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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Mar 23, 2007 - 12:08am PT
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"When did I tell you Gore was boring? Boring is not his problem."
I didn't say that you said he was. Actually read my posts.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Mar 23, 2007 - 12:09am PT
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"They enable Fat-Cats, like Gore, to avoid taking responsibility for his incredibly wasteful and harmful habbits. "
I'm curious Chaz. What's your consumption level? And what are you doing to make our country more energy and impact efficient?
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Chaz
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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Mar 23, 2007 - 01:20am PT
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"If you live in SoCal and really have "no trouble" living sustainably, you have to let the rest of us in on your secret!"
"I'm curious Chaz. What's your consumption level? And what are you doing to make our country more energy and impact efficient?"
I'm not one to want to make a big deal out of the way I roll, but since you ask, here you go.
First, let me tell you what I'm NOT doing:
I'm not running needlessly all over the Globe, jumping up and down doing the *pee-pee dance* trying to scare the folks with hysteria such as "20' rise in sea-level".
Just by living in California I'm using less electricity:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/us_percapita_electricity_2001.html
As you see, Californians use less electricity per-capita than the residents of any other state.
It's a warm climate. Normally it doesn't freeze where I live ("The Great Freeze Of '07" was an anomolly, I hope) so I rarely use the heater. Maybe fired it up six times this year during the January Freeze. And not once since. A shower in the morning and one in the evening and the place stays plenty warm.
Because it's a very small house to start with (less than 400 sq'). I have no use for a large house. I like being able to clean the whole joint in a half-hour max. Windows and everything.
If YOU like a more spacious house, go for it! It's a free country. Just don't tell ME *I* need to conserve ([cough] Al Gore [/cough]) if you're house is bigger than mine.
No air conditioner, cooler, or fans (the Donkey has one to disperse the flies). Even during the hottest summer, it's still cooler inside than outside as long as I open the place up in the evenings and shut the windows in the mornings. It ain't rocket surgery.
Six lightbulbs in the house, including the front and back porch, and a four-foot flourescent fixture in the garage. A couple of B.D. Headlamps work great for everything else.
One meal-a-day is plenty for me. Takes too long to cook three meals, and clean up afterwards. You only crap once a day, why eat more often than you crap?
I piss outside about ten times a day, saving several gallons of water and the energy it takes to get it to my house.
I don't drive a hell of a lot. I bought my pick-up (Toyota) new in November of '93. Next week it will hit 98,000 miles (assuming I drive ten miles between now and then) so I'm not exactly hauling the mail.
If you drive more than that, that's your choice and you won't hear ME complain about it. Unless you're making a point of scolding people for how they need to do with less ([cough] Al Gore [/cough]).
I find my fun close to home, too. In the last few years, the farthest from home I've ventured was maybe a hundred miles. That would be the Bike Race in Long Beach or New Jack City, whichever's farther. I haven't left the State Of California in 15 years, and that was only as far away as Laughlin, Nevada (my sister was living there). Joshua Tree is only about 75 miles away, and Taquitz is even closer. The San Gorgonio Wilderness is only about ten miles up the street.
I don't waste water washing that truck, either. Last time it got "clean" was the last time it rained.
Unlike the other Avocado growers I socialize with, I don't use chemicals for fertilizer or weed control. Chemicals = Cheating. I control weeds with a combonation of a pine-needle mulch and the old school McLeod. For fertilizer I use Donkey manure. That sh-t's Brown Gold!
The Donkey and two Goats dispose of almost all the yard-waste around here, saving me AT LEAST a dozen trips to the dump each year (and trips to the feed store), and saving space in the local landfill, while the Donkey produces that aforementioned fertilizer. And when I do have to dump a load of trash, I take it to a place called "One Stop" in San Timeteo Canyon where it gets ground up and composted, and sold to people who aren't lucky enough to have a Donkey.
I don't do ANY of this in any kind of effort to be *green* or "save the Planet", or leave something for the next generation, or any other horsesh#t. It's just what works for me.
