Chewable Aspen

Well, it’s been a few weeks since the CIty of Austin instituted their ban on single-use plastic and paper bags.  I have written about this last month and thought that this kind of nanny-state control was going to create an uprising among Austin shoppers.

You know, it’s really not that bad.  The handle bags allow you to carry more groceries and do it with more grace and style.  Now I can express myself as I carry out my groceries.  i love to bring the reusable bags from another store when I shop at their competitors.  See my cool Beatles bags (above)?  Imagine how this can help you meet people of similar interests?  Forget “Singles Nights” at the local A&P - just watch for the special someone with the matching DEVO bags!

I guess we should all admit that the local City Council knows what is better for us and our shopping habits.  See you at the store - I’m the one with the Aspen Environmental bags.

Mitch

Mitch Young is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas and owner of Aspen Environmental, Inc.  He has over 20 years of environmental consulting experience and is an independent energy auditor, certified by BPI.  Oh, by the way, he is “for the environment”. Really.

As of March 1, 2013, the Sack Sequester is in place in Austin, Texas.  That’s right, the Federal Sequester apocalypse did not materialize, but  it is now illegal to give out single-use plastic or paper bags at the checkout counter.  The City of Austin is committed to reducing the amount of waste it sends to landfills by 90 percent by the year 2040.  A pilot program for recycling plastic bags did not meet the approval of the current City officials, so an all-out plastic bag ban was called.  After initial discussions, the single-use paper bag was also included in the ban.  The details of the City’s new ordinance are presented here.

So now, you better bring your reusable bag into the store, or you will be balancing your groceries carefully on the way out.  Of course, the stores will have emergency bags for sale for those that forget theirs.  This may even lead to a resurgence in cargo pants again. 

President Obama and his entourage made a hasty trip to Copenhagen to pitch Chicago as the perfect place for the 2016 Olympics.   We all know now that the games were given to Rio, but now that we can look past the good intentions of the trip, what about the monetary and environmental cost of this little jaunt?

We all heard about how Michelle Obama went over to Copenhagen on her own 737 with The Oprah a few days before the President.  He also took his teleprompter and made the 4,050-mile trip in Air Force One for his four-hour stay.  But Air Force One always travels with a clone plane, just in case it is needed.  And don’t forget the advance team with vehicles, agents, and back-up teleprompters.

As a friend of the environment, I started to question the total “carbon footprint” of the Chicago sales pitch.  Luckily for my enquiring mind, Tony Hake at examiner.com did the calculations for us.  He uses conservative estimates (what, you expected “liberal” estimates?) for the carbon footprints for the jets used for this trip.   We won’t even go into the expenses for the Entourage that we taxpayers had to foot...that’s for another blog.

See Tony’s thought-provoking article here: Calculating the Carbon Footprint of President Obama’s Olympic Trip

His final estimates:

Obama:  5,571 tons CO2

Michelle:  726 tons  CO2

Support:  2,178 tons CO2

Grand total:  8,379 tons CO2 for trip to Copenhagen. 

Hake notes that by comparison, an average American family has a carbon footprint of 19.5 tons of CO2 per year.  Therefore, Obama’s sales trip used the equivalent CO2 as 430 families use in a year!

I hear that a climate change conference will be held in Copenhagen later this year.  Will this “carbon-loading smorgasbord” be repeated again at that time?  If participants in this climate awareness conference care about greenhouse gases, they should do the math and then think about using video-conferencing.

-Mitch

Mitch Young is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas and owner of Aspen Environmental, Inc.  He has over 20 years of environmental consulting experience and is an independent energy auditor, certified by BPI.  Oh, by the way, he is “for the environment”. Really.