I’m truly sorry for the title, but it says what I think about this succinctly. I tried half a dozen variations and kept coming back to the one word.
There are days when I think I just won’t see anything stupider cross my inbox. Then, today brings a new surprise on the winds of change. Carbon Free Sugar. Let me repeat that. Carbon Free Sugar – certified even.
Those of you who remember their basic high school chemistry might remember this simple and indelible truth: sugar contains carbon.
There is no getting around that. Don’t believe me? Try frying up some sugar in a sauce pan and watch the results. Or just pick up a used mass spectrograph on Ebay and run an analysis.
Or just consult any number of chemical handbooks. Sucrose is common table sugar (as pictured in the bag) and has the chemical formula: C12H22O11
Looks like twelve atoms of carbon combined with eleven molecules of H2O doesn’t it? That’s why it is called (drum roll please) a carbohydrate.
Eating and digesting sugar turns it into water and carbon dioxide that we exhale, so for it to be truly “carbon free” as the label says, we have to get those twelve molecules of Carbon out. So how do they get the carbon out of that sucrose anyway? It’s really easy, all we need is a catalyst.
Reacting sucrose with sulfuric acid (H2SO4) dehydrates the sucrose and forms the element carbon, as demonstrated in the following chemical equation:
- C12H22O11 + H2SO4 (as catalyst) → 12 C + 11 H2O
So assuming they get the acid out of the mix, we are left with some pure carbon and a bunch of water. Yummm! Perfect for cereal in the morning.
Ok, I’m being a bit extreme, I realize the idea is to promote a carbon neutral production of sugar.
But really, couldn’t the marketing people at Domino realize how stupid this claim sounds? I’ll bet the guys at the Domino company labs are having a fit. I’d love to see the emails that went flying when they learned of this one. Beakers were probably flying across the lab too.
But some companies will do anything to appear green these days, because they want to keep that “other green footprint” high.
Ah, the sweet smell of success.
Another fine example of turning ignorance into money.
They better not mess with Imperial Sugar or my Dublin Dr. Pepper!
It’s as bad as the words “Natural”, “All Natural”, “100% Natural”. If you can’t find it growing in the wild, it ain’t natural.
I think what they meant to say was “carbon neutral” sugar. Which is also a non-statement.
Great post Anthony, but the sad reality is that this works in North America. Nummerate people who have even a basic grasp of science are about one in fifty.
Let’s face it, the curent president and his collection of ivory tower idiot advisors would grasp this as proof that their theories are correct. Now there is a reason to hope for change.
It has nothing to do with science. This is akin to holy water. Those who buy it and use it will feel more righteous. They are doing their little part to “save the planet”. Hallelujah.
The only appropriate reaction:
Facepalm
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b24/Nightmare30/Funny%20stuff/facepalm.jpg?t=1241492789
Anthony…thanks for a great laugh to end the evening, I needed this one after being hit with the Tropicana Orange Juice Carton just now, which proclaimed that I could save the rain forest…but not for its own sake, but because loss of the rain forest leads to climate change. Isn’t the rain forest worth saving on its own merits? Sigh. My son then informed me that the media, swine flu and global warming had formed an unholy alliance to irritate me each day. Anyway, my wife is a chemist, and loved your work on this one as well (she wants to know how much mass specs are going for on eBay.) Expanded our definition of an “alternative chemical reality” too…
If it were not for the dumbing down of America by the public school system, they would not be able to get away with such nonsense.
Utterly tasteless!
They’ll have to pry my Demerara Cane sugar out of my dead cold hands. Ha!
Not only has truth gone out of “science” these days, “Truth in Advertising” is gone out as well!
At a buffet a few years back, the guy at the dessert table said that all the desserts were made with fat-free sugar. My friend Martha, known for her acerbic wit, nearly lost it right there.
Duhhhhh !!???
Remember the old saying – was it P.T. Barnum?
“Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.”
If I see any products like this on the shelves at my local supermarket then I think it’ll be time for me to change brands.
Do not apologize for the title. That’s a word (along with another vulgar and more precise term) that I’ve been using a lot lately. If we don’t vent our heads will EXPLODE !
Biofuel baby.
From the ad,
“The label CarbonFree® means the product’s carbon footprint is rendered neutral by cutting green-house gases. And that’s a sweet thing for all of us!
Our certification is unique because our Florida farmed products’ carbon neutrality is the result of our own production and supply of clean, renewable energy, which replaces the use of fossil fuels. Our renewable energy facility generates eco-friendly power for our sugar milling and refining operations as well as tens of thousands of homes.”
They are using some forms of renewable energy (hope it is not Ethanol!) to power the sugar mill and refinery. They are probably burning the sugar cane in a boiler, after the syrup is squeezed from it.
Nothing to do with changing the chemical structure of sugar.
This will allow the company to sell carbon credits, likely for a sizeable profit.
We should all get used to this sort of thing. It will be seen more and more as Global Warming laws are enacted.
Sugar without carbon is water.
People have been stupid enough to pay a fortune for water in bottles for years. It’s no coincidence that Evian is naive spelled backwards.
Now they are being invited to buy water in a packet and to pretend it’s sugar. If they believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden and that computer games can provide proof of the ridiculous, let them also believe that water is sugar. It’s no skin off my bulbous nose.
There is, however, a serious point here. An additional serious point to the one identified by Mr Watts in the article. There seems to be an increasing trend towards carbon-free this and carbon-free that. Even if we accept that turning carbon into carbon dioxide will result in seven type of hell before breakfast, carbon itself is not the enemy of anything. It is an example of what happens when hysteria is whipped-up.
“What is carbon dioxide?”
“I’m not sure but it’s got carbon in it”
“So it’s got carbon and dioxide. What’s dioxide?”
“Never heard of it, never seen it in the shops.”
“We’d better watch out for that carbon stuff then.”
And so hysteria against a gas (harmful or not) turns into hysteria against pencils. We are seeing exactly the same thing happening in Egypt where they are engaged in a mass slaughter of pigs because of so-called swine flu even though it is human-to-human contact that puts (a tiny number of) people at risk and Miss Piggy is innocent of anything.
Last summer while lecturing aboard a ship on a trans Atlantic run I picked up a cup of yogurt that made a big deal on its lid about being from a carbon neutral company. I sent the company a note pointing out that the fermentation of the milk sugars in the process of creating yogurt emits quite a bit of CO2 (in percentage terms).
There was a link from a WUWT post to an article about a town in India with no carbon emissions, but plenty of soot from burning homefires. (I don’t have to point out the obvious, do I?)
Carbon free sugar, carbon neutral yogurt, and burning wood that does not have CO2 emissions . . . clearly the majority of our citizenry did not do well in high school science classes. The level of stupid continues to rise. I say, bring back the fine art of ridicule.
I am afraid that it will become much worse before it gets any better. Buy smaller belts while you can boys it is going to be hungry time around here soon.
Bill Derryberry
“Carbon-free” is one of those PC merit badges that gets you into the club of international leftie approved businesses, along with “fair trade” (as if free trade isn’t fair), “dolphin safe” (Free of Flipper meat), “organic” (hey, pure C12H22O11 is an organic chemical, right?), “free range” (because fences = private property = bad), “BGH Free” (ghu forbid that the consumer be able to afford cheaper milk), “Bt Free” (as if plants safe from pests are dangerous for people).
I am speechless! (OK, not really) I can’t decide whether to keep laughing at the stupidity or scream…at the stupidity. Maybe my dream of fat free, calorie free great tasting milk chocolate candy is right around the corner!! Assuming we leave enough CO2 in the atmosphere to actually let the cocoa plants grow.
My God, man. Settle down. They explain in the ad what “Carbonfree” means. It is a certification about carbon neutrality from an independent site – carbonfund.org. Plain as day.
Why are you so worked up? Do you think that reducing carbon dioxide emissions is a BAD thing to do? Forget about whether it is a GOOD thing or not. Are you going to start attacking efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emission?
Oh – and by the way – where do you think the carbon in sugar comes from? Obviously from the CO2 in the atmosphere – thus making the production and consumption of sugar a carbon cycle. You act like it’s a fossil fuel or something.
I repeat – this is not a bad thing.
THe amazing part is, the cane and wood is harvested without using any fuel! Yep… and the lights in the factory, as well as the printing presses for the packages and, big one, the DELIVERY TRUCKS that cart the product away and warehouse it, and deliver it to supermarkets all over the continent… all Carbon Free.
I know it’s true because that’s what their ad says. Carbon Free. And you can’t lie in an advertisement, right? That’s against the law.