If YOU feel like living in a great big house, driving or flying all over Creation having a good time, or eating great meals several times a day, GO FOR IT! Life's too short to miss out on what makes you happy. And you won't hear any smart-ass remarks from me.
You won't hear it from me unless you make it a point to jet all over the world scaring people for no good reason while telling us WE need to get by with less of what WE like ([cough] Al Gore [/cough]). Then I"M going to call you on it!
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 23, 2007 - 01:28am PT
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Donkey manure?
It's toxic. Second rate.
You need nice cow. Cow manure is pure.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Mar 23, 2007 - 01:48am PT
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Got to hand it to Gore; he is entertaining. He's also one of the great scam artists of all time.
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nature
climber
Flagstaff, AZ
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Mar 23, 2007 - 01:51am PT
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The only general solution I feel is plausible is to look at nature.
No!
stop!
why is everyone looking at me? I'm shy. I get nervous. DAMN! you just made me pee my pants.
STOP LOOKING AT ME!
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raymond phule
climber
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Mar 23, 2007 - 04:48am PT
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"I would also like to know why Gore states that oceans will rise "20 feet" when other very knowledgeable sources (many with with terminal degrees in climatology and and published research in the field) hold that oceans would rise 8 inches. Let's split the difference, even. Let's say oceans will rise several feet. Twenty feet? A little exaggerated, perhaps? "
LEB, please see the movie and try to understand what he say. Dont just listen to fox news or newsmax.
I doubt you will so I can explained it to you. Gore said that the oceans would rise 20 feet if all of the ice on the poles melt (or something like that). I didn't say that it would happen or if it would, when it would happen.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Mar 23, 2007 - 11:58am PT
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Chaz,
You are missin out here.
You should offer to sell the Carbon credit for the amount of CO2 each one of your trees cleans up to some three huggers in the bay area. Maybe for an extra fee you can send them a picture of their adopted tree. Sorta like the kids charity Sally Fields used to do the add for.
I've got a big lot, I was thinking about renting out the "Carbon Credits" for the lawn by the square yard and charging extra if I use a push mower.
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Chaz
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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Mar 23, 2007 - 01:11pm PT
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I've been trying to find out just what qualifies as a *credit*, but they seem to want to keep it a deep secret. Figures, if it's as simple as a tree, everybody would get in on the action and , because of the law of supply and demand, the price for a *credit* would go in the toilet.
It seems to have something to do with "The Chicago Climate Exchange", but I can't find the answers I need to get into the "Credit Hustling Business".
Those Credit Hustlers know a good thing when they see one, and I can't really blame them for wanting to keep guys like me in the dark.
If it's as simple as *selling* living trees, I could REALLY retire. I would try to cut the "Credit Broker's" throats by selling my *credits* for about a tenth of the going rate so average folks could afford to waste energy too.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Mar 23, 2007 - 02:37pm PT
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Chaz he's telling you that you need to conserve or there will be XXX consequences. Not that it makes you a bad person. As I said earlier in this thread if Al Gore moved into a cave and lived solely off of his own organic garden and only got his word out by webcasting with energy he produced from a small wind farm on his own property you'd be scoffing at him for that. You'd say "hey, if you want to be a hippie kook and live in a cave and never leave your organic garden thats fin, but don't tell ME what *I* have to do!"
I don't think you actually care about his behavior at all, you just want to make him wrong.
I do think you are right in that there is a certain permissiveness that goes with that system, that it somehow makes "wasting" energy ok. The problem is that we live in a culture where "conservation" is a pretty dirty word, and nobody loves to tear it apart as much as the Republican party and the conservative media.
Carbon credits are a step, not a solution.
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John Moosie
climber
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Mar 23, 2007 - 02:50pm PT
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You are spot on DesertDJ.
Lots of people just want to bag on Al Gore or any solutions that people have come up with because in some ways the problem seems too big to surmount. So instead of really looking at the problm, they whine about anyone who talks about it. This is a typical escapism maneuver. If the problem seems too big to look at, then attack something.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Mar 23, 2007 - 03:08pm PT
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Want to buy some?
