Obama will burn more than 35,000 gallons of fuel on Earth Day, emitting 375 TONS of carbon dioxide
President took Marine One chopper to Andrews Air Force Base and will fly to Washington state and Tokyo, Japan on Tuesday
'Earth Day is about taking action,' the White House declared shortly after takeoff
Air Force One consumes 5 gallons of jet fuel for every mile it flies
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that burning the fuel emits 21.1 pounds of CO2 per gallon
Total presidential fuel consumption for Earth Day, not including automobile motorcades, is an estimated 35,609 gallons
"...According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistics arm of the Department of Energy, burning each gallon emits 21.1 pounds of carbon dioxide, bringing the president's Earth Day carbon footprint to more than 375.7 tons.
The White House did not respond to a question about any measures it might be taking – planting trees, for instance – to offset those emissions..."
Any chance of getting this thread relocated to its rightful home?
They had an electronics recycling thing around here, so I guess my "contribution" was taking stuff to that. That and walking to/from work but I do that anyway.
What's really funny is even though the president is visiting a disaster area (something all presidents have done), some people took it as a chance to go "OMG He's killing DA EARTH!'
There's really no sense in paying attention to these people.
I have a theory: how bad someone's actions are depends on your "political distance" from them. And the relationship might not even be directly proportional - it might be exponential.
Well, you'll have to admit that it's pretty crappy for Obama ask people to conserve and go all green expensive energy, while he's sitting pretty in his luxurious 747 burning all that dirty jet fuel just to carry his butt all over Asia, creating more brown haze in the process, just to shoomze with leaders from the Pacific rim. Plus, you know he's just going to sneak and break out his pen and seal the deal by signing the TPP while he's there. A$$hole.
Cat (n.) A bipolar creature which would as soon gouge your eyes out as it would cuddle.
tunnelcat wrote:...while he's sitting pretty in his luxurious 747 burning all that dirty jet fuel just to carry his butt all over Asia
So he should take the day off of work for Earth Day so people can accuse him of not working hard enough? The president is working on that plane. It's not a vacation. You want him to have meetings about the fate of the world while sitting in cramped coach-class airplane seats? If there were another way to travel that was both greener and equally secure I'm sure he would do it.
tunnelcat wrote:Well, you'll have to admit that it's pretty crappy for Obama ask people to conserve and go all green expensive energy, while he's sitting pretty in his luxurious 747 burning all that dirty jet fuel just to carry his butt all over Asia, creating more brown haze in the process, just to shoomze with leaders from the Pacific rim. Plus, you know he's just going to sneak and break out his pen and seal the deal by signing the TPP while he's there. A$$hole.
this may be as stupid as anything I've read here. He's the FREAKING PRESIDENT! What would you have him do? Sit around the house, and bicycle to important meetings?
"The Party told you to reject all evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
George Orwell---"1984"
Yeah unless someone is hiding a Star Trek teleporter in a secret warehouse, I'm not sure how any world leader is expected to travel without, y'know, flying.
I even at a distance of 8000 kilometers from Washington see that American presidents act as "wedding generals" and puppets, which Congress uses for its own purposes, to make the next U.S. President will execute them, and then blame the President in Congress mistakes. In my opinion, is long past time to recognize that the office of President of the United States does not imply Incorporation his opinions. U.S. President can fly even on UFOs if he so desire, but the good of his professionalism little, even if he is very smart.
Top Gun wrote:Yeah unless someone is hiding a Star Trek teleporter in a secret warehouse, I'm not sure how any world leader is expected to travel without, y'know, flying.
Just because it's understandable or even acceptable doesn't mean there isn't hypocrisy at work there. The beautiful thing about hypocrisy is that it shines a light on things that don't hold water or aren't straightforward.
So it's hypocrisy just because he was scheduled to fly on the 22nd as opposed to the 23rd? Again, how else is he supposed to get halfway around the planet?
And theory is not reality, Slickster. Let's not open that can of worms just because you believe this kool-aid should be universally consumed.
EDIT: Note, when I say "notions" I'm speaking to the concept of a global tax for the implementation of a global governing body, which has nothing to do with concern over changing climate and everything to do with geopolitical agendas.
