Green Irony

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webbie

webbie

Seasoned Moderator
Nov 17, 2005
12,165
Western Mass.
Is it "green" or is it Green ($$)? That is the question of our age......

If you have found a product, an advertisement or another "green" effort to be both ironic and humorous, list it in this thread.

My first attempts:

1. Radio commercials for BYOB- Bring your own Bag
Irony: It's the stuff you put INSIDE THE BAG that creates the problem, not the tiny bit of paper or plastic!

2. REAL SIMPLE - a magazine devoted to making your life simpler
Irony: Last monthly issue (and most issues) have almost 400 pages - with hundreds of pages of ads selling everything from cosmetics to beef to SUVs. The only thing Real Simple about this mag is that it makes a giant profit.
 
I wonder how many hybrid cars will wind up in the junkyard early because the batteries cost more to replace than the car is worth and the greenies may as well buy a newer even more efficient hybrid car.
 
How about the whole hybrid battery requiring huge amounts of energy to produce. You remember the Prius/Hummer comparisaon?

You know those gas stations that have run free gas promos, and people wait in line for hours to get it- many with their cars running...
 
The computers we are using all take a lot of energy to produce. But the internet and and server farms put up by competing corporations like Microsoft, Google, etc. consumes cities worth of power. And they keep growing.

FWIW, the Hummer/Prius debate was started by a nutcase wannabe authority acting as a shill for American car corps. His comparison was quite flawed and had massively erroneous data. For example it had the Prius going to the crusher after just 100k mile and yet had gave the Hummer a whopping 300k miles. The CNW report was immediately dis-proven as bogus. If you caught the guy's website right after the article you would have seen his other hobby, pimping up American muscle cars. The guy is working out of his home in Bandon, OR culling select facts from the internet and phone into what he hoped would be a noteworthy report. He cleaned up the website quickly and removed the personal links once he became an urban legend.

http://www.pacinst.org/topics/integrity_of_science/case_studies/hummer_vs_prius.pdf
http://www.thecarconnection.com/article/1010861_prius-versus-hummer-exploding-the-myth

On the battery issue alone, they are recyclable and there is an extensive recycling program in place for them.

PS: Craig, you are so right. My wife got a subscription to Real Simple as a Christmas present from her sister. What a waste of paper.
 
Well, BG, I was gonna mention that Hummer thing, but wanted to keep the thread ironic.....

In that vein, it is ironic that any person would think a Hummer is greener than a Prius! I guess as ironic as saying that Ethanol will save us.

Oh, and Rupert Murdock......"well, one good thing about the Iraq war is that soon oil will be at $20 a bbl" (It was $39 when he said that)......
 
On topic, one controversial subject for me is compact fluorescents. While I don't dispute the energy savings. They cost a lot more environmentally to manufacture, ship from China, and have a higher impact on landfills. And then there are the claims of longer life which IMHO just aren't so. I date all the lamps I put in on the base. The CFLs are getting almost exactly 2 yrs in our kitchen which is about the same as the halogens I replaced. But the CFLs cost over twice as much.
 
I'd rather have real science. We'll recycle them cuz that's what we do. But I think a lot will not. And if the recycling program turns out like one local one, they may end up in the landfill anyway.
 
Irony? Driving to rallies to protest pollution.
 
Mandatory ethanol production to fuel 19 mpg trucks and SUV's that can only get 16 mpg on ethanol.
 
Good ones BB and Marty. How about Fed mandating environmental standards while the military continues to be one of the largest single entity polluters.
 
Burning down new homes as a way to protest damage to the environment. Air pollution from smoke, waste of drinking water through hydrants, cut more trees down to make more wood to rebuild, dig more strip mines for replacement copper, increase insurance premiums for all of us, etc.
 
just got piece of junk mail from Verisign in a see-through green plastic (non-recyclable) envelope. The thick cardstock inside (readable through the envelope) asked: What does green men to your site security and to your customers?

So I'm thinking, what is an internet security company doing for the environment (of course I'm already pissed off about the envelope)? So I open the folded card stock. It's a farking advertisement that if you use some version of Verisign security, the address bar in your browser will have a green background.

