Monbiot
I finished George Monbiot's latest "Heat" and so will offer up a classic quote. This vaguely biblical one-liner references the amazing amount of energy waste that goes into keeping grocery stores operating:
But though you walk through valleys of ice, you remain warm.And one for the bonus round:
Buying and selling carbon offsets is like pushing the food around on your plate to create the impression that you have eaten it.I consider it a fairly upbeat read, and with the U.N. downward revising global warming impact by 25%, Monbiot's recommendations might hit their targets with a hip, thanks to some creative bookkeeping by the blue helmeted ones.
Update: Big Gav has commentary on a recent Monbiot article here, which I must admit provoked me to finish the book.
posted by @whut at December 26, 2006
3 Comments:
"Buying and selling carbon offsets is like pushing the food around on your plate to create the impression that you have eaten it"
I'll be reading a copy soon. I think this basically sums up my feeling on certain carbon trading provisions of Kyoto etal. - - only weakly addresses the underlying problems. Writes a law around something already happening.
It is soooo 1990's. We're at the point now where we might be forced to lay down a mantle of sulphur in our atmosphere to reflect more sunlight back into space (and damn the consequences, as usual).
I must admit the whole carbon credit thing is a painful way of trying to achieve a simple goal - just tax carbon and keep raising the tax until people stop emitting it - much less bureaucracy and its a money maker (for a while) to boot...
A few years ago, it was difficult to find synthetic motor oils, and equally difficult to find someone who admitted to
using them. Nowadays, however, you can find synthetic motor oils on the shelves of Wal-Mart, and other retailers, and
the number of people turning to synthetic motor oils, particularly in light of the recent events affecting fuel
prices, has risen greatly.
So why do people use synthetic motor oils rather than sticking with the old petroleum based stand-bys which are
admittedly cheaper?
1. Let's start with the cost per quart issue. Synthetic motor oils ARE more expensive at purchase. However, these oils
last longer, requiring fewer oil changes. As a synthetic motor oil outlasts several changes of petroleum based
lubricants, the ultimate out-of-pocket cost of the lubricant is less. This cost savings becomes even greater if you
have someone else change your oil for you rather than doing it yourself!
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