Global Warming, Plastic Straws, Toilet Paper, And All That Jazz -- And Nothing About The Bakken -- March 3, 2019

Up early: I'm up early today -- the oldest granddaughter has a water polo tournament this week. First game today, Sunday, is at 8:00 a.m.

Cold: Wow, it's cold out there today -- a reader from southern Minnesota said the temperature this morning, 6:00 a.m.:

• -17.5°F 
• feels like -31°F 

That's pretty cold. Especially when it is supposed to start warming up in March. I hate to think what the temperature is in my hometown, Williston, ND. Here in north Texas we will see the "real cold" tomorrow morning when the wind chill is forecast to hit 8 degrees. That's 24 degrees below freezing.

Fake extreme weather: BBC removes / revises fake story after numerous complaints --  the BBC quoted the IPPR as stating that since 2005, the number of floods across the world has increased by 15 times, extreme temperature events by 20 times, and wildfires sevenfold. All fake, of course, and both the IPPR and BBC retracted the story. 

Most disappointing tweet this morning: Occasional-Cortex tweets that she uses air conditioning. Wow. That's a luxury that we can't afford any more -- but I guess if the earth is going to end in twelve years, it really doesn't matter, does it?

Air conditioning: I'm particularly sensitive to the "air conditioning" issue. Because of cost -- dollar-cost, not CO2-cost -- I minimize heating and cooling in our 900-square-foot apartment. [As I've mentioned before, our apartment is the size of one of Algore's walk-in closets.]

Several years ago when we lived in San Antonio where it's unbearably hot during the summer, I set a goal not to use air conditioning at all for one summer. My wife was spending the summer out in California so I was living alone and wanted to see if it was possible. It is, but it's not fun. I went the entire summer without turning on a/c once. It gets very, very hot in San Antonio in July and August; well over a hundred degrees and it's not necessarily a dry heat. The dry/wet line for that part of Texas is centered right over San Antonio -- some days very, very humid (think Galveston); other days very, very dry (think El Paso).

But I never turned on the a/c, so when I see that Occasional-Cortex uses a/c and she tells us the world will end in twelve years due to global warming, it's very, very disappointing. But we need to move on.

By the way, that summer that I never turned on the a/c, I was in great physical condition: I spent most afternoons and evenings swimming in the apartment complex pool.

Plastic straws: it is interesting to note what the millennials are willing to sacrifice when it comes to global warming or saving the whales or saving the forests. About a year or so ago, the big push was to eliminate plastic straws. It turns out there's a much bigger problem than plastic straws. From The [London] Guardian:

Wiped out: America's love of luxury toilet paper is destroying Canadian forests. Major brands’ refusal to use sustainable materials is having a devastating impact on forests and climate, new report says. 

It was reported that the average American uses three rolls of toilet paper each week. I can't make this stuff up. Folks commenting said that was absolutely "impossible." If you can't believe The [London] Guardian who can you believe. So far I've read no reports that millennials are demanding that Walmart remove toilet paper from its shelves. In fact, my hunch is we won't see one more story on this issue at all. I wonder if Occasional-Cortex will tweet on whether or not she uses toilet paper.

Sponge on a stick: from the linked article:

Americans are particularly to blame for this [Canadian forest / toilet paper] crisis. They make up just over 4% of the world’s population, yet account for more than 20% of global tissue consumption. The average four-person household in the US uses over 100lb of toilet paper a year.

Are there any options out there to prevent this destruction? Well, in ancient Rome they used a sponge on a stick, which they would then leave in a pot of vinegar to be used again.

The Talmud, the central text of Jewish law, prescribes a handful of gravel, with stones to be “the size of an olive, a nut and an egg” for greatest effectiveness.

The Federalist has a response. Wow, it turns out the "three rolls per American" was way off the mark, and another example of the hype to which environmentalists stoop. It gets tedious. [Note: the "three rolls per American" was in a tweet by Fortune, citing the same source as the Guardian story above.]