Archive for July, 2008

Landfill vs. Litter

July 29th, 2008 by Editor

Trashy Definitions from the chokingplanet.com Dictionary of Green/Brown Dichotomy:

Landfill: A place where humans store waste from their current homes to build space for their future ones.

Litter: A scattering of mammal garbage but also refers to a smattering of mammal newborns.

Better Use for Bike Lanes

July 23rd, 2008 by staff
Pepsi and POM blocking a bike lane.

Pepsi and “Guardian Angel” POM
take over the bike lane on Arguello Blvd.

Hope may be at hand for reducing pollution caused by the bicycling habit, starting, in of all unlikely places, the liberal bastion of cities, San Francisco. The city and county of San Francisco is currently in the second year of a ban that halts the creation of new bicycle lanes, bicycle racks and other items catering to this demanding minority.

Although it hasn’t stopped the boldest of the pedal-pushing group from continuing their ways, the two-year old ban on bike lanes has helped curb the desire for the more timid members of society from trying to take up the sinister activity. Certainly, it is keeping children off the streets and in their homes where they can avoid the higher demand for oxygen from this muscle-building activity.

The reason for the court-ordered injunction, putting a halt to further bicycling growth in San Francisco, is to require that exhausting studies be performed to determine the exact environmental impact of painting separate lanes on existing roads. There could be no better illustration of our own suspected hidden dangers of bicycling than this environmental injunction and the fact that the city’s own attorney could find no legal means to challenge it.

Perhaps this will put an end to the idea that San Francisco is a city with crazy ideas.

Bicycle Pollution

July 23rd, 2008 by Editor

Most people don’t think much about the pollution caused by bicycles, in fact they often think of bike riding as a “green” activity.

Consider for a moment that regular exercise can cause the human body to expel many toxins. What happens to these toxins when they are released? One might suspect that unloading human toxins into the environment could someday have a devastating impact of its own.

(more…)

Who’s Listening to You?

July 15th, 2008 by staff
A customer service rep reads email to the CEO

An anti-car cyclist who writes nasty letters to oil companies and a vegan who sends scathing letters to meat packers are both annoying to business and wasting their own time. Companies who’s business is not with you are not going to care what you say about their business. Clearly, a gadget freak, even one who pays little attention to recycling or resource and materials waste, is going to have ten to fifty times the environmental impact on business that a whining little email writer will.

For every sincere and positive letter from a customer that suggests a way to cut down on waste, companies get thousands of nasty letters from people who don’t use their product and never intend to (they say it in their message). So, the next time you think about sending off one of those mass mailings to some poor sod in a corporate customer service cubicle who has to read it for minimum wage, try to consider the actual zero impact of your email and give it a rest.

If you are a customer of the company, just continue to do nothing to praise or improve the company’s environmental intentions or efforts. It’s you that these companies actually do want to hear from. To the roach point of view, you’re the dangerous one. You’re the one who needs to keep quiet if the planet’s to stay on track for its pending heat wave.

E-P-A: It’s a Gas Gas Gaaas

July 11th, 2008 by staff

Battered EPA Logo

(Washington, D.C. - July 11, 2008) Today EPA released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) soliciting public input on the effects of climate change and the potential ramifications of the Clean Air Act in relation to greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA document referenced above is the sort of thing that makes us proud to have known you humans. After you’ve had a chance to read this 588 page document your Environmental Protection Agency has published and after you’ve done your research and responded to the EPA with your opinion, perhaps you’d like to numb yourselves with a few minutes of huffing a serving or two of spray paint in a bag.

The point seemingly argued by your various government agencies that contributed to this fascinating read goes something like, “America is helpless to regulate its greenhouse emissions because in the face of competition from manufacturing in other countries, US companies may relocate their operations to protect their profits.” The thinking continues, “if companies move their operations out of the USA, the government will not be able to control them with these stricter regulations.” Conclusion: “Ignoring the issue is the best procedure to control polluting companies and handle global warming issues caused by greenhouse emissions.”

(more…)

The Car: Man Aping an Exoskeleton

July 10th, 2008 by staff

At chokingplanet.com we (like the Australian government) acknowledge the great contributions of fossil-fuel burning vehicles to dehumanizing the planet, but we suspect that this benefit isn’t a direct or conscious goal of your species. (Although it doesn’t seem to matter much to you humans either way.) So, why do you silly monkeys love your cars so much?

Image of a bug from the 1950s

The fact that you remain non-arthropods, lumberly moving around on skin-covered endoskeletons, must be quite irritating for you. Despite your mammalian egos about your brains, you’re still forced to continue hiding your support structure wrapped inside your soft flesh, walking and climbing around with vulnerabilities exposed to the world. To combat your failure to evolve properly, you’ve tried to improve yourselves through imitation of your superiors by creating your own version of an exoskeleton—the car. You even molt it every few years in exchange for a bigger one to fit your ever-growing bodies.

If an automobile is not a proper exoskeleton, it is at least a fitting imitation or more appropriately, a hominid “aping” of other forms of life. You now fly like beetles, armor yourselves like invertebrates and colonize like ants. You have subconsciously acknowledged our superiority of design but have not completely committed yourselves to your extinction.

It is the car that has become your most precious imitation of us. You value it above open spaces and would gladly clear a forest to build a parking lot. You consider it an adequate replacement for your muscles and prefer to use it in place of them as much as possible. You even place the importance of the car over that of vital organs like your heart and lungs. You provide more space for it than any other object you own and even more than you provide for many fellow humans. Not surprisingly, you are now dedicating farm land and agricultural resources to “growing” fuel for your vehicles over food for your species, despite such actions resulting in a worldwide food shortage.

You people are amazing! Keep up the good work.