Their point is that the carbon in the sugar is absorbed from the atmosphere when the cane is growing. It is returned to the atmosphere when the sugar is consumed by a person and he or she exhales CO2. I’d prefer the term “carbon-neutral” to carbon-free.
However, I bet the planting and harvesting of the sugar cane is done with diesel-powered equipment, and the refining and packaging in factories that run on coal-fired electricity. It is delivered to the stores by petroleum-powered trucks. As a result, each package of sugar requires some amount of previously sequestered coal, oil or natural gas and spews CO2 into the atmosphere.
So, unless all the machinery is running on ethanol, I don’t see how the product can be carbon-neutral.
Sorry Anthony, I’m sure you meant to write atoms, not molecules when describing the contents of the sucrose molecule. Doh!
But as to the point of your post, I agree. It’s incredibly stupid marketing that will be quite successful for the scientifically illiterate society in which we live.
REPLY: Yeah sorry, fixed. I was blinded by science. – Anthony
My cornflakes will never taste the same again!!!
Not only is the sugar carbon free, but the ad says:
“Click here for our new carbon free TV commercial.”
click
I think that everything that has to be said is already said, except for this:
Bunch of hypocrites.
I read this out to my wife and had to keep stopping as I couldn’t see the screen for the tears … its so funny and yet … strangely sad…
If you did invent carbon-free sugar, it would probably kill you.
What’s next?
After they have suceeded in removing all the carbon from Earth, then there will be no more carbon-based life on it, because that contains carbon too.
Sounds like a script out of an Alien Invasion sci-fi flick.
@Smokey,
Hey now…can we be sure the enterprise was truly a carbon free expedition?
PS – Picard Facepalm is a classic.
This may be a case of false advertising. The appropriate wording would seem to be “Carbon Neutral”. The phrase “CarbonFree” appears to be deceptive and misleading to the consumer, as it does not appear that Domino’s Sugar is free of carbon, as their label and marketing materials claim.
My first response was, ‘You’ve got to be s****** me’, but then I remembered this should be a family-friendly blog,
so,
you’ve got to be kidding me!
When the marketing departments latch onto the latest craze fad in health and well-being you can figure that the fad’s in its death spiral.
And by the time all our processed food is all prepared in a politically correct manner, you can be sure it will be tasteless.
Maybe Domino could come out with a dehydrated version. Some folks would probably buy an empty box to reduce their carbon footprint.
I wonder when being a carbon based life form wil become passe?
This just doesn’t irk me….it makes laugh and painfully so.
Erik Ramberg (20:29:22) :
Which is about as meaningful a certification to me as if it came from the neighbor’s cat.
Yes. Seriously, yes.
Yes. If you can demonstrate a credible reason we should, maybe I’ll consider changing that. Otherwise, it’s nothing more than a fad. A mockable fad.
Seriously… come on… you’re playing devil’s advocate, right? You can’t actually be here telling us to not mock dishonest advertising, right?
Wait. The guy on the video is NOT talking about the chemical composition of sucrose but (QUITE CORRECTLY for AGWers) is saying “……reslting in net carbon emission”, n’est pas?
Carbon-free sucrose is also calorie-free. How can they possibly be missing that advertising angle?
OTOH, carbon-free sucrose is just DHMO. Hmm, dhmo.org needs to be warned about this nefarious sneak into pantries everywhere.
Sorry for my typo:
“net carbon emission” should read “no net carbon emission”
Unbelieveable.
Back in the Sixties as a 6th grader among the first chemistry experiments were getting a tablespoon of sugar and heating it until it turned black to show it was made of carbon and the second one was mixing baking soda and vinegar to show how a simple fire extinguisher worked and of course getting the dreaded carbon dioxide bubbles.I guess the EPA will have to issue permits to do these simple things nowadays.
Back then the famed Gilbert chemistry set was still around as were other brands. A kid could go to either the hobby shop or the drug store and buy all the necessary ingredients to make black powder.The drugstore was where you could get the chemicals in bulk versus an ounce or two at the hobby shop. Not any more in CT. I wonder sometimes if the now adults who had chemistry sets and the science project kits as kids are more skeptical of AGW and all this going green ,know your carbon footprint stuff that is going on today.
The label doesn’t seem to suggest buying the bag and storing it, to sequester the non-carbon.
Inspired, I looked for a thermometer made of sugar, but “candy thermometer” has a different meaning. No luck either in finding a candy Stevenson screen.
However, the search did find a community college in the U.K. who summarized a student weather project. “Our readings are split between an automatic weather station on the roof and
a Stevenson Screen at the edge of the playing fields (by a tall hedge).” Argh!
http://www.metlink.org/resources/schools/casterton.html
Are there still any laws on the books about “Truth in Advertising?” I would think that a good trial lawyer could do wonders with the misleading packaging.
Once again, people:
1. CarbonFree is a designation from a separate organization, not from Domino.
2. They explain quite specifically what it means in their ad.
3. The carbon in sugar comes out of the atmosphere, powered by sunlight, thus making cane sugar a very close to carbon neutral product.
4. They are making their production even more efficient by burning their wood waste to create electricity to power their plant – this is again a carbon neutral transaction.
Regardless of whether you think excess carbon dioxide will cause global warming, the true conservative position would be to try and halt the massive change in our planet’s atmospheric composition. This company is doing their part, and making a profit. Good for them.
Oh, this is a bad thing. It’s as bad as saying life as we know it is toxic.
You cannot have the industrial age and the population supported by it without the aid of fossilized biomass.
Did we come this far to have it all come crashing down because of someone’s sick agenda?
Carbon is not the problem. Green Agenda is the problem, and all it’s attendant propaganda and lies. We are carbon too.
Seems to me that the Green Agenda is run by people who are tired of life itself.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire it goes.
Outlaw carbon fuels and replace them with what?
Nuclear.
And where will you place all the nuclear waste?
Dump it and ignore it.
Like all the dumping that Green Agenda conveniently ignores.
At one time, you had the respect, with your Superfund agenda.
OOGreen: Liscense to spill.
Oh what the heck. On the off chance that Domino’s customer service reps aren’t scientists (or don’t remember junior high chemistry), I sent the following to their customer feedback site:
I just read about your new “Certified CarbonFree Sugar” and salute your efforts in reducing carbon. It occurred to me that carbon-free sugar must also be calorie-free and would like to know why you aren’t including that fact in your advertising.
Smokey (20:41:58) When you mentioned dehydrated sugar, all I could think of was a black powder. 🙂
Anthony I have to agree this is stupid, don’t know if mirth or chagrin is appropriate. I suspect it will get stupider and stupider as George M is probably correct.
George M (20:07:48) I agree, this is the root cause.
Mmmmmm ! . Dolphin Friendly sugar, thats what we need.
Now, how do you suppose that Carbon-Free Sugar is package and gets to Market?
What energy will the Market burn to keep it’s store open?
What energy will the consumer expend to get to the Market, get the Carbon Free Sugar and get it home?
What energy will the consumer expend to keep thier home heated/cooled?
What energy will the consumer expend to go to work to earn the money to buy the Carbon Free sugar?
I’m sorry, but while the efforts to produce one product at locale may seem significant, it’s not.
Not only does the lifestyle of the consumer have to change, but so does the efficiency of the other two: Commercial and Industrial.
Then you will have something.
In the meantime, with Coal being given a black eye, the rest of the Fossil Fuels must travel across whole oceans, and don’t tell me that the supertankers are equipped with sails.
Erik Ramberg (20:53:10) :
1. Why don’t they use the standard term, “carbon neutral”?
2. The video says “carbon is a major cause of global warming.” The speaker also refers to their sugar as carbon free with no reference to CarbonFree(tm).
3. So why don’t they call it a carbon neutral?
4. What did they do before? Hold nightly bonfires?
5. Every so often, one should fly off the handle over something trivial. I’m not sure this is something trivial – anyone concerns with the state of science education should be appalled. And we are.
6. Conservation good. It just doesn’t cool the Earth. Or warm the Earth.
“Massive change in our planet’s atmospheric composition?” I put a heck of a lot more CO2 into the atmosphere driving to and from work than I do from the sugar I buy when I need some.
The true conservative approach would be to address the issue top down.
Reduce the immense waste in oceanic and continental transportation.
Reduce the immense waste in power plants who make $$$ running with generators offline or powering Vegas style lighting grids while everyone is sleeping (or trying to sleep !).
Cute little bottom up efforts are swallowed whole by the vast distribution and generation system.
The rest of them will buy some carbons credits with liscence to tax & spill.
They will all claim Green, just like everyone packaged Jumbo and Giant Size (sold by weight, not by volume).
Superfund was a good thing.
This is a paint job. A facade.
