting "25 mpg highway!" -- ridiculous considering what my Toyota pickup got in 1979, which was above 30. My guess is that engineering improvements are going into power. I'm sure someone has data on this.

    So why aren't SUV's the spray-on can of the 00's?  There's a powerful maternal pull towards SUV's, as a documentary on PBS demonstrated in a profile of hifalutin marketing researchers.  After a whole bunch of fancy metapsychoanalysis, they concluded: Make cars bigger and bulkier.  Women and moms will feel safer in them.  It's kind of like walking around with a big big dog.

    Which isn't to blame one sex or the other, just this: that instinct for protection, whether it's justified by safety data or not, can easily overrule altruism.  It's even more powerful than the urge to destroy underarm odor.

    bottleworld.netOn And why is it still around? posted 3 years, 2 months ago 10 Responses

  • it's good we're beating this out

    Firstoff I should say, man, am I spending way too much time on the internet, inspired by this discussion.

    Though I don't quite agree with all of Jason's points, I think it's really valuable that we're having such an intelligent discussion on the distance between the animal rights movement and the environmental one. I really felt like that distance was vast (see my earlier comments if you're curious) and just getting this stuff out in the open offers the promise of shortening it a bit.  It's like some dirty little secret your parents don't like to talk about.  What a relief to shout it out loud.  Next topic: teenage sex? On Enviros should adopt some animal welfare concerns posted 3 years, 2 months ago 31 Responses

  • wait, ARE there common goals?

    Man, this is a tough one, as the 40+ comments on the other thread shows.  Here's why (I'll try to keep it short).  

    Some years ago I did a magazine feature about another cosmic divide -- the one between hunters and environmentalists.  I was convinced that an alliance of "sportsmen" and city "enviros" could be a very powerful force since their goals for habitat protection could be aligned.  

    I discovered that (though there were jerks all around) there were some incredibly smart hunters who put my enviro-style ecological knowledge and care to shame.  That alliance can work and sometimes does.

    Along the way I found one of the biggest barriers to collaboration was the idea that some hunters had: that environmentalists and animal rights activists were the same thing.  It was very useful propaganda for the jerky hunters to lump all enviromentalists in with, say, PETA.

    Meanwhile the animal rights activists I spoke to didn't consider themselves environmentalists -- they considered themselves protectors of animals. Environmentalists might not object to eating meat, for example, or animals in product testing.

    There was something so solemn about that divide. The hunters and environmentalists liked to scream and make fun of each other's clothes, but at the end of the day they all like being out in the woods and most of them like drinking beer.

    I couldn't find such common ground between animal rights people and enviros. The bar set by animal rights people -- protecting every animal -- seemed so high and on some occasions quite contradictory to conservation goals.

    So other than a few outrages (CAFOs maybe), I don't see the two groups meeting soon.  Maybe someone has some more encouraging experiences?

    bottleworld.netOn The activists among us should remember that there's plenty to do together posted 3 years, 2 months ago 5 Responses

  • No, but..

    Nah, it's not frivolous.  There are just some animals out there -- they're usually big or mean or wiley -- that are icons of age and "otherness." They remind us humans that there's a whole world out there that really has nothing to do with us, and we're just visiting it.  Besides whales, there are things like dolphins, wolves, and grizzly bears.

    It's important to help those species thrive because they remind us of all that.  Everybody needs relief from the realm of human society at some point, and even just seeing a whale or a grizzly can do that.

    At the same time, in terms of strict conservation, I do get worried about focusing efforts on the most charismatic species or populations... the biggest of the big, the cutest of the cute, the bluest of the blue.

    An animal's attractive body shouldn't be the basis for our valuation of its existence.  That kind of judgment helps us ignore reality and morality.  It's like having no qualms about eating Cow 2582 but acting shocked when it's time to harvest Old Bess.

    There are a lot of animals (and ecosystems) out there that have no outstanding attractive qualities to our aesthetics (hmm, mosquitos come to mind).  But they're alive, they're the end tendril of a billion years of evolution just like us, and they deserve a vote in the grand old American-Idol-species-off.

    bottleworld.netOn A response to a plan to dramatically increase the scope of whaling posted 3 years, 2 months ago 30 Responses

  • genetic meddling is fun

    Congrats to your daughter!  Fair time is fun time for more reasons than just the deep fried twinkies.

    Sorry to get serious here -- but you spoke of technology.  Visiting the animal barns makes my thoughts turn to animal breeding and how queesy it might make some erstwhile greens.  Usually the fair comes with the idealized picture of the family farm -- people living with nature as partners rather than masters.

    But think about it. All those super breeds that we love to see at fairs -- the maddeningly lactoproductive microgoats, the adorable long-eared lops, the awe-inspiring draft horses -- aren't they really the product of long term genetic meddling by the human race, as breeders again and again crossed individuals with desired characteristics?  Haven't we created our own forks in the evolutionary tree?

