Engineering News

Good points.

Why don't we give up our homes and go back to the stone-age then?

I am in favor of energy efficient products and even encouraging conservation, but the carbon footprint concept is being taken to ridiculous extreme.

Carbon footprint my ass. My dog produces almost as much fertilizer as these purveyors of male bovine feces.

There was a guy on the TV a couple of weeks ago said we should cull all our beef herds and start eating kangaroo. Apparently cattle produce methane which is a nasty greenhouse gas and kangaroos don't. Only problem we don't have a lot in the UK and they are a devil to catch.

I think you guys may be missing the point. The article isn't about getting rid of your dog. It's about the hypocrisy of criticizing someone for having an SUV when you yourself have a dog, or eat meat, or have something or do something that effects the environment.

Doesn't that just push the extremes even farther, so that in the end the supposed champions of "mother" earth are Vegan cyclists who hate puppies?

I think the point is we don't need to give up SUVs or Dogs. These aren't solutions, they're placebos.

I agree

Hi Roger,

These aren't solutions, they're placebos.

So what would a non-placebo be? I really am curious. If we are at least adding to the effects of global warming, what are the major contributors?

Mike

You Wrote:"If we are at least adding to the effects of global warming, what are the major contributors"

The vast majority of the anthropic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is the result of burning fossil fuels.

You Wrote "So what would a non-placebo be"

Well, if the problem is mostly caused by burning fossil fuels, then the solution seems to be to stop burning fossil fuels. Since every year we burn more fossil fuels than the year before, this is hardly a realistic solution for today. Still, the best way to get something done is to start it, so the most logical course would be to reduce our fossil fuel dependence. A good first goal would be to stop the accelerated use of fossil fuels (use the same next year than this year).

Now fossil fuels are burned for three main reasons, heating, electricity, and transportation. Of the three the first two are the easiest targets and the largest contributors. Investments in solar power, hydropower, wind power, the developement of a smart power grid are excellent first steps. Ultimately the only practical longterm solution given man's accelerating consumption of energy is fusion, so we need to increase funding in fusion research substantially (as the Europeans and Chinese already have).

For transportation, we need better batteries. The way to do this is simply increase mpg requirements on cars and trucks. The automakers will invest in hybrid research to reach these standards and capitalism will take care of the rest.

"Carbon Footprints" are a joke. It's like not lighting a match in the middle of a forest fire because you want to reduce the heat. It makes people feel like they are helping without them actually having to do anything. Of course, there is always the other way of simply denying that the forest fire exists and saying the fireman are biased and making it up because they get paid to put out fires.

affects

Quite right. I should have used "affects". Thanks. Hopefully I'll stop making that mistake some day.

My wife bought me a book called "Grammar for Smart People" by Gary Tarshis. I found it very helpful with common mistakes such as effects/affects, that/which, etc. I'm not going to claim it's kept me from continuing to make them.

Correct me if I'm wrong but arn't cows vegans. So wouldn't this be replacing one methane producing herd with another. Or perhaps we should teach cows to ride cycles.

A step to far me-thinks

What next ? The carbon-footprint of friends/relatives ?

yeah, I agree with u. Maybe the wife and kids should follow!

While cats are probably among the most destructive invasive exoctic species, (and surely would eat their human captors if they were only large enough... and given the opportunity) suggesting that you need to consider their carbon print incase you don't already have enough reasons to eat the next one you see, is, well intellectually lazy. Really, finding another reason to hate cats, is just beating a dead whore.

This article is a mixture of buzz words and alarmism, 'supported' by pseudoscience and failed attempts to mimic logic.

If the carbon footprint of a dog is say 5 or 10% that of a human, perhaps they should be thought of as a 'hybrid-family memeber'. Thats right, you can reduce your carbon footprint by 90 to 95% if you just close your legs and instead of poppin out another lumpy headed wailer, going and adopting a puppy from the pound. You may however need a license for your dog, so not all you infant-oozers will qualify.

Really, we have enough people.... do somethng else...

Benbenben

Umm...maybe we shouldn't tell Del about this article?

Oh, never mind. Being a Cat, he could care less what a couple of humans think.

:)

I think more importantly we need to reduce our overall environmental footprint. Human inputs of carbon equivalents to our atmosphere account for a fraction of overall carbon inputs and yes the burning of fossil fuels makes up a significant portion of human inputs but human inputs are by no means the primary source of carbon inputs - they are one part of a complex equation. I conducted a very lengthy and detailed analysis of paleoclimate back in 1996 that went into such things as ice core data, sea floor core data, etc. - what we are in is in fact nothing more than another interglacial. How significant this one will be remains to be seen. So far it appears to be on average with the average of the others. Some interglacials have plummetted earth into a complete deglaciation in as little time as 10 years (if you can even imagine - I think this one would have made Noah's Ark time period look like a swimming pool), whereas others the interglacials were only partial before the pendulum swung earth back the other way and back into another glaciation. I think everyone really needs to read the data from the scientific literature that shows a clear picture of what is actually going on. Has everyone checked into the quantity of global warming and even cooling, that one really good volcano has? It'll blow your mind. We're all like a bunch of sheep and instead of taking the time to go through and read the information for ourselves and see what actually is, we're taking the whole misinterpreted view of columnists as gospel. Read the literature folks.

I have absolutely no objection to reducing our footprint - because anything that we can do to reduce our impact on this earth is better for all involved, however we need to look at everything and not just carbon. We need to use glass instead of plastic because of the harm that plastics do to our environment (that includes all life); we need to get rid of those stuck up individuals that won't allow a person to dry their clothing on an outside clothes line because it doesn't fit into the scheme of what is accepted in their neighbourhood (we need to get rid of that kind of attitude). We need to get rid of the idea that adding chemicals upon chemicals to our food and calling it food and then complaining that our rates of cancer and neurological diseases are skyrocketing at such a rate that we can no longer afford health care - is all somehow acceptable because what other alternatives do we have.

Folks, we need to start living responsibly and quit trying to take the easy road out because the easy road out is killing ourselves and our planet regardless of whether you look at it as increasing the temperature of our planet (which by way only 100K years ago was around 10 C warmer on the northern coast of Canada) and the potential commercial losses that may happen or looking at it simply as the massive pollution load we are causing. We need to start being responsible for our actions.