5 Ways People Are Trying to Save the World (That Don't Work)
Between the hybrids, the reusable canvas shopping bags and cloth diapers, everybody's doing their little bit to save the world. Entire industries have sprang up to cater to us socially-responsible types who want to leave behind a better world for the robots to inherit once they take over.
But, most of the time, making you feel better is about all it does. For instance...
#5.
Buying Organically Grown Food
Why People Do It:
Seems like a no-brainer. Organic food eliminates the use of chemical fertilizers, hormones and pesticides. Getting rid of all those nasty chemicals means healthier foods and less contamination to the planet.
And anything that's organic or natural has to be better for you, right? It's like you're eating the opposite of Twinkies here.
Why They Shouldn't:
So what's the problem with eating healthier food and saving the Earth? Nothing, except that the food may not be any healthier. And that's even if you can afford the (much) higher prices. Oh, and the impact on the planet may actually be worse.
The funny thing about those chemical fertilizers and pesticides is that they were invented for a reason, and that's to increase food production. Turns out organic farming is pretty damn inefficient. Holding hands and thinking peaceful thoughts does dick all against pests that want to eat your crops and weeds that want to choke them out. The current acre of farmland produces 200 percent more wheat than it did 70 years ago. The same goes for meat and poultry. The chemicals did that for us.
Take them away, and suddenly you're getting less food per acre of land. According to some guy who won a Nobel Prize, we could feed 4 billion people if we went all organic. This sounds great except maybe to the 2.5 billion people who would be left without anything to eat.
A tiny fraction of the people organic food would leave starving.
Despite all the claims that chemicals used in farming are bad for us, it turns out cancer rates have dropped 15 percent since farmers began using chemicals. How is that possible? Well it's mainly due to people being able to afford more fruits and vegetables, because the chemicals allow more to be grown. That's one reason the average life expectancy in the US went up by almost 10 years between 1950 and 2000.
As for the environment, it turns out organic farming has its own issues. Because it is much less efficient, there is actually a shortage of organic food available. This leads to people having the food shipped in from much further away. We're no scientists, but we think that doing things like shipping organic milk 900 miles over the highway in a truck belching diesel fumes is probably canceling out any environmental benefits you might have gained from going organic.
Oh, and did we mention organic farming uses a lot of manure to fertilize crops? This results in a greater risk of contamination. Although organic produce only accounts for one percent of the food supply, it accounts for eight percent of the E. coli cases in the U.S.
Basically, you are at greater risk of eating a shit sandwich, which is admittedly organic, but still.
#4.
Rejecting Vaccinations
Why People Do It:
Because the chemical cocktails in vaccines are poisoning our children! Depending on what websites or episode of Oprah you watch, vaccines contain poisonous mercury, and are causing everything from autism to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which is about as scary a medical term as you can have without using "flesh-eating" or "dick-melting."
Why They Shouldn't:
In a word: science. While the folks pushing the anti-vaccination agenda mean well (though some seem to be doing it out of a knee-jerk fear of "Big Pharma") their claims aren't backed up by the actual studies.
"Trust me, those medicines will only make you sick. Also, I'm sorry, you seem to be dying for some reason."
Apparently the whole autism scare was based on a 1998 report which has since been rejected by all the major health organizations, and was even retracted by its authors in 2004. In the scientific world, that's the equivalent of calling bullshit on yourself.
As for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, studies actually showed that the cases of SIDS actually went down 40 percent even as vaccination rates went up. This is science's way of saying "You are fucking wrong."
"According to my chart, you are a fucking moron."
A lot of the arguments against vaccination focus on the fact that a preservative used in some vaccines contains mercury. There are only two problems with this: the type they were using wasn't dangerous, and they stopped using it in 2001.
We're not saying vaccines have no risk. As with any drug, there is a chance some kids may have a bad reaction. But the odds of serious side effects are fairly slim compared to the risk of catching the disease if children are not vaccinated.
The thing is that when enough parents decide not to vaccinate their kids, those little germ factories start doing what they do best and epidemics break out. Then you end up with a little snotty babies running around infecting people like some kind of really cute zombie apocalypse.
"Bwwwaaaaaiiinnnsssss."
#3.
Recycling
Why People Do It:
We've all been raised to believe that unless we all recycle, our forests will soon be barren and we'll be living among mountains of our own filth, Wall-E style.
Recycling is also supposed to use fewer resources and create less pollution. What could possibly be wrong with that?
