Cuppacafe

Earth Day cynic

by Walt Posted on Apr 25, 2008 under General |

I’m probably what you’d call an Earth Day cynic. I realize that mankind should do more to preserve the life on Earth and more specifically, the way of life we in the Western World have developed, but let’s face facts.

The best way of protecting the planet is to stop making babies. China has tried for a couple of decades to do that, and they’ve barely made a dent in their overpopulation problem. That “One Couple, One Child” concept they rolled out didn’t make them many friends among their own populace either, I suspect. The population on Earth has doubled in my lifetime, and I’m not even half dead yet.

As we’ve noticed recently, the fight for resources is on. Everyone’s assumed that it’s all going to be over oil. I’ve told everyone since I was twenty that the fight may concern oil, it’s really over what oil can provide you. Mainly, food.

Food, water, and air are the most important things for survival. In the immediate situation, the world’s problem is food. The price of corn has gone up because of the demand for biofuels. Every time you fill up with ethanol, you’re helping to support the high price of tortillas in Mexico. Wheat is at near record production, but several months ago, prices spiked because of weather fears. Yes, it was mostly speculators that drove the price to record highs. The weather issues didn’t pan out, and the price of wheat has dropped significantly in recent days. And with rice… well, news reports of average people buying up 50 pound sacks of rice at Costco made me chuckle.

50 pounds of rice? Hell, I watch Survivor and if those contestants have nothing to eat but rice for more than two weeks, those guys go stark raving mad! How long is it going to take you to go through a 50 pound bag of rice? Idiots. Are these the same folks who ran out to buy a truckload of dried beans when the Y2K problem loomed menacingly on the horizon?? What ever happened to all those beans, anyway?

Okay, so what did happen with rice production? As far I can tell, nothing. It’s not like the world started growing less rice. The problem is, there’s too much demand, too many people demaning rice to eat.[NYTimes.com]

Yes, overpopulation. That same demand by everyone for more oil that causes the prices to go up is related to the demand for food.

Simple enough, don’t you think? More people, demand for more food. Rice is being grown in record amounts. Did you know that China is in Africa, looking to invest money for development? If you had asked me, I would have said, yes, they’re in the Sudan, looking for oil deals. But China is also looking ahead for food production, too, and is willing to pay for it:

Africa: China Earmarks U.S.$5 Billion for Food Production on Continent
The NEWS (Monrovia) [via AllAfrica.com]
23 April 2008

A visiting Chinese delegation headed by the Chief Executive Officer of China-Africa Development Fund says about 5 billion United States dollars have been earmarked for the production of food and cash crops in Liberia and other African countries over a 50-year period.

Mr. Chi Jianxin, at a head of a Chinese delegation, is in the country to explore investment opportunities in the agricultural sector.

Chi said his company has the financial capacity and expertise to develop and stabilize the food situation in Liberia “particularly in rice production and other cash crops”.

[via Salon.com]

China is so large, why would they want to plant in Africa? It’s the control and access to more food, even if they have to invest outside their own continent and later pay for the rice that’s produced. (It’s like the US first going to war to protect Kuwait from the invading Iraqis, and later taking over Iraq itself. The US still has to pay full price for the oil, but at least the gas station is open when we get there.)

A side note: Cuppacafe Central is located near the City of Katy, Texas, once known for rice production, but rice growing requires a lot of water, and ever since the 1980s, pulling water from the local aquifer became cost prohibitive. Water for agricultural or industrial use is restricted or regulated, due to subsidence. A large parcel of land near me was used as late as 1990 for growing rice now grows new rows of houses. (Yes, brand new - what real estate bubble?)

To sum, I’ve never held much stock in growing trees for Earth Day. In my neck of the woods, growing trees (in a tree farm) is used mainly as a lucrative tax dodge, a way of holding land as cheaply as possible while the price of the land itself goes up. Trees grown on state right-of-ways need so much watering and additional maintenance that I wonder if more fuel is used in their care than the trees could ever absorb in pollutants.

The nearby city of Houston spends $2 million a year on running the trucks for the plastic/glass/paper recycling program. They sell the bundled up recycled materials, and save on landfill costs that would otherwise be used if the recycled material was trashed. Unfortunately, the city only makes $750,000 in selling the recycled materials and saves perhaps $250,000 in buying the additional landfill space. So, Houston is essentially wasting $1million on fuel and additional labor so the city can feel good about recycling some plastic jugs. Sure, if everyone in Houston recycled, those same trucks on those same routes might, just might, be able to collect enough plastic and paper products to break even.

Thinking about getting a hybrid car? Those save fuel, don’t they? Sure, they can. But there’s more resources that goes into one of those cars. It’s not all just extra profit for the car manufacturer — there’s a few pricey extras that make a hybrid car a hybrid. In theory, all those extra resources aren’t made out of oil, but other valuable ingredients, like lead for the extra batteries and perhaps copper wiring for the electronic motors… well, hell, like I would know what goes into one of those things. The fuel saved by a hybrid would decrease our dependence on foreign oil, but increase our dependence on, say… copper… which is at an all time high lately, too. Go fig.

But lets just talk about the fuel cost differences for a moment. How long does it take to pay off the difference in the price between the normal car and the hybrid version of that same car?
Autobloggreen.com ran the numbers. Using $3.50/gallon prices for gasoline, they asked two questions:

There are currently 17 hybrid models available in the U. S. market and all but one have a corresponding non-hybrid counterpart to compare with. As part of our Earth Day coverage today, we took a closer look at the following two questions:

* Question #1: How far can we drive with a hybrid powertrain compared to a non-hybrid?
* Question #2: When will the hybrid investment pay for itself through gas savings?

For most of the cars, you indeed can travel more on a full tank of fuel. Score one for the hybrids.

But the time it takes to have that investment in a hybrid get to the break even point? Well, go and read the article for all the different options, but if all you did was drive your Toyota Camry in the city, it would take you 70,000 hybrid city miles to break even with the economics of driving a normal Camry. If you were driving highway miles, the breakeven point is a whopping 300,000 miles.

The Ford Escape/Mazda Tribute breakeven point is somewhere above 80,000 miles city, 200,000 highway.

And the luxury Lexus? Oooooh! Let’s just say that if you’re buying a Lexus hybrid, you probably aren’t too worried about breaking even with anything.

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So, no, I don’t plant trees for Earth Day. I plant food crops. This year it’s onions and tomatoes. And my personal breakeven point on tomatoes this year is about $2.00/pound. Yep, I spend about as much on tomatoes I grow as I would on the same amount of hothouse tomatoes. So why do I do it? Because I hate paying $2/pound for tomatoes at the grocery store.

I’d rather pay all that cost up front and then think I’m saving money when I go to the backyard and bring back a fresh tomato for dinner.

Paying all that money up front for something I may not break even on?

Maybe I should buy one of those hybrid cars…