Science and the Environment
I'm here to set the record straight. Climate change, environmentalism, eco-friendliness, it's all getting out of control. The political ticket of saying "we're saving the planet!" is worth more to people than the scientific value of real, hard, peer-reviewed evidence.
I'll spare you the science lesson, and skip straight to maths. A lightbulb uses 40-100W of power. In the UK, the power grid is split down like this:
- nuclear: 19.26% @ 16 g/kWh CO2
- coal: 33.08% @ 891 g/kWh CO2
- gas: 39.93% @ 356 g/kWh CO2
This tells us that overall, we produce 16*0.1926 + 891*0.3308 + 356*0.3993 = 439.9752 g/kWh CO2. Figures from wikipedia and world-nuclear.
Ok, so if I run my 60W lightbulb (we're talking standard, not 'energy saving' lightbulbs here) for one hour, I've used up 0.06kWh of electricity and it has cost the country 439.9752*0.06 = 26.398512 grams of CO2. Ok, sounds a lot for a single lightbulb to be producing in gas, but let's compare this to the amount a single human breathes out in that same hour. Now, wikianswers says 2.4 grams per hour for a human being, and micpohling says 462.2916667 grams per hour for a cow (average of the four figures from the link divided by 24 hours in a day multiplied by 1000 grams in a kilogram). So a cow produces the same amount of CO2 as 17 and a half 60W lightbulbs.
There's a statistic for you! Eating beef is good for the environment. Every cow you kill is the same as turning off 17 and a half 60W lightbulbs -forever-. Stick that in your vegetarian environmentalism pipe and smoke it!
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Make loggings in happening!
Formspring me ;)
Stack Overflow
December 8th, 2009 - 00:51
Hi I was googling for vegetarian durger recipies and stumbled on your blog.
I find your comment about Vegetarians very offensive as I have never smoked in my life! I find it to be a habit of the devil. You should think before you type such things as us vegetarian non-smokers would not like to be associated with the smoking vegetarians.
Also I’m not very good at Maths so can I just ask is that a metric or imperial measurement of energy?
January 14th, 2010 - 17:53
Hello again Douglas, my own resident Troll, I’m flattered!
The expression “stick that in your pipe and smoke it” is not meant to be taken literally, but refers to accepting a bitter-tasting truth due to the evidence supporting it and in spite of your preconceptions.
g/kWh stands for “Grams per Kilowatt Hour” which is a metric measurement of CO2 output from electrical energy sources (such as nuclear power stations).
I did not wish to insult anybody with my post, merely to investigate the claims that CO2 production by mankind is the greatest (sometimes even sole) cause of climate change. I stress that this is NOT a scientific study, and should not be taken to be one; however, it does provide some figures which have been obtained from external, independent sources that corroborate my assertion that 17 and a half non-energy-saving lightbulbs are equivalent in CO2 production to a single cow.
I am sorry if you still feel offended.
Incidentally, my sister is a smoking vegetarian, so I am offended by your claim that it is “a habit of the devil”. Fortunately, this is the internet, so I have learnt to take everything with a pinch of salt.
March 11th, 2010 - 00:28
hear hear!