Matt Yglesias

14 Responses to “Ecological Implications of Your BBQ”

1. Bruce Webb Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 2:43 pm

   Just shoot me now.

   There are plenty of features of suburbia that serve to kill the planet. The two stroke motors in your typical land mower or leaf-blower poor out HUGE amounts of contaminants even compared to your big-ass SUV. And it is astonishing how much visible, smellable, health risking pollution is produced by an open hearth wood fireplace or an uncertified wood stove. For that matter in my county it is still possible in many areas to get a legal residential or commercial burn permit to burn off woody debris and construction material. On some winter days the air here can look like Los Angeles.

   Given these largely unregulated pollution events guilt-tripping people for grilling a steak over a charcoal or gas grill seems a little much. Make people take the train, insist that they live in more eco-friendly apartment/condo towers or attached housing, because in truth sprawl is killing the planet. But if you come on my balcony and try to shut down my barbecue, well lets just say you will have to pry these meat tongs out of my cold, dead hands.

2. lfv Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 2:47 pm

   Portobella burgers on the 4th of July?

   Go back to Soviet Russia.

3. save_the_rustbelt Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   Ah, a brisket over Kingsford charcoal, plus some pork chops and brats on the gas grill. I do prefer a chimney charcoal starter so maybe I am green a little.

   Speaking of a gas grill, why is the tubby boy in the photo spraying charcoal lighter into his propane grill?

   My 24/7 American flag is lit by Consumers’ Electric, hopefully from a nuke.

   Want to clean the environment? Shut down the fleet of Air Force planes used to fly members of Congress to their vaca… ah, fact-finding trips. Pelosi first.

   I’m with my buddy Bruce on this one. Bruce, enjoy that meat!

4. Tropical Fats Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

   Thank you, Debbie Downer. I particularly enjoy Stats In A Vacuum. Everybody’s grills will release eleventy buptillion cubic cubits of CO2… OK. So what? How many cubic cubits are released by everybody logging on to their computers to watch cutesy green videos on teh Intergoogles? How do those numbers compare? What do any of them mean, other than “large numbers are large”?

   Yeah, OK, every single one of is is destroying the planet by every single thing we do. Fine. Now shaddup and have some pulled pork. It’ll improve your attitude.

5. t-payne Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

   The problem with the environmentalist types is that they don’t know how to pick their battles. Shut up about backyard grills and shit.

6. James Robertson Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

   And this is why the enviro-leftists will crash and burn – there’s no end to their demands that the rest of us wear hairshirts

7. sam Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 5:01 pm

   Instead of whining about barbecues start looking into the biggest scam EVER the Waxman-Markey Bill that is ALL PAIN FOR NO GAIN (EXCEPT FOR GOLDMAN SACHS WHO WILL MAKE A KILLING ON THIS BILL}

   Goldman Sachs has been behind almost every “bubble” in the US economy including the housing bubble according to a well researched article in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi. Now Goldman Sachs is positioned to make another killing on an even bigger scam worse that anything Madoff could ever imagine, the Waxman-Markey Climate bill. President Obama appointed one of Goldman Sach’s lobbyists, Mark Patterson, the Treasury Dept Chief of Staff making one wonder whether President Obama’s support for the Waxman-Markey Climate has more to do with the big payoff Goldman Sachs will get from carbon offset trading than anything else. Especially since a lot of credible analysts are reporting that the bill will have little or no impact on co2 emissions and do great harm to the economy. refs, “The Costs Of Cap and Trade” by Robert Zubrim http://www.rollcall.com/news/36393-1.html?page=2 and “The Illusion of the New Green Economy.” by Roy Spencer, Ph.D http://www.prisonplanet.com/cap-and-trade-and-the-illusion-of-the-new-green-economy.html

   So why is President Obama and Congress so gung ho about getting the bill passed when it will do little if anything to reduce co2, result in higher energy costs for everyone and the loss of millions of jobs? Do President Obama and Congress have a suicide wish for the economy? The average Jill and Joe who will be hurt most by this Bill want to know. By the way “green jobs” are just another scam. If the “Green Jobs” President Obama is proposing were so great, they would pay for themselves and would not need to be involuntarily paid for by the blood, sweat and tears of the already over burdened tax payer.

