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TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Feb 21, 2007 - 05:17pm PT
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Later maybe. Somebody else jump in here. Headed to the gym. Oops! OT again, sorry!
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2007 - 05:18pm PT
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Keep it up, TradisGood, and you'll find a place in the "jackass" doghouse with A. Crowley and others.
TradisGood said: ""pre-eminent"! LOL. The guy is just a reporter. I have known dozens. Almost none of them were especially intelligent, and most were relatively innumerate. "
But he overlooks that "Jared Blumenfeld is the director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment. Susan Leal is the general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. "
Google them if you want to know the credentials that lie behind these rather mundane-sounding titles. But don't forget to ACTUALLY READ what you google BEFORE you post up here!
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TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Feb 21, 2007 - 11:13pm PT
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TiG, I find it funny that you yourself are guilty of the crime of being innumerate.
We'll see.
You talk about scale and how 47m gallons is only .06l per person per year. Based on the 2006 estimated US population, this is indeed 0.596 litres per person.
Can you tell me how comparing this to the population is relevant? You use one really big number and compare it to a smaller number in order to make the smaller number seem insignificant.
Happy to explain this. And this is how you may become numerate. It is relevant because the size of the number is relative! (Note: you have a typo - I said 0.6, not .06 liters pppy.)
If you believe this is wasteful because 0.6 liters (actually it did say oil, and not gasoline, forgive me, please!) You have the number right later, but then you get the dimensions wrong - you left out the "per year".
Assume that you drive one of those snappy little toy otters that allegedly cruise about 57 mpg. Well you can do the arithmetic. You will get about 9.0 miles on that 0.6 liters of gasoline. So unless your local video store is walking distance, we are talking, say 4 trips to pick-up and drop-off a movie (if you do both at once. Now I am going to go out on a limb here and make a SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess) that you visit the video store more than 4 times per year. And if you do, you would be on much firmer ground getting excited about Blockbuster video, et. al. than bottled water.
Does anybody remember what people were going for first when Katrina hit. Nope, they weren't going for DVDs and VCR tapes. Nope - Water! OMFG - marketing gone wild.
Unfortunately, 47m gallons is still 47m gallons. And the point is that while that may be a drop in the barrel of overall consumption, it's still consumption, and a fair amount of oil to be throwing away for the sake of corporate profits. Do you really think companies like Nestle are injecting much into the local economy, particularly when they are getting the resources practically for free?
blah, blah, blah... and 1 gallon is still 1 gallon, and a rose is a rose is a rose. (sorry, that does sound a bit sarcastic.)
Practically free! Seems like they were paying the same as everybody else, or did I misinterpret TGT? Could be. If so, sorry.
The US consumes 317,790,900,000 gallons of oil per year (20.73 million barrels per day, 42 gal per barrel) according to the CIA World Fact Book.
So I ask, are you against reducing that consumption, even if it is only a little bit?
Are you?! Will you stop renting videos, taking your kids (if you have them) to soccer games? Will you quit car-pooling to work and move close enough to walk?
Will you stop buying fresh vegetables in the winter? This is what numeracy is all about. Understanding that total consumption is large because there are a lot of people.
And the volume of water in the earth is enormous. Figure out how much we have. Then think!!!!! Mutha Nature (not nature) recycles water very efficiently. She desalinates for free! Bet you can't do that. She moves all that water back to where we can capture and store it.
Yay! Let's hear it for drinking water.
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TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Feb 21, 2007 - 11:44pm PT
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khanom - this is not about you (1 person). This is about 300 million people in the US. You may be living off the land - oops no, you go to the store to buy tofu - where was that made and how did it get here? How many gallons of oil are consumed getting tofu here from China? Do some research. Come back and compare the amount of excess energy from tofu consumption with bottled water. If your research is good and accurate, I'll send you a fiver in a self-addressed stamped envelope. :-)
Numeracy is all about being number literate. Crows can understand numbers up to about 5. Most people know that 50 is ten groups of five.
Aside. Some people have used the lack of ability of birds to count by sending 6 people out to a blind and having 5 leave, etc.
I notice that you elected not to answer the challenge on the trillion molecules of water. To be numerate, you must be able to translate very large and very small numbers into numbers that are meaningful to you and others. Numbers that you and others can truly understand, as opposed to manipulating mechanically like you did above.
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