From Your Friendly, Mean Green Loving...

[Censored by Laurie]

Help the environment...and perhaps gas prices.

My sainted mother just emailed this to me...its supposed to be a slide show, but I can't get it to actually start...you may need flash. However you can simply page down to read the slides.

I don't have any specifics on the corrilation between the oil used in plastics production and the oil used in fuel production...perhaps Stewart Gilligan Griffen could chime in...but this seems like a very simple, efficient, smart and practical step that we could all take to help our planet...you know...that place we all inhabit.

I'm just sure there is some controversy on this that I don't know about and I'm opening a huge floodgate...I promise if that happens it was accidental.

[UNTflyer]

While I rail against the radical environmentalist movement and the man-made global warming theory, I totally support efforts like these that clean up the planet and reduce waste. Waste is a killer to free market economics! I use those canvas bags myself. I remember as a kid when we were encouraged to switch to plastic bags so that we don't cut down trees used to make paper bags. It's one of my favorite examples of how environmental policies have unintended consequences.

As for how much oil used to make plastic, I found this:

The best estimate I could find says that about 4 percent of the world's annual oil production of some 84.5 million barrels per day is used as feedstock for plastic, and another 4 percent or so provides the energy to transform the feedstock into handy plastic.

That's a lot of oil.

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

---People tend to forget that plastic is oil...as is carpets, asphalt highways, most roofing, most lubrication in machines, and a whole lot of other things. Windmills and solar energy do nothing for those things, we will continue to need oil. . As China and Asia modernizes their use of oil will greatly increase and I don't just mean automobiles and gasoline. . That river floating with garbage is in China.... They really have a problem and need to learn to keep their environment clean and learn how to dispose of waste. I understand safe water is becoming a problem over there.

---My personal opinion is that overpopulation will become the big problem 100 years from now , maybe less. In 1900 life expectancy in the US was 47, now modern medicine keeps us around until about 80 and the probability of reaching child bearing age is very high unlike in 1900. The same is happening worldwide. We could get into a population (birth) control discussion but that would make some groups very mad. Oil and energy is only part of the world problems that will need to be solved. We have always been able to solve the population problem with improved technology... but there may be a limit to that and what science can do as well as our best agriculture land is disappearing under cities. Good luck world....

[BeanCounterGrad'03]

---People tend to forget that plastic is oil...as is carpets, asphalt highways, most roofing, most lubrication in machines, and a whole lot of other things. Windmills and solar energy do nothing for those things, we will continue to need oil. . As China and Asia modernizes their use of oil will greatly increase and I don't just mean automobiles and gasoline. . That river floating with garbage is in China.... They really have a problem and need to learn to keep their environment clean and learn how to dispose of waste. I understand safe water is becoming a problem over there.

---My personal opinion is that overpopulation will become the big problem 100 years from now , maybe less. In 1900 life expectancy in the US was 47, now modern medicine keeps us around until about 80 and the probability of reaching child bearing age is very high unlike in 1900. The same is happening worldwide. We could get into a population (birth) control discussion but that would make some groups very mad. Oil and energy is only part of the world problems that will need to be solved. We have always been able to solve the population problem with improved technology... but there may be a limit to that and what science can do as well as our best agriculture land is disappearing under cities. Good luck world....

That's ok...we'll all be living on Mars in 50 years.