Carbon credits for my lawn only
$0.25 per square yard.
BUT WAIT THERES MORE!!!!!!!!!!!
Get your photo of your own personalized square yard of carbon gobbling drought resistant grass!!!!
BUT WAIT THERES EVEN MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For an additional $1.00 per square yard we will not use one of these
But a real sweat powered one of these sweet babies.
BUT WAIT THERE'S EVEN MORE STILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
FOR ONLY $10.00 PER YARD WE WILL BE COMPLETELY PC AND LET IT TURN TO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Brian
climber
Cali
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Mar 23, 2007 - 04:31pm PT
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Chaz,
Right on. You are doing lots of good stuff (that is, by doing not-so-much bad stuff). I make lots of awkward choices to reduce my impact, but I think you have me beat for now--good on you.
Given your low-impact lifestyle, I really don't think Gore is addressing most of his comments to you and, moreover, you are in a pretty good place to call him on his own choices.
However, I think you would still see the value in Gore calling other people on their consumption, no? If my doctor was a smoker (he isn't) and told me to stop smoking (I don't), I would still take his advice into consideration. Just because someone is not perfect does not mean he or she is not giving good, sound advice...
Brian
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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Mar 23, 2007 - 04:44pm PT
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Carbon credits to offset individuals?
That's just ridiculous. Assuage your guilt by paying a company to tend some shrubs.
If people really cared, they'd make REAL and MEANINGFUL lifestyle changes.
Carbon credits? just another thing to consume, IMO.
now why am I reminded of that South Park prius episode...?
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Brian
climber
Cali
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Mar 23, 2007 - 05:05pm PT
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Carbon credits have their place, but on an individual level they are a last option.
Just as we should reduce (consumption) and reuse (used items and multi-function items) before we think about recycling, we should also reduce our carbon footprints before thinking about carbon credits.
Carbon credits are not, as some people here seem to think, an excuse to consume more (this is why some folks are fixated on Gore’s consumption); they are a response to the consumption we do.
The fact that carbon trading and recycling are not the best options does not mean that they are not good options, as long as they don’t prevent us from pursuing better options. That is, if people are making real lifestyle changes, carbon trading can help to reduce impact as a “stopgap” measure (as I mentioned above).
I completely agree that we should work on across the board reduction in consumption (and trust me, my first concern is my own consumption, your consumption is only my second concern); however, that does not mean that other steps that are less good, but still good, should be shunned.
Brian
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Chaz
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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Mar 23, 2007 - 06:49pm PT
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Now I'm confused.
Is the *solution* to the problem "we should ALL buy carbon credits", or is it "we should ALL cut back"?
If we ALL lived like Al Gore, would The Planet be in better shape than it is now? He's "carbon nuetral" you know. Said so himself to that sub-committee this week.
Senator Edwards was right. There ARE "Two Americas".
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TomT
Trad climber
Aptos.
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Mar 23, 2007 - 07:00pm PT
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Many carbon offsets, like paying for trees in Africa, are not in true carbon cap and trade systems, which are defined resource system (actually alloted pollutants) that can then be shrunk in successive years of a credit trading system.
Time scale is a problem in many carbon offsets; while it doesn't hurt to plant trees, CO2 which is created in a few seconds from the tailpipe of a jet can not really be offset by trees absorbing CO2 over 40 years- that is not a sustainable system.
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Chaz
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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Mar 23, 2007 - 07:20pm PT
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I get it now!
The *problem* isn't that we use too much energy and blow too much crap into the environment.
No.
The *problem* is that we just aren't buying enough *carbon offsets".
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ahad aham
Trad climber
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Mar 23, 2007 - 08:43pm PT
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i wonder if Gore's daughter, karina, is carbon nuetral. she has a posh 7,000 +sq. ft. weekend home here in the cats. called by 1 local contractor an "environmental nightmare". besides all the normal decadent trappings it even is outfitted with a heated outdoor parking area which thankfully melts any snow/ and ice (wouldn't want to have to shovel or plow). As for Gore, we just have to follow the leader;
http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=367
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