Open Lines Oh come on now.....

[Debi]

Pumpkins cause climate change, Energy Department says

PUMPKINS CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE

How scary are your jack-o’-lanterns? Scarier than you think, according to the Energy Department, which claims the holiday squash is responsible for unleashing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, says the Energy Department’s website, becoming part of the “more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year.”

MORE AT SITE
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Really? Now the pumpkins are a danger? I can't even post the rest of this nonsense......

 

[Debi]

Here.....I'm amazed the Dept of Energy isn't on site with a shut down order and fines!

 

[7Critter]

I read the article differently; that we can do something other than fill up land sites with vegetative waste; that with new processing, we can convert the pumpkins and other waste into energy.

 

[Debi]

OK, Mr. Christie. Let's look at it this way. I carved two pumpkins. Now it's time to get rid of them. How do you wish me to convert those two pumpkins into energy today? Let's play the reality game, instead of scaring the bejeebers out of people with DOE proclamations of climate change due to pumpkins.

 

[7Critter]

The way that I see it, It would mean that we would have to sort our trash between 1) vegetable, 2) recycleable plastic/metal/paper, and 3) garbage and have three separate pickups on trash day. It would mean more organization and planning. The article was not presented in the best way, I agree, with the initial scare tactics. The only way that recycle programs can work is if we make it EXTREMELY easy for consumers to recycle. This is what successful programs have done.

 

[7Critter]

Saw this FB posting for someone supporting your viewpoint, Debi:


Latest Cause Of Global Warming: Jack-O’-Lanterns

How scary are your jack-o’-lanterns? Scarier than you think, according to the Energy Department, which claims the holiday squash is responsible for unleashing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere:

Most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, says the Energy Department’s website, becoming part of the “more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste produced in the United States every year.”


Municipal solid waste decomposes into methane, “a harmful greenhouse gas that plays a part in climate change, with more than 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide,” the Energy Dept. says.

Ok, apparently the whizkids at the Dept. of Energy need a refresher course in something called the carbon cycle. It’s ‘settled science’.

You see, as every living thing grows it incorporates carbon into it’s structure. That’s why it’s called carbon based life. Then when it dies, it releases that carbon back into the environment so some other living thing can use it to grow.

Now it doesn’t matter what you do with the dead thing. Whether it rots away slowly or you burn it or you convert it into some thing else that gets burned, it still releases the carbon. Either as carbon dioxide or methane (which is 85% hydrogen and 15% carbon).

It’s like a giant carbon recycling program that makes life possible and it’s been going on like that for hundreds of millions of years.

Truth is, there’s no more carbon on Earth today than there has ever been. You can’t make new carbon that has never existed before, it’s elemental.

And carbon isn’t a pollutant, it’s essential to life. That’s the simple reality.

Deal with it.

Seriously, absurd news stories like this are crafted to appeal to someone without even a sixth grade understanding of basic science. I can envision some 8-year-old running home “Mommy, mommy, teacher said Jack-o’-lanterns are destroying the planet!”

What I don’t get is what the DOE hoped to achieve with this retarded press release? Farmers grow pumpkins. Whether you eat them or they rot in the field or in some landfill, the carbon they contain will be released back into the environment.

As for the DOE’s goofy pie-in-the-sky biofuel program, congress already gave them the money. So what more do they want? What more is to be gained by scaring the children and spoiling their fun?

 

[Debi]

^^^^^^^THAT! PERFECTLY SAID AND MY POINT!

 

[surge]

...instead of scaring the bejeebers out of people...

Ha! That's the government's favorite tactic! If they couldn't scare everyone (global warming will get you, the other party wants to take your Social Security, there's a terrorist behind every tree, ad-infinitum) they'd have to deal in the truth.

 

[Mokey]

I am not going to recycle my vegetables. Give me my fine.