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Message started by gerald.hughes on 05/13/12 at 13:41:24

Title: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by gerald.hughes on 05/13/12 at 13:41:24

Being Green

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Boule’tard on 05/13/12 at 13:55:09

Lol.

Being a young whippersnapper, I was able to save up a few bucks mowing lawns with a gas powered mower.. I could hardly stand the luxury.

Then about 30 bucks later I went to Radio Shack and bought the Pong game. Got it home, cobbled it to the TV, played pong.. Then the next day there was trouble. My dad noticed that I left the AC adapter plugged into the wall! :o And.. it was warm. Indicating that it was wasting electricity. He said "Boy, next time you leave that plugged in, I'm CHARGING YOU A QUARTER!" ;D

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Serowbot on 05/13/12 at 15:44:50

Milk tastes better out of a glass bottle, too... :)...

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Starlifter on 05/13/12 at 18:49:37

Ahyup. and in those days we used a 'real' telephone to make calls, and we talked to 'real' people. We didn't use some gadget that we had to type on to send messages to people while we were driving or having a dinner out with friends. (and we didn't bastardize the English language with letters and symbols that no one but a kid could understand.)

Yeah, we're the stupid generation who now don't get it, and aren't 'hip' (or whatever hip is called these days)....We didn't accomplish much in our day...well we did send 12 men to the moon and returned them safely to earth, and we did invent the computer and the internet, and cured many dread diseases...but what the hey, we are the old farts now and we don't know jack sh*t now...do we.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Serowbot on 05/13/12 at 18:53:11

... and we had to walk to school... uphill, both ways... :-?...

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Starlifter on 05/13/12 at 19:06:42

Yes, and without shoes in three feet of snow during a daily blizzard! ;D

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Boule’tard on 05/13/12 at 19:33:36

Well at least you could use your used motor oil as weed killer.

Take THAT, young people! After we got done washing the poo out of cloth diapers and reusing our paper bags, we dumped MOTOR OIL around our HOUSE! :D

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by WD on 05/13/12 at 19:51:09

Keeps the dust down in the driveway and kills the weeds in the gravel drive. And around the barn. And the garage. And is great for lighting the burn barrel. And the slash pile. Killing mosquito larva in the pond. Lighting the coal forge in the blacksmith shop. Quenching pieces made in the blacksmith shop. Warming the garage during the winter.

What do you mean that isn't "environmentally friendly", oil comes out of the ground to start with. ;) For that matter, so does coal.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Starlifter on 05/13/12 at 20:11:50

Yes, ha ha. As 'big oil' spills thousands of bbls. of oil in the oceans all over the world, we can get arrested for pouring a half cup of oil in our driveways to kill weeds...snort.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 05/13/12 at 20:17:00

I hear vinegar is a good weedkiller,.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Dj12midnit on 05/13/12 at 21:03:00

An entire girls soccer team got the stomach flu from passing around a reusable shopping bag. The CDC tested the bag and found it to be the carrier.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Starlifter on 05/13/12 at 21:53:06

...be afraid...be very afraid... :o

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Midnightrider on 05/13/12 at 23:08:11

When I was 16 I drove a Volswagon that got 30mpg and a Honda CB100 that got 70mpg. Gas was 27 cents a gallon. Before that I rode a bicycle everywhere. I live in a neigborhood right in the middle of 4 schools. You cant move in traffic around here when school is in. A school bus goes by and there's 3 or 4 kids on it. When school is out there's hardly any traffic. All these yuppies that taxi there kids to school every day neednt say anything to me about goin green. I go red everytime I try to drive in school traffic.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Dave on 05/14/12 at 04:35:32

5D4E0A0 wrote:

Keeps the dust down in the driveway and kills the weeds in the gravel drive.What do you mean that isn't "environmentally friendly", oil comes out of the ground to start with. ;) For that matter, so does coal.

When I was young I worked at a Kawasaki dealer in Columbiana, Ohio (Lee's Auto Sales) and got to uncrate, put together and road test new motorcycles. Behind the shop was a dirt road where they put used motor oil down to treat the dust, and that road connected to a brick street.....so anyone that pulled out from the oiled road onto the brick tracked some of the oil out onto the brick. You had to be very careful when riding the H-1 Kawasaki triples out onto the oiled brick.....it was very slippery! (Oh.....to keep this post in line with the thread......some of them were Green!).

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by bill67 on 05/14/12 at 06:05:22

Gasoline works good for a weed killer,Wait til its been dry a few days and the weeds just soak it in.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by splash07 on 05/14/12 at 07:13:16

...and in those days cars got 5-10 mpg, and the American motorway and auto culture was born. bigger was better and aerodynamics was a four letter word.

