June 29, 2008
The purity-codes of an ersatz religion....
Reading this WSJ article on the absurd contortions of the Dems trying to keep their convention undefiled by the corrupting grossness of the Great Satan, I don't know whether to cry or to hoot with laughter and throw globs of organic waste at the next Prius that drives by....
...To test whether celebratory balloons advertised as biodegradable actually will decompose, Ms. Robinson buried samples in a steaming compost heap. She hired an Official Carbon Adviser, who will measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed. The Democrats hope to pay penance for those emissions by investing in renewable energy projects.
Perhaps Ms. Robinson's most audacious goal is to reuse, recycle or compost at least 85% of all waste generated during the convention.
The Trash Brigade: To police the four-day event Aug. 25-28, she's assembling (via paperless online signup) a trash brigade. Decked out in green shirts, 900 volunteers will hover at waste-disposal stations to make sure delegates put each scrap of trash in the proper bin. Lest a fork slip into the wrong container unnoticed, volunteers will paw through every bag before it is hauled away.
"That's the only way to make sure it's pure," Ms. Robinson says...
They will "hover at waste-disposal stations." To ensure purity! Wow. Wouldn't that make some very funny campaign commercials? I think Republicans should sponsor, in honor of the Dem convention, a national "Laugh at Looney Lefties Day."
....Republicans are pushing conservation, too.....But Matt Burns, a spokesman for the Republican convention, looks on with undisguised glee at some of the Democrats' efforts -- such as the "lean 'n' green" catering guidelines.
Among them: No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation. "One would think," says Mr. Burns, "that the Democrats in Denver have bigger fish to bake -- they have ruled out frying already -- than mandating color-coordinated pretzel platters."...
Makes me want to have chicherones and Coors beer for dinner....
Posted by John Weidner at June 29, 2008 09:05 AMHow much excess energy will be consumed by individuals who travel to the convention for the purpose of patroling the trash? Would the "environment" possibly be better off by having a few plastic forks make their way into the wrong container, but saving the cooking of a thousand or two extra meals a day, the cleaning of a couple hundred extra hotel rooms a day, the transportation to and from the convention, etc., etc.?
I read an article once years ago about recycling, that concluded you were wasting far less energy by using styrofoam cups for your morning coffee instead of ceramic mugs, because the energy required to create styrofoam is WAY less than that required to heat the water used to clean the ceramic mug...and since the styrofoam is primarily air, when it's crushed or melted down, it only takes up a smidgeon of landfill space...
Conservation is great - but I do wonder at the wisdom of investing massive amounts of human effort for something with such a seemingly trivial payoff...
Ethan,
It's not about what makes sense. It never has been. It's about "what feels right".
Anybody who has good number sense understands what you're driving at. The problem is that jobs like "politician" or "political activist" or "environmentalist" are usually filled with people who lack number sense. Why? Because most other jobs, even lowly ones like warehousing, require a sense of number-- either good estimating skills, or at least an ability to count.
To put it cruelly, those folks at the Democratic Convention in Denver have the jobs they do because they can't hack it in the real world-- you and John and I, and the readers of RJ would eat their lunches.
And they know it.
Which is why they want to feel superior to us, and that silliness-to-come in Denver will allow them to feel so.
Posted by: Hale Adams at June 30, 2008 07:39 PM
