April 24, 2008 12:17PM
Flip It: Why We Should Wear Potato Sack Shirts, Fight Carbon-Trading, Eat Pesticides and Never Recycle
By Cody Willard
Even though it’s not a game and the repercussions of it aren’t fun, let’s start a new game on Happy Hour and here on The Cody Word called “The Food Shortage Blame Game”. (Is Chuck Woolery avail?)
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about all this “Going green” by buying “Green guitars”, or “Green luxury bags” and we’ve all been hearing/seeing all the hype and outsized consensus about how channeling all this time, energy and money into these types of things is supposed to do good for the world’s citizens and the planet at large.
What if conventional wisdom is just dead wrong about all of it?! Flip it, man. What if all these resources that we’re channeling into these concepts that we think make the planet and its people healthier and cleaner are doing exactly opposite of their intent? Come on, that wouldn’t really shock you would it? I mean, how often is conventional wisdom and the mainstream actually RIGHT? Not often, which is exactly why we should think about Flipping It.
It’s just been in the last handful of years that these concepts that people have determined are “green” have become mainstream. And what’s happened to prices of food and all other commodities during these last handful of years as we buy further and further into these “green” concepts. It certainly seems that the result of all these policies and social movements around the developed world’s consumption habits hasn’t been very helpful to the poor in Africa that we’re supposedly trying to help with much of this “green” movement.
Are bamboo guitars actually GOOD for the environment? No, we’re still depleting the world’s resources with our consumer culture, including consuming guitars. Further, while the bamboo might grow back more quickly than oak, it’s not as if bamboo doesn’t have some downside to it. It’s an aggressive plant, man, for one thing! And $800 designer “green” bags? Gimme a break - you’re not doing anything good for the planet buying something like that. Get a potato sack bag if you want a “green” purse.
You realize it’s sorta the same logic that these “green” marketing scammers use that the “carbon-trading” marketing scammers use. “Buy this and even though you’re destroying the world, you’re paying someone to do a little bit less world-destruction to get you this product.” That’s not exactly what I call “green”.
I’m already convinced that recycling — yes, all this paper, aluminum, glass RECYCLING — is more damaging to our environment than any other hairbrained mafia scam the government and its cronies have come up with the last couple decades. You can’t tell me all the manpower and logistics that go into “recycling” garbage wouldn’t be better served re-using and re-training us to consume less packaging and waste. And you can’t tell me that the 20-plus garbage/recycling trucks that rumble along my brick street in Soho EVERY NIGHT aren’t putting more bad gases into the atmosphere and wasting more resources than if we just conserved better and buried the junk we waste. Who directly benefits from all this “recycling”? They who run the garbage business in this country. Ever watched the Sopranos…Tony and his boys in the garbage business used to chuckle at the outsized margins in their recycling scams. Yes, recycling is totally a scam and its bad for the environment. And, no, I’m not just trying to be coy in Flipping It.
And then there’s the organic movement.
It’s widely cited that the market share of organic foods in this world is about 2 or 3%. I just Googled “organic food market share” without the quotes and randomly clicked on several of the links/research reports from the results. One report talked about 25% market share for organic fruits and vegetables, while another talked about organic food market share ranges from 0% (especially for pork,it says) in some places in Europe to about 15% in Austria (one of my favorite cities in Europe is Salzburg, btw).
Regardless of whether it’s 3% or 5% of the food that we eat on this planet is organic or not, we all know that organic is a secularly growing industry within the slightly-cyclical food industry. And the yields from organic crops vs. non-organic crops? They’re not as high, that’s why the stuff is more expensive. So we’re constricting the supply per square unit on this planet just as we’re running into a possible food shortage.
Okay, so here’s where this line of Flipping It logic leaves us then, if I’m not mistaken. To help the environment, the poor and even Africa, we all should cut consumption of expensive new goods, wear potato sack shirts, fight carbon-trading, NEVER EVER recycle, and eat foods full of chemicals and pesticides.
Makes about as much sense to me as most any social/governmental movements, doesn’t it? I mean, they’ve convinced us already of the idea that stealing from the working man to “save” the investment banker is somehow good for the working man.
Here’s hoping there are winners in this game, because feeding the world isn’t really a game at all.
More on this with Environmental Capital Partner (and former NHL star) Michael Richter tonight on Happy Hour, btw.
Comment by Tony
Apr 24th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
You are right on.
Comment by Elysee Theatre 202W58ST
Apr 25th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Cody, this “rant” is genius. Inspired, my boy. Congrats.
Comment by Lori
Apr 26th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Fabulous! Very funny. I laughed at the $800 “green” handbag. I like the potato sack purse idea.
Comment by Roy Hogue
Apr 26th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Wow! Someone finally noticed all the snake oil being sold! Why does it seem like such a good idea to anyone to turn so much good food crop land into growing corn for ethanol? Why does anyone think any of this is good idea? I think Rush Limbaugh had it right when he said, “Follow the money.”
Comment by S.