So, no you were not green in those days.

....and in those days there was no such thing as the clean water act, clean air act, or the EPA. Back then the Ohio river caught fire multiple times (I dont think they are supposed to do that). The landfill was the ONLY way to dispose of refuse back then, and most sewer pipes went straight to the nearest body of water.

...so again, no you were not green back then.

...and back then you spread harmful chemicals to control insects without testing them. Approved the process of strip mining, invented the strip mall, and owned a refrigerator that draws as much power as my entire house of electronics.

However, everything that we do today is not green either so.....no one is green and we have all failed.

The truth is that we have made leaps and bounds in some areas and digressed in others. As time marches on each generation is faced with new challenges and each generation will come up with unique solutions. The advancement in technology often solves some environmental issues while creating new ones. For example, we have made cars more efficient and attainable, cured diseases, increased the quality of life across the board, and decreased the need for manual labor which lowers the stress, wear and tear on our workforce. But at the same time we have increased survival rates of children, increased the average life span, and facilitated an unprecedented population boom which means more cars on the road, less available fresh water and food (look to the recent famines in Africa, and even the droughts here in the states), and an overall greater pull on natural resources. Its a balancing act and we are certainly not tight rope walkers, but maybe one day things will level off. In the meantime i will continue to stock up on emergency rations, guns, and ammo for when it all comes crashing down.

p.s. please dont print this unless its on a brown paper bag

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by gerald.hughes on 05/14/12 at 07:24:51

When I was in high school, I drove a small car that got better mileage than my Prius. My parents cars all got over 35 mpg.

Yes, we had landfills, but what we put in them was almost all biodegradable. Take a sample of what goes into today's landfills, and almost none of it is biodegradable.

Yes, the fridge used electricity, but aside from lights, and the radio, it was about all the electrical in the house. Today we have little lights on everywhere, telling us that all of our electronics are on all the time and using power. If you go back and look at the data, homes in the 50's and 60's used a fraction of the electricity that we use today. I have solar panels that generate, on average, 30 kwh a day. It covers what we use and then some. When I was a boy, it would have powered the neighborhood.

PS, if you think that this country has increased the survival rates of children since the 50's, especially for those not covered by health insurance, then you need to think again.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by splash07 on 05/14/12 at 07:42:01

252730232E266C2A37252A2731420 wrote:

While any one of my talking points is up for debate my overall message remains true. Being green is a dynamic process, something we still struggle to understand. What is green today might be an environmental disaster tomorrow. The best we can do is be as green as possible as it is currently understood and change as needed.

P.S. My own home uses a fraction of the electricity of the average American household, accomplished by simply turning things off when i'm not there (including the HVAC) :)

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by splash07 on 05/14/12 at 07:42:58

When I was in high school, I drove a small car that got better mileage than my Prius. My parents cars all got over 35 mpg.

Which cars were those?

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Boule’tard on 05/14/12 at 07:53:12

A Honda CRX-HF from the mid eighties puts a lot of cars to shame. Mine would get 50mpg consistently. It had a weird 12 valve head (3 per cylinder) and you had to adjust the valves every 15,000 miles, but it was easy. No FI, just a carb. 5-speed with a good tall 5th gear.. the engine would turn 2000 RPM at 60 mph. NO power steering. Gah, why do they insist on power steering on the smallest go-kart of a car these days? Must be a legal thing.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by LANCER on 05/14/12 at 10:17:01

Bought a '71 Ford Pinto brand new from the dealer in Enterprise AL for $2000 when in flight school. It had a 1.6 L engine from the English Ford Cortina; just a plain OHV 4 banger with a 1 brrl carb (early 50's technology); basic 4 speed on the floor; got 30 mpg and would get all the way up to about 75 if there was a tail wind.
Of course it had manual steering but it was a rack & pinion system so worked very well.
At about 70k+ miles my dad and I tore it down; 3 angle valve job and shaved the head, got a brand name midrange camshaft, Mallory dual-point ignition upgrade, header/muffler for better flow, aluminum intake with 2 bbl Weber and a new red high flow air filter. Then we found a good set of shocks and some of the new fangled radial tires that had just come out to keep that puppy on the road.
It had drum brakes on all 4 corners but they worked pretty darn well.
The car weighed all of 2030 lbs. Yep, verified on a local truck scale.
The crowning piece was a High Performance Chrome Radiator Cap from JC Whitney...that is what made the real power !!!