8. Julian Elson Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

   Portobella burgers on the 4th of July?

   Go back to Soviet Russia.

   My impression is that if there’s one thing that you wouldn’t be grilling in Soviet Russia, it’s portobella burgers. (Or zucchini. Or eggplant. Or bell peppers.)

   I sometimes think that, in practical terms, the food seems like the bleakest aspect of life in the old USSR.

   (Also, of course, communists tended to care less about the environment than liberal/capitalistic societies. Capitalism is worse for the environment than any preceding system, such as hunter-gatherer societies, traditional agrarian peasant economies, etc, but probably not quite as bad from a “green” perspective as Soviet-style communism.)

   I know, I know, I was taking your remark way too seriously, lfv .

   Anyway, I found the bit about charcoal briquettes kind of interesting. I guess I knew that they’re not exactly “real” charcoal, but I never really realized that they were seriously different.

9. Hector Says:
   July 4th, 2009 at 5:29 pm

   Re: Capitalism is worse for the environment than any preceding system, such as hunter-gatherer societies, traditional agrarian peasant economies, etc, but probably not quite as bad from a “green” perspective as Soviet-style communism.)

   True, but post-1990 Cuba is doing pretty well on the environmental front. As is (we hope) Venezuela- among other things Chavez has put in place some pretty stern regulations on the fishing industry.

   I think the quality of food in Soviet Russia probably had as much to do with inherent limitations to Soviet agriculture (temperature, rainfall, soil fertility) as with the inefficiencies of the command economy (which were legion).

10. BradyB Says:
    July 4th, 2009 at 7:08 pm

    It certainly is an interesting problem that the diet we evolved to eat (i.e. meat with green vegetables and nuts/berries) is environmentally unsustainable. It would seem to suggest that our current population is far too large (I know, an astounding proposition). If population growth had been kept in check based on the availability of meat, and not calorie-rich grain, I doubt meat consumption would be considered harmful to the planet in the same way that it is now. It reminds me of something my friend told me last month:

    “Grain made civilization as we know it possible. That still doesn’t mean you should eat it.”

11. James Gary Says:
    July 4th, 2009 at 10:21 pm

    If population growth had been kept in check based on the availability of meat, and not calorie-rich grain, I doubt meat consumption would be considered harmful to the planet in the same way that it is now.

    Like I’ve been saying for years: it’s all been downhill since the invention of agriculture.

12. Maynard Handley Says:
    July 5th, 2009 at 12:11 am

    Tragically, both charcoal and meat are not good for planet earth.

    NO. It is the combination of
    (1) “charcoal and meat” and
    (2) lots of people living the
    (3) good life
    that is bad for the planet. To simply make the claim Yglesias did is the standard rhetorical gambit of setting up the language in such a way as to allow only one point of view.

    There are TWO other ways one can resolve the problem, rather than the implicit Yglesias suggestion (less meat and less charcoal).
    (a) is to have fewer people; (b) is to have plenty of people, precious few of which live the good life.

    Personally I think (b) is immoral and untenable. Nonetheless, it is, implicitly, what most of the population of the G20 support (and, heck, probably most of the 3rd world if you actually forced them to confront the issue — everyone thinks in a world of aristocracy they, or at least their grandkids, will get to be lord).
    IMHO the only sane and moral alternative is (a). Strangely enough, that is also the “lunatic fringe” proposal, the idea proposed by impractical madmen, unaware that capitalism and science can solve all problems, no matter what their size.

    cf reactions to the oil price graph one post ahead…

13. fostert Says:
    July 5th, 2009 at 12:12 am

    Grilling should be done only with tanks of oxygen and hydrogen. Yeah, your grill will be evaporated, and your house probably burned down. But those burgers are done in a second.

14. Hector Says:
    July 5th, 2009 at 9:06 am

    If Mr. Yglesias is concerned about the environmental impact of beef and pork, a good alternative would be eating something vegetarian. Another good alternative would be going up to Pennsylvania and shooting a deer, that he could then live off for months. Deer are a seriously under-utilized wild food resource as are (in New Jersey, I have heard) wild geese, and they don’t involve the resource costs of livestock raising. Mr. Yglesias need to buy a hunting rifle or a bow and get off his @$$ out into deer country.