Calculating Green
Or how I applied a squirrelly back-of-the-envelope calculation to Green hysterics
I recently joined Angie's List in order to learn more about local contractors and service providers. As a customer-driven list, it works well. For example, I was able to read comments left by those who used an auto repair shop I was considering. But, then ...
I just received my first copy of the Angie's List Magazine -- The Green Issue. The magazine is filled with pages of Green propaganda, mainly around the forthcoming end to our supply of fresh water (Will we run out of water? is the subtitle). One section focuses on the virtual water cost of common goods, such as a slice of bread requiring 11 gallons of virtual water and a pound of beef requiring 1,917 gallons of virtual water.[1] Another section lists per-capita water consumption throughout the world.
Is this stuff true? Likely. Will it cause me to phone my congressman in order to demand action? Nope. What offended me was the over-the-top fear mongering. To understand more about the numbers, I Googled around and performed a back-of-the-envelope calculation. Instead of focusing on man, I turned to one of nature's own: the squirrel.
The squirrel is a cute, bushy-tailed rodent. A squirrel can be fun to spot in the wild or a total nuisance in your attic. Regardless, the squirrel is a consumer of water. Yet, what is the virtual water consumption per squirrel?
Squirrels eat acorns, approximately 825 per year. And, amazingly, each acorn requires 48 gallons of virtual water.[2] That means a squirrel consumes close to 40,000 gallons of virtual water per year, or 110 gallons per day. Since squirrels do not rely exclusively on acorns, I assumed that a squirrel consumes a total amount of virtual water that is four times the amount for acorns alone, or 440 gallons per day. [3]
What is the total virtual cost of all products consumed in the US? 1200 gallons per capita per day. Therefore, the tiny rodent consumes approximately one third of the virtual water of the average American. Hmmm.
Is modern society really that hard on the environment? [4] Maybe we need to rid the country of those thirsty rodents. Wouldn't that make the Greens happy?
Notes:
[1] Virtual water includes every drop of water used in the process of creating a product, even evapotranspiration.
[2] Calculated using the data provided. Yes, and not all squirrels eat acorns.
[3] It's all back-of-the-envelope, with some pretty big assumptions. It's more fun than science, yet it's all based on info from the web (so, it must be true).
[4] There is vastly more potable water in Ohio today than existed 150 years ago.
Comments (22)
silvermine
This nonsense made no sense to me when they tried to force me to believe it in school. "The water will run out!". Oh noes!
Where, pray tell, do they think it's going to go?
Do they also think the money runs out once everyone's spent it?
Published: April 6, 2009 10:47 PM
newson
let the squirrels drink evian.
cochabamba (bolivia) versus bechtel/abengoa corp. needs to be addressed by libertarians wanting to end potable water wastage in the only way possible, privatization.
Published: April 6, 2009 11:34 PM
Gil
Is this as fallacious as counting how many ancestors you have and the presume there must have been an infinite amount of ancestors? That is to say, you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16ggps, 32gggps, 64ggggps, 128gggggps, 256ggggggpps, etc. You would presume you had 4.3 billion ancestors thirty-two generations ago (960 years ago) yet this is false. By the same token this presumption of water intake is taken in isolation and forgets about the water outtake caused by excreted via perspiration and urination.
Published: April 7, 2009 1:30 AM
Gil
Is this as fallacious as counting how many ancestors you have and the presume there must have been an infinite amount of ancestors? That is to say, you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16ggps, 32gggps, 64ggggps, 128gggggps, 256ggggggpps, etc. You would presume you had 4.3 billion ancestors thirty-two generations ago (960 years ago) yet this is false. By the same token this presumption of water intake is taken in isolation and forgets about the water outtake caused by excreted via perspiration and urination.
Published: April 7, 2009 1:35 AM
Bean
@Gil
People try to forget about incest...
Published: April 7, 2009 3:04 AM
Matt
How did you calculate the 48 gallons of water per acorn?
The given link shows that a mature oak tree produces 2200 acorns/year, and requires 50 gallons of water per day. That's 8.3 gallons per acorn.
