Make NPVgreen > NPVconventional and make the green stuff work with the same convenience, reliability, and performance as the stuff that we know and like.
Here's mine:
"The reason, she thinks, is that given the political polarization of the climate change debate, environmental activism is so frowned upon by those the right that they’ll do anything to keep themselves distanced from it."
Absolutely wrong. The reason is that most conservatives have researched the "green" label and found, in most cases, it is used as a) a sales gimmick b) as a sales gimmick based on erroneous data c) a sales gimmick rooted in the cause of "saving the earth" which has proven to be pure hyperbole d) a sales gimmick that when, in depth analysis is done, most often results in the discovery that the "green" item actually utilizes more energy in its production than the item it's replacing.
None of the above are mutually exclusive and any combination of the above may be true.
I do not automatically believe anything is "green" until I research it. The progressive/liberal is mentally roped to labels and therefore does not bother to find out the truth and blindly follows the label's path to their own self-aggrandizement as a "saver of the earth".
“The reason is that most conservatives have researched the “green” label and found, in most cases, it is used as a) a sales gimmick...”
That is the thinking of a real scientist. How could Wharton researchers not do the additional data collection necessary to identify these plausible, even obvious, alternative explanations? If I were speaking directly to the researchers, I might ask them if it isn’t reasonable that conservatives are more intelligent and aware of the nature of advertising labels and its (lack of a) relationship with actual product quality.
Why does the left label us this way … when they leave trash everywhere they go … they are destroying the planet not guys like me.
I’m a conservative, and live off grid ... I have 12 solar panels for 1440 watts; I’ve owned enough L16 batteries to make a German U-Boat commander green with envy; a 4024 Trace inverter to convert from DC to AC; I live within my means and don’t litter or pollute intentionally. I believe in non-GMO seeds, clean water and at one time even owned a diesel rabbit pick-up that I ran bio-diesel if it could be found. [hate the smell of the petro-diesel]
If I voted for Berry I’d be a respected earth friendly person welcomed into their Ecotopia, my land would be considered a model of their vision for the world … but since I own a self-defense weapon, it would be called a “compound” so they blindly hate my independence.
Make NPVgreen > NPVconventional and make the green stuff work with the same convenience, reliability, and performance as the stuff that we know and like.
Your comment reminds me of PBS show on recycling:
What exactly happens after we smugly put our items in the “recycle bin”?
So they tried to trace it and it varied. Some items, I think paper and glass, had a pretty decent process for reuse. Aluminum (and other base metals) were the best, which is why the FREE MARKET pays people enough to pick up contains and turn them in.
But plastic was very interesting - and it is very hard to recycle (at least according to that show). About all they could find was that the plastic got bundled up and then put on a huge ship and sent to Taiwan. They could not figure out what happened after that. But since Taiwan actually paid for the plastic, one can probably assume they simply burn it for fuel.
But to the skinny, scrawny-faced, liberal in New York City, WHO CARES, for he did his part to SAVE THE WORLD.
I purchase LED light bulbs because they work well and though more expensive last longer use significantly less electricity. I was put off by the push to force everyone to buy crap florescent bulbs that take several seconds to warm up before reaching peak brightness which seemed to be the drive of the legislation banning incandescent bulbs.
As a conservative I don’t like having my options limited by nanny state government. The global warming bs certainly doesn’t help but I’ve never thought highly of environment nuts. Granted some positive things have came from their efforts but that good is largely dwarfed by the damage they have done to the economy and energy industry. Also most of the benefits from the green movement would’ve naturally came about on their own out of the best interest of companies. A hot energy inefficient processor for example would not cut it in the world of the smart phone/tablet.
The green movement has always had a core of misanthropy and that it is being used to justify horrors such as population control, restricted use of energy resources, and vast growth in government reach and taxation are all good reasons to be suspect of green initiatives of any kind. That said I will be happy to buy any product that works as well as the non green version for a good price that is justified by the benefit to me but never for some misguided feel good nature religion bull crap.
These are Par 38 Floods for our Museum headquarters. Also saved replacement costs for Halogen bulbs of about $500 as the tend to fail every two years. Flame me once....shame on me.. well. Nobody really knows how long these bulbs will last. Some folks say 50,000 hours.
I would hook a goose-neck trailer full of coal to it and take a road trip through California.
It is a Conservative Ideal to Conserve
Conservatives are Rational Ecologists
Conservatives are Good Stewards
A. Those that don't follow these issues often think of cars and low power engines. They assume that means low power equipment.
B. A lot of conservatives think that buying these products are a donation to the democrats.
C. I wouldn't buy those lightbulbs for anything if I can help. Breaking one is REAL bad news.
As far as caring about the environment, I grew up in the woods of North Michigan. The last thing I want to do is poison our river, destroy all our trees, and eliminate all our animals there. I'm concerned with REAL problems however instead of global warming.
I decided years ago that the word ‘green’ equals traveling-salesman bullsh!t. It means I’m supposed to spend more money for less product and get a sense of self-satisfaction for volunteering to be robbed.