Apr 27th, 2008 at 8:05 am
The “let’s go green” people are reaping considerable financial gain from the “greenbacks” they are determined to confiscate from both “green” believers and non-believers - those who are naively sucked into the “green” propaganda of the “green” religion and those who are not. Soon the public will be forced to pay “green” indulgences (carbon credits) to this new world church. It is a demonically ingenious way to bring the entire world to its knees …
Comment by Kevin
Apr 27th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Great commentary and its right on. When will the libertarians actually start making
progress in this nation. It seems there are a lot of them out there, but politicians are more afaid of the press than they are at giving are freedoms back.
Comment by B. Russell
Apr 27th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I loved this article! It’s refreshing to see a young person take a common sense stand against popular opinion. Personally, my way of being “green” is simply not to consume. I am a big believer is “reusing”. Of course to our current president, I am public enemy #1!
Comment by R. Frakes
Apr 28th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Amen.
Comment by Dr. H
Apr 28th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Here is an example of how selfish, uncaring, intellectually ugly, and morally bankrupt the environmental types really are. Below is a refutation of the alleged dangers of food irradiation posted by prevent cancer. Read their article first, then the rest of the post.
Prevent cancer
http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/food/irradiation.html
first let’s shoot down some of their ahem “Science.”
1. When normal food sits on a shelf, it causes chemical changes too. Some of the byproducts from natural decomposition would probably be considered unhealthy too. The old axiom; “It’s not the poison, it’s the dose.” is something people forget.
2. Big OOPS for the article! The human liver produces benzene in small amounts. Even if you ate nothing but organic food, grown, and blessed by Tibetan Llamas. We also have peroxiosomes in most of our cells, which contain peroxides. We need them to metabolize certain nutrients, destroy pathogens, and to self destruct diseased cells. My biochemistry isn’t so hot on carbonyls. But, I think they are byproduct of decomposition in general, so we probably make these compounds too, in small amounts. Again “It’s the dose.”
3. I am no fan of the FDA. But, the FDA knows they don’t have to test these substances, because they are already present in natural produce, and ourselves too. The FDA lives by, “It’s the dose.”
4. Just because a product is the brainchild of the military industrial complex, dosen’t mean it’s inherently evil. Civilian use of many re purposed military technologies make our lives much better. Anti-biotics, Trauma seal (a self cauterizing bandage), and blood transfusions to name just a few medical applications.
5. Risk of an accident. Risk of disease. Risk of Vitamin deficiency. Risk is something to be evaluated, the risk of dying in a car accident over your entire lifetime is 1 in 84.* But, that dosen’t stop people from driving. Risk is a floating variable, you have to weigh the risk versus the benefit.
So here is my argument for food irradiation.
We have a limited amount of arable land to grow food crops on, around the world. And, we have many mouths to feed. Most of us in the United States never experienced a true famine. So here is my simplified definition of a food shortage; “Only guys like Bill Gates can afford to eat.” My simplified definition of a famine; “Even Bill Gate’s goes hungry.”
If we shun the use of a beneficial technology; because we have an irrational fear, we are basically condemning thousands to a slow tortuous death, every year.** We waste food in the developed world, simply because it goes bad on the shelf in our neighborhood market, before someone buys it. Further, people throw out food, because it went bad before using it. If that food had a longer shelf life, it adds to the worlds food supply as a whole. Making it more likely to get into the hands of those who have a more immediate need.
Our desire to have everything we eat, to be pure as the driven snow, shows that we are a truly narcissistic society. And, the Mangonists of these fears, are themselves evil incarnate. By propagating these misrepresentations, they are guilty of mass homicide, via information warfare. Worse some do this, and sleep well at night.
Dr. H’s cited source, true facts on food irradiation.
http://physics.isu.edu/radinf/food.htm
* figure taken from http://www.iii.org/media/facts/statsbyissue/oddsofdying/?table_sort_735950=3
**figure taken from
http://www.fews.net/Pages/default.aspx
Comment by Dr. H
Apr 28th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
OOPS. Here’s their web link.
I could attribute this to a conspiracy. But I’m honest and admit that I screwed up the cut and paste. Here is the link to prevent cancer.
prevent cancer
http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/food/irradiation.htm
Comment by Michael Gat
Apr 29th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
You’ve hit on something I’ve noted before as well. It was well summed up in an opinion piece a couple of months ago: To Worshipers of Consumption: Spending Won’t Save the Earth
The point is pretty much the same as yours. The true environmental choice is not to buy a “green” product, but to buy nothing at all. Why recycle all that impossible-to-open plastic bubble pack every retailer insists on using? How about just selling the stuff without any such unnecessary packaging? And don’t tell me you’re being so environmentally conscious by recycling the plastic bottle that your imported water came in because the cost of transporting that bottle was lots of environmental wreckage. Last I checked, tap water in virtually all places in the US is quite safe. Buy an inexpensive filter every few months if you don’t like the taste.
And please, don’t tell me that your 300+hp Lexus hybrid is environmentally conscious. Maybe compared to other gas guzzlers, but not compared to even a basic compact car or small SUV. Of course, your feet, your bike, and the bus are all far more environmentally-conscious alternatives.
Comment by Michaela
Apr 30th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Wow this is something you don’t hear everyday, but it is so true!