Why They Shouldn't:
The image of the paper industry hacking down every tree until we were all gasping for lack of oxygen was always ridiculous; we've increased the number of trees over the last 50 years as logging companies plant more to ensure future supply.
Equally silly were the warnings most of us got hammered with growing up, about tales of overflowing landfills, full of trash that takes thousands of years to biodegrade. At least in America, we were never in danger of walking through streets of garbage. Some expert at Gonzaga University, with a lot of time on his hands, calculated that at current rates all the garbage in the US over the next 1,000 years would fill up a 35 square mile landfill 100 yards deep.
This sounds like one of those "Holy shit!" scary figures until you consider this is about one tenth of one percent of the land currently used for grazing in the US. Also, this would be the accumulation over 1,000 years by which time we should have bigger things to worry about, like overthrowing our robotic overlords.
As for saving resources by recycling, this is where it gets tricky. Partly this is because whether or not recycling saves resources depends on whether you consider human labor to be a resource (that is, the effort to pick up, sort and transfer the items to be recycled). Recycling requires more trucks, more crews and more people to oversee the entire process. In Los Angeles alone there are twice as many garbage trucks than there would have been without the recycling program. Just like those douchebags who drive to the gym to run on a treadmill but still hop in the car to go the one block to the corner store to pick up their pork rinds and soda, it's not clear just how much benefit there is at the end of the day.
Also, re-using something is not always better than just tossing it away. A chemist at the University of Victoria calculated that you would need to use a ceramic mug 1,000 times before you would see benefits over using disposable polystyrene cups for those 1,000 cups of coffee. This is because it takes far more energy to make that mug and takes energy and water to wash it after each use.
Now obviously you can't take that to the extreme and go to a lifestyle of all-disposable dishes and clothes, and where every ink pen is sold in box made up of three pounds of cardboard and plastic. But the problem was never as bad as they kept telling us.
My sister has been a strict vegan for 6 years now, doesn't buy anything made from an animal either (Wool, leather) I called BS on that once but I was then invited to investigate her closets and other areas of living, yeah she's all sorts of animal cruelty free. In the end, though, I am convinced that it's just a damn good way to hide her anorexia (Which she was diagnosed with about 8 years ago)
ReplyI've used my ceramic mug many more than 1000 times and I only wash it once every 1-3 days, or about every 3-15 uses.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replies... so 1) you drink 5 cups of coffee a day (which I guess I've seen although I'd suggest decaf at that point) and 2) you drink coffee with 3 days worth of coffee stains on it...I guess hygiene isn't everything...
and if you're drinking 5 cups of coffee a day, I'm pretty sure you can use 1 styrofoam cup for that day. Actually since you don't wash your cup for 15 uses you shouldn't have a problem using a styrofoam cup for 15 uses. so make that 1000 times into 15000 times.
Not saying that it won't still be worth it but the incremental gains aren't that great. Go with glass cups and at 15 uses you've already paid it off. 1 ceramic mug = 70 glass cups. Think that's a much more worthwhile exchange.
My coffee cup has ... things growing in it.
You should see CarrieVS's, it already has plans to take over the world...
"Basically it means our immune systems are playing Dungeons & Dragons instead of pumping iron and taking Karate and banging hot chicks."
ReplyLOVE IT.
I completely agree with the antibacterial phenomenon. It's ridiculous. Every kid I know who's being or was raised in a sterile environment is allergic to everything and sick all the time. Then the parents blame other people for spreading germs that make their kids sick as they pour bleach on the floors and scrub. Nevermind that the kids are borderline retarded thanks to all the chemicals they've been inundated with since birth.
I have to agree with this one. Plus, those people that throw anti-biotics every time they get sick.
absolutely agree. my best friend is a germophobe who continuously sterilizes every inch of her home with bleach, lysol, and all manner of antibacterial. she's also the sickest person i've ever met. every time she leaves her house, she gets sick. she's had asthma since childhood, but since moving into her own place and aggressively sterilizing everything in sight, it's gotten so much worse that she has to be hospitalized twice a year, minimum. her kids (except the two oldest, who live with their father) all have severe allergies and asthma, and get sick the second someone sneezes in their general direction. even her doctors have told her repeatedly that she is weakening her immune system by using all the crap she does, but she doesn't get it...
I love it when people try to explain in a non hysterical manner why they don't vaccinate their kids.
