Bamboo. [Expletive deleted] Bamboo.
There are times when I wish our profanity policy was looser. This is one of them.
By Moe Lane Posted in Energy — Comments (25) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I freely admit, I pretty much ignored Time Magazine's Global Warming Survival Guide; I figured that it would be pretty much useless to anybody not living within commuting range of NYC, and it turns out that I was almost right. Unfortunately, mixed into the feel-goodism and inanities is at least one disaster-in-the-making. Good thing that Fausta was paying more attention, and so noticed this:
26. Plant a bamboo fence
By Maryanne Murray BuechnerBamboo makes a beautiful fence, and because it grows so quickly (as much as 1 ft. a day or more, depending on the species), it absorbs more CO2 than, say, a rosebush. Most homeowners have to restrict its growth, lest it get out of control. Do this, however, and you reduce bamboo's capacity as a carbon sink. Only large-scale plantings, which absorb CO2 faster than they release it, can favorably tip the scales. How big is your yard?
Bamboo. [Expletive deleted] bamboo.
Read on.
Lemme tell you a story.
My wife and I moved into our place a couple of years ago. The DC real estate market being what it is, we decided to live in a trailer park for a few years -
Yes, I'll wait for you to stop laughing.
- anyway, we moved in and we saw the privacy screen of bamboo that the last owners had put up. We thought that it was 'cute'.
Then we tried to get it under control. We wanted a garden, after all.
We cut. We slashed. We hacked. We sawed. It wouldn't stay under control. We dumped weed killer on it. We went and got special bamboo killers. We then decided that we weren't going to have a garden after all. So we salted the earth.
Nothing.
The latest campaign of our war against the [Expletive deleted] bamboo involved our tearing up the patch where the ground grew, trying to find those blipping root structures from perdition and digging them up, dropping down tarps and covering the whole thing with a ton - and I am not exaggerating; we made two or three trips - of rocks. Which did nothing about the mutated bamboo under the trailer (did I mention that we had bamboo coming up through the ventilation system?) or the bamboo root system which is by now under everybody else's yard - but it's at least manageable now. With constant vigilance, and we have no idea if the [Expletive deleted] bamboo is currently threatening any sewer lines. Which it can. Oh, my, yes.
So. If you absolutely must take Time Magazine seriously when it talks about how green weddings and not wearing ties can save the planet, fine: but for the love of everything holy do not plant a bamboo fence. You will end up wanting to invent time travel solely so you could go back to your previous self and beat yourself with a bamboo club. You will say things like "So, just how bad is Agent Orange, again?" You will seriously consider moving your house - even real ones, with basements - and backhoe the lot down to the mantle. In short, you will go mad.
So support nuclear power generation, instead. Oddly, this didn't seem to get mentioned in the article.
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Bamboo. [Expletive deleted] Bamboo. 25 Comments (0 topical, 25 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
There is so much more you can do than just building a bamboo fence!
Me?
Well, I'm just going to take off my tie (#29), turn off my computer (#30), drive home by making only right turns (#45), hang up a clothes line (#7), make plans to build a skyscraper (#9), figure out how to rearrange the heavens and the earth (#33), become a vegetarian (#22), and then pay for my carbon sins (#42).
"The average desktop computer, not including the monitor, consumes from 60 to 250 watts a day"
So let me get this straight. The average computer consumes 60 J/s/day so at the end of a week it is consuming 420 J/s (Watts). And at the end of a year the thing is consuming 22 kiloWatts. Indeed do turn off the computer these things are simply huge energy wasters.
Or do you link maybe they meant Watt-hours.
We're supposed to beleive what reporters write about energy issues, but invariably they can't get the reporting correct.
Power plants are usually reported as "XXX killowatts per hour" output. Nimrods.
The usual sound advice from those non-deniers of reality.
I wonder how much bamboo Al Gore has, not his brain, his yard.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
Because some overmoneyed, underexperienced idiot had what passed for a thought.
Water Hibiscus is another one of these.
I'll pop the Bamboo into my collection of why I don't take greens seriously.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
was reintroducing beavers in Georgia. Some "overmoneyed, underexperienced idiot" with GA Fish and Game decided it would be "neat" to reintroduce the beaver, long ago trapped out, to the wetland habitat. I'm told they went so far as to airdrop the things into some areas; the river and creek "bottoms" are all but inaccessible these days since they're not used for agriculture and there is no free-range livestock.
