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)