I am not impressed.
Tell me, what does
mean exactly?
Yeah, I’ll bet it “displaces” alright.
Sorry, gotta go, keeping the kids awake with my uncontrollable laughter…
It also seems that Domino’s label may run afoul with FDA labeling standards, which state that:
“Free. This term means that a product contains no amount of, or only trivial or “physiologically inconsequential” amounts of, one or more of these components: fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, sugars, and calories. For example, “calorie-free” means fewer than 5 calories per serving, and “sugar-free” and “fat-free” both mean less than 0.5 g per serving. Synonyms for “free” include “without,” “no” and “zero.””
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qa-lab8c.html
While carbon has not been addressed by the FDA, the use of “free” on a food label generally indicates that, “a product contains no amount of, or only trivial or “physiologically inconsequential” amounts of” the component that “free” is qualifying, in this case “carbon”.
Erik Ramberg (20:53:10) According to the IPCC reporting in 2001, the annual human contribution for the 1990’s was 23,100 million metric tons of gas out of a total amount of 793,100 mmtg, or 2.9%. Not a whole lot we could do “to try and halt the massive change in our planet’s atmospheric composition“, even if we contributed zero.
Hahaha… Yeah! And sucrose is synthesized by photosynthetic organisms from CO2:
http://biocab.org/Outline_of_Photosynthesis.jpg
And both phototrophic and chemotrophic organisms disintegrate sucrose through cell respiration and release CO2 to the environment.
Erik Ramberg (20:53:10) : “Regardless of whether you think excess carbon dioxide will cause global warming, the true conservative position would be to try and halt the massive change in our planet’s atmospheric composition.’
Why? CO2 is good for plant growth, seems to have negligible if any impact on global temperatures and as far as we’ve learned thus far is otherwise innocuous. The conservative position is to focus our scarce resources on the areas where they will have the greatest positive impact. CarbonFree sugar isn’t one of them. It’s a silly sales gimmick…
Right. So if I can produce oil with donkey pumps powered by solar cells or wind turbines, can I sell this as “carbon free oil” or even “carbon neutral oil”?
Tell me exactly how “burning their wood waste” is carbon neutral exactly? I must have missed something here.
I wonder where the study is that says “the sugar cane plant converts sunlight to energy more efficiently than any other major crop.”
1. sunlight is energy Did they mean to say “to carbohydrate”?
2. Is this true even when worded correctly? I’ve seen any number of fruiting plants singly produce hundreds of pounds of fruit with sugars exceeding 10%. Cane and sugar beets reach about 22%. Grapes can reach well above that to 28%. Let’s ask them to post their definitions, methodology, and data on-line and see if it stands up to an audit.
I’m sorry, I just can’t seem to let this one slide by Erik. You cannot possibly be serious about your statements. There is no way, let me say that again “no way” that this sugar is “carbon neutral” even in the sense that they may or may not portray here. I would challenge this whole heartedly. This is complete bogus crap.
You all are being a little hysterical about this. Domino is doing a good thing by burning the cane stalks (called bagasse) to run their process. It certainly deserves a lot more support than all the bogus organic certifications, which are fundamentally anti-science.
REPLY: So how is a “bogus organic certification” any different than a “bogus carbon free certification” on food labeling? Recyling and saving energy is fine, food labeling however, comes under legal jurisdiction. The point is that this labeling is over-the-top silly, and wrong to boot.
Let’s turn it around. Let’s say I create a “sustainable” coal mine, where all of the energy used to mine and process the coal comes from renewable or green energy. Wind power turbines and solar cells run the whole process. All the soil is replaced, trees planted, runoff contained, water purified.
I slap a “carbon free” label on my product. Now tell me who will be “hysterical” when they read it. Whether it is coal burned to heat boilers or sugar burned biologically to heat humans, the result is CO2 expelled. – Anthony
Carbon free sugar…
It’s like trans fat free corn chips. I know they mean in the ingredients–supposedly. But how do you keeps trans fat out of the deep frying???
And how is “burning the cane stalks” good? Does that not then release CO2 back into the atmosphere (not that I am personally the slightest bit worried about that). How about the other particulate matter that goes along with it? Have you ever been to a sugar cane refinery? I have many times, and they are extremely smelly and dirty from .. wait for it .. burning cane stalks. You think burning coal is dirty? ha, try tons upon tons of cane stalks… jeez… get a clue..
Again, there is NO WAY that this is carbon neutral by any measure! This is a marketing gimmick plain and simple!
The sugar marketing guys should take the hint from the fat marketing guys. Instead of containing 2 per cent fat, it is marketed at 98 per cent fat free. They should tune down their claim a bit, to 57.8 per cent carbon free sugar.
Can minimal sunspot activity cause hallucinations?
Just when you think this can’t get any dumber….it does!
How do you fight this?
An electric car is co2 free…. but don’t you have to plug it in to an electrical outlet to charge the co2 free power source for the car?
Co2 is produced in making electricity.
REPLY: Unless you have it connected to a solar array. – Anthony
Ridiculousness has now reached new heights!
Carbonfund.org bears closer examination…
AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!
The ignorance of these idiots hurts my brain!
Water, for the love of Pete!
Couldn’t they have at least have called it “Carbon Neutral”? It wouldn’t have hurt so bad!
Erik Ramberg said: ” The carbon in sugar comes out of the atmosphere, powered by sunlight, thus making cane sugar a very close to carbon neutral product.”
Would you be able to enlighten me as to what foodstuffs do not derive their carbon from the atmosphere?
Serious madness and total lies. What’s new in the AGW space?
The compnay I work for pops up a message on my PC to say “Please power off your PC at night to reduce your carbon footprint.”, trouble is it’s on a timer if you don’t respond. So it uses, marginally, more power than my previous power down method anyway. Also, we can’t unplug nor power off any other device like a screen.
Madness!
John F. Hultquist (21:53:46) :
I wonder where the study is that says “the sugar cane plant converts sunlight to energy more efficiently than any other major crop.”
I would say it as follows: “the sugar cane plant converts light to chemical energy more efficiently than any other major crop”.
Of course, the assertion over the super-efficiency of sugar cane plants is not true because maize and sorghum are more efficient than sugar cane on converting light to chemical energy.
Mr Bateman said: (21:15:43) :
“The true conservative approach would be to address the issue top down.
Reduce the immense waste in oceanic and continental transportation.
Reduce the immense waste in power plants who make $$$ running with generators offline or powering Vegas style lighting grids while everyone is sleeping (or trying to sleep !).
Cute little bottom up efforts are swallowed whole by the vast distribution and generation system.”
I’m not so sure. The top-down / bottom-up question has to be considered individually in relation to each issue. In some situations waste happens at the top more than the bottom, and in some it’s the other way around. As a general rule I believe the conservative position is to look at things from the bottom-up, after all there are a lot more people at the bottom than at the top.
Electricity generating companies don’t do it for fun, it is a business. They have to maintain supply capacity and that means there are quiet periods when demand is low and there are busy periods when it spikes to a huge extent. If they supply more than is needed at the quiet times there is waste, it will be diverted to where it does no good but it can’t just sit still and wait until it has to go somewhere. Yet they have to maintain a minimum level of production to keep the whole operation rolling. Our morning cup of tea (OK, coffee over the pond) cannot be made unless the system is operating and overnight that often means a lot of supply is generated and wasted because they need to keep a minimum output in order to be able to respond to morning demand. They improve their systems all the time but they cannot provide an exact supply-on-demand service with current technology.
As for “the immense waste in oceanic and continental transportation”, I have to ask: what waste? International cargo haulage companies (whether operating by sea or air) don’t want waste, they do everything they can to prevent waste because waste means lost profit which means fewer jobs. Their purpose is to make profit not to make jobs, but more profit and more business means more jobs. Those jobs are a cost to the business, but that cost is worth incurring provided they make more profit. The same goes for air and sea transport of people.
There is only one universal measure of waste, that is money. Money exists purely as a measuring device. I measure out £5 and buy a packet of cigarettes, the shopkeeper previously measured out a little less money in order to buy that packet of cigarettes. How do we measure waste from power plants? You can measure it in kilowatt-hours if you want to, but you will only be deceiving yourself. The owners of the power plant know the only measure is money. If they have no customer for their supply they will cut it off if they can. If they can’t they will tick-over and bear the loss because it is part of the price they pay to make a profit in the busy hours.
Whatever we need to measure, we need to identify the appropriate unit of measurement. In every single aspect of business the appropriate measure is the yen, dollar, euro, baht, pound or whatever else applies to your market. Measure in anything else, such as amount of carbon dioxide emitted, and you will cause viable businesses to fold because their customers pay them in money not gases. The result is, and always will be, that the little people at the bottom of the pile lose their jobs in far greater number than those higher up the ladder, and they are the least well placed to find alternative employment.
