From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 05/01/00-07:30:32 PM Z
On Mon, 1 May 2000, Keith Gerling wrote:
> Judy, do have a reference to support this? > "After all, city dwellers with
> mass transit consume much less carcinogen-producing, global-warming inducing
> fossil fuel per capita than country dwellers."
Keith, I actually have come across figures to that effect, but for many
reasons -- custom, ideology, politics, and so forth, the idea isn't part
of the public consciousness, nor is it commonly articulated. For instance
government policy (after they got done ripping up the interurban railroad
tracks so folks would need automobiles) subsidized home mortages by making
them tax exempt, and built the highways at public expense to carry people
there (while taxing the railroads). And, tho we pay lipservice to problems
of sprawl, water table, loss of woodland and natural habitat, etc., why in
the world do we measure national prosperity by, of all things, HOUSING
STARTS !!!???
Etc.
Next time I see anything in figures I'll let you know. Meanwhile, granted,
on the principal that the happy medium does not exist in this city of
extremes, it is customary to either turn ON the heat and steam cook
everyone, or no heat at all, freeze the bastards, as in slumlords .
However, given the givens of heat radiation from the skin of a building,
and the fact that it takes much less fuel to MAINTAIN steam than to create
it in a cold boiler, I wouldn't be surprised if even the overheated
buildings (remember they're clunky, and many stories high, each dwelling
isn't exposed on all sides) are more economical of fuel than private
dwellings exposed on all sides and only 2 stories high.
But that's not why I'm writing... a propos of warning labels on
"chemicals" and their relevance, a couple of years ago I copied the label
on my Light Impressions gum arabic container to the list -- you would have
thought it was arsenic, or even dichromate. Which is to say, these labels
(and also the MSDS sheets) are now REFLEXIVELY worst-case for 5-day a week
8 hour a day industrial level usage, and little if any practical guidance
-- as we have mentioned in these pages a number of times. (Gum arabic,
remember, is what they make gum drops -- and many other confections -- out
of.)
The same thing if not moreso with those hazards books --- which simply
describe the symptoms if you are determined to be suicidal with the
substance at issue. Absolutely no guidance at all for our ordinary usage.
And a word about *why* we have these laws. I've heard enough of the
politics behind some of them to regard all with at least garden variety
skepticism: I have heard, for instance, several times & on excellent
authority that the real reason we can't get formaldehyde (without doctor's
prescription) is that it's an ingredient in some hallucinogen, not crack I
don't think -- what's the other one?
> I'm a country-dweller (and a waste-water-saving gum printer, too) and I find
> that us country folk are usually pretty stingy with use of fossil fuel. For
> instance, I keep my home a good ten degrees cooler than any of my
> apartment-living aquaintences. Just recently, while in my sister's
> apartment in Hell's Kitchen she had the windows open in the dead of winter
> because the steam heat (in the control of the super) was WAY too hot!
Some of that is lazy-super syndrome -- easier to just press the "on"
button than to adjust settings. Some is also because people, especially
the elderly, are so accustomed to too much heat they feel cold below 75
degrees. We keep our house at 68 F, probably warm for you, but for us a
happy medium so to speak -- and much better for furniture, sinuses, and
skin, etc., than hotter. I do notice that visitors from other planets (ie,
"normal" buildings) tend to feel cold. Stony hearted, I show them the
thermometer, and they feel warmer.
But don't I recall (ye gods why do I go out on a limb this way???) reading
that the greatest single use of petroleum is for transportation? Well, OK,
as we know, a good way to find the facts -- or anyway SOME facts -- or
anyway POSSIBLE facts -- is to make an onlist statement.
best wishes to all on a lovely spring day: the oil burner is OFF !
Judy
> .................................................................
> | Judy Seigel, Editor >
> | World Journal of Post-Factory Photography > "HOW-TO and WHY"
> | info@post-factory.org >
> | <http://rmp.opusis.com/postfactory/postfactory.html>
> .................................................................
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