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.
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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.
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Re toileting…..
Why You Should Wipe Yourself With A Goose’s Neck
“You will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure.” —Francois Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel
In A Nutshell
In the early 16th century, French monk Francois Rabelais released his famous comic work Gargantua and Pantagruel. A satire on (among other things) Renaissance learning and the Europe of the time, it nonetheless contained plenty of digressions on all sorts of odd topics. The oddest of these would probably be the passage where Rabelais recommends a goose’s neck as an ideal alternative to toilet paper.
The Whole Bushel
Gargantua and Pantagruel is a book that has to be read to be believed. Written in the 16th century by a French monk, it still somehow manages to be cruder than an entire season of South Park. Ostensibly the tale of two giants and their misadventures in a grotesque version of Europe, it’s also famous for its long passages giving advice on everything from managing debt to foretelling the future. But the passage everyone remembers is the one about the goose.
In Chapter 13 of the first book, the characters take time out to discuss the best method for wiping oneself without toilet paper. After a long and heated debate on the merits of using everything from old hats to attorney’s bags to a spare slipper, they finally settle on the feathers of a goose. But they don’t mean any old feathers; they specifically mean the feathers of a goose’s neck. And for best results, they should still be attached to the goose. According to the book:
“But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail-napkins, bunghole cleansers, and wipe-breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And believe me therein upon mine honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole a most wonderful pleasure, both in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temporate heat of the goose, which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest the inwards, in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains.”
Quite why Rabelais settled on a goose has long been a matter for critical debate. Some have seen the whole discussion as emblematic of the “new era” of the Renaissance, when old certainties were washed away and the purpose of everything had to be rediscovered afresh. Others think it’s simply the perfect way to crown a diabolically funny scene. One thing’s for sure: Next time you get caught short in the woods, you’ll know to keep an eye out for any wandering geese.
Acknowledgements to KnowledgeNuts
loving the hysterics on this one;-)
it wasnt at all Normal..to be able to have the luxury of daily bathing let alone showers for many even 1st world nations until the 60s or 70s
and many people even now have to think and limit water use for many reasons
no town water/low supplies in reservoirs etc
that doesnt preclude a needed 3 point washover but sure would save a lot of power and water use
and unless youre an actual working person in manual labour?
by the time youre saturated in all the perfumes deoderants etc body odour isnt likely for days anyway.
Im always amazed at the claims of 2 n 3 showers a day from the obsessive compulsives, and anyone else for that matter.
Bidets might be good but theyre damned expensive mean more plumbing and waste even more water
How can water be wasted? Endlessly recycled.
When I was young, my father took our family to a third world country that didn’t have running water or toilet paper for a few years. Life expectancy was around mid 40’s. So when I had kids, I did the same, but in that country there were the rich with running water and the poor without. The poor still died in there mid 40’s from various causes, while the rich live to there 70’s. We all five of us have strong immune systems despite this.
I treasure my showers, like I treasure toilet paper. Living off grid, our water is recycled.
Leftards are always smelly.
If they ban toilet paper, we may finally have a use for the print edition of the New York Times.
The elites of course will have their air conditioning because as John Kerry said in effect, they are involved in important business for us and have a larger foot print for that reason. Or as I like to think, submit peasants to what we generously offer.
Isn’t the logic of the climate alarmists amusing, if not downright pitiful? The same crowd that demands excessive hand sanitization is now opting not to bathe the rest of their bodies in accordance with 21st century standards. Well, I will agree with them on one mitigation measure – social distancing. Let’s double or triple that.
The more you stay at home, the more depressed you get.
The more depressed you get, the less you shower.
the liberal stink…. now it makes sense.
Well, people are not going to a workplace, many are depressed.
Many people will have skin problems and infections if they do not wash.
Eco-idiots keep trying. They have a way of thinking, some clearly have criminal minds.
(Review: Inside the Criminal Mind by Stanton Samenow, Ph.D. (2014 edition) (drhurd.com)
Regarding HFCs, arent they used in heat pumps as well?