‘Green’ marketing has the opposite effect on me than it is probably supposed to have. I automatically lose respect for any manufacturer that uses this tactic. I think to myself, ‘OK, this company thinks I’m stupid enough to believe this garbage.’ The company might as well have put a sticker on the package saying, “We’ve decided to charge you more money for a smaller container of re-formulated junk that doesn’t even work as well as the stuff we used to make. Don’t you love the Earth? You want to be a good person, right? Well pay up, sucker!”
You want me to pay more for an “Energy Efficient” product?
Then make it work better than the non-energy efficient version.
Take Lo-Flo toilets, where one flush used to be all that was needed it now takes three or four.....You have to flush before you go to make sure the schmuck before you didn’t put too much toilet paper in. Then if you need to use a lot of toilet paper to clean up, you’d better break it up into two or three flushes.
The natural tendency of a consumer is to get the best for the cheapest price. Karma, Natural Order, whatever, often comes to a head, and the “best for the cheapest” can become “NOT the best and cheapest”.
This is where the capitalist drive comes into play. The ‘engine’ responds to demand in the quickest way possible. Meet the demand is the order of the day. Investment, research, and best result put up on the shelves.
Mother Earth, GREEN, “feelings” has nothing to do with it - they don't make a tinker's damn worth of difference. Their proponents most always aren't after any of that; they are after complete control of your life and what you do, say and think. If you want confirmation of that, spend a day really scoping out the web and looking at all the information about Al Gore, for instance.
Left alone, capitalism meets the demands of the market under most any clear-cut and reasonable circumstance. It is when GOVERNMENT and Ideology comes into play disaster almost always follows.
Besides, a lot of "energy efficient" are more damaging to the environment than non-energy efficient products.
See curly fry light bulbs (nod to Mark Steyn).
The real question is how do we get liberals to stop buying into every snakeoil salesman that says “green”?? We can’t: Liberals are just plain stupid.
Tim McDonnell is an associate producer at Climate Desk, a collaboration between Mother Jones, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Slate, Grist, Wired, PBS's Need to Know, and the Center for Investigative Reporting, that produces original multimedia journalism on climate change. Tim's reporting has covered renewable energy, extreme weather, marine conservation, and everything in between, often told through video or other visual media. Tim is a native of Tucson, Arizona, and now lives in New York City.
I have CFL bulbs in most of my light fixtures and I like them, I don’t have a problem with the light they give off, my only gripe, and it’s a minor one is that they take a while to “warm up” to full brightness but even that doesn’t take very long. I will, when they eventually need to be replaced, probably switch to LED bulbs. But FWIW, I’ve had the same CFL bulb in my living room lamp and it get’s turned on and off several times a day and it’s been going strong for well over two years now, coming up on three. In fact it’s on a timer, especially during the winter months when I don’t like walking into a dark apartment and for when I’m away and want to give the appearance that someone is home. I had several lamps with CFL bulbs on timers at my old house as well including the one on my front porch for security reasons and they all lasted several years, some I never replaced while I lived there, including the one I had in my basement that stayed on 24-7. But I don’t buy them to be “green”, I buy them because I like saving money and I hate changing light bulbs. : ), OTOH, I don’t think I or anyone else should be forced to buy them, I want to have choices as dictated by the free market, not by the government or what the green pissers tell me I must have : (
When I bought my last house, when I lived in MD before I lost my job, moved to PA and downsized to an apartment, I needed to replace the washer and dryer and soon the dishwasher (they were all the cheapest builder’s grade appliances that had a lot of wear and tear on them from the previous owner and I negotiated a credit for replacing them at closing) and after a lot of research, I bought the euro-style front loading washer and matching dryer, both very energy efficient and also in terms of water usage, a bit more expensive upfront, but what I really liked was how well it washed the clothes and didn’t wear them out (top loading machines with agitators wear out clothes much faster and tend to tear off buttons and have a tendency to pill clothes, especially sweaters) and because the front loaders spin so much faster, drying time was greatly reduced, another saving. I also liked that they were programmable and had many options for different size loads and clothing types, the dryer even had a cycle and removable rack for drying wool sweaters at a low temperature, much cheaper than dry cleaning. When I sold my house over three years ago, I sold my front loader washer and matching dryer to my niece, she has 6 kids at home and does a heck of a lot of laundry and other than one small minor repair, those machines are still running perfectly.
And the new high efficiency dishwasher I bought was awesome and not all that expensive; it had deep well for big pots and pans, a food grinder, a small load mode, and it was extremely quiet, well insulated and programmable so I could set it to run very late at night, after I went to bed when electricity is cheaper. And it did a great job, the dishes and even heavily dirty pots and pans came out sparkly clean. Again, I didn’t buy these new appliances because of the Energy Star rating alone, or because I wanted to “save the environment” or the Polar Bears or be “green”, I bought them, the best and most highly rated energy efficient machines and in terms of reliability and customer satisfaction that I could afford at the time at the very best price I could find – because I like saving money, even if I have to spend a little more upfront to save a lot more down the road. Penny wise but pound foolish is not a good way to live.
