Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Steve Milloy; The New York Times is praising the efforts of low carbon pioneers who reject personal hygiene to save the planet from Covid-19 and Climate Change.
See Fewer People. Take Fewer Showers.
Some people said they started bathing less during the pandemic. As long as no one complains, they say they plan to keep the new habit.
By Maria Cramer
May 6, 2021
Robin Harper, an administrative assistant at a preschool on Martha’s Vineyard, grew up showering every day.
“It’s what you did,” she said. But when the coronavirus pandemic forced her indoors and away from the general public, she started showering once a week.
The new practice felt environmentally virtuous, practical and freeing. And it has stuck.
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Ms. Harper, 43, who has returned to work. “I like showers. But it’s one thing off my plate. I’m a mom. I work full-time, and it’s one less thing I have to do.”
…
Parents have complained that their teenage children are forgoing daily showers. After the British media reported on a YouGov survey that showed 17 percent of Britons had abandoned daily showers during the pandemic, many people on Twitter said they had done the same.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/health/shower-bathing-pandemic.html
Of course, if you give up washing for the sake of the planet, you need to examine other carbon intensive aspects of your life.
Stop Using Toilet Paper
Why are we hoarding it when experts agree that rinsing with water is more sanitary and environmentally sound?
April 3, 2020
By Kate MurphyMs. Murphy is the author of “You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters.”
While the coronavirus pandemic is affecting us all differently depending on where we live, our financial situation and our basic health, one universal is the difficulty finding toilet paper.
Panic buying of toilet paper has spread around the globe as rapidly as the virus, even though there have been no disruptions in supply and the symptoms of Covid-19 are primarily respiratory, not gastrointestinal. In many stores, you can still readily find food, but nothing to wipe yourself once it’s fully digested.
This is all the more puzzling when you consider that toilet paper is an antiquated technology that infectious disease and colorectal specialists say is neither efficient nor hygienic. Indeed, it dates back at least as far as the sixth century, when a Chinese scholar wrote that he “dared not” use paper from certain classical texts for “toilet purposes.”
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/opinion/toilet-paper-hoarding-bidets.html
Obviously if you rinse every time you use the toilet, you kind of violate the first precept about not washing. So better keep rinsing down to say once per day, or less.
But what is the point of sacrificing your personal hygiene, if your air conditioner is obliterating your carbon savings with a blast of fossil fuel powered home cooling or heating?
Thankfully President Biden is helping the truly committed give up their air conditioners.
E.P.A. to Sharply Limit Powerful Greenhouse Gases
The Biden administration is moving quickly to limit hydrofluorocarbons, the Earth-warming chemicals used in air-conditioning and refrigeration.
By Lisa Friedman
Published May 3, 2021
Updated May 5, 2021WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency moved on Monday to sharply reduce the use and production of powerful greenhouse gases central to refrigeration and air-conditioning, part of the Biden administration’s larger strategy of trying to slow the pace of global warming.
The agency proposed to regulate hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, a class of man-made chemicals that are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet. The proposal is the first significant step the E.P.A. has taken under President Biden to curb climate change.
The move is also the first time the federal government has set national limits on HFCs, which were used to replace ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons in the 1980s but have turned out to be a significant driver of global warming. More than a dozen states have either banned HFCs or are formulating some restrictions.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/climate/EPA-HFCs-hydrofluorocarbons.html
My only question – does the personal stench lower the reproductive success rate for people who follow NYT’s advice? Or do they use the smell to identify fellow believers and mate with each other?
Whatever the answer, lets just say I have no plans to board a rush hour New York subway in the foreseeable future.
via Watts Up With That?
May 7, 2021
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