Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH
Oh, wait--landfills are necessary because we can't come up with better ways to dispose of trash that won't be complained about. And who is dumb enough to reduce the amount of oil and natural gas we use, because then commuting gets a LOT harder (unless we go back to the horse-and-buggy days). So we have to go after the cows, who can't help it, if we want to reduce methane emissions. And yet methane is only one greenhouse gas--and relatively short-lived.
|
Actually, before the turn of the 20th century, there were some pretty dire predictions about the consequences of horsepower (in the literal sense of the word). While your automobile produces a good deal of CO2, you never see it it just floats away. A horse, on the other hand, produces about 22 pounds of manure, per day, that gets left on the street. It doesn't mention how many horses there were, but authorities had to pull 15,000 dead horses from the streets every year (and by law you were supposed to remove it yourself, so there were definitely more of them). They figured unless something drastic happened, New York would be rendered unlivable by 1950. Luckily for them, a German fellow by the name of Dr. Otto was busy inventing the 4 stroke engine...