I apologise that this has turned into a rant but one of the few things that really boils my goat is to read or hear an argument that puts vague theory above the jobs of the little people. The little people are the ones who are hit hardest by everything that damages the ability of business to make a profit.
TC Moore (20:07:39) : “…I needed this one after being hit with the Tropicana Orange Juice Carton just now, which proclaimed that I could save the rain forest…but not for its own sake, but because loss of the rain forest leads to climate change.”
But did you read the label on the back of the carton, TC? How much orange juice is really in there? Hmm?
Initially I was stunned by this. I had nothing I could think to say… It was just so oxymoronic…
Then it hit me: I can now placard my car with “Carbon Free Diesel!” since I often use biofuels! (As an OPEC protest).
BioDiesel can be farmed using equipment that runs on bioDiesel, so it’s a very short trip to make my car Carbon FREE!!!! (Just ignore the soot cloud that comes out the back when I floor it … it’s an OLD Diesel 😎
By the way, Miscanthus sinensis (Zebra grass) is the more efficient plant on converting light to chemical energy (light to carbohydrates).
Just Want Truth… (22:24:33) :
An electric car is co2 free…. but don’t you have to plug it in to an electrical outlet to charge the co2 free power source for the car?
Co2 is produced in making electricity.
REPLY: Unless you have it connected to a solar array. – Anthony
Or a clean, green, honkin’ big nuke plant.
Mike
renewable, sustainable, and 100% organic 🙂
Erik Ramberg (20:53:10) :
Massive change? You mean like this? click
Can’t see the change? Try this: click
Your “massive change” is in the hundredths of a percent of the atmosphere.
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!
Carbon-Free at last! Carbon-Free at last! Great God Almighty, I’m Carbon-Free at last!
Say! Maybe I could sell my Carbon Offsets to other people and especially to big bad business. First I’ll have to get my government to REQUIRE people and companies to buy my Carbon Offsets. We’ll call our scheme “Cap and Trade”. I’ll make Billions, I tell ya!
I’ll be rich AND Carbon-Free! And I’ll keep my SUV!
Wait a second, you say it’s already been done? Some guy named Al Gore? Aw shucks! Now what are the odds of that?
*******************************
Although I agree with the other points you made in your post, I have to say that the Egypt mass slaughter of pigs is not due to swine flu hysteria, Moslem authorities did that to piss off the christians living in Egypt. Like in this Sugar ad example, there are witty people around us who don’t believe in these things, but they play along to make a profit, either commercial, religious or both.
I will NOT let these idiots tango my twice weekly double shot mocha latte treat. Nor the iced Danish that accompanies it.
No different from:
Made without chemicals.
Which has been used in hundreds of products for years.
I’d like to see a new resistance group… K.A.P. & T.R.A.D.E… Kids Against Propaganda & Teachers Raging Against the Destruction of Education…
I just love the Red Star over the ‘I’ in their Domino logo. Sign of things to come?
Katherine (23:44:01)
Massive change? You mean like this? click
Can’t see the change? Try this: click
Brilliant! Best laugh all week. We are fortunate to have this fantastic blog site, even more so to have a editorial policy that allows posts from people of all persuasions, including befuddled alarmist snipping snippers (sorry – just get SO frustrated with ’em sometimes).
Erik Ramberg (20:53:10) :
OK, Eric, we take your point, which is perfectly valid. But this redefinition of what normal language means is pernicious. “CarbonFree” (no doubt ®) has been redefined in the small print to mean something other than what the ordinary reader will think on first sight, and first impressions are what advertising works on. Similarly, “Organic” has been hijacked to mean other than something that is or was alive. (Ever tried eating an inorganic potato? Most people call them flints!) “Climate change” is also subject the same sort of manipulation. It does leave me with a slight problem in that I should like to call myself a Climate Change Denier (BTW what has that got to do with nylon stockings?) but can’t because I recognise that the climate has been changing ever since Earth had an atmosphere.
On your last point, since the atmosphere receives and loses some twenty times as much CO2 each year as man emits it is very hard to maintain that CO2 levels are increasing because of human input. Do you know of any other natural system that is so finely balanced that a 5% increase will throw it out? Much more likely that the CO2 rises we are seeing today are the result of warming in the past leading to the loss of permafrost and drying-out of peat bogs, etc.
My link pasting didn’t work. You’ll have to go to Katherine’s original post to get the clicks to open…
I Think I will switch to honey on the cornflakes !! Think of all that hard work by the bees , the greenies will certainly approve that honey be deemed carbon neutral !! The formula is still the same though.
Is this what you call ‘radical innovation’?
Or sugar’s answer to cubic zirconia?
a few more suggestions:
‘pork-free porkers for Muslims’?
‘grape-free wine’?
‘English-free football in England’?
Eh????
Around here we have a large greenhouse industry.
So they have large refrigerated CO2 tanker trucks taking the CO2 to the greenhouses.
Apparently it makes the plants grow.
Proof that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
I think you’re correct in saying that you are “being a bit extreme.” But so is the advertising. At least you recognized that. Few if any of those posting thus far did.
The “carbon free” statement made by the manufacturer’s labeling addresses the “carbon footprint” associated with the manufacture of the product (sugar in this case); in this case the refer to the following: “clean renewable energy, which replaces the use of fossil fuels” and a “renewable energy facility [that] generates eco-friendly power”.
The “carbon free” statement does NOT refer to the actual contents of product.
Clearly, the company’s lawyer’s played their part in dreaming up this semantics-splitting advertising.
Anthony, are we going to have to snip your headline? Thanks for the chemistry lesson and all the laughs from the fine wits and exasperated carbon-based entities. I hope you and your fellow scientists go after Erik Ramberg’s “the massive change in our planet’s atmospheric composition” big-time. Make it something for the general public so it can go viral, if I dare make such a suggestion at this particular time.
As consumers we can let companies like this know that towing the line behind a batch of bad science isnt going to sell any sugar. You would be suprised how effective a little note to the company really is.
On an off note.. I wonder if they mix their waste ‘wood’ with conventional fuel to get that tax credit.. hehehe.
I wonder if Gore found a way to make a buck off of it?
The ad must have been created by carbon-free lifeforms.
One possibililty we should consider is the new uses in cooking that could result from the development of carbon free sugar. For example, it may be that carbon free sugar could be the only sugar that will dissolve, at room temperature, in hydrogen free water. Thus allowing the first true upside down cake to be cooked in a normal oven. We live in such wonderful times.
I’m awake now and reviewing the posts here. I’m stunned, people.
Here is a sample:
“And how is “burning the cane stalks” good? Does that not then release CO2 back into the atmosphere…”
“Whether it is coal burned to heat boilers or sugar burned biologically to heat humans, the result is CO2 expelled. – Anthony”
————————————————————
Do you not understand that burning plant matter that is grown now is fundamentally different than burning coal, whose carbon was laid down hundreds of millions of years ago? You guys ridicule Domino sugar for their ignorance, but then display quite a bit yourself.
Very simply: when you grow plant matter and then burn it, you are taking one molecule of CO2 out of the atmosphere for every CO2 molecule that you return. That is called carbon neutrality.
Here’s another stunner:
“On your last point, since the atmosphere receives and loses some twenty times as much CO2 each year as man emits it is very hard to maintain that CO2 levels are increasing because of human input.”
I urge you people not to go down the road of trying to argue that man is not fundamentally changing the atmosphere and oceans. It is 100% guaranteed that you will lose that argument. Feel free to argue whether those changes will induce other changes, or whether these changes are good or bad – but make no mistake about it: the atmospheric composition and the oceanic P.H. are being significantly affected by burning of fossil fuels.
How about this then?
http://www.nuclearpowernothanks.co.uk/
The symbol is of a smiley sun.
This is at least as stupid as the phrase ‘stop climate change’.
I think this perfectly illustrate why some people are chemists and others work in marketing or public relations.
It’s also another great example of how science education has failed in this country. Since I live in Kansas, I can really appreciate that.
OT: The new governor of Kansas worked out a deal to allow a new coal-fired plant to be built in the western part of the state. (http://www.kansascity.com/637/story/1178538.html)
If you read the details, you will see that some older, dirtier power plants will be taken offline as part of the deal. The net effect is cleaner air.
Carbon free charcoal! Created by burning wood – a renewable. Packaged in paper – comes from trees -renewable.
Buy some today.
