Green myths (part 2)

I bet most of you still can't believe how stupid recycling and hybrids were. But have no fear I have more to add to the list!

After I learned this I seriously started questioning the motives of all the green movement which is funded mostly by wait for it... large corporations. Who is dangerous to say but with some research you will find out. They are not really hiding it, they just hide the true motives behind it.

So how many times someone told you to turn off the light to save CO2... Kinda makes sense right? No. Why? it's worth bearing in mind that the total amount of CO2 that can be released by power plants and other industrial facilities across the EU between now and 2012 is fixed by the European Emissions Trading Scheme. This means that if the UK power sector reduces its emissions, extra carbon permits get freed up for use elsewhere, such as German power stations or French cement plants. In other words, the same amount of CO2 will be released, just from different sources.

Now after 2012 honestly I couldn't find if the European Emissions Trading Scheme has extended this but we will find out in the future. I know that by turning the lights off you save money but you don't do anything for the environment. Also the new type of bulbs do save money also but they have mercury inside so if they break they are dangerous to everyone around and the environment. They have to be recycled and disposed in a facility so that means more energy (unconfirmed). So try to understand what is good for the environment isn't most of the time good for your pocket. 

I forgot to mention in the previous post that according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, agriculture is responsible for 18% of the total release of greenhouse gases world-wide (this is more than the whole transportation sector). Now I know it might sound silly but cows farting and burping produce more greenhouse gases than your cars. I don't know the numbers but still... Feeling bad now for eating them? Eat a cow, save the planet!

A recent study brought to everyone's attention (at least those that bothered to research it) that air quality is getting better. One example is that it now takes 20 new cars to produce the same emissions as one car produced in the 1960s. A Gallup poll found that only 17 percent of the members of the Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Society think that the warming of the 20th century has been a result of greenhouse gas emissions — principally CO₂ from burning fossil fuels. 

More than 100 noted scientists, including the former president of the National Academy of Sciences, signed a letter declaring that costly actions to reduce greenhouse gases are NOT justified by the best available evidence. While atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 28 percent over the past 150 years, human-generated carbon dioxide could have played only a small part in any warming, since most of the warming occurred prior to 1940 — before most human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. I think someone is playing with us here... And I d probably trust the dudes with the lab coats than the suits in any Government.

Christmas are behind us and I got tired listening to people that everyone should get plastic ones and not real ones so we save the trees... Sorry to break it to you my green dumbass friend but for the most part, Christmas trees are not simply cut down from the local forest where Bambi lives. The majority of sold Christmas trees are grown as crops and are therefore grown entirely for this purpose. Secondly, real Christmas trees are 100% biodegradable. Most fake Christmas trees are made from polyvinyl chloride aka PVC, a plastic that is non-renewable and does not degrade.

Lastly, real Christmas trees create insignificant amounts of CO2 in their production in comparison to fake Christmas trees. Real Christmas trees require no manufacturing processes and have relatively low shipping distances while the same cannot be said for fake ones. So if you are aiming to be more eco-friendly, keep going with the real deal and don’t buy a fake Christmas tree!

And of course I have to answer to the smartasses that say that the receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves is proof of global warming. Here you got me you are... well wrong again but it's always fun to give false hopes to people that take no time to even do some basic research about stuff that they are interested in. I guess the same goes with religion... So what the truth is? 

Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundred of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It's normal. Besides glacier's health depends as much on the precipitation as on temperature.

Another myth is that as for the earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level is rising. The answer to this is that the earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica. 

Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise. And don't tell me about the floods etc. People that build their houses in areas where stuff like that happened in the past and still happen need to move. Same with people that build their houses near active volcanoes and wonder why they have lava in their living room. (George Carlin)

Green myths (part 1)

You probably know about how we are in the verge of ruining this beautiful planet, how our cars are destroying the air of the earth and contribute to global warming or how recycling is vital for the environment so those poor trees won't be cut down and this way we will save the Amazon that in a few years won't exist anymore and many many more "facts" like these...

