Pirate's Cove

All you folks who read books, you are killing Gaia, and need to immediately buy an e-reader (until the alarmists determine that they are bad for Gaia). From TerraPass

Unfortunately, the business of publishing books, newspapers, and magazines has a large environmental impact. In addition to the tens of millions of trees harvested every year, paper manufacturing is responsible for 11 percent of all freshwater consumed by industrial nations, and is associated with an annual discharge of 153 billion gallons of wastewater. (snip)

According to a 2009 brief by the Cleantech Group, an average book has a carbon footprint of about 7.46 kg of CO2. By comparison, the average Kindle has a carbon footprint of approximately 168 kg of CO2 over its lifetime. This means that if you were to purchase a Kindle, you would “break even” on the greenhouse gas impacts once your use of the Kindle led you to avoid the purchase of 22.5 physical books; any ebook purchased beyond the first 22.5 books would be akin to preventing 7.46 kg of CO2 emissions, in addition to reducing the use of natural resources (e.g. water and wood fiber) that would have gone into a physical book.

You know what’s really amazing? Someone actually took the time to figure out the “carbon footprint” of a book. If that doesn’t tell you how obsessed these climate alarmists are, nothing else will.

But, you know what this means? It means that I, your humble pirate writer who thinks that anthropogenic global warming is a load of mule fritters, am quite a bit more “green” and better for Gaia than most of the Warmists. I have a Kindle. Had it since 2008. I read quite a few books, averaging one every week or two, and read almost exclusively on the Kindle at this point. Once you get used to using it, you almost do not want to read paper books. I gave Mom one for Christmas, and she is already hooked. I’ll actually hunt down a book I’ve read before and want to read again on the Internet, rather than reading my paper copy or going to the library. And, I save money over purchasing books at the bookstore. Plus, I find all sorts of cool books that one rarely, if ever, finds in the bookstore. And I help out small and unknown authors.

And, I will go to the library now and then, and “share the environmental impact”, as the Warmist writer says.

So, are all you Climate Realists more “environmentally friendly” than the Warmists? Hey, I wonder what the carbon footprint is of all the corporate made liberal protest signs and Che pamphlets?

Oh, and what are you reading now? I’ve gotten caught up with zombies and end of the world stuff lately.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.