I also installed a programmable thermostat, one with multiple settings including a weekday and weekend mode. I noticed a drop of about $10 per month on my electric and gas bill after installing it, that’s about $120 per year in savings so it more than paid for its self in the first six months.
I drive a small Toyota, a two door hatchback, a 5 speed manual transmission, 4 cylinder gasoline engine that I bought used, two years old when I bought it but in like show room condition and with very low mileage for a great price probably because so few people know how to or want to drive a manual these days. In fact when I bought it, the salesman, the sales manager and the finance manager, all asked me if I was sure I knew it was a manual. LOL! I get about 38 MPG and I love it, very zippy little car with very low maintenance and insurance costs and with the fold down back seats, more than enough cargo space for me. I wouldn’t mind having an all wheel drive SUV again, I had one previously, a Subaru that I loved but the car I have now gets me around just fine and now that it’s paid off, I’ll be driving it until I wear it out, which might well be 10 years from now.
If I could afford to buy some property and build my custom “dream” house, if the upfront money was no object, I would certainly make it as energy efficient as possible and as reasonable; for instance, good and properly installed insulation, high quality thermal insulated windows, energy efficient appliances. I’d even consider installing a geo thermal heating system and perhaps a few solar panels to supplement a conventional but high efficiency furnace, a tankless water heater (those from what I understand work great at a big saving over conventional tank water heaters and last much longer), lots of ceiling fans, a good attic fan, etc. And I’d probably have a wood burning stove and or a wood burning fireplace too because I like them :), And again, I’d do that, invest in energy efficiency, not because I’m a “greenie” or a Gia worshipper, but because I’d want an energy efficient home because I like saving money, don’t want to pay for heating and air conditioning that either doesn’t work as well, is expensive to run or a house that leaks heating and cooling to the great outdoors where it’s not needed.
I don’t buy into the “green is better” meme and yes, some “green” products are rip offs, but there has been some great improvements in appliance technology in recent years. A good example is in newer refrigerators, the ones with the freezer drawer on the bottom - what a great idea! Not only more energy efficient, but also more convenient.
And as the new technology is tweaked and improved and becomes more popular, the costs will come down. Remember that when they first came out, a VCR cost nearly $1,000, a flat screen 30” TV set you back a cool grand or more as well. Now you can buy a much better and much bigger flat screen TV, a 40” HD LCD AND a “smart” internet capable, wifi enabled Blue Ray DVD player for half that amount (I did just that last year after my old hand me down 24” tube TV died and FWIW, I did notice a very slight drop in my electric bill after I got the new Energy Star rated TV).
I also remember when a PC or laptop was very expensive compared to what you can buy now and a cell phone? I remember when they were the size of a shoe box, you had about 15 minutes of battery life and the only thing you could do with them was make phone calls and that was if you were lucky and were in exactly the right spot and you had to install one of those ugly antennas on your car. I now have a “smart phone” that has a lot more computing power by many factors and has many more features than the first cell phone I had or the first PC I owned, and 8086 with a small but heavy and bulky monochrome monitor with no hard drive, just floppy disks, one to run the program and one to save documents on.
My point is that the free market will or should eventually weed out the bad and overhyped products and either force them out of existence or force them to make improvements and eventually reduce prices as they improve, if they are what consumers really want and need and they work well, and as a result become more popular. Energy efficiency and new technology is not our enemy, energy efficiency is not a bad thing overall. It’s rather bad government interference in the free market, government investment and support of bad technology and poorly run companies that are not offering what we consumers want that is the enemy.
Same op-ed, original title:
Why Do Conservatives Like to Waste Energy?
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/04/why-do-conservatives-waste-energy
My opinion: quit politicizing everything! If its cheaper and works just as well, I will take it. If its a good deal that let’s me keep more cash in my wallet, then I will take it! It’s simple economics really.
Speaking for myself; when I hear/see the word “green” used as anything but a definition of a color, I know that I will be paying twice as much for a product that doesn’t do the job half as well as what I am now using.
I can boil that down even further.
Say two people offer to sell you tubes of the same toothpaste, at the same price, and you want to buy a tube of toothpaste.
One of them says “This is good toothpaste at a good price.”
The other says “This toothpaste is better than all other toothpaste, because it will also prevent baldness.”
The conservative inclination of the second pitch is that the pitchman is a goniff. A liar.
The same with salesmen of efficiency light bulbs. They don’t offer a better price or better, more pleasant lighting, or longer lasting bulbs, so they offer something unrelated. “They’re good for the planet!” Yeah, b.s.
I’m reminded of when the Soviet Union first build the Moscow subway. It was really gorgeous and expensive, and a top Soviet official couldn’t wait to drag the American ambassador there to show it off.
Indeed he was impressed, but then he noticed something odd. No subway trains. The truth was that they had spent so much money on the subway, they had none left to build trains with.
So he asked the Russian, “Where are the trains?”
To which he immediately and angrily applied, “But what about the abusive treatment of blacks in the American South!?!”
Yep, when cornered, leftists change the subject.