Even if we try to calculate a lifetime figure by integrating the function A(y) that they give, I make it that a tree produces just under 270,000 acorns over a 200-year lifetime. Conservatively supposing that a tree always uses water at the mature rate of 50 gallons/day, that's still only 13.5 gallons/acorn.
A geeky question, I know, but you started it!
Published: April 7, 2009 4:57 AM
Artisan
You have to mix both functions, like quants do: the one with genealogy plus that of water.
The acorn that is not eaten, potentially makes another tree grow that produces more water drinking acorns...
Published: April 7, 2009 7:06 AM
Jim Fedako
Matt,
I assumed that all oak trees live for 75 years. I then ran the equation out to year 75 and found the average number of acorns per year: 155.
Keep in mind that no acorns are produced for the first 25 years. And that not all oak trees live to age 200. Many will not even make it to year 25 and, therefore, will never produce an acorn.
As I said, I used some pretty big assumptions.
Published: April 7, 2009 7:11 AM
Ron
I will never, ever understand the flap about water shortages. 75% of the planet is covered with the stuff, and it's not as if it disappears when it's used. I'm guessing that all the water that's ever been on the planet is still on the planet and will be on the planet forever...or are there natural phenomena that occur to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms, never to recombine?
The only reasons there can ever be a water shortage anywhere are government monopoly and lack of property rights. It really is that simple. None of the water rationing nonsense would exist if there were a free market in household water. I simply don't understand the reasoning (if there is any) behind the notion that, because water is something everyone needs it can't be left to the market to provide.
Actually, I take that back. I do understand why so many people believe that. It's because they're clueless about the function of prices. Most people believe that prices are arbitrary at best, and based on greed at worst. They have no concept of how the market arrives at a price for a particular good or service, so they believe that if businesses were allowed to "control the water supply" we would all be gouged because the water businesses would naturally set the price high because it's something everybody needs. Of course, they also believe that you'd have to be some kind of horribly greedy asshole to charge people for water in the first place.
If I had one wish, it would be that everyone everywhere fully understood how prices work. The justification for all market intervention would evaporate in an instant.
Published: April 7, 2009 7:44 AM
Enjoy Every Sandwich
Bwuhahaha, this is great. I can hear the enviro-weenies now: "Hey! Stop that! You're not supposed to take our figures and do calculations--or any form of critical thinking--with them! You're just supposed to swallow them whole!"
Published: April 7, 2009 7:45 AM
Nick
A couple of you hit the nail on the head.
The water goes nowhere. It's a closed friggin' loop.
Here's an illustration I use when dealing with people who insist that water be conserved because it might one day disappear:
"It's called the water cycle. You know: Evaporation, condensation, precipitation... Most children learn about it in the first grade. You drink, you pee, it's treated, released into a river or lake, and the whole process starts again. In fact, the bottle of water on your desk right now used to be dinosaur piss."
That usually shuts them up.
Published: April 7, 2009 8:20 AM
BrentR
You also have to remember that the more hydrocarbons we burn, the more water we release into the atmosphere. So if we run out of water, just go burn some stuff.
Published: April 7, 2009 8:27 AM
Ron
I find it ironic that there's also been some Green consternation over the "excess" water vapor released by the operation of hydrogen fuel cells. IMO, they're one of the few energy technologies that is poised to someday compete with fossil fuels. When it was first announced that the only by-products of their operation were heat and water, some Greens jumped on one or both of those as talking points against fuel cells. It's fascinating to see the Green Movement tip its hand to show that what many of them are really against is human activity in general.
Published: April 7, 2009 8:55 AM
Horst Muhlmann
Remember this rule. Whenever you read a headine in the form of a question, 99.9999% of the time the answer is "no".
This article references a perfect example: "Will we run out of water?" No, we won't.
Published: April 7, 2009 9:20 AM
Renegade Division
I just got one problem with the calculations. If an acorn consumes that much gallon of virtual water, and then Squirrel consumes that acorn and that counts as its virtual water consumption then the same thing must be done for humans too say if a human ate that squirrel.
