Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Steve Milloy; The New York Times is praising the efforts of low carbon pioneers who reject personal hygiene to save the planet from Covid-19 and Climate Change.
See Fewer People. Take Fewer Showers.
Some people said they started bathing less during the pandemic. As long as no one complains, they say they plan to keep the new habit.
By Maria Cramer
May 6, 2021
Robin Harper, an administrative assistant at a preschool on Martha’s Vineyard, grew up showering every day.
“It’s what you did,” she said. But when the coronavirus pandemic forced her indoors and away from the general public, she started showering once a week.
The new practice felt environmentally virtuous, practical and freeing. And it has stuck.
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Ms. Harper, 43, who has returned to work. “I like showers. But it’s one thing off my plate. I’m a mom. I work full-time, and it’s one less thing I have to do.”
…
Parents have complained that their teenage children are forgoing daily showers. After the British media reported on a YouGov survey that showed 17 percent of Britons had abandoned daily showers during the pandemic, many people on Twitter said they had done the same.
…
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/06/health/shower-bathing-pandemic.html
Of course, if you give up washing for the sake of the planet, you need to examine other carbon intensive aspects of your life.
Stop Using Toilet Paper
Why are we hoarding it when experts agree that rinsing with water is more sanitary and environmentally sound?
April 3, 2020
By Kate MurphyMs. Murphy is the author of “You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters.”
While the coronavirus pandemic is affecting us all differently depending on where we live, our financial situation and our basic health, one universal is the difficulty finding toilet paper.
Panic buying of toilet paper has spread around the globe as rapidly as the virus, even though there have been no disruptions in supply and the symptoms of Covid-19 are primarily respiratory, not gastrointestinal. In many stores, you can still readily find food, but nothing to wipe yourself once it’s fully digested.
This is all the more puzzling when you consider that toilet paper is an antiquated technology that infectious disease and colorectal specialists say is neither efficient nor hygienic. Indeed, it dates back at least as far as the sixth century, when a Chinese scholar wrote that he “dared not” use paper from certain classical texts for “toilet purposes.”
…
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/opinion/toilet-paper-hoarding-bidets.html
Obviously if you rinse every time you use the toilet, you kind of violate the first precept about not washing. So better keep rinsing down to say once per day, or less.
But what is the point of sacrificing your personal hygiene, if your air conditioner is obliterating your carbon savings with a blast of fossil fuel powered home cooling or heating?
Thankfully President Biden is helping the truly committed give up their air conditioners.
E.P.A. to Sharply Limit Powerful Greenhouse Gases
The Biden administration is moving quickly to limit hydrofluorocarbons, the Earth-warming chemicals used in air-conditioning and refrigeration.
By Lisa Friedman
Published May 3, 2021
Updated May 5, 2021WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency moved on Monday to sharply reduce the use and production of powerful greenhouse gases central to refrigeration and air-conditioning, part of the Biden administration’s larger strategy of trying to slow the pace of global warming.
The agency proposed to regulate hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, a class of man-made chemicals that are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet. The proposal is the first significant step the E.P.A. has taken under President Biden to curb climate change.
The move is also the first time the federal government has set national limits on HFCs, which were used to replace ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons in the 1980s but have turned out to be a significant driver of global warming. More than a dozen states have either banned HFCs or are formulating some restrictions.
…
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/climate/EPA-HFCs-hydrofluorocarbons.html
My only question – does the personal stench lower the reproductive success rate for people who follow NYT’s advice? Or do they use the smell to identify fellow believers and mate with each other?
Whatever the answer, lets just say I have no plans to board a rush hour New York subway in the foreseeable future.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
There is a further consideration here, whereby although nobody seems to take into consideration the impact to immunity through an increasingly sterile environment (i.e. pollution is one problem, but the opposite is also surely a problem), but wouldn’t it also be the case that with decreased personal hygiene comes the risk of increased ailment?
“Thaks” to lockdowns we are in the situation not to be affected by much bacteria or what ever.
More we are ouside, meeting people, eat in restaurants etc, we live less sterile.
Less hygiene is less a probleme to immunity but to otherones noses.
The real problem is, as usual, exaggerate hygiene. Normal one isn’t a big problem.
Stop reading the rag..New York Slimes…nothing but all the garbage unfit to print
Without the Social Justice Networks we would known nothing of Anthropogenic PLANdemic or such.