Well, if you're going to go there, I don't think you're qualified to speak on just how much of climate change thought today is theory and how much is fact. I know the way it works, though. All of these "facts" are bound together and shaped by a healthy (sarcasm) amount of theory, and the end-result ultimately has a lot to do with the preconceived notions or political or social ambitions of whoever is doing "research". Climate science is a joke in my book, and it's far too politicized for the average person to waste their time with trying to glean the bits of truth from the mess.
Sarge, I own property on the Eastern Shore of VA........I can observe that change(warming in that region) is happening by walking outside. The bay is rising....places flood that have never done so. Crop cycles have changed by a week or two, and consistently, since my youth. Temp swings are clearly more severe. Now, I'll grant you or anyone that I have no clue how long this will continue, at what rate, or ultimately what the causes or cures(if any) are. But, there is a BIG dose of reality in my world, not 'notions'.
"The Party told you to reject all evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
George Orwell---"1984"
callmeslick wrote:
this may be as stupid as anything I've read here. He's the FREAKING PRESIDENT! What would you have him do? Sit around the house, and bicycle to important meetings?
Stupid? Weren't you the guys telling the CEOs of the auto companies that they couldn't fly their corporate jets to Washington for important meetings?
woodchip wrote:Stupid? Weren't you the guys telling the CEOs of the auto companies that they couldn't fly their corporate jets to Washington for important meetings?
When the subject was billions of dollars of corporate bailouts, the CEOs spending who knows how many thousands of dollars to fly their private corporate jets down to Washington instead of economizing for a couple hundred dollars to drive their cars down was a completely different issue.
woodchip wrote:Stupid? Weren't you the guys telling the CEOs of the auto companies that they couldn't fly their corporate jets to Washington for important meetings?
When the subject was billions of dollars of corporate bailouts, the CEOs spending who knows how many thousands of dollars to fly their private corporate jets down to Washington instead of economizing for a couple hundred dollars to drive their cars down was a completely different issue.
Well at least those companies are still in business...unlike Solyndra. And lest not forget that those private jets were paid for with pre-bailout monies. And lets compare those thousands to :
"The travel costs for vacations taken by the first family and the Bidens have reached over $40 million with the Air Force's revelation that two golf outings by President Obama this year cost $2.9 million, according to the taxpayer watchdog group Judicial Watch."
Somehow vacations and golf outings do not seem like "important" business meetings. I guess the local golf courses are not good enough. I also wonder how much it costs to fly Glorius leader around to all those campaign donation trips.
Well if there weren't so many crazies, psychos, lunatics, thunderbunnies and woodchips out there, perhaps it wouldn't cost so much to fly around the President and his entourage of a bazillion secret service agents.
Sergeant Thorne wrote:And theory is not reality, Slickster. Let's not open that can of worms just because you believe this kool-aid should be universally consumed.
You have no idea what a scientific theory is, do you?
Theory of Gravity
Big Bang Theory
Theory of Relativity
Heliocentrism
The Copenhagen Interpretation
The Theory of Matter and Energy: Conservation of Matter and Energy
The Theory of Plate Tectonics
Nuclear Theory
If I had a nickel for every time I've had to explain the scientific usage of the term "theory" versus the popular one...well I'd at least have a dollar anyway.
No, "climate change" is an observable fact. "Anthropogenic climate change" could still be qualified as a hypothesis, albeit one with a large amount of observational and experimental evidence that supports it thus far.
Let us not forget that the cost of maintaining the U.S. Army, as well as harm to the nature of their activities, in the best case, an order of magnitude greater than that of the entire business aviation around the world and the cost of the administrations of all the world leaders together.
Besides, the Americans complain warming, but I have not seen any claim of U.S. citizens to the U.S. administration to compensate for the damage to the health of Americans as a result of nuclear tests in the United States.
I'm not saying that the U.S. had not yet paid a single dollar to compensate for the damage to the health of citizens of the Pacific region, as a result of U.S. nuclear testing in these countries. And I'm not talking about the fact that U.S. radiation infected half of the Pacific Ocean and destroyed its the unique natural resources.
Sergeant Thorne wrote:And theory is not reality, Slickster. Let's not open that can of worms just because you believe this kool-aid should be universally consumed.
You have no idea what a scientific theory is, do you?
Theory of Gravity
Big Bang Theory
Theory of Relativity
Heliocentrism
The Copenhagen Interpretation
The Theory of Matter and Energy: Conservation of Matter and Energy
The Theory of Plate Tectonics
Nuclear Theory
You want to refute these as "not reality" too?
