Posted on 03/26/2006 9:37:59 AM PST by Nachum
Please join me for breakfast. It's time to fuel up again.
On the table in my small Berkeley apartment this morning is a healthy-looking little meal -- a bowl of imported McCann's Irish oatmeal topped with Cascadian Farms organic frozen raspberries, and a cup of Peet's Fair Trade Blend coffee. Like most of us, I prepare my breakfast at home, and the ingredients for this one probably cost me about $1.25. (If I went to a cafe in downtown Berkeley, I'd probably have to add $6 more, plus tip, for the same.)
My breakfast fuels me up with about 400 calories, and it satisfies me. So for just over a buck and half and an hour spent reading the morning paper in my own kitchen, I'm energized for the next few hours. But before I put spoon to cereal, what if I consider this bowl of oatmeal porridge (to which I've just added a little butter, milk and a shake of salt) from a different perspective. Say, a Saudi Arabian one.
Then what you'd be likely to see -- what's really there, just hidden from our view (not to say our taste buds) -- is about 4 ounces of crude oil. Throw in those luscious red raspberries and that cup of java (an additional 3 ounces of crude), and don't forget those modest additions of butter, milk and salt (1 more ounce), and you've got a tiny bit of the Middle East right here in my kitchen.
Now, let's drill a little deeper into this breakfast. Just where does this tiny gusher of oil actually come from? (We'll let this oil represent all fossil fuels in my breakfast, including natural gas and coal.)
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The author is adding the "oil" that is used in producing the electricity that runs your refrigerator. Well, I guess that lets me off the hook. I happen to know that my electricity comes from coal. I guess he would hold me personally responsible for strip mining some mountain in Kentucky.
So, what does Mr Green Jeans suggest? Are we to go back to using mules and oxen, to plow our fields and to thresh our grain?
Oh, and he fails to mention the oil used for his Irish oats probably came from outside the British Isles, NOT from the Middle East.
Throw in the cost of embedded taxes and the food is almost free, at least cheap enough that you wonder how anyone made a profit on it. But all did. The wonders of free enterprise.
Well, I will give props for that. If you have ever seen the can, my great great grandfather is one of the signatories noted. He was Sec of Ag for Pa.
Making beer is a energy intensive industry.
You gotta have farms that grow the hops, barley etc.
The farms need tractors that burn diesel fuel.
Ingrediants have to be transported to the brewery with trains or trucks, also burn diesel.
Once the beer is ready it needs to be transported to retail outlets, by truck or rail, still need diesel.
Here's a link I bookmarked awhile back that will really open your eyes:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1476725/posts
What a wonderful resume for a Leftist
Cool, Conservatism will continue to be ascendant because not only do many liberals fail to have replacement rates births but soon, hopefully, they will just stop eating.
In that case .. make it worth it and have a case of beer instead ;0)
Damn Rude and Damn Funny. John Wayne would have shot the buggers.
LOL
We think alike.
Plan to consume a few while watching NASCAR today.
Also NASCAR consumes a LOT of fuel
Indy Car Driver Paul Dana Dies During Practice
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1603475/posts
Havnt heard.
Streaming the WABC Wilcow show.
If you find out let me know.
Thanks. That is sad.
Must have breakfast at the same place I do.
Think of how many trees had to be killed so this tree-hugger's whiny article could get published? I think he should just kill himself right now before he harms our environment even further.
Or, more to the point, how much of our precious fossil fuels were consumed.
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