ReplyNothing about hybrids? The process of making 1 Prius does more damage to the environment then me driving a big gas guzzling truck for 5 lifetimes
Reply Hide All See All 5 Repliessauce on that. That sounds like complete bullshit, especially considering hybrids are made of mostly the same materials, aside from the battery and regenerative braking system.
@alcibiades2010 actually the battery and the braking system are what make it so damaging to the environment. in the case of the prius, the battery is made from nickel mined in canada, then shipped to china and then japan for refinement. by the time the whole car is actually put together, it HAS wasted as much energy as a gas guzzler. so, yeah.
actually, Meth4life's right. prius batteries are made from nickel mined in canada that is then shipped to china and japan for refinement. by the time it's finally put together, it's wasted as much energy as a hummer. so, yeah.
Isn't that the standard practice for most of parts of a car? Most of the steel is likely from canada, for european cars they're often shipped back to europe to make the parts, then back to china to put the car together than back to whatever country they're selling them at.
Alcibades is right. The "proof" that the Prius is worse was achieved by taking all the environmental damage from the nickel and cadmium mines, and putting it against the Prius. Never mind that the mines have been in production for 50+ years, and that most of the damage was done early and that moden production is much cleaner. It also assumed a ridiculously short lifespan for the Prius (less than 100k miles) while assuming the hummer would somehow make it to 300k without needing major repairs.
The author may want to check his sources a bit more thoroughly. In the case of both the claim about the number of trees in the US increasing and the claim about organic produce accounting for 8% of E. coli cases, the cited source was just some author on a web page stating it. No references to studies or data - just some guy's unsupported assertion. It took me all of 5 minutes to find that out, and those were the only 2 cited "facts" I randomly chose to investigate. By that sample, 100% of the cites in this article are garbage. How about we exercise a bit more caution in quoting "facts" we find convenient?
ReplyThe first link I clicked on for the anti-recycling part was a well-known libertarian site. While I agree that it's dangerous not to vaccinate your kids, and antibacterial soap is ultimately bad for you, I think Ron Paul could have written the other three bits under a pseudonym.
and this took 5 min. 2004 study by university of minnesota. If you're gonna claim being a cheat at least do your research.
J Food Prot. 2004 May;67(5):894-900.
Preharvest evaluation of coliforms, Escherichia coli, Salmonella, and Escherichia coli O157:H7 in organic and conventional produce grown by Minnesota farmers.
Mukherjee A, Speh D, Dyck E, Diez-Gonzalez F.
Source
Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota 55108, USA.
Abstract
Microbiological analyses of fresh fruits and vegetables produced by organic and conventional farmers in Minnesota were conducted to determine the coliform count and the prevalence of Escherichia coli, Salmonella, and E. coli O157:H7. A total of 476 and 129 produce samples were collected from 32 organic and 8 conventional farms, respectively. The samples included tomatoes, leafy greens, lettuce, green peppers, cabbage, cucumbers, broccoli, strawberries, apples, and seven other types of produce. The numbers of fruits and vegetables was influenced by their availability at participating farms and varied from 11 strawberry samples to 108 tomato samples. Among the organic farms, eight were certified by accredited agencies and the rest reported the use of organic practices. All organic farms used aged or composted animal manure as fertilizer. The average coliform counts in both organic and conventional produce were 2.9 log most probable number per g. The percentages of E. coli-positive samples in conventional and organic produce were 1.6 and 9.7%, respectively. However, the E. coli prevalence in certified organic produce was 4.3%, a level not statistically different from that in conventional samples. Organic lettuce had the largest prevalence of E. coli (22.4%) compared with other produce types. Organic samples from farms that used manure or compost aged less than 12 months had a prevalence of E. coli 19 times greater than that of farms that used older materials. Serotype O157:H7 was not detected in any produce samples, but Salmonella was isolated from one organic lettuce and one organic green pepper. These results provide the first microbiological assessment of organic fruits and vegetables at the farm level.
The people in the comments defending their stance are way funnier than the article, which was great.
ReplyIf you want to stop global warming you are fifteen years too late. The snide tone of certainty is pretty funny considering you assholes don't know that.
ReplyDoesn't dismiss the better, relevant reason why organic is being looked into: sustainability. "More productive" means for now, but the chemicals we use for fertilizers are not unlimited and should they run out even then those lands are often useless because the topsoil is scant/gone.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThere's a lot of delusion among the organic food buyers, granted, but no less than those who see cheap, conventional food in plenitude on the shelf and assume nothing would change. Like smokers will say, "if cigarettes *did* cause cancer, why don't I have cancer?"