QUoting:
“- but make no mistake about it: the atmospheric composition and the oceanic P.H. are being significantly affected by burning of fossil fuels.”
Commenting:
Ad the prefix “in” to the word “significantly” and you might have a workable hypothesis.
Otherwise, I laugh on you!
Erik:
Please cite the studies that show that man is “fundamentally changing the atmosphere and the oceans”. Arond here, we look long and hard for these studies.
I would be laughing if I were not already crying at the lack of scientific understanding all around me.
Erik Ramberg (05:33:41):
Eric, you need to back up. First, you have not shown that CO2 is harmful [and based simply on your designation of pH as “P.H.”, it appears that you’re not science oriented, but are just parroting the ubiquitous alarmism that permeates the media. That’s what they want you to do. But you’re better off thinking for yourself].
In the geologic past, CO2 levels have been many thousands of parts per million higher than today — for millions of years at a time — without “acidifying” the oceans or “fundamentally changing the atmosphere.” There is nothing to become alarmed about.
Geologically speaking, when CO2 was much, much higher than its current very low levels, there was no runaway global warming, and the extent and diversity of life on Earth was abundant. It exceeded today’s. CO2 is beneficial, not harmful. More is better at today’s low levels. Life could not exist without CO2. The planet needs more of this minor trace gas, not less.
Saying: “It is 100% guaranteed that you will lose that argument” is simply wishful thinking. The CO2=AGW hypothesis has already been falsified by the planet itself: as CO2 rises, global temperatures continue to fall.
I just re-read the ad. They claim that burning their processing waste and waste wood to generate electricity saves 1 million barrels of oil each year. Did they (or would they) really burn oil for electricity otherwise? They must be the only place that does any more.
I think Domino missed an opportunity here that is even more idiotic than what they marketed. They should be selling sugar as a product that sequesters carbon. They collect carbon into a crystalline form and sell it in bags. People ingest the carbon, some of which is converted to fatty deposits, and some of which is converted to solid waste. That solid waste eventually is converted into soil.
Domino should be charging Al Gore’s carbon credit companies to sequester carbon. They can also be selling carbon credits to ‘big polluters’ under the new cap and tax scam.
Any company that sells wood products is in the same position. They are sequestering huge amounts of carbon in the wood that forms their products.
Should homeowners get carbon credits based on the construction materials in their homes?
Now if there was only a way to create legislation that would allow Evian to charge for water credits due to their sequestration of anthropogenic water vapor pollution…
What a stupid game this is.
It’s no worse than the term “organic” with reference to it’s “health-value.” To a chemist, “organic” simply means the molecule contains a carbon atom.
Read the ad copy and you get the feeling of Enron accounting methods at work. That may be the answer to defeating the cap&trade scheme: deduct from your carbon tax all of the “carbon-free” products you use. If you’re diligent enough with record keeping the EPA might owe you money. Just remember not to account for exhaling, of course.
Erik Ramberg (05:33:41) :
We’re just having fun with you – at least you’re a real live entity instead of Dominosugar.com.
“Fundamentally changing the atmosphere and oceans.” We’re adding CO2, but that’s been in the atmosphere at higher concentrations in the past. Aerosols? Volcanoes do that better. Chlorofluorocarbons? That might be fundamental change, but people are discovering that what we thought was happening is wrong, so it’s uncertain just what the effect is for that chemically, and as GHGs, well, it looks like we have a lot to figure out about them too.
If Akasofu’s thesis that temperature change is due to PDO and recovery from the LIA holds up, then well, sorry we’re picking on you, but you make it too easy! Thanks for posting.
Erik
..fundamentally different than burning coal, whose carbon was laid down hundreds of millions of years ago
And how does the length of time make it different? Coal is very old and compressed timber, which obtained its carbon from the atmosphere, like other plants. Carbon neutral, in other words.
Not surprising, really, since they’ve long since stopped making the stuff…
Eric, you should know better. Site your sources please. Please do not use modeled sources but actual measures of ph on a regional basis. You also need to site your source for CO2 concentrations. In case you don’t know, most such data is based on modeled information of outgassing and uptake, not actual measured data, on a global basis.
Erik Ramberg (05:33:41) :
I urge you people not to go down the road of trying to argue that man is not fundamentally changing the atmosphere and oceans. It is 100% guaranteed that you will lose that argument.
How much do you have to pay to Carbonfund.org to use this 100% Guaranteed label?
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]
This reminds me of The Pancake House in Kirksville, Missouri.
They cooked in “100% fat-free oil.”
AGW is, in general, a marketing scheme.
Here, in south Louisiana, the nastiest vehicle one can be behind is the average sugar cane truck at harvest time. Not cement trucks, not septic pumpers, not dump trucks, but sugar cane trucks. Barely running, soot-belching, noxious hydrocarbons, continuously losing small pieces of their load, and usually on a 2-line state highway with few passing zones.
You guys do know why press-1-for-English continues to exist when calling even local businesses and why asking for an English copy of the welfare forms causes a problem at that office…because we allowed it. I am going to vote with my wallet and my wallet has a long memory.
Blockbuster asked for a membership fee in 1993. They wanted me to pay them so they could make money off of me. To this day, they have seen not one penny from my wallet (16 years and counting).
Domino will get the same treatment, as does everything GE on a retail level.
Erik Ramberg,
We are not at all fundamentally changing the oceans or the atmosphere due to CO2.
CO2 is not a new chemical, it is not being added in toxic amounts, nor is it being added in amounts that will fundamentally change any aspect of the planet. The oceans will not support less life due to the CO2 we are adding. The ice will not melt away due to the CO2 we are adding.
The atmosphere will not harm us due to the CO2 we are adding.
The climate will not change in apocalyptic ways due to the CO2 we are adding.
Deal with it.
Nasif Nahle (21:26:03) :
Hahaha… Yeah! And sucrose is synthesized by photosynthetic organisms from CO2:
http://biocab.org/Outline_of_Photosynthesis.jpg
I wanted to reproduce your post..There are no words to just imagine the extreme naivete of these “gringos”.
Now, let the few among them who still can think, during an epoch which , for them, is the end of time, repeat, those wise words:
GREEN…GO!
Erik Ramberg (05:33:41) Eric, to reiterate, the IPCC claims human contribution to the annual CO2 budget is in the 3% range. So, even if all human contribution is ceased, it will have basically no impact on CO2 levels in the atmosphere. This seems to be cognative dissonance at its best. See IPCC data here:
http://i39.tinypic.com/a29mvr.jpg
So I guess this means the old Texas gusher was Carbon Free TM oil. And doesn’t this mean that Jed Clampett ought to be able to collect on those old carbon credits:
“Then one day he was shootin’ at some food
Up through the ground come a bubblin’ crude
Oil that is… Black Gold… Texas Tea…”
Fuelmaker:
“Domino is doing a good thing by burning the cane stalks (called bagasse) to run their process.”
That is hardly rocket science. I remember Mark Twain commenting (in “Life on the Mississippi”) that when he returned to the Mississippi in the 1880’s the sugar mills were using the bagasse for fuel rather than burning it in the fields as was usual when he was young in the 1850’s. Domino is taking credit for reinventing the wheel.
I have to say, this has been one of the funniest threads in a while… I’m especially entertained by the earnest defense of Domino’s insanely ludicrous claim. Parsing terms like this is a typical sign of activism from one particular side of the “aisle”.
SO I’ll try it one more time just for the record:
Yes, we know the sugar itself can’t possibly be “carbon free”, in which case it wouldn’t be sugar. No, we don’t believe the rest of the process involved in producing the sugar can possibly be “carbon free” either. Yes, we know that “carbon free” is “just a phrase”. No, we don’t think reducing CO2 is any sort of priority.
To quote Vice Admiral William “Spike” Blandy on July 25, 1946 (in regards to nuclear testing at Bikini):
Brilliant quote, actually… it makes a mockery of the ridiculous assertions made by opponents of nuclear testing. So let me carry it on:
I think this attack on Domino is entirely unfounded.
Domino is making use of CarbonFund.Org’s certification to show their product is Carbon Neutral.
It was CarbonFund that came up with the term CarbonFree and they did it to label any product/company as Carbon Neutral and in no way does it imply there isn’t any Carbon in the product, or even that CO2 wasn’t produced to make it, just that the NET output to the environment was neutral.
Domino clearly explains the meaning of CarbonFree.
Why anyone is dumping on Domino for driving the process of creating sugar via use of BioMass is beyond me.
The need to exploit other energy sources besides fossil fuels, where we can and where it makes sense to do so, is not a bad thing.
As Domino says, they save the equivelent of 1 million barrels of oil per year, and for that I say WAY TO GO, DOMINO.
