11 Comments so far

1. Ed Roberts on April 18, 2008 8:27 am

   Purchasing carbon offsets=self-imposed guilt tax. If I toss some cash to some organization, I’ll feel less guilty for doing X to the environment. That way I’m not obligated to actually DO something

   I’d like to know how these organizations came up with their equations of “X amount of carbon costs this much to offset it”. Sounds horribly convoluted and opportunistic to me.

2. ChrisM70 on April 18, 2008 9:26 am

   Carbon offsets definitely are a guilt tax, and there is a lot of opportunity for abuse, but I think it’s a good start. Many people WANT to do the right thing, but because of their job or other circumstances can’t make the “green choice” but wish they could. At least they can use $$$ to help fund new green ideas.

   Also: I know that BlogKC likes to post comments with jabs taken towards the suburbs, but it looks to me like events are happening all over the metro area - so what’s the big deal? If more downtowners had put effort into it, I’m sure they could have had a green party right downtown! It’s just and unfortunate reality that this is a very large and spread-out metro area, so you can’t please everyone. If we had better mass transit, and could get cities to STOP the sprawl, we would be better off.

3. William Rockhill Nelson on April 18, 2008 10:17 am

   Chris,

   Well, the name of this thing is BlogKC, not BlogOP…

4. Erich on April 18, 2008 10:41 am

   We humans, but especially we Americans, have such short attention spans. Combine that with our addiction to cultural exhibitionism and what do you get? “Earth Day” for one.

   99.9% of Americans who observe Earth day spend exactly one day out of 365.25 days of a year acting like they care about preserving and conserving the environment; resolve to perform empty token gestures; listen to and/or give speeches about how important it is to do all these things, then behave exactly the opposite way during the other 364.25 days of the year, consuming, destroying, polluting as well as promoting and glorifying consumption, destruction and pollution.

   Our entire culture, especially the political system, is intimately tied to consumption, destruction and pollution. Hardly anybody does anything else except under duress of some kind, such as taxation or economic incentives.

   Then the bandwagon gets rolling such as it did with the whole ethanol fuels thing and we wind up with a bunch of unintended consequences such as no reduced pollution, higher food prices and more biosphere destruction.

   Yes, people are beginning to starve in the third world, not because of drought or famine, not because of corrupt dictators but because we in the US figured out we could make fuel to run our SUVs out of the food much of the world subsists on, causing food prices to rise and shortages to occur.

   I don’t know what the solution is but it probably involves revolution and civil war.

   All I know is Earth day is a sick, sad, hypocritical joke with for all practical purposes no redeeming value.

5. Corey on April 18, 2008 10:46 am

   Seriously, don’t turn on your lights, don’t use any fossil fuel, don’t move, don’t eat, don’t breathe. It’s better for the planet that way.

6. Joe Valentine on April 18, 2008 11:33 am

   Don’t you know it is impolite to criticize suburbia in Kansas City? They don’t won’t to be reminded of the fact that suburbia itself is a gigantic environmental disaster. Let them have their light bulbs and hybrid cars. It assuages their guilt so they don’t have to think about the consequences of choosing an autombile-dependent life.

7. ChrisM70 on April 18, 2008 1:44 pm

   Joe, get a grip.

   My only point was that I think BlogKC takes a lot of unecessary jabs ot the suburbs for what we are seeing in this comment thread - getting people worked up and barking about how either the suburbs or Kansas (or both) is responsible for all of KC’s problems.

   Here’s a newsflash: The suburbs suck. They lack character, things are too spread out, every block has a strip mall and everything is BEIGE. (We do have better residential sidewalks though)

   But guess what? Those in KC’s “inner city” could hardly be held up as a role model for the rest of the world. Stop being so self-righteous. “Downtowners” need to understand that just because you live in an overpriced condo downtown and can buy hot dogs from street vendors doesn’t make you superior. My guess is most of those big buildings downtown use up about as much energy as 50 blocks of suburban homes. I mean, have you seen all the lights on the Downtown Marriot? How about the HR Block and Sprint Center?Those glowing glass sculptures use a lot of energy.

   The suburbs and downtown both have advantages and disadvantages. Can’t people see that?

   BTW, I agree with Erich - we need to do more than think about the Earth once a year.

8. Tim on April 18, 2008 8:55 pm

   I’m not going to rehash an earlier argument, but I will say this about “Downtown” living…it is a model for living that saves a lot of resources vs. the suburban model, brightly lit buildings aside, because it doesn’t involve building hundreds of miles of streets and roads, laying hundreds of miles of pipes for water and sewer, building hundreds of miles of power grid, and then constantly maintaining all of the above at a VERY high cost (roads especially).

9. Ryan on April 21, 2008 8:55 am

   Just heard the news this morning on NPR…GASP…people are realizing that they made a mistake in moving so far away from their respective urban central locations. Gas prices are rising (as if they are ever going to go down because that happens a lot with any commodity/product!) and the cheap land grab of earlier decades is proving to be way expensive!! I wonder what all of those people are going to do when they cannot even afford to drive to work from their empty, 3500 sq. foot home!!??? Perhpas get a job in their own community…oh, but all of the jobs are in KC…the place they don’t live…

10. Tim on April 21, 2008 11:28 am

    NEWSFLASH: They don’t make oil anymore. All there is is ALL there is. Wherever you are right now, look around. Everything in the room took energy to make. Now think about moving thousands of cars back and forth from the suburbs to the city and back again, five days a week, and the energy it wastes. Think about how that wasted energy impacts the cost of everything around you, not to mention the food you eat. Sprawl makes things like public transit impractical; buses or trains have to travel too far and accommodate too few people to make it cost-effective (at least right now). That’s what Funkhouser doesn’t understand and why “regional transit” won’t work, unless passengers are willing to pay $20+ one-way. In the age of scarce and expensive energy, increasing population density is the only model of living that works or makes sense. That’s why having the state line works against us. Getting Kansans and their lawmakers to understand the urgency of the situation is next to impossible, and it is damaging our city, or “metro area” if you will. Missouri has OK’d regional transit, while Kansas legislature ignored it. We are in an energy crisis that is never going to end, and nobody can afford to live in a bubble. Visit the supermarket and you’ll see why. Energy costs are the reason why food is so expensive, think about why you’ve been able to have tomatoes all winter long. A gallon of gas should never have been cheaper than a gallon of milk, that’s where we went wrong. People don’t respect fossil fuels enough, considering they won’t last forever and what they’ve made possible.

11. Tim on April 30, 2008 12:32 am

    See what’s happening? Gas approaching $4/gallon, and that’s for starters. WE HAVE TO BUILD CITIES, where you live close to work…maybe even walkable. Life has to change. Cheaper oil is NOT the answer…it is a short-term fix. THIS IS REAL PEOPLE, it is happening NOW. Buses and trains ARE the future, and God forbid you should have to actually WALK a block or two.