That, and pests keep developing resistances to all the pesticides we keep spraying on them. It's not possible to indefinitely come up with new ways to kill things. Unless you write for the Saw series.
Could we have the writers of Saw make up new ways to kill pests? That would be just awesome ;)
I'm sure pesticides aren't the cause of all of our troubles but the round up ready crops are being scrutinized currently for their methods and I have read articles saying their nutrient levels are diminished as well as the pesticide killing natural microbes/bacteria that are actually helpful. I, personally, try to keep my home grown food organic. I assume lettuce is higher in e-coli because it's harder to wash the insides of lettuce heads.
Not everyone chooses "organic" (only using that word because not many others work as well) because they believe it is better for the world. Some, like me, have more legitimate reasons. Some don't like how companies like Monsanto have so much control over agriculture. For example, even if a farmer didn't buy their seeds, they could be sued if some of those seeds from their neighbor's field blew over into their's.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThen there's the fact that most of the corn and wheat we grow in the US-which, if shipped properly, could feed the rest of the world-is fed to farm animals that are meant to graze outside.
Finally, I don't know about anyone else but I'd prefer to eat foods made from animals who didn't spend nearly their entire life in a barn before being led to a butcher.
Bacon is bacon.
your first point is a reason to promote local farms which the majority aren't organic. Organic is it's own niche. Probably doesn't put a dent into monsanto. Promoting local farms would be much better.
Agree with the 2nd point in general. US makes so much food that it just wastes. But you know that grazing area for farm animals? Growing corn there is a lot more efficient. You'd need tons more grazing area per cow if you were to replace their corn feed leading to the same problem as above.
This is why big farms are taking over. They are more efficient (and government subsidies help too... can go on that forever)
Where would you like them to spend their entire life before being butchered? Out in the cold/rain/snow/ice during winter or out in the heat in the summer with no water? Farmers raise animals in barns (and other confinement buildings) for the same reason humans live in houses. To be protected from the elements and other (potentially) dangerous animals/humans.
Love the ad for organic food on this. But you know, organic is the most misused word ever, anyway. I'm not wasting my money on that crap. There's no certification, and its use doesn't help anything, anyway. I'd rather pay less for something that's at least as good, if not better.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesCertified Organic essentially means "certified not to contain any pesticides, herbicides, added growth hormones, drugs, or other chemicals not found in nature." If you want that stuff in your food, you might as well pour Drano on your food instead of gravy.
Have you actually done any research on it? Because some companies are certified organic and others just claim to be. You actually have to research the product *gasp!* before you just buy it, otherwise you'll be buying everything based on someones word.
I think it's ironic when people like MarushiaDark rattle on about how dangerous pesticides and herbicides are when organic vegetables are recalled much more frequently due to potential health hazards. Pesticides and herbicides are stringently tested for a number of years by government agencies, the FDA, agro-businesses, farmers and Wildlife and Natural Resourse agencies (not to mention local governments) before being certified to be safe enough to use on crops meant for human consumption. But if you'd rather eat something that had bugs crawling all over it at one point, be my guest.
Thank you. I've been telling people for years that organic just means paying more for food raised using archaic meathods. We need more common sense articles like this.
ReplyWe are all going to die. Horribly. We may as well just get over it. This article made me feel better about being apathetic.
ReplyBut honestly, I do my best to be planet friendly. I feel guilt. I carpool. All that stuf.
aa
ReplyThere are enough rants here on GMO that I don't need to add to them. Just one addition, however: Russia and a number of European countries are now BURNING everything in the area of GMO crops and any contaminated offspring going and SALTING THE GROUND afterward. There are a huge number of good reasons for this. One of them is that they are not dumb-as-shit f*****g Americans who are stupid enough to let Monsanto have complete control of all agricultural regulations and related media stories. The same applies to the pharma companies and the FDA. People completely fail to look at the particulars of 'scientific' tests funded and directed when not actually performed by the companies who are making huge profits from the poisonous mutant crap being tested. People see 'scientists' and test results and just automatically believe what they are told, and several of these are referenced in this article. The most notable of such skewed 'proof' is in the vaccine and organic articles. THINK people! Do some your own freaking research for once.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesF yourself cockbite
Intelligent reply jackdaniels. Way to back up your side of the debate.
It's adorable how little you know about genetics.
someone talking about skewed proof who's against vaccines. man such a laugh. I feel bad for the future of humanity. The "evidence" against vaccines is almost as sad as the "evidence" for creationism.