Arthur
It is the same with “ORGANIC FOOD”. Do you know that natural potassium nitrate (KNO3)it is considered ORGANIC , so good for fertilizing “organic plantations” and synthetic potassium nitrate (KNO3) is considered a “CHEMICAL” and so unfitted to fertilize such fields!!!!!!????
Undoubtely Al Gore’s Church has brought to this planet the most stupid cult ever seen.
This seems to have been originated, as someone pointed out here in WUWT, back in the 1960’s, during the Hippies, Beatnicks, Undergrounds, New Age, etc. “culture”, most conveniently “fertilized” with a lot of smoked “grass”, also a lot of the Lyserg di-ethyl-amide acid, and more.
The expected consequences were, of course, in the short term, a lot of “burned to the core” brains, in the long term, to what we se now.
In Latin america, that culture originated all the leftist “revoluciones” and the “revolucionarios” who still survive in NGOs, universities, and some governments.
Clearly the work of “CarbonFree” lifeforms.
Aw shucks. They’ve been selling carbon-free sugar for years. It’s called bottled water. But seriously folks, everybody I talk to about this fails to see the irony. Americans have become numb, they don’t care that advertisers resort to such supreme idiocy. And for me, that is exactly what this is! The pushers of Domino Sugar think I’m an idiot, that I have no original thoughts, that I’m nothing but a mindless zombie, that I’m incapable of rational thinking. And this is only one single example. There are thousands more. I’m sick of it.
I turned my cable off years ago, and haven’t listened to the radio in years. I couldn’t take the insults hurled at me from the mainstream. Since then I have read… heck… I have no idea how many books! I’ve always been an avid reader, but now I’m reading real books – not horror fiction. I’m reading white papers? Me? Yes, I’m interested in the real world again. I’ve found great blogs like WUWT.
Here’s to reviving a numbed brain!
@ Fuelmaker (21:54:25) :
“You all are being a little hysterical about this. Domino is doing a good thing by burning the cane stalks (called bagasse) to run their process. It certainly deserves a lot more support than all the bogus organic certifications, which are fundamentally anti-science.”
True, but burning bagasse is nothing new. It has been done for centuries. If Domino’s has found a way to extract more energy from bagasse than has been done for centuries, then that would be of merit, but they should explain it.
@ Erik Ramberg (20:53:10) :
“They are making their production even more efficient by burning their wood waste to create electricity to power their plant – this is again a carbon neutral transaction.”
Please see above regarding burning of bagasse. I would take issue with your statement of “even more efficient,” unless Domino’s is doing something significantly different and better than what has been done for centuries.
Nevertheless, I doubt burning bagasse provides more than a small portion of the entire sugar refining energy budget. Refining sugar like Domino’s does involves two crystallizations. Each crystallization requires the sugar solution to be boiled (some energy is saved by boiling under vacuum) to concentrate the solution and precipitate sugar crystals. Then the crystals are spun in centrifuges and washed with water to remove the sorghum which is mostly on the surface of the crystals. Then the whole process is repeated for the second crystallization. It is an energy intensive process as it involves 3 phase changes: liquid (cane sugar) to solid, solid to liquid (redissolving the first-crystallization sugar) and then liquid to solid (to obtain twice crystallized sugar). The liquid to solid phase changes are the most energy intensive, but the whole thing involves many pumps, motors, boilers, etc. as very large masses are being moved around.
“Rhys Jaggar (04:31:49) :
Is this what you call ‘radical innovation’?
a few more suggestions:
‘pork-free porkers for Muslims’?
‘grape-free wine’?
‘English-free football in England’”
If you mean English teams without English players: They’ve got it (that’s why “England” plays so badly).
And now my wife gets a carbon-free diamond.
I drink carbon-free sugar almost daily. but I call it ‘water’. Southern colloquialism I guess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil
“Snake oil is a traditional Chinese medicine used to treat joint pain. … The Chinese water snake (Enhydris chinensis) is the richest known source of EPA, the starting material the body uses to make the series 3 prostaglandins. These prostaglandins are the biochemical messengers which control some aspects of inflammation, rather like aspirin which also affects the prostaglandin system. … In time, snake oil became a generic name for many compounds marketed as panaceas or miraculous remedies, whose ingredients were usually secret, unidentified, or mischaracterized — and mostly inert or ineffective, although the placebo effect might provide some relief for whatever the problem might have been.”
Climate Fear Profiteer Corporations make snake oil claims such as the following:
“Our certification is unique because our Florida farmed products’ carbon neutrality is the result of our own production and supply of clean, renewable energy, which replaces the use of fossil fuels. Our renewable energy facility generates eco-friendly power for our sugar milling and refining operations as well as tens of thousands of homes.”
—————————————————————————————————-
“Beware the Eco-Industrial Complex”
Sunday, January 28, 2007
By Steven Milloy
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,246915,00.html
“USCAP members include: Alcoa, BP America , Caterpillar Inc., Duke Energy, DuPont, Environmental Defense, FPL Group, General Electric, Lehman Brothers, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources, World Resources Institute.
USCAP is obviously a politically and economically formidable group that plans to press Congress and the Bush administration hard for global warming regulation, including the ever-dubious cap and trade of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Ah, the old concentrated sulphuric acid and sugar mixture. Don’t try this at home children, highly exothermic as all that solar energy is released.
The carbon released has a volume many times that of the sugar causing a large spongy black tube to emit from the mixing bottle.
Huge problems with landfill and explaining the damage to the kitcen table!
Those were the days when kids could be kids and not ‘young adults’.
> [Reply: Providing Domino’s email address would be helpful. ~ dbstealey, moderator]
No Email, just an annoying web form: http://dominosugar.com/ContactUs.aspx
adoucette (08:26:31) :
> I think this attack on Domino is entirely unfounded.
I think Domino’s attack on our intelligence is entirely unfounded.
> Domino is making use of CarbonFund.Org’s certification to show their product is Carbon Neutral.
Do you shift your car into “free”? Do you expect us to make “free” statements? Is Fox news “Free and Neutral”. (That was a throwaway, please excuse the litter.) Of course, had they trademarked “CarbonNeutral” we’d still have a field day. Sorry, my opinion of this is not free.
> Domino clearly explains the meaning of CarbonFree.
The video refers to “carbon free” with no explanation that it’s a trademark, not even text disclaimer on the bottom of the screen.
The beginning of the end was when “Marketing” became a sought after college degree back in the early 80’s, I think.
Since this is a carbonated post, I will note that our local (Atlanta) sweetened, carbonated beverage company (Coca Cola) markets water with lots of extra carbon – both sugar (yes, now corn syrup) and CO2.
The extra special ingredient in the formula, though, is “marketing”.
Those folks at Domino® Sugar must really think their customers are light in the head.
I started telling my 84-year-old mother about this product and she started immediately rolling her eyes. She knows, as any good cook does, that when sugar’s heated to too high a temp it turns to black carbon; all the water’s been boiled off. That’s why you use a double pot with water in the lower pot to slow heat the sugar. Of course she understands this is just a marketing gimmick to show they’re being ‘environmentally responsible’ and limiting the release of CO2 in the product’s production. That part of the concept just left her shaking her head as if, what’s this world coming to?
Gary: I have no idea how many books! I’ve always been an avid reader, but now I’m reading real books
That is wise indeed!. You know, alchemists, when about to reach the highest level of psychological development, discovered how to read the “mutus liber” (the mute book). The only one who fools won’t ever find in any bookstore just because it is very far and very near, at the same time.
Good for you!!
Well if sugar consists of “twelve atoms of carbon combined with eleven molecules of H2O” maybe they just sell you the H2O. Probably need a different bag though.
Jeremy wrote:
“It has nothing to do with science. This is akin to holy water. Those who buy it and use it will feel more righteous. They are doing their little part to “save the planet”. Hallelujah.”
Jeremy,
While I passionately believe that the science of global warming – and its associated political and commercial fads – are hogwash, that is not true of my Roman Catholic faith. I invite you to read this Wikipedia article on sacrementals for a better understanding of what the use of holy water in the life of faith is truly about, particularly this paragraph speaking of the differences beteen sacrementals and Sacrements:
The Sacraments give grace of themselves and are always fruitful when the faithful place no spiritual obstacles in the way; the sacramentals excite pious dispositions, by means of which the faithful may obtain grace. It is not the sacramental itself that gives grace, but the devotion, the love of God, or sorrow for sin that it inspires, and the prayers of the Church that render sacramentals efficacious against evil.
We can all agree on the nonsense of global warming without denigrating real religion.
