Yet another study confirms hockey stick

Yes we have always been a country of "droughts and flooding rains" but this is ridiculous at the moment. The dams are drying up at a record rate too because our monsoonal season is in summer - which means that when the monsoon fails we have record evaporation.

We can weather (no pun) a couple of years of monsoon failure but if that happens in Asia................

 

If it happens in Asia....famine and war.

 

BIG time!! It is a vast concern to us given our proximity

 

Potable water, sewage removal, heat and air conditioning are highly energy-intensive. Man's ingenuity has created a quandary. Live large or cut the population. Both have nasty consequences. I don't see an easy answer unless the elitists unleash a virus that specifically eliminates those that they deem unnecessary. Unfortunately, that virus, assuming it is effective, is probably targeted at me and you.

 

Is there no room for a third alternative - keep on doing what we are doing but more efficiently

 

I've posted this before. And now, I think it is time to show it again; http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2635779n

 

List some specifics with regard to efficiency. I used to like the Honda CRX in 1987. 50 mpg (and yes I don't care about the metric system) and the USA controllers took it off the road because it was "unsafe". Bulk it up with 800 pounds of crap and now it costs more and gets 35 mpg under a new name. I've lived the same way for my entire life (82 F in the summer for air conditioning if I even use it and 65 F for heat). Do I need to become a pop star to convince others? Why not petition the most recent pop star to sell this crap? My faith in humanity is zero. While I believe that global warming is a significant threat, I can clearly see the argument that highlights the hypocrisy of alarmists that do not practice what they preach.

 

Because it will be twisted and whatever they say will be ridiculed. I remember one star saying we should cut back on the amount of toilet paper we use. NOT saying we should give it up but maybe rethink it. Install more Bidets, use recyclable paper

http://livinggreenmag.com/2013/02/0...-flushing-old-growth-forests-down-the-toilet/

I use recycled loo paper and cannot tell the difference, and when camping the choices are...........................

Most Aussies do use recycled paper or unbleached paper (does your arse really need WHITE paper?) and it just makes sense

Packaging - don't tell me we could not reduce packaging and still sell products?

 

and you know this how?...how do you come by this insight that lets you make judgement into others lives?...I use low flow water system in my home, I no longer have a lawn that requires watering, I've spent $30K on my home making it more energy efficient and that's an ongoing project, I've vastly reduced the amount of driving I do to save fuel/reduce carbon...

- - - Updated - - -

I never understood the need for bleached toilet paper...

 

We were discussing oil use n the U.S. today at work. It was mostly about gasoline. We (my buddy and I) came to the conclusion that our government is probably not that concerned about reducing the consumption of gasoline in this country and give conserving gasoline a lot of lip service.

It all started when I saw an old picture in a magazine (or somewhere),the price of gasoline was .01 cent a gallon with .02 cents tax.Does our govenment really want to give up that amount of money comiing in?....just wondering.

And who is really ripping us off...big oil or government???? ....or both?

 

the government has two immediate concerns that...

jobs/getting re-elected, it has to be sensitive to a large segment of the population whose livelihood depends on oil and the auto industry...millions of people directly and indirectly, overturning the entire economic system based on cheap fuel isn't an easy task

roadway infrastructure, which should be paid for by gas tax...if all the tax I pay when I purchase gas goes to road upkeep I don't have an issue with it..

 

What a load of hippy enviornmentalist crap. Toilet paper comes from pulp. Environmentalists have to be the dumbest thing ever to walk the face of the earth. Pulp is either waste product from hardwood harvesting or farmed. We don't cut down old growth forest for pulp. You can wipe your ass with your mouth if it makes you feel better. It won't save trees. If anything reducing the demand for pulp will lead to fewer trees farms go out of business. The hardwood will still be harvested because they arent harvesting for pulp. The pulp is just a byproduct. God the ignorance if the do gooders.

 

Really? Proof???

