Wed 23 Apr 2008
Environmentalism Hijacked by Consumerism
Posted by RichSlick under Misc
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Buy Green! Switch to Hybrid! Buy! Buy! Buy! Consume! Consume! Consume!
I’m getting tired of seeing those Wal-mart commercials asking us to buy compact fluorescent bulbs promoting so called “environmentalism.” So let’s look at this request from a purely logical point of view:
1. Rip out you existing bulbs which consumed a great deal of resources to make (more on this later).
2. Replace with new compact bulbs and save the world! Easy right?
Let’s review the real process:
1. Elements, such as Mercury, are mined from the ground and processed as a component of compact flourescent bulbs in addition to the glass, copper, and other materials used in making and packaging the bulbs.
2. The finished product (most likely made in China) is placed in a gas-guzzling diesel container ship and shipped to the US.
3. After arriving in the US, the shipment is loaded into a gas-guzzling diesel 18-wheeler where it travels a long way to get to your local Wal-mart.
4. You get into your gas-guzzling vehicle and drive to Wal-mart to buy the product.
5. You get home, rip out the old bulb (repeats step 1 - 4 for resources used to make old bulb), throw away the old bulb and packaging for new (this goes in a landfill or ocean right?)
I left out the steps where the mercury mining company uses a ton of fuel for drilling rigs, transportation, shipping, etc as well as all the other fuel burned to make the product. Ditto for copper, aluminum and glass used in the product.
I checked out Al Gore’s We Can Solve It website and clicked on the Solutions page to find these ideas:
- Wind Power
- Solar Turbine
- Solar Photovoltaics
- Geothermal Power
All of these “solutions” require consumption of more and more materials to be consumed to “save” the environment. If you looked at your Sunday’s newspaper fliers you might have noticed all the “green” products that you could buy to save the environment this week. It is the ultimate irony since there way not a single word on reducing your carbon footprint which would be primarily achieved by buying NOTHING.
Where’s the full page ad asking you to buy NOTHING? What’s next, the Earth Day shopping holiday?
4 Responses to “ Environmentalism Hijacked by Consumerism ”
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April 28th, 2008 at 7:40 pm[…] Get Rich Slick announces that environmentalism has been hijacked by consumerism. […]
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:38 pm
If your lightbulb burns out, and you have a choice between a 100W incandescent or a 20W compact fluorescent, and the light quality is the same (that’s the sticking point for me…) why *not* pick the compact fluorescent?
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:31 pm
I’m not against going green but your question is conditional with if your bulb burns out.
There is a push to rip everything out and replace it with “green” products. Sell your car and buy a hybrid. Tear down that coal plant and build wind mills or geo-thermal plant - those new green plants require a great deal of resources to build which means more strip mining, fuel burning, etc simply to go green.
April 24th, 2008 at 1:04 am
Possibly true. But the energy cost to build, ship, and dispose of a compact fluorescent is far far less than the energy savings from throwing away an otherwise perfectly good incandescent bulb and replacing it with a CF.
Note that I *am* against going green for the sake of going green. I refuse to spend one extra penny on “green” stuff. If the cost of going green exceeds the benefit, then either there’s no case for it, or the externalities of the non-green solution have not been adequately captured. And if they are not captured properly, then someone else will profit off my folly.