Thanks,
-Matt
NOBODY has shown WHO CERTIFIES this product as “carbon free”:
Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), also known as Green tags, Renewable Energy Credits, or Tradable Renewable Certificates (TRCs), are tradable environmental commodities in the United States which represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was renewable (generated from an eligible renewable energy resource)….A popular incentive for buying RECs is to make the claim that your energy use is carbon neutral and hence does not contribute to global warming. However, “off-setting” results in the same amount of pollution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_tags
Matt Beck (Man of the West) (11:24:35):
We can all agree on the nonsense of global warming without denigrating real religion.
Thanks,
-Matt
I agree. I’m not a religious person, but I deeply do respect other people’s beliefs.
Regarding the carbon free sugar… Is it kosher? 🙂
The sugar industry is dependent on the Government’s support. The owners of the Domino-brand must obey the Eco-Industrial-Government Complex’s FIAT to purchase “carbon free” certification from members of the Eco-Industrial-Government Complex. It is kind of like the Government’s fiat to Chrysler to deal with the Italian carmaker Fiat.
http://www.allbusiness.com/food-beverage/food-industry-food-mfg-sugar-confectionery/8955887-1.html
Excerpts follow:
American Sugar Refining, Inc. has finalized its purchase of Ingenio San Nicolas S.A. de C.V., a sugar mill and refinery in Veracruz, Mexico, according to candybusinessinsider, a candy industry newsletter.
American Sugar Refining, maker of the Domino-brand, is owned by Florida Crystals Corp. and Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida.
Florida Crystals is a subsidiary of Flo-Sun Inc., a Fanjul Family company, and Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative is an agricultural cooperative owned by 50 sugar cane farmers.
http://www.answers.com/topic/cane-sugar-except-refining
Excerpts follow:
Sugar mills are located near the plantations on which sugarcane is grown and harvested. In many cases, these are operated by the plantations or as cooperatives by the owners of several sugarcane plantations. United States Sugar Corporation in Clewiston, Florida, for example, is both a grower and manufacturer of raw cane sugar.
In recent decades, the United States has imposed strict quotas on import of foreign sugar, cutting imports 80 percent since 1975. The tariff on sugar imports in excess of the quota was also high enough to discourage imports.
Price supports for sugar in the United States are provided in the form of nonrecourse loans so that sugar growers can borrow money with the crop as collateral. The government sets the value of the crop collateral at a minimum price per pound, guaranteeing that the sugar producer will receive at least that price, even if the commodity price drops. Loans are made to the processor because the raw sugarcane must be milled before being sold or stored. When the raw sugar is sold, the growers reportedly receive payment as well. In many cases the processor and the grower are the same concern.
Pollution in the Everglades. According to environmentalists, agricultural run-off from sugar plantations and milling processes in southern Florida have been responsible for damage to the Everglades. In 1991, United States Sugar Corporation was fined $3.75 million for improper disposal of hazardous materials from one of its Clewiston mills in the Everglades. The company pleaded guilty to knowingly allowing hazardous wastes into local landfills during three harvest years. Environmentalists continue to raise concerns about the impact of the sugar industry on the fragile ecosystem of the Everglades.
This is almost as amusing as the recycled toilet paper that Costco was selling recently. That is nearing the extreme “end” of environmentalism. Where is Sheryl Crow when you need her?
Out of some sort of masochistic curiosity I visited the Carbonfund.org web site. I pressed the “Lets get started” button and filled in the requisite information in the “individuals” forms.
Goodness gracious me! I discovered that all I had to do to be Carbon Neutral was to send a couple of hundred dollars a year to Carbonfund.org! They even gave me the choice of paying by credit card.
What would I get for my payment? A Carbon-clear conscience.
Isn’t that a GREAT bargain?
Try it and see for yourself.
http://www.carbonfund.org/Calculators/
Buffalo Bill, thanks for reminding us how much our legislators and industrialists care about us and can therefore be relied upon to protect us from the menace of “global warming” aka “climate change” aka “climate chaos” aka “atmospheric deterioration”. I for one will sleep much better now.
This makes me think of all the attempts to remove calories from sweetners:
saccharin
cyclamate
aspartame
splenda
stevia
Probably many more. I remember the trials proving cyclamate caused bladder cancer in laboratory mice. I think they were injecting a few grams intramuscularly. Poor little vermin.
Buffalo Bill (12:02:39)
Thanks for the post, BB!
I was reading these wondering when someone would make that point.
If the Obamanation really cared about the prices American consumers pay, and really cared about about Third World farmers, and really cared about CO2, they’d get rid of the sugar tariffs and price supports.
Ric Werme wrote:
I think Domino’s attack on our intelligence is entirely unfounded.
> Domino is making use of CarbonFund.Org’s certification to show their product is Carbon Neutral.
Do you shift your car into “free”? Do you expect us to make “free” statements? Is Fox news “Free and Neutral”. (That was a throwaway, please excuse the litter.) Of course, had they trademarked “CarbonNeutral” we’d still have a field day. Sorry, my opinion of this is not free.
> Domino clearly explains the meaning of CarbonFree.
The video refers to “carbon free” with no explanation that it’s a trademark, not even text disclaimer on the bottom of the screen.
There is no attack on your intelligence.
Domino fully expects you to USE your intelligence to understand that the clearly trademarked term CarbonFree refers to the net CO2 emissions and not the carbon content of the sugar.
Its stated in the print ad and the video CLEARLY states that its the PRODUCTION of the sugar that has a net zero impact on EMISSIONS.
They never claim that the sugar doesn’t contain carbon.
Again, I have to wonder, why are people this ANGRY that Domino has found a way to produce sugar and not use 1 million barrels of oil a year to do so?
If Domino has found an enviornmentally sound way of producing sugar and not using fossil fuels to do so, and do it cost competitively, what about that is not a GOOD THING?
Arthur
Total BS all the way. Forget the product. The only thing they are doing is calculating how much CO2 regular sugar takes to make, then offsetting that in some ways that the Carbon Fund people count as ‘offset.’ Nobody really knows whether it works, and if it does whether it really matters (it doesn’t). ICECAP had a great news item here:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/04/30/what-you-cant-do-about-global-warming/#more-376
If the ‘global warming’ bill in Congress doesn’t have much of any effect, then “carbon-free” sugar is not worth the sugar cane it’s grown from. That’s the truth.
adoucette, nobody here is “ANGRY”
We’re laughing at something that is really funny. That’s pretty much 180 degrees from anger.
I’m sorry you don’t get the joke. Maybe studying up on some chemistry texts might help?
If the green people really want to keep the atmosphere free of carbon, they should stop exhaling! Just kidding! I really do love them no matter how ignorant.
No Bobby, its not BS and what you describe is not what they are doing.
This is not a highly illusionary offset scheme with trees supposedly planted somewhere, this is a comprehensive life cycle analysis and they are using the plant waste material and urban wood waste to generate the energy needed to make the sugar.
According to the company:
The certification began with a life cycle assessment (LCA) by the Edinburg Center for Carbon Management that determined each product’s entire carbon footprint. The analysis spanned from the primary inputs of planting and growing the sugar cane, through the harvesting, milling, processing and packaging, to the product’s final delivery to store shelves. The carbon footprint was then displaced by the company’s own production and supply of clean, renewable energy, which cuts greenhouse gas emissions.
The Domino® CarbonFree® Sugar line is grown, processed and packaged in South Florida. The sugar process is powered by the company’s own renewable energy facility, the largest of its kind in North America, which uses sugar cane fiber and recycled urban wood waste to produce clean energy. The facility also provides electricity for tens of thousands of homes.
Again, why are people attacking this?
Would you rather they use up a million barrels of oil a year instead?
One other thing I find strongly in their favor.
I’ve yet to see any of their videos or press releases use the term Climate Change or Global Warming.
They talk about eco-friendly planting methods, producing renewable energy and reducing the use of oil.
By the way, I strongly suspect that they put they went through the certification process to get that CarbonFree label because its from a reputable orginization and they have to charge a bit more for this sugar (hard to compete with the grid for cheap electricity) and thus it allows consumers who want to tax themselves to pay for this CO2-neutral product the free-market alternative to do so.
And I’m all about free-markets.
Arthur
“And I’m all about free-markets.
Arthur”
Fine, Arthur, buy the expensive sugar. It’s still funny though.
Mike
CodeTech (18:10:05) :
adoucette, nobody here is “ANGRY”
We’re laughing at something that is really funny. That’s pretty much 180 degrees from anger.
I’m sorry you don’t get the joke. Maybe studying up on some chemistry texts might help?
Right, could have fooled me.
Earlier you claimed the company was lying.
Now you are talking down to me.