Please show us your proof of this - there are a lot of studies out there on the impact of this one item, which let us face it, is a cultural requirement.

http://www.northeastwasteforum.org....roduct Fact Sheet - ToiletTissueHandTowel.pdf

And yes I know that is not a study - I am just putting it out there for consideration

 

Just read critically. To say that because some of the pulp in toilet paper comes from forest does not mean that the forest was harvested for pulp. That is like saying you slaughter cows for hot dogs. Pulp is a biproduct. If anything using pulp is conservation because you ate using all if the tree instead of just harvesting the core wood.

 

And there is not enough pulp byproduct for all the backsides requiring it. Why not look into this yourself?

BTW it is not just the source but the processing of the pulp into paper that is the problem - especially bleaching it. As I have said before your backside does not need WHITE paper - it is not as if it is going to read it!!

 

Having worked cutting pulpwood, we would harvest the tree, load the logs and send them to the paper mill. The trees were debarked and used to make paper. The logs over 9 inches in diameter at the narrow end, without too many "cats eyes" went for plywood.

So yes...forests are harvested for paper. I made $4.00 a cord back in 1985. I am sure the boss made a little more.

Cedar and spruce trees were considered useless (along with sweetgum and poplar) and they were either piled and burned or poisoned with 2 4-D.

Hardwoods were worth much less but they were worth a little.

 

Yes, but there is a difference between harvesting and deforesting. Some of the world's biggest pulp operations are in Western Europe, and use farmed trees exclusively. There is no deforestation, just a sustainable crop that takes 50-100 years to grow. It is not pulpwood harvesting that is the problem, but lack of honest and competent forest management, especially in corrupt Third World countries.

Where and when was this? I can assure you that modern pulp operations use both spruce and cedar, and their long fibers are considered desirable. It's true that many US pulp mills are very antiquated, and often can't make good use of the available fiber.

Paradoxically, hardwoods yield softer, weaker pulp because the fibers are shorter. This is fine for tissue, not so good for printing papers.

 

Actually, the world's forests produce ample fiber for sustainable lumber, plywood, pulp and paper industries that satisfy all the demand (though not the demand by termites). The problem is corrupt and incompetent forest resource management that neglects reforestation and even leaves land unable to support regrowth.

Modern pulp bleaching processes need not emit any significant chlorine pollution, and are quite environmentally benign.

 

Spruce is used for among many things, guitars and stringed instruments, before that it was used for masts on sail boats and ship building. It has among the highest tensile strength to weight ratings of any wood. Cedar has many uses, including a natural pest deterrent, drawers and chests to prevent mildew and keep out bugs.

I find the bolded part of your claim hard to believe..

 

Proof??

 

You can believe it or not...I don't care.

We would take a D-9 bulldozer in the late winter and spring and buldoze down the spruce(and everything else) and plant loblolly pine.
A friend of mine and I did harvest some nice poplar and had it milled for our own use.

 

"Cedar and spruce trees were considered useless (along with sweetgum and poplar) and they were either piled and burned or poisoned with 2 4-D."

I said I found the bolded part of your claim hard to believe. That part above.. Bolded it again. You probably did bulldoze down the smaller trees, especially in a sustained section of forest especially grown for such. However claiming they were considered useless and poisoned or piled and burned is highly suspect consideringsmaller softwood trees like that are primarily used for pulp making. It would be a waste of resources to waste them. I don't think any logging company would willingly ad to their losses...

 

In the south there is no market for the trees. The mills won't take them...therefore there is no money in them.

Sometimes an individual logger will cut spruce, hickory, cedar, or sweetgum for his personal use but he would have them milled and foot the bill himself. But most of the time they are destroyed.

 

In the south or anywhere in the US or abroad there is a market for pulpwood, it's not useless soft wood is what pulp is predominately made from. If you were clearing smaller softwood trees, you didn't do it to burn them, or waste them you did it to sell and turn a profit. The pulp mills would take all that you can cut, and pay a decent enough price for them to make it worthwhile. Pulp goes into making virtually every form of paper product you can name, there is always a market for it even in the south...

 

I'm just offering some sorely needed facts that I happen to know because one of my clients is one of the world's largest pulp companies. You are free to refuse to know those facts, and I frankly don't care if you consent to know them or not. You have always stubbornly resisted my attempts to educate you in the past.