Environment Blog Posts | Comedy Central Indecision

Lawmaker Wants to Tax Bicycle Pollution

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Mar 4, 2013 09:29 AM by Ilya Gerner | Comments:

Imagine you're a Seattle cyclist merrily commuting to work on your bike, a thermos of fair trade coffee in hand and a hemp messenger bag slung over your shoulder. You'd think you were Gaea's gift to environmentalism, right?

WRONG! You are a goddamned monstrous eco-villain! So says Rep. Ed Orcutt (R-Kalama), the ranking Republican on Washington State's House Transportation Committee, in a letter to a bicycle store owner:

"If I am not mistaken, a cyclist has an increased heart rate and respiration. That means that the act of riding a bike results in greater emissions of carbon dioxide from the rider. Since CO2 is deemed to be a greenhouse gas and a pollutant, bicyclists are actually polluting when they ride."

This was Rep. Orcutt's explanation for why he'd be supporting a sales tax proposal that would require everyone who buys a bike for more than $500 to pay a $25 fee.

As long as we assume that every cyclist is eating a diet of pure petroleum (and motorists don't eat anything and never burn calories), Orcutt's argument makes sense, but doesn't go nearly far enough. Wait till he learns about running.

Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Energy & Oil, Environment, State Legislature, Washington

The Hickenlooper: A Fracking Perfect Valentine's Day Cocktail

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Feb 13, 2013 01:05 PM by Ilya Gerner | Comments:

As the founder of a microbrewery, Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) is among our nation's top experts on quirky libations. Which is why it wasn't surprising to find him telling a U.S. Senate committee that he drank a glass of fracking fluid produced by Halliburton:

"You can drink it. We did drink it around the table, almost ritual-like in a funny way," he told the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. "It was a demonstration…they've invested millions of dollars in what is a benign fluid in every sense."

Move over bacon-infused bourbon! Some elements of the fluid remain secret, but with the help of Halliburton's public disclosures, you can recreate The Hickenlooper for whomever you're fracking this Valentine's Day:

Are Bikini Waxes Wiping Out Pubic Lice?

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Jan 14, 2013 12:57 PM by Ilya Gerner | Comments:

It's bad enough that 2012 was America's hottest year on record, and that our crush on hydrofracking may be poisoning the nation's watersheds. Now the Obama administration is facing a new "environmental disaster" in the making:

"Pubic grooming has led to a severe depletion of crab louse populations," said Ian F. Burgess, a medical entomologist with Insect Research & Development Ltd. in Cambridge, England. "Add to that other aspects of body hair depilation, and you can see an environmental disaster in the making for this species." [...]

"We put the flag out, so to speak, if we see a case of pubic lice nowadays," [sexual health expert Janet] Wilson said in an e-mailed response to questions. "The 'habitat destruction' of the pubic lice is increasing and they are becoming an endangered species."

The funny thing about this reporting that claims "Brazilian Bikini Waxes Make Crab Lice Endangered Species" is that there's no hard evidence that it's actually happening. We have some data on the increasing popularity of waxing in the United States and Australia, and some anecdotes about a decline in the number of crab lice reports at local health clinics, but that's not nearly enough to proclaim Brazilians a public health miracle, nor to bring pubic lice to the attention of the EPA.

So let's not get carried away, boys and girls. Pubic grooming should always be a matter of personal preference, or else our civilization will be in deep trouble when some "health expert" decides that vajazzling cures HPV.

Previously
Social Conservatives Identify New Threat to Military: Yoga
San Francisco Bans Public Nudity

Photo by London Scientific Films/Oxford Scientific/Getty Images

Tags: Environment, Men and Women, Science & Technology, Sex