Well, if you want to deal with the general concept, as opposed to recognizing my qualifications for the statement, you're the one that said refute, I just said "theory is not reality".
"Climate change" is a fact to the degree that anyone who doesn't believe the Earth's climate changes is either an idiot or just hasn't been around very long. BUTT, it's the social and political baggage that the dead obvious concept carries with it now that is not fact by any stretch of some very vivid imaginations. IMO climate changes experienced likely have more to do with major ecological changes (major deforestation combined with what you might call artificial desertification, ...) than the planet's supposed inability to deal with carbon dioxide. I do not believe in catastrophic climate change, unless we were to pave the entire surface of the earth, and kill everything that works together to drive the engine. But we're being fed fears of catastrophic climate change in order to drive agendas which aren't designed as the best solutions for us, they're designed to shift and consolidate power, and advance major geo and sociopolitical visions which would otherwise be repugnant to a free person living in a free country which belongs to them and to their children in a way which popular culture does not appreciate.
Spidey wrote:Theories explain observable facts and make accurate predictions.
The theory is called the Greenhouse Effect. It is well studied and makes accurate predictions. Just because climate models are complex does not mean the theory isn't valid. These are two different issues.
tunnelcat wrote:Well, you'll have to admit that it's pretty crappy for Obama ask people to conserve and go all green expensive energy, while he's sitting pretty in his luxurious 747 burning all that dirty jet fuel just to carry his butt all over Asia, creating more brown haze in the process, just to shoomze with leaders from the Pacific rim. Plus, you know he's just going to sneak and break out his pen and seal the deal by signing the TPP while he's there. A$$hole.
this may be as stupid as anything I've read here. He's the FREAKING PRESIDENT! What would you have him do? Sit around the house, and bicycle to important meetings?
Uhhhhhh, have you ever heard of telecommunications?
But seriously, it's not just the president and his 747, or even just an Obama problem. It's a problem with all our modern presidents in the age of air travel. When a president travels, he takes along a lot more than himself and/or his family. He also has his support and security people and several cargo planes carrying equipment and cars. When he went to Brussels, he took with him a 900 strong entourage, 45 vehicles and 3 other cargo planes to carry all that stuff. Want to make a guess as to what that costs the taxpayer every time our president flies to some meeting or another? Why are so many trips expensive necessary when a phone call will do? Just sayin'.
I do wonder cynicism Americans. They simultaneously cause irreparable colossal damage to the nature, amounting to hundreds of trillions of dollars (if at possible to measure the damage of the nature in monetary terms) as a result of regular military exercises, but the United States at the same time exhibits a touching concern for the salvation of frogs and rodents. And the American Society for the Protection of Nature trying to save half-dead whales and dolphins that washed ashore as a result of sonar U.S. warships. The American army destroys natural reserves in different countries, forests, fishing places of valuable fish species, even dropping bombs on the Great Barrier Reef. Only one U.S. aircraft carrier for each voyage is a tremendous source of pollution not only their wakes, but also the discharge of ballast water and flushing of technical facilities, pumps, etc. These harmful discharges from warships are so dangerous that together cause much greater damage to the ecosystem of the world Ocean than single catastrophic oil spills. About what the greenhouse effect can be discussed if bloated U.S. Army destroys daily unique nature of our planet?
sigma wrote:I do wonder cynicism Americans. They simultaneously cause irreparable colossal damage to the nature, amounting to hundreds of trillions of dollars (if at possible to measure the damage of the nature in monetary terms) as a result of regular military exercises, but the United States at the same time exhibits a touching concern for the salvation of frogs and rodents. And the American Society for the Protection of Nature trying to save half-dead whales and dolphins that washed ashore as a result of sonar U.S. warships. The American army destroys natural reserves in different countries, forests, fishing places of valuable fish species, even dropping bombs on the Great Barrier Reef. Only one U.S. aircraft carrier for each voyage is a tremendous source of pollution not only their wakes, but also the discharge of ballast water and flushing of technical facilities, pumps, etc. These harmful discharges from warships are so dangerous that together cause much greater damage to the ecosystem of the world Ocean than single catastrophic oil spills. About what the greenhouse effect can be discussed if bloated U.S. Army destroys daily unique nature of our planet?
Better start cleaning up your own back yard before you criticize the U.S.