    It's not quite genetic engineering, since the crosses are between closely related lines, not ones that diverged a billion years ago.  But it's still got the same theme: humans directing the rest of life in a very intentional way.

    I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  I love the lops! But once you acknowledge the merit in humanity's long history of breeding animals, genetic engineering stops looking like a dungeon of horrors and more like a potentially useful tool.  I'm thinking about its possibilities more and more.

    http://bottleworld.netOn Biodiversivist posted 3 years, 3 months ago 6 Responses

  • green mcmansions ahoy!

    You wrote----


    It will be energy efficient for sure, having twice the insulation of a typical home, but it will also be an energy hog because of its size. Having a green home design is rapidly becoming the next status symbol....

    Absolutely. I recently did some print journalism about this (coming out in a national magazine in September) about the two contradictory trends in American housing: it's getting greener (and more efficient) but it's getting bigger too, which totally defeats the point.  A lot of people want a green mcmansion and are willing to pay for it.  I went to one "green certified" home that had TWO full-size water heaters.  As a result of things like this, total residential "primary" energy consumption continues to climb.

    Defining what is really "green" is the next step. We need real examples of what that is so it can be envied, coveted, and copied.

    Fortunately when it comes to building houses there are some real standards of green, in the form of various green construction certification programs. However, not all of those programs address size.  And the only one I know of that really critically addresses size -- by taking OFF points for houses that are too big -- is LEED for Homes (LEED-H). It's worth looking at LEED-H because it really is a pretty broad view of what can make a house "green".  Even if you can't do everything in LEED-H in your own situation, you can do a lot.

    But at the end of the day no single family house above a certain size (4000? 5000? square feet) should count as green, even if it's made of lucky charms.

    http://bottleworld.netOn Faux green posted 3 years, 3 months ago 2 Responses

  • "I lost 500 pounds in 5 days!"

    It DOES sound too good to be true.  But even really smart people can be sucked in by too-good-to-be-true scams.  Whether it's lengthening a dong, losing weight, getting rich quick, or clotheswashing with devices that "multiply the power of water!", everybody's got their weakness, their point at which their intelligence stops and their craving for an easy answer takes over.

    (Hmm, should I reveal what my own weakness is? Let me turn off this vacuum pump for a minute to think it over...)

    For "ecopeople," especially ones feeling guilty about their own astounding consumption of resources, this garbage-to-diesel scheme might be right on target.

    They're feeling ashamed at the way they live, but they're not really motivated enough to change anything important.   So they cling to questionable cures like ethanol fuel for vehicles and recycling-at-any-energy-cost, because symbolically these measures erase the "sin" of consumption.

    The garbage-to-diesel thing is even better in terms of symbolism because garbage is even filthier in image, and so much of it represents things that are guilt-ridden luxuries.  Therefore it's even better to turn it into something virtuous.

    I know I'm getting kind of heavy here, but such suckers are in a way a creation of the environmental movement.  At least in the popular media of my time, the dominant message has been "feel guilty for all you're destroying" rather than something positive, like "love all this crazy life".

    It has succeeded at making people feel ashamed, but at the end of the day that's not a very strong motivation to change behavior.  It's kind of like saying, "sex outside marriage is immoral."  Most girls who went to Catholic school had that drummed into them, and believed it, but thankfully for us public school boys :) it rarely stopped them from doing it.  On Sunday morning they were probably looking for an easy way to erase their sensual misdeeds, but by the next Saturday night they were out fooling around again.

    I think inspiration is a better motivation than guilt.  That's why me and my blog partners are doing a series called "love those crazy b*st*rds", little homages to miscellaneous fellow denizens of this earth.  Hopefully they'll inspire us to make good choices once in a while.

    But I've ranted long enough.  Time to (hmm, turn the vacuum pump back on) and get back to work.

    http://bottleworld.netOn Snake oil posted 3 years, 3 months ago 3 Responses

  • fewer words

    David Roberts, I love the way you think about everything WAY TOO MUCH.  It's so friggin endearing and idealistic.  So here's my 2 cents:

    Yes, Wal-mart is a preposterously unsustainable operation.  But the fact that they of all companies is greening up its image means that green has arrived as an issue -- in the dark brown sludge of the main stream.  It stinks here, but it's progress.

    http://bottleworld.netOn Wal-Mart's green makeover posted 3 years, 3 months ago 7 Responses

  • healthy vs. enviro consumers

    Good piece.  I think one assumption communicated by two of the sources was a little off, though.  I've lived in two hotspots of organic consumerism and volunteered at a food co-op, and in my experience, most organic food buyers aren't assuming anything about workers. They're not thinking about them at all -- or even, increasingly, thinking about bugs.