I mean the virtual water consumption figures for humans must be really really high(and in proportion to their squirrel counterparts) won't they?
Published: April 7, 2009 9:41 AM
Jim Fedako
Renegade Division,
I thought about that also. I think the answer is that an oak tree is not an efficient producer of acorns. Waiting 25 years for the first few acorns is a lengthy production cycle.
The link to the human consumption of water details those calculations (note: I subtracted water used for exports and included water used for imports to get the domestic virtual water consumption).
Published: April 7, 2009 10:04 AM
BrentR
And what exactly is the virtual water consumption of a gallon of water?
Published: April 7, 2009 11:53 AM
Ron
Here's another lesson we could take from this:
We should start cutting down as many trees as possible, cuz when you cut down a tree, all the water it has ever "consumed" will spill out in a great torrent. If we then catch the water, we could put it back in the ecosystem.
But wait...wouldn't that make the sea levels rise? That's one of the big problems global warming is supposed to cause, right? So maybe we should plant more trees, then, so they can soak up some of the water out of the oceans and bring down the water level.
I could go on and on...
Published: April 7, 2009 12:45 PM
Bruce Koerber
For another useful squirrel analysis here is an excerpt from "MORE THAN LAISSEZ-FAIRE":
Order / Transformation Quadrant Example — Savings
Let us examine the difference between human savings and the savings of a squirrel. Apparently both anticipate the future! The squirrel’s action is very strongly driven by instinct; however if environmental conditions change significantly the squirrel will modify the size of its cache. Likewise, human savings will be modified as a consequence of conditions. Human intelligence, which can span time conceptually and which can unravel the numerous and various complexities of the world, enables humans to save purposefully. Simply stated, savings is a productive and vital aspect of life.
Under the current system of economic intervention, the proponents of intervention come to the bizarre conclusion that savings is harmful. For example, Keynesian economics — a variant of which underlies the predominant economic systems practiced worldwide — demonizes people’s choice to save. Their forced incentives to diminish savings is like force-feeding the squirrels this year only to find that their essential cache for the future is completely gone, ultimately leading to disaster.
Published: April 7, 2009 8:47 PM
Bruce Koerber
Here's an easier to read version!
For another useful squirrel analysis here is an excerpt from "MORE THAN LAISSEZ-FAIRE":
Order / Transformation Quadrant Example — Savings
Let us examine the difference between human savings and the savings of a squirrel. Apparently both anticipate the future! The squirrel’s action is very strongly driven by instinct; however if environmental conditions change significantly the squirrel will modify the size of its cache. Likewise, human savings will be modified as a consequence of conditions. Human intelligence, which can span time conceptually and which can unravel the numerous and various complexities of the world, enables humans to save purposefully. Simply stated, savings is a productive and vital aspect of life.
Under the current system of economic intervention, the proponents of intervention come to the bizarre conclusion that savings is harmful. For example, Keynesian economics — a variant of which underlies the predominant economic systems practiced worldwide — demonizes people’s choice to save. Their forced incentives to diminish savings is like force-feeding the squirrels this year only to find that their essential cache for the future is completely gone, ultimately leading to disaster.
Published: April 7, 2009 8:52 PM
JT1
All of you that are talking about water being a closed system, you are making one mistake. People who believe that we will "run out of water" say that as our population grows we will not be able to consume as much water per capita as we do now. I cannot explain it any better, but it is more complex than "we are using up our water." You have to do justice to their thought if you are going to convince them that they are wrong.
P.S. I agree that the free market would solve any problems that we may ever have with water consumption.
Published: April 7, 2009 9:02 PM
Ron
@JT1: "People who believe that we will "run out of water" say that as our population grows we will not be able to consume as much water per capita as we do now."
I'd be interested in knowing why they believe so. Is it because they assume we won't have the capacity to produce enough potable water to sustain the population beyond some level? If so, based on what...our current water treatment capacity? I'm sure we can all see the fallacy there.
In any case, I would imagine that some fallacy lies at the root of the opinion, and it would be interesting to ferret it out.
Published: April 8, 2009 8:31 AM