"There are enough rants here on GMO that I don't need to add to them"
But...but...you just did...?
The reason many people believe the results of "sceintific" tests is because those "scientists" went to "universities" where they earned something called "degrees" which gives them much more considerable "knowledge" about their respected fields than you will ever have and were also presumably taught to not put "parentheses" around 3 words per paragraph so that people don't think they're "mornons".
I used to think the "green" movement was legit. Then, I saw Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t episode on recycling... What an eye opener. I no longer waste my time.
ReplyWe all die in the end so I say smoke the earth while we have it. The sun's gonna swallow it all.
ReplyI completely disagree with the author on recycling. He has very little argument against it and does not consider all of the pollution caused by plastic in the last 60 years.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesAlso, for paper, in Austria we recycle 66% of all produced paper and it's great for the economy, even though have enough trees.
I support recycling, not because I think it'll save the world, but because if it does require twice as many people, that means jobs which we could really use here in the states.
The pollution caused by plastic has nothing to do with recycling it. And how exactly is recycling the paper saving the world?
Recycling paper suffer from diminishing returns, same with plastics (but to a lesser extent); so at some point you are going to have to cut down a tree or two; now wouldnt it be better to cut down a tree that was intended to be cut down for paper then not to have the industry that plants them for that purpose? Interestingly enough, metal and glass dont suffer from this diminishing return; you want to really help the planet only use those materials.
? pollution caused by plastic is the entire reason we recycle plastic... you see if manufacturing plastic creates pollution.. recycling that plastic will reduce the pollution from manufacturing... don't see how thats a hard concept.
What you should debate is whether the recycling process produces less pollution than the manufacturing process. Penn and teller actually had a good bit about that.
Paper actually doesn't seem worth it. Costs more and like was said above, we have tons of trees. You're actually damaging the environment when you recycle paper. Recycling glass and metal is totally worth it. Recycling plastic is iffy. Depends on a lot of little factors. Too lazy to look it all up myself for every commenter on the internet. you guys can do that yourself.
Agreed. The author doesn't even mention the massive trash dump in the middle of the pacific that is far bigger than any trash heap we have on land, plus it is dangerous and often deadly for any marine animals that come into contact with it.
But, if you're not going to recycle, for the sake of animals that can get stuck in them, at least cut up the plastic rings that come with sixpacks before throwing them away.
I eat grass fed meat, but mostly because of the fact that as a microbiology major, the rise in antibiotic resistance has gone up dramatically. Part of that is because people ALWAYS want an antibiotic, even after you tell them they have the flu and it won't help. And part of it is because we use all these antibacterial soaps, which actually only kill the good bacteria on you, and none of the bad. And of course, with a low infusion of antibiotics in meat, you're always getting a low dosage. So, god forbid you ever get a nasty strain of strep throat, because you could be screwed. Especially if you caught it in the hospital... it's not scary really. Just common sense.
ReplyThere's a strain of the clap out there now that is resistant to all antibiotics. Beware fornicators.
I'm pretty sure antibacterial soap kills everything. The problem is 99.9% of everything is good bacteria which is your main defense against bad bacteria. Therefore you could be at increased chance of being recolonized with bad bacteria.
Same result I guess but we should be a little more accurate.
ahh here!!! what about garbage island or entire beaches made of floating plastic, as for eating organic. the point is part valid. getting organic fruit and veg that needs to flown in from god knows where is far far worse than eating non organic veg thats grown just down the road.the idea behind eating organic is to also grow some of your own food, if you've got a massive lawn that you just mow every weekend and water the f**k out. you grow a s**t load of stuff on a small amount of and, it just takes careful planning. it improves the biodiversity of life in your garden and has been clincally proven to reduce and treat depression. some psychologists are even using prescribing 'green hours' to depression sufferers. the thing that this article points out is to be aware of is how your going about trying to reduceyour carbon footprint and so forth
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesAs far as growing your own food, I completely agree. Burgers taste far better to me when they have tomatoes I planted and grew and cared for myself. But it is a lot of work that most people don't want to do, which is why companies sell them at the grocery store.
The garbage island and plastic beaches are from people not disposing of plastic properly. Recycling isn't going to help. It probably makes it worse when it flies out of trucks hauling it around trying to recycle it.
yay finally a rational comment on the side of "organic". growing your own food is cool. I used to do it as a kid but the soil in my new house sucks. can't grow squat on it. Grass was rolled out like a carpet.