After all was said and done and it had logged 400-500 break-in miles on a cross country drive it started to step up and out. It ran like a hopped up foreign sports car and handled equally well. It would wind up to over 80 in 3rd and topped out in the 105-110 range; would cruise down the interstate at 85 while it sang a beautiful song out the pipe (back then 75 mph was a common legal speed ... before Carter ya know ? ! ) Back then I drove Oklahome-South Carolina and back frequently so spent a lot of freeway time in that car. It was a ball to drive. During late night and the wee hours of the morning I-40 was 95% trucks and the cruising speed of traffic was 80-85. Of course passing required a burst of speed to get around the big trucks safely. :)
Anyway, the thing ran and drove great; had lots of power compared to what it was before and was just plain fun to drive. Driving the black line type roads in the Smokey Mountains was especially fun. (Back then I-40 was not complete in that area so there was a detour after passing Knoxville and came out somewhere around Greenville SC...lots of curves and such :D) And to top it off the fuel efficiency increased. It went from a stock 30 mpg to 32-33 mpg...overall average; not just highway.
It was simple, basic, easy to work on and was pretty much bullet proof; would cross pastures, dirt & rock roads; herd cattle; cross rain swollen creeks and flooded roads (it would float like a VW Beetle) and just keep on going.
It died a Hero's death saving my life one night on I-35 S when I ran upon some clear ice from freezing rain and plowed into the jacked up rear of a 60's model Impala. My bumper went under his and the engine and all body parts above the frame absorbed the impact. I was banged up a bit but no serious damage. It was a sad day to see it hauled off by a wrecker........deep sigh. :-/

Improving fuel efficiency IS GREEN

A lot of the things we do here every day are GREEN (just another word coined for the time being to describe "doing something practical using basic wisdom).
We use and reuse; modify and make better; improve efficiency; etc etc.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by gerald.hughes on 05/14/12 at 10:33:23

4D4E525F4D560E093E0 wrote:

When I was in high school, I drove a small car that got better mileage than my Prius. My parents cars all got over 35 mpg.

Which cars were those?

I drove a Vespa 400 that got 60 mpg, and my parents drove 36 hp VW bugs that got 40. (I also had a 36 hp Ghia that would get between 45 and 50 on the highway and 40 around town. (Kind of like owning a Geo Metro.)

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Drifter on 05/14/12 at 10:59:04

I think Nixon started the 55 mph thing. My 1200 cc Beatle got 33 mpg average and would do 71 mph down hill.

The main reason todays cars and trucks and most bikes get poor mileage is they weigh so darn much, a 4x4 ford truck weighs 6000 lbs a dodge charger weighs over 4000 lbs Harleys and Wings weigh 800-900 lbs and get 30 mpg....... :(

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by bill67 on 05/14/12 at 11:25:43

I have a 2012 Kia Rio Sedan,It has the gas computer,Its alway in the 42 43 mpg thats over all average not trip,But I think a trip on freeway would be about the same.6-speed automatic.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by LANCER on 05/14/12 at 12:24:06

596F747B69786F1D0 wrote:

Pretty sure the peanut farmer was running the Big House when the "Fuel Crisis" (or oil shortage) was declared to be in existence; cars lined up down the block at gas stations waiting for 5 or 10 gal of gas. Of course there was no end in sight since the worlds oil was running low so for national security's sake we needed to be limited to 55mph on the Fed. controlled freeways. Saving gas = saving oil. One result was a slowed down economy, interest rates in the 15-20% range, all that good stuff.
Yep, very interesting. It's over 40 years later and we have found more oil recently than anyone ever imagined even existed.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by splash07 on 05/14/12 at 13:21:42

It's over 40 years later and we have found more oil recently than anyone ever imagined even existed.

Is that a good thing? my belief is that statements like that give a false sense of energy security to car crazy Americans who do not care about their carbon footprint.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by WD on 05/14/12 at 17:40:17

Fuel economy alone doesn't mean s**t.

The metal in my 3 vintage full sizes could make 10 Prius or similar hybrids. But, the 8 mpg 1969 Dodge with a 318 actually smogs cleaner than my friend's 18mpg 2008 Dodge with a Hemi. No gee whiz latest greatest high tech drek to go out yet allow it to keep running in "limp home" mode. My 1994 2.3L Ranger (5 speed) gets a whopping 2 mpg more than my 1949 Dodge truck with a 230 flathead (3 spd) and road draft smog tube (look it up). And with a simple US Army PCV conversion from Vintage Power Wagons the Dodge is cleaner running. My 1972 Super Beetle gets better fuel economy than the wife's 95 Outback (same engine, just turn an aircooled bug engine backwards and add a cooling system). And is more comfortable. And is metal instead of plastic.