Suffice it to say that their corporate headquarters just received a email from me explaining the bad choice of marketing and how customers will feel misled (and to terminate the employment of the H2 driving marketing yahoo the created this). Yes the H2 part is a wild assumption, but I ran with it.

Update: The URL in the junkmail doesn't even work: http://www.verisign/com/center/6229
 
Good thread, Craig!

I like the "green" suggestion that we all go out and buy a bunch of those solar lights for your yard. After they realise that most of them don't emit much light and accidentally run one over with a mower or car, most people are going to just throw the whole thing, NI-CD battery and all, in the trash! Thanks for letting me vent...

BG: I have some older CFLs that are hitting 7 years old and are used regularly. I have also had some cheaper ones that don't make it a year. Anyone know of a site that ranks these things? I have a few opinions on certain brands...

Chris
 
Saw this from Consumer Reports (hope they don't mind the cut and paste):

Illuminating update on CFLs

After thousands of hours, most of the 13- to 15-watt compact fluorescent lightbulbs we are testing still work. That's good news, considering that equivalent 60-watt incandescents typically last only 1,000 hours. All of the CFLs are Energy Star-qualified.

But the light went out early on seven of nine Feit Ecobulb ESL13T bulbs, which cost about $2.25 apiece. Most of these failed between 3,300 to 3,900 hours of lighting in our tests, which cycle them on and off. The package claimed 8,000 hours average life. A better choice was the Feit Ecobulb Plus ESL13T/Eco ($2.66). All 10 samples of that model passed a 5,000-hour preliminary test, and they are being tested further, along with other brands. So far, here are some other good choices: GE 8,000 Hour Long Life 41525, and N:Vision 423-599, (sold at Home Depot) were still on after 7,600 hours. We paid about $2 to $4.50 a bulb.

All of the bulbs we are testing claim to have less than 5 milligrams of mercury. Ecobulb Plus claims less than 2.5 mg; N:Vision, 2.3 to 3.5 mg. You should recycle dead CFLs so that mercury isn't released into the environment. Most municipalities don't have programs to collect CFLs, and neither do most stores that sell them. Learn how to recycle your CFLs.

Although not all CFLs will last their claimed life, our testing has shown that most should last much longer than incandescent bulbs and pay for themselves in energy savings. Even the Feit bulbs that quit at 3,300 hours could save about $13 over their short life span.
 
Anyone seen the aluminum "Collector" bottles sold by Anheuser-Busch? Same size as a regular glass bottle, but made of aluminum. Sheesh; what a waste...

Gotta start a thread about CFLs I have known...

Chris
 
.5a/B said:
Saw this from Consumer Reports (hope they don't mind the cut and paste):

Illuminating update on CFLs

After thousands of hours, most of the 13- to 15-watt compact fluorescent lightbulbs we are testing still work. That's good news, considering that equivalent 60-watt incandescents typically last only 1,000 hours. All of the CFLs are Energy Star-qualified.

But the light went out early on seven of nine Feit Ecobulb ESL13T bulbs, which cost about $2.25 apiece. Most of these failed between 3,300 to 3,900 hours of lighting in our tests, which cycle them on and off. The package claimed 8,000 hours average life. A better choice was the Feit Ecobulb Plus ESL13T/Eco ($2.66). All 10 samples of that model passed a 5,000-hour preliminary test, and they are being tested further, along with other brands. So far, here are some other good choices: GE 8,000 Hour Long Life 41525, and N:Vision 423-599, (sold at Home Depot) were still on after 7,600 hours. We paid about $2 to $4.50 a bulb.

All of the bulbs we are testing claim to have less than 5 milligrams of mercury. Ecobulb Plus claims less than 2.5 mg; N:Vision, 2.3 to 3.5 mg. You should recycle dead CFLs so that mercury isn't released into the environment. Most municipalities don't have programs to collect CFLs, and neither do most stores that sell them. Learn how to recycle your CFLs.