I poop into a 2,000 holding tank that costs hunkdkrkekdk$$ to spread, and I promise that TP is cheaper than a bidet or shower bath. I use about 25 squares of single ply per day. Now Milady Wife, a bit more …
I dunno…makes pretty good TP in a pinch
I spent too much time living out of a Pack, Alice, Large and set of OD jungle fatigues taking whores’ bathes to believe there is any good comes from not washing your nasty a$$. College educated morons, on the gripping hand, are quite stupid enough to buy the line that being dirty does not lead to disease. Hell, they merrily banned DDT.
Yes, a bored immune system tends to attack incredibly minor bugs & viruses with such vigour that it often results in asthma type symptoms or worse types of apoplectic reactions.
A small amount of benign dirt is perfectly acceptable in everyday life.
no why the hell would you have “ailments” unless you took it to extremes and or have a parasite issue at home ie fleas lice bedbugs whatever
Toilet paper panic buying wasn’t a result of pandemy but of lockdowns, why ever….
During the February Texas blackout, the water was off for a week. Not taking a shower for that long was quite uncomfortable, and I can only imagine what I smelled like.
Of course, as the Times regards most people to be smelly peasants, they should literally be that way “for the good of the Earth”.
All others had the same problem, in so far, who cares ? 😀
Just when I thought the level of climate clown show silliness had peaked …
Its like trying to find the lowest possible number. No matter how low you set the mark, there is always something lower.
And we seem to be catering to the societal LCD.
Thank God we have the far left to tell us how to live! Imagine taking all their advice, how one would be living nowadays, HA! HA! HA! They are worse than even new agers.
If these idiots want to lower their carbon footprints, get off Twatter and FarceBook, don’t stop washing
The footprint of FarceBookers is no longer hidden.
Does this person swim in circles?
maybe they should just dig a pit and fill it with water…
then they can wallow at their leisure.
This might work. Millennial Men already look disgusting, which has pushed the birth rate, marriage, and procreation much Lowe in just a generation. Now if they all start smelling and have feces all over their underwear, people would likely stop having babies completely. A world with no humans can’t blame humans when the climate changes without them.
All I can think of is those really smelly hippies at college that you didn’t want to sit next to, or even look at.
Lux,
THAT was a combination of patchouli and body odor; I’m not sure which was used to cover which!
NOW think neo-homelessness as the fragrance; hopefully the Greentards won’t drop a deuce in the street to save the planet!
I remember several years ago when I had no power for about 6 days (after a hurricane) and how thankful I was that the weather wasn’t hot (it was in late August). That, and I had a gym membership at the time and was able to shower at the gym.
That said, I usually shower every two days in winter (when I seldom get hot and sweaty) but have to do so daily in the mid-Atlantic summer humidity. And if I didn’t shower daily in summer I’d use up just about as much water as I’d have to wash my bedding much more often!
As for the toilet paper, a bidet might not be a bad idea (reminds me of when I went to England as a child and I asked my mom when we checked into our hotel why there were “two toilets” in there…) but you still need to dry off after rinsing. Unless you get one of those fancy ones with an air dryer….
Why the climate change movement is really a death cult: All the modern amenities for food, health, clothing, are capitalist luxuries. We must save the planet by returning to 1750’s mortality rates and poverty, reducing the human population by 90%.
This is what the death cultists mean. It is what they say almost daily. It is obviously an exaggerated over-ask, but the cult’s true believers do believe it. It is why they are dangerous. They will kill you and take your things because they are making phantom victims and everyone else is the oppressor — it is only climate justice.
Playing the victim justifies any barbarism. Climate justice is just homocidal revenge for contrived, imagined harm by a false stereotype aggressor against a fictional victim class.
Dangit, Eric, you’ve encouraged me to confess again. In Argentina, where I live most of the year, it was the law that every toilet be accompanied by a bidet (for the non-French, uncultured amongst you, this is like a toilet but sprays water upward when you sit on it). Of course our guest bathroom has one, and the tendency of visitors from the USA to try this out produces clear and unmistakable verbal responses, which causes me to go outside and play with the dogs for awhile. But no TP and the bidet only once a day? Now that is a climate catastrophe for sure as the gases are almost greenhouse types.
I recently purchased a bidet, after I had gotten one for my mom who had had shoulder surgery, and for months was unable to reach behind her. Problem solved, and I had occasion to try it myself, hence my decision to forgo TP. Great decision!
The only problem is that my wife refuses to try it.
I know I’m late to this thread, but dare I remind everyone of the scene in “Crocodile Dundee”, where upon checking into the N. Y. C. hotel, Mick says to Sue,
“Mick: Hey, Sue! Some bloke put two dunnees* in here!
