Nope. You missed the point. Read the post right above yours.

99% of the respondents have missed the point. Yes, we all know that sugar contains carbon. Domino is trying to seem “environmentally sensitive” because they burn their cane wastes for milling. It so happens that it saves them a fortune in electricity, and it’s what any smart sugar business does. The main deal in the “carbon-neutral” issue is really the fact that Domino, like any other big farmer, GROWS PLANTS. In that sense, they are indeed sequestering carbon, just like planting forests (or any crop) would do.
But all this is a cover. We in Florida know what degenerate polluters the sugar companies are. They use incredible quantities of fertilizer; poor management causes huge amounts of run-off, thus the eutrophication (choking) of our streams and lakes by algae and other water plants. It’s caused vast damage to the Everglades and other areas far beyond the sugar fields.
How can we tell? Upstream from sugar farms, the streams etc. are fine; downstream, they’re a slimy mess. You do the math. They’ve been told to either treat or recycle this run-off, but can’t be bothered to do it properly. (The state is paying a fortune to buy back fields from the sugar companies, just because of this polluted mess.)
So Domino is merely trying to look environmentally conscious, as a cover for the fact that they’re one of the biggest polluters — just not of smoke and CO2. (Oh, BTW, they still run all the tractors and reapers on diesel. Perhaps the sugar fields sequester as much carbon as the tractors emit, though that’s debatable.)

For those ~snip~ here who buy the right-wing pap that “carbon dioxide is harmless” — Even leaving aside the greenhouse gas aspect, CO2 is our waste product, every time we exhale. And NO CREATURE CAN LIVE IN ITS OWN WASTES. By vastly overproducing our waste product, we make our globe a little less habitable every day. That panicky feeling you get when you hold your breath underwater for too long? It’s not from oxygen deprivation; it’s from carbon dioxide build-up.

Don’t believe me OR them, please. Do your own UNBIASED research.
Back to Mencken’s point: lots of folks say they’d sooner believe an ignorant dirt farmer than some professor. But as in all things, follow the money. If it’s gonna cost that dirt farmer more not to pollute, he won’t believe in pollution, even while his own family is choking from the smoke.
Without going overboard — when are we going to grow up as a species, and take responsibility for ourselves, look after one another, and clean up our messes before they get out of hand? So okay, don’t be an environmentalist. But please — be an adult.
Peace,
David

The article is hilarious!

http://mybrands.com/Product.aspx?pid=4833

Yes, it’s CarbonFree Organic Sugar.

I’m afraid that most people who examine the picture ask me what’s so funny about it — even after I try to explain it to them.

Ironically, “organic” means compounds containing carbon atoms; I wonder how long it will be before we see products advertised as “organic CarbonFree®”? Oh – wait – Domino have done that, too: http://www.floridacrystals.com/content/110/carbonfree.aspx “Florida Crystals® CarbonFree® Organic and Natural sugars…”
(The Domino FAQ at http://www.dominosugar.com/carbonfree/faq.html lists Florida as their “sister brand”.)

I heard this ad yesterday and immediately fired off and email to Domino and let them know I would be purposely NOT buying their sugar because of this asinine commercial and their perpetration of this “carbon is evil” scam. I suggest everyone else do the same.

[Reply: Providing Domino's email address would be helpful. ~ dbstealey, moderator]

Let’s not go down the road boycotting companies. They are only playing too the fad, as companies do. A better approach is to point out the ridiculousness of their claim and suggest they could explain on the back of the packet how they are energy officiant. This would politically neutral and educational for the kiddies. It would also divert the adults attention away from their children’s rotting teeth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