Although not all CFLs will last their claimed life, our testing has shown that most should last much longer than incandescent bulbs and pay for themselves in energy savings. Even the Feit bulbs that quit at 3,300 hours could save about $13 over their short life span.
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IES Lamp Life ratings are based on a 3 hr on 20 min off cycle. Life is calculated on sample lot when 50% have failed meaning for ex a lamp with 10000 hr rating means the median lamp lasted that long with half failing before and half lasting longer.

In theory the lamps should last that long provided the filament isnt damaged during the process. I suspect most failures are due to the very cheap components used in the ballast portion of the lamp versu the lamp itslef.

Myself I have some old sylvania lamps made where I used to work which are sill burning after 12 years but we used good components, where as the Chinese knock off junk I have been forced to buy recently(my old supply long gone) are lucky to get a couple years and I am sure not many hours since I turn off lights.

FWIW I ran tests on some T8 32W 4 ft FO32Octron lamps we were working on and got over 25K hours on them on the filaments I designed.
We also had electrodless lamps which in theory would last over 100K hours, but I left before the tests on those were very far along. I have one in my garage and works great.
 
I bought one of those reusable bags from Wild Oats a few months ago, touted as "green" (they tend to fall apart pretty quickly with reasonable use). Not only are they made of plastic fibers that, as far as I know, are not recyclable, but they are made in China!

I also love the whole biofuels thing and how it's supposed to give the US energy independence - GREEN FUEL. Check out National Geographic from a year or so ago documenting the increased slash and burn practices in the Amazon to make room for more soybean farms. Awesome!
 
Seems to me that any time a subsidy makes the apparent cost of something much less than the actual resources consumed in producing it, then we are encouraging excessive or perhaps even reckless consumption of that item and by extension the resources that go into its production.

I've heard the argument (not in the past few months so much) that subsidies of the oil industry have created artificially low oil prices that have encouraged excessive use of oil.

How about when the subsidy is for something that's 'green'? Do massive subsidies of photovoltaic system lead to their use in situations where they consume more resources than the value of the electricity that they produce?

We can perhaps agree that the McMansion on the hill is not green - it consumes more resources than necessary, merely to make the owner feel good about themselves.

Is a subsidized photovoltaic system different? I will argue that many of them consume more resources than necessary, and in fact more resources than would be consumed to provide the same electricity by conventional means. This seems like unnecessary consumption of resources to make the owner feel good.

If programs designed to encourage 'green' projects lead to wasteful consumption of resources, that's pretty ironic.
 
nofossil said:
If programs designed to encourage 'green' projects lead to wasteful consumption of resources, that's pretty ironic.
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It has been known for centuries as "chasing your tail".
 
Not drilling domestically so that we have to burn massive amounts of fossil fuel to get the fossil fuel here, and risk spilling, and or spill, the fossil fuel in the ocean while burning fossil fuel to get the fossil fuel here!
 
Burning up millions of gallons of oil to fight a war to assure our access to ..oil.

Idling cars in a traffic jam.

sounds of the Talking Heads 'Burning Down the House' filling my head.
Burning up the furniture and the house for fuel instead of putting on a sweater and closing off a few rooms to reduce heating needs.
 
I saw a guy putting $5 worth of gas in his car the other day! I wanted to ask, but I bit my tongue...

Chris
 
Irony? driving to the health club to exercise.

CFL's -- agree on variable life, but most last a long time and we have some now over 10 years in use, estimate average of 4 hours "on" per day, that's nearly 15000 hours.

REAL SIMPLE - my sister gave me a subscription for Christmas, looked at the first issue, and this is a women's magazine through and through, nothing but ads for expensive and useless stuff, and any environmental info or advice (if you can find it) is very elementary and also worthless. I gave the first issue to my wife, and I haven't looked at any subsequent issues since.

Not a Green saving, but a money saving, is the magazine More. My wife's "trial" one-year subscription ran out over a year ago, and they keep sending us the magazine, along with urgent request to renew. But this is another magazine full of ads for expensive and useless stuff. I suspect they keep sending it to keep subscription numbers up so they get "more" money from their advertisers.
 
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