18 replies to this topic

[TTHQ Staff]

I don't know what's wrong with this woman.
In any case... Halellujah! we're saved.

Americans may be using less toilet paper, if Sheryl Crow has her way.

The singer, who is crossing the country on a biodiesel bus with producer Laurie David, proposes limiting toilet paper use as one solution to global warming, according to a Washington Post report.

"I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming," she wrote April 19 on the Biodiesel Bus blog, according to a report by the Washington Post. "Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating."

Her toilet paper manifesto would limit how many squares of toilet paper Americans use in a sitting.

Click here to read the Washington Post report.

"Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required," she wrote.

Crow also 'floated' the idea of a removable "dining sleeve" that could replace the use of paper napkins.

Fox News

[mss]

I don't know what's wrong with this woman.
In any case... Halellujah! we're saved.

Americans may be using less toilet paper, if Sheryl Crow has her way.
The singer, who is crossing the country on a biodiesel bus with producer Laurie David, proposes limiting toilet paper use as one solution to global warming, according to a Washington Post report.
Her toilet paper manifesto would limit how many squares of toilet paper Americans use in a sitting.

Got one better than that. In the old days, those who lived in the country used corn cobs. Now with all the corn grown for fuel there will be plenty of cobs for everybody.
After use, they can be ground up and made into fake fireplace wood and burned in "pot-belly" stoves to keep you warm. This will reduce the need for all that nasty coal and natural gas as well as electricty.

Edited by mss, 23 April 2007 - 02:30 PM.

[calmcookie]

[quote name='TTHQ Staff' date='Apr 23 2007, 10:43 AM' post='284479']
I don't know what's wrong with this woman.
In any case... Halellujah! we're saved.


[quote]Americans may be using less toilet paper, if Sheryl Crow has her way.

At least she is doing something to raise awareness of environmental issues. Anyone who is doing that, in this day and age, should be applauded ... not criticized. If more people took small, positive actions, every day, this would be a far better world.

C.C.

[OEXCHAOS]

This is part of the problem. "Don't stand there, do something!" You'd have to live under a rock to be "unaware". We don't need more awareness, we need more intelligence and more critical thinking. Just what will the savings BE? What will the real benefit be? At what cost? Paper is a darned renewable resource. TP is something to be used for a very important purpose. The cost is actually high enough that many folks try not to waste it, except for the sissies. But the point is there are so many other places where waste is rampant. Doing stupid things like this takes attention and energy away from those areas. There are wankers out there now promoting ethanol as a "green fuel". Green my fat gluteus maximus... And now we've to folks promoting replacing all incandescent bulbs with flourescent...irrespective of the MERCURY that will end up sending to landfills. BTW, in the past 4 years, I've replaced 2 bulbs in our entire place. All incandescent. How? Well, for one, we use dimmers and natural light a lot. We just don't burn a lot of electricity outside of the furnace and our computers. Converting to fluorescent does nothing of any import to my bottom line nor my usage to speak of, but it does create a problem with a dimmer and it does suck money out of my pocket up front. That's money that I could spend on sustainably raised meat, fish, or poultry. Think like an economist. M

[teki]

OEX, agree with most of what you say there, but when thinking like an economist, you also have to think about externalities. Depending on what kind of fuel is being used to power your incandescent light bulb, you could easily be releasing more mercury into the environment than the minuscule amounts that are in compact fluoerscent light bulbs. And over the lifetime of the cfl, its a definate win. There are also ways to recycle the mercury in the cfl's it you dispose of them properly, so NO mercury should end up in landfills because of them. I don't disagree though that the best way to use less energy is to --- use less energy. And cfl's don't work well with dimmers. Though some fixtures designed specifically for cfls aren't too bad (we have a few). We have had cfl's last over 10 years and the technology continues to improve.

[OEXCHAOS]

teki, Good point on the externalities. BUT, on the "proper disposal" of cfl's...c'mon. I don't know what that would be and I'm not willing to spend the gas to drive where ever said place would be, provided I could find one. As a practical matter, for a real person, that sucker is going to Mt. Rumpke. And, of course, at 2 bulbs per 4 years (and that includes many bulbs that were already in when we moved in!), the impact either way isn't worth considering. Better to buy the grass fed beef and free range chicken and local produce. BTW, I'm actually considering putting in geothermal. I'm just not sure that it's truly economic and practical as yet. M

[teki]

Cfls are not for everyone or every use, but for those that are interested, see:

http://www.lamprecycle.org/

to find places to recycle cfls.