If this whole tread was that it was Ironic or funny, I’d be right there with you, but it hasn’t been.
Trust me, I know chemistry, and so does Domino, and they are smart enough to figure out how to use chemistry and physics to produce this product from renewable energy.
They DON’T talk about AGW or Climate Change and they DO promote clean renewable energy, and for that they really don’t deserve 140 or so childish comments in what is otherwise one of the best blogs on the internet.
In fact I’ve been so impressed with their creativity that tomorrow I plan to buy some of their stock.
Arthur
adoucette (16:56:19) : “If Domino has found an enviornmentally sound way of producing sugar and not using fossil fuels to do so, and do it cost competitively, what about that is not a GOOD THING?”
*sigh* As others have pointed out, they’re NOT competitive. The US sugar industry depends on exclusion of cheaper imports, remember? So with prices artificially inflated, the cost of patting themselves on the back (advertising) is passed on to the customer.
BTW, I wonder how much it costs (us) to be certified “CarbonFree”?
Gary,
Being globally competitive is an entirely different issue.
But from what I can tell we have a very efficient sugar industry.
http://www.sugaralliance.org/library/2004/ISJ%20article%20Roney%205-04.pdf
Still we import over a million tons of sugar a year and other countries subsisides their sugar growers so there is no simple comparison between countries.
Oh, and remember, I’m all about free markets, so yes the consumer gets to decide if they want to buy Domino or some other brand.
Are you against Advertising and Marketing as well?
Arthur
Nasif Nahle (11:55:28) :
Matt Beck (Man of the West) (11:24:35):
We can all agree on the nonsense of global warming without denigrating real religion.
Thanks,
-Matt
I agree. I’m not a religious person, but I deeply do respect other people’s beliefs.
I don’t agree at all. Vegetarianism ( to which I subscribe) is constantly the butt of jokes and snide comments and that’s fine with me. If you can make fun of me, then I can make fun of you; without having to guess what unrevealed sensitivities you might have.
I don’t expect anybody to respect my beliefs ( I’m not sure that I respect them, myself ) but I do want them to respect my right to hold them. Really, that just means that I don’t want to be imprisoned or fined; you can still not invite me to dinner!
Reply: Ok, I was trying to think of a clever comment here, but I have the mind of a vegetable tonight ~ charles ba dum….ching! the moderator
Actually, competition IS the issue. If the US sugar industry is so competitive, then why continue lobbying for import quotas? If the demand for sugar is so high that we still import it, the US sugar industry should have no problem, right? If Domino’s saves “a million barrels of oil a year”, then they should grind the competition into the dust, no? But if being green doesn’t make them more competitive, then they should pay the price, right? Y’know, like in a free market?
Oh, and if if foreigners are stupid enough to subsidize their sugar industries, too, then great! I don’t mind receiving a little “foreign aid” at their expense.
BTW, I answered my own question. I can send carbonfree.org $99 and get a bumper sticker certifying I’m carbon free, no questions asked. Hopefully Domino’s had to go through a bit tougher “certification process” from this “reliable organization”:
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/08/04/pollution-without-all-that-guilt/
Gary Hladik,
Carbon credit prices, from your link:
If there isn’t massive fraud going on right now in the carbon credit business, I’ll eat my carbon free, sugar coated hat. But hey, at least those do-gooders being separated from their money feel good about it.
“Carbon-free” is NOT the right term for what they are doing.
However IF (a big IF) they are powering their *entire* planting/harvesting/refining/transporting process with energy obtained from the sugar cane, and not from previously sequestered oil/coal/gas THEN they could truthfully claim “carbon-neutral”.
IF the above is true, ALL the carbon in the sugar and ALL the carbon fuel burned to power the process has come from the atmosphere when the sugar cane was growing and is returned to the atmosphere when the sugar is processed and consumed. A net-zero tranaction with respect to atmospheric carbon.
Are people dumb enough to actually go for this? Hint: The answer lies in our ever-increasing “organic” sections at grocery stores.
adoucette… thanks.
I was a little down today, but you’ve cheered me right up!
(For the record, I’m a little down because they closed the factory my car was being built at for “30-60 days”… I’m so looking forward to getting my Hemi Challenger…)
I encourage you to continue explaining Domino’s for me.
Ira, CarbonFree is the term that CarbonFund.Org came up with to certify companies products as being Carbon Neutral.
I agree, its not the best term, but it’s not Domino’s term.
Interestingly Domino does not claim that they use any of the questionable offsets one can purchase from Carbonfund.org to achieve their status.
As far as the powering of the plant, that’s supposedly what the independent 3rd party certified.
Is that a reasonable assumption?
Well, they sell excess power to the grid and one look at the power plant and it certainly seems like its entirely possible.
http://www.floridacrystals.com/content/112/renewable_energy.aspx
The point is, in this long thread I’ve seen no one actually challenge Domino’s claim of being Carbon Neutral with any facts.
Arthur
I remember commercials for Oil Free Oil of Olay, so this is hardly surprising.
gary gulrud (16:13:31) :
This makes me think of all the attempts to remove calories from sweetners:
saccharin
cyclamate
aspartame
splenda
stevia
Anyone interested in the interaction between business, science and politics should read up on Aspartame (banned by the FDA until Donald Rumsfeld, then chairman of GD Searle, got busy) and Stevia, which is a natural product also banned by the FDA and EU, in contrast to the (patented) extracts used by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, which are perfectly safe, apparently.
It is quite difficult to avoid Aspartame, despite its suspected neurotoxicity and (to me, at least) revolting taste!
The point is, in this long thread I’ve seen no one actually challenge Domino’s claim of being Carbon Neutral with any facts.
Arthur – I think the original joke was the implied suggestion that sugar, the daddy of carbohydrates, might be ‘carbon free’. I applaud Domino’s use of their own waste for fuel, although it would be pretty mad to throw it away in favour of expensive oil. Perhaps the worst their production process can be accused of is making a virtue of necessity, but the argument here is more about their marketing.
They have bought into a scheme that has no apparent certification requirement whatsoever, yet it looks as though they might well pass a test for ‘carbon neutrality’ that other subscribers almost certainly wouldn’t. Do they really want to belong to a club like that..?
Perhaps we should leave Domino out of it and turn on the marketers of a scheme that promotes a mythical, but politically-correct, concept on the sole basis of ability to pay…
ever-increasing “organic” sections at grocery stores
I can see that organic chemists might object to the term as applied to foodstuffs, but I think it is generally understood what it means, namely that such food has been produced without artifical fertilisers, herbicides or pesticides. Therein lies its appeal to consumers, who buy it mostly for what it doesn’t contain, and its ability to annoy agrochemical companies and their political representatives.
IIRC, Monsanto lobbied hard for the inclusion of GM crops (and, by extension, Roundup weedkiller) in the definition of ‘organic’. Not only that, but they also wanted the exclusion of any replacement term indicating what has originally been meant by the word!
James P
Except that is not remotely true. Organic means produced with hippie-approved artificial pesticides, such as copper sulfate, more commonly found in Drano.
Allan M R MacRae (02:03:14) :
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.
hippie-approved artificial pesticides, such as copper sulfate, more commonly found in Drano
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.
There! All better! I’m Carbon-Free!
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.. 🙂
Allan M R MacRae (02:57:49) :
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.
Blackshirts, Brownshirts, Greenshirts; same, same, same. If you don’t have your Carbon Neutral sign posted in your corporate window, it is just a matter of time before the Greenshirt Kristallnacht visits you. If you own a business that is dependent on special government support, you have already been visited by the Greenshirts. Florida Crystals had no choice but to obey the green fascist movement’s order to become carbon neutral.
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.”
Patti (07:59:25) :
[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.
If nothing else, Domino are contributing to the corruption of the language. Yes, like the use of the word “organic”. In their FAQ, they say, “The CarbonFree® label strictly refers to the assessment of greenhouse gas emissions and is completely unrelated to the structure of sugar.” But still they use a term that is likely to confuse. And it’s no use them saying it’s a term used by CarbonFund.org – they didn’t have to obtain that “certification.”
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”.)
Drat, you beat me to it. I’ve had a picture of this product posted by my office door for several months now:
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.
There is carbon in everything, it is the largest building block of everything on earth so carbon free sugar is pure bull shyte just as fat free butter is BS, butter is fat.
The image takes me to a page not found
Disregard, I got it.
This thread demonstrates (over and over) how leftists have no sense of humor.
The article is hilarious!
The quote one respondent tried for was from Mencken, not Barnum; and it said, “No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” Mencken also said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
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
David305: “99% of the respondents have missed the point.”
Nope. You missed the point. Read the post right above yours.