“No common and concise definition exists for fascism and historians and political scientists disagree on what should be in any concise definition. … Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism. … Benito Mussolini promoted ambiguity about fascism’s positions in order to rally as many people to it as possible, saying fascists can be ‘aristocrats or democrats, revolutionaries and reactionaries, proletarians and anti-proletarians, pacifists and anti-pacifists’. … Mussolini claimed that Italian Fascism’s economic system of corporatism could be identified as either state capitalism or state socialism, which in either case involved ‘the bureaucratisation of the economic activities of the nation.’ … Fascist states have pursued policies of indoctrination of society to their fascist movements such as through propaganda deliberately spread through education and media through regulation of the production of education and media material. Education was designed to glorify the fascist movement, inform students of it being of major historical and political importance to the nation, attempted to purge education of ideas that were not consistent with the beliefs of the fascist movement, and taught students to be obedient to the fascist movement.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism

“Corporatism is a system of economic, political, and social organization where social groups or interest groups, such as business, ethnic, farmer, labour, military, or patronage groups that are joined together under a common governing jurisdiction to achieve societal harmony and promote coordinated development. … The word “corporatism” is derived from the Latin word for body, corpus. This meaning was not connected with the specific notion of a business corporation, but rather a general reference to anything collected as a body. Its usage reflects medieval European concepts of a whole society in which the various components – e.g., guilds, universities, monasteries, the various estates, etc.-each play a part in the life of the society, just as the various parts of the body serve specific roles in the life of a body.”

OK Anthony – I am inspired by this wonderful new Carbon-Free Sugar.

Specifically, I have taken a very large sum of money from my right pocket, and transferred it to my left pocket, purchasing Carbon Credits for the entire coal reserves of the USA!

That’s right! From this day forward, ALL US Coal is Carbon-Free!

Dang. I went to feed the coal stove this morning and found that all my coal had turned into slightly radioactive ash. At least I know who to blame.

If I buy coal (or oil) futures, I am investing in carbon that hasn’t been used yet and am therefore offsetting my present use for heating/electricity/transport, so I should get some credits, yes?

It can then be sold when all the AGW nonsense has been debunked.. :-)

We could probably argue all day about what constitutes ‘artificial’ (I think CuSO4 occurs naturally) but what I should have said is ‘complex’ or ‘synthetic’, perhaps. Either way, it doesn’t appear in Drano, AFAIK, although that does contain sodium chloride, a.k.a. table salt, so I don’t quite follow your argument.

All things being equal, I would rather my food were produced with minimal intervention, as I would in my garden. Sulphur and copper sulphate are among a limited range of permitted simple, non-systemic, treatments (sulphur and copper are also essential dietary trace elements) that are worlds away from the complex synthetic compounds like neonicotinoids that kill bees, for instance. See how much pollination you can do without them!

GM may provide a temporary advantage, if you don’t mind glyphosate in your corn flakes, but it only raises the stakes, as the herbicide resistance will naturally transfer to the weeds, for which new and more drastic remedies will have to be found. Ditto pesticide resistance.

Or do you think that agrochemical companies really have your best interests at heart?

Sorry if this is OT, but it’s not wholly irrelevant, I hope.

OK Anthony – I am inspired by this wonderful new Carbon-Free Sugar.

I have just declared myself a Carbon-Free Trade Zone. Every morning, I add up all the CO2 I’ve use in my previous day’s activities. Then I buy Carbon Offsets from myself, carefully taking money from my right pocket and transferring it into my left pocket.

There! All better! I’m Carbon-Free!

****************************

Good morning Anthony and moderators:

I am feeling particularly good today, and especially benevolent towards my American friends and neighbours.

As a gesture of international goodwill, I have extended my Carbon-Free Trade Zone to encompass the entire USA.

Specifically, I have taken a very large sum of money from my right pocket, and transferred it to my left pocket, purchasing Carbon Credits for the entire coal reserves of the USA!

That’s right! From this day forward, ALL US Coal is Carbon-Free!

Since the US has about 30% of global proven coal reserves, I’ve also solved your energy problem.

You are welcome, all in a day’s work, and it’s still before 4am here.

Enjoy your day.

**************************************

Hey, if Al Gore can do it, so can I.

…such food has been produced without artifical fertilisers, herbicides or pesticides.

Except that is not remotely true. Organic means produced with hippie-approved artificial pesticides, such as copper sulfate, more commonly found in Drano.