Geothermal sounds exciting, be curious to know how that works out. We use mainly passive solar (lots of south facing windows and a sunroom) and a wood burning stove.

Big fan of local produce. We are members of a local csa, and there is nothing like eating food that you harvested yourself that day!

[TechSkeptic]

FYI, there are dimmable CFL's out there, but they're pretty new so the cost is still high. Wait a bit, and it'll come down. As city recycling programs improve, they will hopefully will have curbside collection for these sorts of items before too long, removing another barrier to recycling. Ethanol is a *RIDICULOUS* solution. It's only getting so much attention because the farm lobby has so much power in congress. It uses energy (mostly petroleum) to grow, fertilize, distill, and transport it, with no good infrastructure in place for distribution. Not to mention taking land and water that could be used to produce *FOOD*. And it still contributes to global warming. The only viable large-scale energy solution is nuclear power, together with most new vehicles becoming hybrids ASAP, as a transition to plug-in hybrids, and finally to all-electric vehicles. The distribution infrastructure is already there (the power grid) and when people charge their vehicles at night, it will naturally help the utilities become more cost-efficient as they are utilizing off-peak generation capacity. Of course people installing solar panels on their roof will also help as it becomes cost-effective, though due to the scale that is not a complete solution by itself. Disclosure: I own uranium stocks

[TechSkeptic]

As for Sheryl Crow, I enjoy her music, but I feel sad that she's making a fool of herself in this way. I appreciate her good intentions, but unfortunately this kind of publicity does more harm than good for environmental awareness.

[TTHQ Staff]

As for Sheryl Crow, I enjoy her music, but I feel sad that she's making a fool of herself in this way. I appreciate her good intentions, but unfortunately this kind of publicity does more harm than good for environmental awareness.

I agree. There are good natured/good intended suggestions, and then there are the suggestions that actually MIGHT be useful. Hers was not useful. Not even in spirit. What would she have us do? Decrease spending on paper products & toilet paper so that we need to spend more on antibacterial soaps in the washroom? Great, just what we need...more chemicals and antibiotics.

Dumb idea.
Idiotic to give it press.

Here's a better idea:

Nasa announced in December that it was planning to build an international base camp on one of the Moon's poles, permanently staffing it by 2024. Russia's space rocket manufacturer Energia revealed an even more ambitious programme last August, saying it would build a permanent Moon base by 2015.

While the Americans have either been coy or dismissive on the subject, Russia openly says the main purpose of its lunar programme is the industrial extraction of helium-3.

Dismissed by critics as a 21st-century equivalent of the medieval alchemist's fruitless quest to turn lead into gold, some scientists say helium-3 could be the answer to the world's energy woes.

A non-radioactive isotope of helium, helium-3 is a proven and potent fuel for nuclear fusion - so potent that just six metric tons would supply Britain with enough energy for a year.

As helium-3 is non-polluting and is so effective in such tiny quantities, many countries are taking it very seriously. Germany, India and China, which will launch a lunar probe to research extraction techniques in September, are all studying ways to mine the isotope.

"Whoever conquers the moon first will be the first to benefit," said Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's lunar programme.

Energia says it will start "industrial scale delivery" of helium-3, transported by cargo space ships via the International Space Station, no later than 2020. Gazprom, the state-owned energy giant directly controlled by the Kremlin, is said to be strongly supportive of the project.

The United States has appeared much more cautious, not least because scientists are yet to discover the secrets of large scale nuclear fusion. Commercial fusion reactors look unlikely to come on line before the second half of this century.

But many officials in Moscow's space programme believe Washington's lunar agenda is driven by a desire to monopolise helium-3 mining. They allege that President Bush has moved helium-3 experts into key positions on Nasa's advisory council.

The plot, says Erik Galimov, an academic with the Russian Academy of Sciences, would "enable the US to establish its control of the energy market 20 years from now and put the rest of the world on its knees as hydrocarbons run out."