Sue: One dunnee, one bidet.”
At which point Mick asks what it is for. Sue begs off, advising him to ‘figure it out for yourself’.
As Sue reaches the street, Mick has opened the window, and shouts, “For washing your backside!” which Sue acknowledges.
Regards to all,
Vlad
*sorry for any mis-spelling, I’m taking a wild guess at the spelling of ‘dunnee’
I’d post the video clip, but I’m not that tech-savvy; maybe someone here can do it … …
The Progressive agenda to repeal the 20th century. Enjoy.
And possibly even the 19th and 18th for good measure!
Well, we could always go back to the really good old days and build outhouses. Sears catalogue worked well for toilet paper, but I guess we’d have to think of something else.
With online shopping, I really don’t think you want to use your mouse. So we’re still stuck looking for something else.
.
.
Hey! Howz ’bout all those old National Geographic Magazines that no one would throw away? There are probably enough to last for two or three generations.
(My grandparents were like that. They had all of the back issues to 1906 when they started subscribing to National Geographic.)
As I remember, the outhouse on grandpa’s farm was well supplied with corncobs. Been a long time, and I don’t know what modern harvesting does with corncobs.
A single issue of the NYT could serve a family of 3.65 for like a month, give better service than the original intended purpose, and considering content, be properly disposed of in this manner. Unfortunately, you’d still need to clean yourself after.
We just need to convince the leftist to wipe their rears with their iPhones.
If we’re going to limit showers we should also stop turning trees into paper, printing the news on them and driving them around with GHG emitting vehicles for delivery. Not sure why the Times hasn’t mentioned that.
Eric,
Leftist policies that make it easier to separate the sheep from the goats! Maybe that’s a bad analogy as we are speaking of smelly sheep here, but it WILL make it much easier to discern who is a mindnumbed alarmist, and who is a potentially viable mate for perpetuating humanity!
Of course, distinguishing the alarmists from the homeless, and those with severe drug and alcohol problems, may be difficult; but no one ever said life is without challenges! I’m just thankful that my dating days are long behind me; it’s SO much more difficult to find a good’un now. Birkenstocks and patchouli oil used to be good down vote criteria; I’m not sure what constitutes good choices today!
Does this mean the Millionaire publisher will no longer use toilet paper and skip showers while he continues to attend his daily cocktail lunches in fancy restaurants?
The answer to your final question is undoubtedly ‘yes’. Robin’s love life will have had a serious dent. But hey, that will preclude her from having more kids, thus helping the planet even more.
I can see a future with special councelling services for people who took up ludicrous life-style ideas, to wean them off them. After they have realised that there is no climate emergency, that the climate does not need to be protected from them, and that they had fallen for a cruel hoax.
At least they will be easy to identify.
That’s hardly praising those people.
What a shame you missed the far bigger story about lithium and how people are (justifiably) worried that it will ruin the environment: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/business/the-electric-vehicle-race-is-creating-a-gold-rush-for-lithium-raising-environmental-concerns.html?searchResultPosition=1
Down with mathematics, a racist discipline!
The Modern Science of Climate Change is definitely wielded as a Weapon of Maths Destruction
This is something to think about, but perhaps not actually do.
It raises a question, though. As time “T” between washings increases, presumably stink “S” will also increase, perhaps non-linearly, but it can’t just keep increasing forever.
So, at some point, given fairly constant bacterial and other conditions, the stink-curve would have to flatten-out.
So, I hereby propose the term “stinquilibrium” to define that place (determined by time and conditions) where the curve flattens.
Early astronauts and others in harsh environments probably know a great deal about this.
And, thanks to modern technology, “S” can be measured with a smell-o-meter, so the S-curve, if it exists, could in fact be plotted. Science!
My own personal “smell-o-meter” is built-in, came with the package. However, it is subject to de-sensitization/saturation/hysteresis drift, and needs to be periodically re-calibrated to provide meaningful data. I may purchase an OMX-SRM to include in my stable of various meters and sensors. I could then experiment on myself or a good friend, perhaps when I’m next on holiday and can isolate.
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Ms. Harper, 43, “I stink like a pig, but hey! gotta save the planet”
“The new practice felt environmentally virtuous, practical and freeing.”
Glad it feels that way, but back in the real world, you have in fact become a lazy person with questionable personal hygiene.
People have lost the freaking plot.
So people from the First Church of Climate Zealots stink in more ways than ideologically.
Wearing masks will not be anymore mandatory, but truly essential.