Just Say No To Campfires And Grilling

In the latest blow to even the most hard core, cave dwelling, stone-age-style living environmentalist, soot is now being blamed as nearly equal to carbon emissions for cranking up the thermostat on our planet.

Grilling a hamburger, enjoying a fire at the beach, cooking with something other than a solar oven, and old-style diesel engines (which are still in use outside the United States), are all perpetuating the drastic, human caused, global warming.

Really, the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres (that is the name, I verified it) as reported by Slashgear, is claiming that new studies show soot from the aforementioned human activities have a much greater impact on global warming than previously thought. Nearly equal to that dastardly carbon.

And here I thought that cave dwelling, dead wood fuel burning, hunting and gathering was the ideal of the extremists in the environmental movement. I guess they need to reassess what the ideal really is since wood burning is now on the hit list as greatly problematic.

It seems impossible to keep track of what you can and cannot do. Let me see if I have this right. The following is a list of forbidden activities:

• No driving a car or any transportation that isn’t exclusively solar powered since everything else creates carbon pollution
• No heating or cooling your living or work quarters, all climate climate is limited to blankets, layering clothing, or hand fanning
• No using electricity for any device unless exclusively solar powered
• Forget all previous solar powered things since the batteries are manufactured and transported by a carbon and soot spewing manufacturing and logistics chain
• No burning wood since the soot and carbon are a one-two punch of greenhouse evil
• No grilling a burger or vegetable since the soot will bring about the destruction of the planet

Now that the alarmists are shaking their heads at the logic listed above, let me clarify something for you. Please do conserve where possible, don’t be wasteful and inefficient. Let’s find reasonable methods to conserve and preserve our environment that also don’t make me feel like I need to revert to Stone Age style living.

I am tired of GLOBAL WARMING having taking up all the air about the environment. Clean air, clean water, reduce chemical pollution, and basic health should all be the focus.

Start by exploiting our geothermal resources for electricity since it is a clean, renewable, baseload source for the grid. Second, use more of our natural gas since it is significantly cleaner than other hydrocarbon sources, meaning lower in carbon and nearly zero sulfur and mercury emissions . Third, let’s stop with the sky-is-falling tactics and take a rational approach to living balanced lives with concern for others and the environment in which we live.

So go enjoy life, walk or ride your bicycle when possible, plant a food garden, speak loudly with your wallet, and remember that humans are not all that bad.

Santa Cruz nationally syndicated talk radio host Ethan Bearman can be heard on his show, The Ethan Bearman Show, Sundays 4-6 p.m. Pacific time on KOMY 1340 AM and 6-8 pm on KSCO 1080 AM discussing this topic and other current events at http://www.gcnlive.com/programs/smokeFilledwld/ .

Bearman also writes regularly on his blog at http://blog.ethanbearman.com