I have some great news for you my loyal reader... Let me shower you with some truths and then feel free to search the interwebz to see if I tell the truth and who lies to you all this time. Planet Earth is safe and humans are not so dumb as to destroy it. Some plastic bottles won't make a difference and as George Carlin said, plastic might explain the old philosophical question, "why we are here?" Planet Earth might needed plastic so that's why it made us.

As for all those people running around complaining about how we destroy our planet, you chicken little can stop. We know you complain not because you wanna save the planet but so you won't be inconvenienced in the future. The planet has been here for millions of years and you think we are a threat? Again I quote George Carlin and say to ask those people that are frozen into time in Pompeii if they feel like a threat to the planet or the people that build their houses near rivers or the sea and when they water starts rising above the house, ask them again if they feel like a threat to the planet on their rooftop.

So let's see some common green myths that terrorize you:

Hybrid cars are as friendly to the environment as I am Batman...

Every little green man, from celebrities to environmentalists drive hybrids because they are environmentally friendly right? Let's see some facts:

You will use less fuel choosing an efficient diesel model, which will have correspondingly less emissions, than if you have a hybrid model, which will maybe use a bit more fuel than you expect. A Toyota Prius, for example, (that is the only car that aerodynamically if you open the door while you drive it might tip over by the way) will have zero emissions in the city but when it gets out on the open road it's a different story. When you are going at higher speeds, it has got a small petrol engine and it is quite a heavy car, so you end up working that engine very hard and using a lot of fuel. RTFM... Read the friggin manual before you buy it!

You think I am done? Please continue reading.  

 

The current battery packs used by hybrids are nickel-metal hydride ones. Nickel mining in Canada has damaged the environment already. Aside from the mining process, the nickel is transported from one point of the globe to another until it reaches Japan where Prius units are assembled. In the shipping alone, the energy requirement balloons because of the fuel used by container ships and locomotive used.

An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.

 

Emissions from manufacturing electric cars are at least 50 per cent higher because batteries are made from materials such as lithium, copper and refined silicon, which require much energy to be processed.

Many electric cars are expected to need a replacement battery after a few years. Once the emissions from producing the second battery are added in, the total CO2 from producing an electric car rises to 12.6 tonnes, compared with 5.6 tonnes for a petrol car. Disposal also produces double the emissions because of the energy consumed in recovering and recycling metals in the battery. The study also took into account carbon emitted to generate the grid electricity consumed

Also because hybrids don't use much fuel people do drive them more so... take some time and do the math... I ll be here...

 Recycling is next or how to pay more than once for something you bought. I mean you buy a cell phone... you use it... and then you recycle it and then it becomes a frying pan or whatever and what you do? you pay for it again! Doesn't sound like a good deal...

Recycling is simply the transfer of producer responsibility for what they produce to the taxpayer who has to pick it up and take it away.

The Keep America Beautiful campaign started a few years after the introduction of disposable bottles in the early 1950s. Soon bottles were everywhere and states were considering bans on disposables. So American Can, Owens-Illinois and Coke got together to basically invent the concept of litter. They said "packages don't litter, people do." (sound familiar?)

Now again I will let you think about what this means...

8 billion dollars are given (from taxes) for recycling... I bet you can give these to save some people instead of the environment. And when we have no more starving people we can also try to save the environment... that needs no saving.

So instead of recycling maybe the companies can find ways to make packages and everything else from materials that don't fuck up the environment. How? I don't care it's their job, not mine. Maybe we can spare some more billions on that cause after we feed everyone?

Also recycling materials need recycling factories, recycling vehicles, water to clean the recycling materials and ... *drumroll* energy! So as an idea it's pretty good... But that's probably all it can be.

Paper doesn't come from the Amazon. It comes from tree farms that trees are planted for that reason. To become paper. What fool would travel to the Amazon and back to just farm wood for paper. Do you know where the wood from your furniture came from? Do some research.

The only things to recycle are glass bottles and aluminum cans

To be continued...