Another article...

I'm not being lazy, just to copy and paste a link here on the blog, and say that I update my blog. Well, maybe I'm kinda guilty for the lazy part, but, I'm not that lazy. If I were, I could have just don't update my blog. Period.

So, therefore, I'm not lazy.

So, now that we are aware of that. I'll talk about the article.

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/i-am-therefore-i-pollute/

Reading this article reminded me of a not-so-recent conversation, actually, email exchange with my cousin Tomas. It's about how people think that eating locally grown food is better for the environment, because you don't have to spend tons of fossil fuel to transport your food, leaving a huge carbon footprint behind you every time you take a bite. Imagine, instead of having your strawberries delivered and refrigerated for thousand of miles, you eat locally grown fruits, depends when you are, this could be papaya or apple. Fresher, cheaper (might not be true), healthier (locally grown normally means less herbicide, pesticide,... partially true), and smaller carbon footprint? Right? Sounds logical and reasonable.

This might hold true if it's strawberries and strawberries only and if we were before the modernization of modern farming. Don't get me wrong. I do believe that global warming, or more politically correct, climate change, is real. Too real. And, I do think that we are the culprit causing it, or at the very least, accelerating it. So, with all the judging of my character and believe done, we can continue. Modern farming is about efficiency and productivity. Everything, from sunlight, chemicals (all the pesti-herbi-.....cides), water, land use and etc are calculated and maximized to make production as cheap as possible, and to achieve that, as efficient as possible. So, for a lot of food, if you are just talking about carbon footprint, eating locally grown food might leave a bigger carbon footprint than indulging yourself with exotic food, grown in faraway land. How so? Bad planning, more manpower, water wastage, chemical wastage, inefficient land use... the list goes on. Surpising eh?

So, what prompted this conversation with my cousin? I was thinking about getting a new car, and we did talk about the upcoming VW Jetta TDI (Diesel). It boasts great fuel efficiency, close to 40mpg. So, what's the catch? Dirty? NOPE. With current technology, diesel fuel burns really well, and could achieve zero particle emission rating, or something like that. Bottomline is, it's clean. But, it does take more crude oil to obtain 1 gallon of diesel as compare to 1 gallon gasoline. Also, if I were to buy a new car, imagine the energy it takes to produce a new car. Wouldn't it be a better decision to buy a used car, so that the energy takes to produce a new car is saved? Well, that argument is kinda flawed, since, if I were to buy a used car, I would be deterring someone from buying that used car, and that might cause that same someone to buy a new car. So, by proximate cause, I am still the culprit that leaves a gigantic carbon footprint.

Seriously, I can't believe I wrote this post. In short, I'm concerned about what's going on in the world, but, as much as I will try to reduce wastage, I will not go out of my way to do something differently. Call me selfish, call me a hypocrit all you want. But, I'm sticking to my judgement.

I do turn off lights when I leave the room, and most of the other appliances, except my laptop. To put that in picture, my monthly electricity bill is $25. That's including a few days of AC, and all the cooking.