    That's because the most common motivation for buying organic is concern with one's own health. Call these buyers the "healthies."  Then there is a certain population whose primary motivation is the environment, the "enviros."  The motivations mix, sure, but the more "healthy" (and selfish) one usually predominates.  Sometimes people even think that by making themselves healthier they're doing something virtuous for the environment... even if they've driven 75 miles to get to the co-op, and the produce came from Brazil.  

    Of these two groups, the "enviros" would probably be much more interested in worker rights, but unfortunately they're not that numerous.  Somebody please tell me I'm wrong!

    http://bottleworld.netOn Workers on organic farms are treated as poorly as their conventional counterparts posted 3 years, 3 months ago 6 Responses

  • inspiration, not prudery

    It's true WITHIN environmental circles doom and gloom vs. self-interest is an old discussion, but I think what the Philly article represents is something else: environmental discussion OUTSIDE of aficionado circles.  A bit hackneyed, yes, but it represents a mainstream, non-aficionado, realization that the dominant environmental message delivered to the average person (which is still "you are bad and need to suffer for the sake of this abstract thing called the environment") may not be that valid or constructive.

    Look at this way.  For people who aren't farmers or hunters, their concern for the environment usually begins with roadside litter. Remember that teary Indian in 70's PSA's?  Hey you selfish garbage-thrower, you're making that Indian cry!

    Though understanding of environmental good has progressed far beyond eliminating litter within the movement, outside the movement the theme is the same. Just a year or two ago a very expensive sophisticated ad agency did an Earth Day campaign here in my city.  Its theme was the same old crying Indian thing: feel guilty.

    The problem with that message is that, like with sex, prudery doesn't inspire.  It just drives negative behaviors into the background.  We need a message that's positive, one that's more about the fabulous world we could GAIN if we act right, not the one we could lose.  To give a tiny example, I want to live in a world where there are bats and butterflies and dragonflies in my urban yard... not just ants and rats. It's taken me 5 years of gardening but they're here now.

    There's already one field out there where people understand this deeply.  It's with their houses.  All sorts of people will buy beater houses and work tirelessly (sacrifice) to fix them up.  They understand their dream house is years off but they still do it.  So I agree with an earlier commentator, calls to altruism, to do hard things, can be inspiring.  People just need to have a picture of where they're going.

    To the extent the Philly article pushes things ever so slightly in that direction, it helps.On Selfishness posted 3 years, 3 months ago 9 Responses

  • there's no substitute

    Thank you thank you thank you for not going into pseudo-bacons made of soy, etc.  A pox on mannequin foods -- those with the shape but none of the satisfaction of what they're imitating.

    All those things you say are pretty much right.  The quality of the mayo makes a huge difference (I like TJ's).  Certain foods -- like smoked mozarella, very slightly melted perhaps -- have that same satisfying, addicting combination of savor and fattiness as bacon.

    But still, at the end of the day, I find that not eating bacon is kind of like not going all the way in bed: you can jump up and down and twist around and do all sorts of things that they tell you about at Planned Parenthood, but when you give in and really get down and dirty, you remember why you can't live without it, at least once in a while.  :)

    http://bottleworld.netOn 'Tis the Season (to BLT or not to BLT) posted 3 years, 4 months ago 16 Responses

  • it's the size, not the yellow label

    I've been doing some work lately about housing and energy, and one thing I've discovered is that you need to be really careful about those yellow Energy consumption labels you see in the USA. They only show you relative energy efficiency within the size class of appliance.  They say nothing about whether the size you have chosen is appropriate.  For example, my little sanyo fridge isn't Energy Star rated, and its consumption looks bad on the yellow graph.  But it uses about a quarter of the energy of a standard fridge.   It's actual consumption that matters, not relative efficiency.  Some 'green' certifications, for example Energy Star, don't really acknowledge that.

    http://bottleworld.netOn Umbra on fridge-freezer efficiency posted 3 years, 4 months ago 2 Responses

  • get me out of this carnival

    All this rather sophisticated thinking is a carnival funhouse!  Crazy mirrors, dead hallways, and bogeymen that pop out of the ceiling.

    Like this character: the green gaian goddess who waves like seagrass, saying of course humans are part of the environment, who suddenly snarls! She has been cleverly co-opted by the forces of destruction, because her sage point of view can justify anything.  For example, I believe in a recent dams-vs.-salmon case, the Bush administration made the clever argument that since humans are part of the system, dams were natural, and ergo there was no need to remove them.

    But we can skip the effort of finding a philosophical alternative by simply asking: what kind of world do we humans want to live in? And answering that, how do we get there?  This clears up a lot, for me, anyway.  I want a world where humans live well and the rest of the biosphere is more than just a life support system -- it's a source of wonder and perspective I can touch every day.  

    http://bottleworld.netOn Some quasi-philosophical blather posted 3 years, 4 months ago 17 Responses