Bill Carroll v. Live Earth

Bill Carroll on CFRB this morning isn't too impressed with this whole Live Earth thing, and especially not with Al Gore and his "Inconvenient Truth." Carroll believes he doth exaggerate and points to the friggin' hot summers of the pre-air conditioning era when people flocked to Sunnyside and of the 1970s when he grew up and summers were saunaville as proof of Gore's exaggerations.

Whether or not Gore doth exaggerate, there's no doubt that we are polluting our environment. Air conditioning has made subway cars bearable, but make the un-air conditioned stations unbreathably hot. Cities made all of stone and concrete are much hotter and oppressive than cities filled with trees and having green roofs. Manufacturers make batteries that don't last as long as advertised, and Canada lets in the exploding counterfeit ones regularly. Both kinds have rocketed up in number in the last 10 years I swear, probably because of the proliferation of mobile devices. Batteries contain toxic materials. What happens to those materials when we chuck out these vast numbers of batteries? And what about the excess electricity consumption when the stupid rechargeables need longer and longer and more frequent recharging? Eighty percent of polluting businesses in Toronto do not have to declare what they're putting in the air. That's why the public board of health is trying to change that and require all polluters to declare publicly what they're putting out. That makes the over 1,000 deaths each year from air pollution even more criminal -- government complicity in allowing businesses to hide behind anonymity. It's amazing what publicity does to decrease a business' output. Those examples are just a few of the many ways we pollute our environment, ways that are unnecessary because we have the creativity and know-how to do better and still meet our needs.

I still have no clue how Carroll has an over-$800 hydro bill. I cannot imagine what the man and his family does to use so much electricity. Perhaps I didn't hear him right or remember it right... But despite the fact that there are legit criticisms of Gore, there's no disputing how much heat all that electricity usage of Carroll's creates and how much less hot his and our local environment would be if we somehow (heaven knows how) forced manufacturers to create transformers and electronics that don't waste so much heat and if we unplugged all those gadgets when we're not using them. Why do people keep them plugged in or turned on anyway? So the dog won't be lonely? More likely so they don't have to wait the one second to two minutes for it to turn on and be ready to use.

Comments

Anonymous said…
800 bucks can be done I'd think. You've got the AC running. Bill probably has lights on every morning as he leaves for work when it's still dark. He may have plenty of pot lights. Those things can really get that meter a-spinnin'. Maybe he's got an electric stove.
Regardless, if he's willing to pay his bill every month, I won't get on his case.
Perhaps it's the lights -- and I hadn't thought of the morning use -- cause I know a couple of people with central air and largish house but their bill is nowhere near that level.

I'm more boggled by how he can rack up such a bill rather than that he does. Still, he's in the public eye, the system's always under stress in the summer, and I suspect there are many who otherwise may think of using their energy more wisely but don't because they figure if he doesn't maybe there isn't really all that much to worry about.

OTOH, I'm starting to believe that if products didn't waste so much energy (all that heat they produce is wasted energy), we may not have such a problem. Perhaps that's where we should put the spotlight.
Anonymous said…
Bill Carroll needs as much lighting as possible because he is an impossibly dim bulb himself.