Sunday, February 04, 2007

NBC Today Show's Bad Global Warming Advice

The Today Show's Campbell Brown interviewed a lady named Laurie David, a "good friend of Al Gore", on what to do to 'cut down on global warming'.

With the release of last week's United Nation's report, Campbell says that the "vast" majority of scientist (according to Ms. David, 2000 scientists from 100 countries - yup that's some quorum) around the globe say 'yes' global warming is happening and its our fault.

Ms. David also said that Al Gore's movie is now 'required' viewing in Norway, Scotland, Sweden and Britain by who? definitely sounds like propanda to me

Namely Laurie David suggests:

1) changing lightbulbs. (Yes! Do go to florescent bulbs. Great idea!)


2) unplugging your chargers for cell phones, blackberries, etc... as unplugging chargers can save you $250 per year. Ms. David goes one step further though and says, "Think about all the electronic equipment we all have now in our house, and it's blackberries and cellphones and hairdryers (?), electric toothbrushes, and it's everything we have all over the house. Every single person in the house has their own equipment, right?

"When you take your cell phone off the charger and you leave the charger in the wall, the charger is drawing energy." (WHAT???) "That's like 10% of your energy bill is wasted. That's energy you are buying and not using. You have to say that charger is contributing to global warming pollution. i have to pull that charger out of the wall.
"

3. buying recycled paper towels (yay, good idea)

4. when you go to the grocery store don't forget your canvas bag. "Think of all the bags everyone takes from every store when you're shopping and by the way, we throw away 100 billion plastic bags a year and most of them are not recycled and it takes oil to make these." Stated that 75,000 people used reusable bags 2x a week for two years would save enough petroleum to drive a car 4.5 million miles. (is the same part of refined oil that is refined for gasoline, the same that is used to generate plastic products? i don't think so.. Not to mention those plastic bags get reused around my house for everything from trashcan liners, to lunch bags, to parachutes for my son's Gi Joe 'action figure'. And think of all the oil and fertilizer required to get that cotton from the field and to market. Not to mention it likely costs more 'fuel energy' to make and produce enough canvas bags for the world than it does to create plastic bags. Who cares if plastic bags (like rocks) aren't biodegradable. They compress to almost nothing in a landfill and as long as they are in the landfill and not littering my front yard. Not to mention that unlike plastic bags, you have to occaisionaly wash your canvas bag. More energy consumed.

And a suggestion from Mrs. Mongrel that we should *all* implement is to unplug our alarm clocks when we leave the house too! :P

The whole bit about unused electronics devices wasting your energy really takes the cake. Sure your computer (on standby), your VCR blinking '12:00' and whatnot use electricity when 'off'. But to suggest that your phone charger and hairdryer draws a current is quite preposterous. When you turn an appliance like a hair dryer 'off', you break the circuit. NO electrons flow through the wire and 'consume' energy. And phone chargers? The same thing applies unless you can tell me that the little transformer that plugs into the wall has a closed circuit in it. The circuit, as far as I know, is only closed when you plug the cord into your blackberry.

Some awfully bad science in that NBC global warming commercial, er interview. Makes me wonder what else is 'off'.