County inspector fined a local restaurant for having recyclable materials last week. City has NO commercial recycling program. County inspector said take it every day (lost time and productivity, plus increased fuel use), get a dedicated dumpster (loss of customer parking and therefore revenue), or send it ALL to the landfill. You ever seen a "modern" southern landfill? Regular garbage goes here for shipment out of state, haz-mat gets buried over there (just make sure no one is looking).

Want to do something that is actually green? Buy local, from small farmers, directly. Quit buying "Cheapy Chi-com's" cut rate junk. Grow some of your own food. Even the projects here have micro-gardens (mostly pot but it's a start).

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Boofer on 05/14/12 at 20:26:33

666B71686170657660040 wrote:

Boule, Rotella or Klotz worked just the same...no problems. Dead ants, weeds, bugs. It worked. ;D

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 05/15/12 at 00:04:38

WD said

Want to do something that is actually green? Buy local, from small farmers, directly. Quit buying "Cheapy Chi-com's" cut rate junk. Grow some of your own food. Even the projects here have micro-gardens (mostly pot but it's a start).

& thats a few very green ideas.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Drifter on 05/15/12 at 07:32:05

+1 justin, i buy all our veggies from a local stand and up north from the amish straight off the farm. You cant escape made in china so much of everything is made there.

Lancer, Carter was elected in 1976 Nixon started the 55 mph speed limit in 1974.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by bill67 on 05/17/12 at 16:46:46

They should lower the speed limit again,Then the gas prices would go down a lot.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Savage_Rob on 05/18/12 at 06:56:02

6469666B6D7A3A3F080 wrote:

It's over 40 years later and we have found more oil recently than anyone ever imagined even existed.

It's not so much that there are a lot of amazing new finds. Oil shale and sands have been known to be in existence for some time. They were simply thought to be too difficult/costly to extract. While there have been a few new finds, it's mostly a combination of newer/improved methods for getting at the stuff, like fracking and horizontal-drilling along with the increases in prices that make it worthwhile to use more expensive processes for extraction. When oil is cheaper, some of these processes are just not profitable.

Also, for the most part, 55 MPH is a generally fuel-efficient speed. It's pretty close to the sweet spot for my Savage. It just seems to take forever to get anywhere. Of course, that's when the destination is the goal. If I'm just riding, I'm in no hurry as the ride is the goal instead of the destination.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 05/18/12 at 08:39:31

I dont think this is anything but just plain old oil well stuff,, no tar sands, none of the expensive, hard to get stuff,, I cant prove it from this but thats what Im gettin,,

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.13s.html

Massive Oil Deposit Could Increase US reserves by 10x

America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America Energy Independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant.

In the next 30 days the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) will release a new report giving an accurate resource assessment of the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With new horizontal drilling technology it is believed that from 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil are held in this 200,000 square mile reserve that was initially discovered in 1951. The USGS did an initial study back in 1999 that estimated 400 billion recoverable barrels were present but with prices bottoming out at $10 a barrel back then the report was dismissed because of the higher cost of horizontal drilling techniques that would be needed, estimated at $20-$40 a barrel.

It was not until 2007, when EOG Resources of Texas started a frenzy when they drilled a single well in Parshal N.D. that is expected to yield 700,000 barrels of oil that real excitement and money started to flow in North Dakota. Marathon Oil is investing $1.5 billion and drilling 300 new wells in what is expected to be one of the greatest booms in Oil discovery since Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938.

The US imported about 14 million barrels of Oil per day in 2007 , which means US consumers sent about $340 Billion Dollars over seas building palaces in Dubai and propping up unfriendly regimes around the World, if 200 billion barrels of oil at $90 a barrel are recovered in the high plains the added wealth to the US economy would be $18 Trillion Dollars which would go a long way in stabilizing the US trade deficit and could cut the cost of oil in half in the long run.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by Savage_Rob on 05/18/12 at 11:58:31

2E3137302D2A1B2B1B23313D76440 wrote:

Yup. Made possible by new horizontal drilling technology.

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 05/20/12 at 07:36:47

Theyve been drilling sideways for over 20 years, I knew the guy who did the well logging on the first one, They literally had to pump the tool down hole because it was not possible to drop it in,

Title: Re: Being Green, as seen by an old fart.
Post by scroop on 05/22/12 at 17:43:07

Yea, Bill. I've been comparing the price of weed killer to gasoline - gas is still cheaper, but not by much. And speaking of gas, why do the new "green" gas cans spill ten times more gas on the ground than the old open spout cans? darn greenies!!! :P