What nobody figured out is that the things have no natural perdators anymore and they mulitiplied, man did they multiply. Beavers don't just build those huts and dams; they tunnel as well. Between their dams drowning millions of dollars worth of timber and their tunnels destroying practically every pond dam in the state, it has been an economically disasterous program.
We have (had) a pond dam on the place down there that had been sound since the mid-19th Century. A colony of beavers moved in and destroyed it in a matter of weeks. And you cannot get rid of them! I shot them, I trapped them, I tore down their dams and burned their huts, and they do not leave! Plus, they're useless; here in Alaska a nice beaver pelt will bring a pretty good price, down there the hot sun makes the pelt rough and faded, so it is worthless. I guess the only solution now is to reintroduce predators like bobcats and panthers, but don't be planning to have dogs and cats or letting your small kids play outside.
In Vino Veritas
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
Georgia? How evah did they git heah? To borrow a line from Aunt PittiPat in Gone With The Wind. I guess they must have been there once, but I'd venture that one hasn't been seen in 150 years except perhaps up in the N. GA mountains.
People who've never been around those things have no idea how dangerous they are. Fortunately, they're smart enough here to know that man is dangerous so they usually give us a wide berth - unlike bears. That said, some fool lost his dog to one about a mile from my house this week. He was walking the trails out near the Mendenhall Glacier and didn't have his dog leashed. A large, black male wolf that hangs back there snatched the dog and killed it.
Now if somebody would like to put a pack of wolves in Central Park or the DC suburbs, I'm all for it. We'd be happy to trap some and send them. I kinda like the thought of all those soft, gentle unarmed people cringing behind their locked doors when those things start howling at night. All those people who think wolves are so pretty and noble should see how a pack of wolves kills a moose or a caribou.
In Vino Veritas
it and just sold the property. I was just spending the winter down there that year trying to catch up on work around the place as my Dad had gotten too old to keep it up well. The guy who bought it has never been able to restore the dam.
In Vino Veritas
decided there weren't enough prarie dogs left in Northern new Mexico and Southern Colorado. She and Ted Turner imported car loads of them, thereby cancelling out the millions of dollars spent by New Mexican and Coloradoan farmers and ranchers trying to eradicate the da*ned things over the previous quarter century.
With the prarie dog population exploding, the coyote population did as well. I had coyotes as big as dogs in my yard in packs.
We can take some solace, however in that the populations of both got so large that they spread a plague epidemic and almost wiped both species in the region out. Then with most of the coyotes gone, the jack rabbit population exploded. Everything we planted last year was eaten down tom the roots.
I just love it when the Greeners decide they can manage nature better than nature can.
That in the future, they will look back at this post as the definitive treatise of the 21st century on bamboo as savior of the environment. :-)
I sort of wish it was a diary so our top recommend would be "Bamboo. [Expletive Deleted] Bamboo." for a week.
If the bamboo breaks the sewer lines, doesn't that help give it fertilizer? Then it can grow even faster and do even a better job of chasing humans out. And if we can just get rid of all the humans, the earth would be a great place to live. So bamboo is indeed great for the environment!
The list is full of feel good stuff that is more about demonstrating your commitment to the cause than it is about making a meaningful impact.
Case in point: "Wear green eye shadow"
With the possible exception of the idea to launch trillions of tiny lenses into orbit to deflect the suns rays (!), most of these ideas think too small: they potential impact is several orders of magnitude too small to ever have any measurable impact.
There is one thing that the average person could do that might possibly impact CO2 emissions and energy security at the same time: write a letter to your Congressman in support of nuclear energy. (Preferably an email. Think green!)
Discussion of "What you can do to curb global warming" is just so much hot air if nuclear energy is not on the table.
...note the relative value of symbols to the Left.
Status symbols and conspicuous consumption trump their symbolic concern for the environment.
Example: AlGore could make a positive gesture for the environment by backfilling his swimming pool & filling it with a bamboo planting. Think he'll do it?
Example: John Travolta could make the magnanimous gesture of cutting back to one Lear Jet (i.e., getting rid of his 737 and his 3 Gulfstreams), thereby saving more energy than all of us could by "opening a window" or "turning off the computer". Think he'll do it?
Nothing but the best!
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The CIA has better politicians than it has spies - Fred Thompson
bamboo is the politically correct kudzu!
Thanks, Moe!
I live in a warm climate and I can tell you from bitter experience there are three things you NEVER want in your yard. Bamboo, Banana Trees, and any large cactus.
Those things have a way of quickly taking over your entire yard and they are messy, and (in the case of banana stink to high heaven in the summer.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle