{"id":33731,"date":"2013-01-21T06:05:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T10:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=33731"},"modified":"2015-02-06T17:03:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T22:03:47","slug":"saving-the-planet-eh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=33731","title":{"rendered":"“Good for the Environment”, Eh?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Looks like our Hollywood \u201cdo-gooder\u201d environmentalist extraordinaire Leonardo DiCaprio is at it again.\u00a0 This time, he\u2019s taking substantial time off from his acting career to do \u201cgood for the environment\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Germany’s mass circulation daily Bild, the 38-year-old American actor said: “I am a bit drained. I’m now going to take a long, long break. I’ve done three films in two years and I’m just worn out.”<\/p>\n

“I would like to improve the world a bit. I will fly around the world doing good for the environment.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OK, let\u2019s take him at his word.\u00a0 And let\u2019s look at what the effect of this trip will be on Mother Earth.<\/p>\n

Now, you know a Hollywood \u201cA-list\u201d type like DiCaprio isn\u2019t going to fly anywhere<\/em> on regularly scheduled airlines.\u00a0 He\u2019ll fly on a private or chartered jet.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be kind and assume he uses a small LearJet \u2013 say, a small one like the Bombardier 35A<\/a>.\u00a0 That aircraft can cruise comfortably at around 400 knots, or 460 MPH, for a bit over 2000 miles \u2013 in round numbers, about of 4.5 hours flight time.<\/p>\n

That aircraft uses 197 gallons of jet fuel per hour at cruise.\u00a0 So each 2000 miles will use about 885 gallons of jet fuel.<\/p>\n

Now, assume 30,000 miles for the total length of DiCaprio’s round the world “save the planet” tour.\u00a0 (He\u2019ll certainly be visiting \u201cdown under\u201d, NZ, and probably South Africa and South America, plus North America, Europe, and parts of Asia – so that’s probably an underestimate.)\u00a0 Doing the math, that comes to around 13,300 gallons of jet fuel.<\/p>\n

Chemically, jet fuel is kerosene-based. <\/del>Kerosene has an average chemical composition of C12<\/sub>H26<\/sub>.\u00a0 That means it\u2019s approximately 85% carbon by weight.<\/p>\n

Jet fuel weighs about 6.8 pounds per gallon.\u00a0 So DiCaprio is going to burn about 90,400 pounds \u2013 or about 45 tons<\/em> \u2013 of jet fuel on his trip.<\/p>\n

That amount of jet fuel will contain about 38.3 tons of carbon.\u00a0 But remember:\u00a0 according to the “save the world” crowd – “Carbon . . . . baaaaad!”<\/p>\n

Why is carbon “bad”?\u00a0 Well, according to the “save the world” crowd it’s because it produces carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n

Virtually every atom of carbon in that jet fuel will produce a molecule of CO2<\/sub> when burned. (The tiny fraction that doesn’t will produce stuff that’s even worse as a pollutant – unburned hydrocarbons, soot, etc . . . .)\u00a0 Since the carbon is only about 27% of the weight of each molecule of CO2<\/sub>, burning this amount of jet fuel will add more than 140 tons of carbon dioxide<\/em> to the earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

That’s just the jet travel.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t account for the fuel for DiCaprio’s chauffer-driven limo at each stop.\u00a0 (What, do you expect him to rent a Volkswagon and drive himself<\/em> anywhere?)\u00a0 Or the fuel for the vehicles for his bodyguards or his entourage.\u00a0 Or the energy used to heat\/cool their hotel rooms.\u00a0 Or . . .well, you get the picture.<\/p>\n

Also, a “round the world” trip like this shouldn’t take more than 3 months.\u00a0 All of the above fuel and energy?\u00a0 That’s only what DiCaprio’s going to waste – unnecessarily – in about 3 months.\u00a0 Wonder what he’ll burn through during the rest of the year?<\/p>\n

Here’s a real world sanity check:\u00a0 a guy or gal driving a car that gets 20 miles to the gallon 15,000 miles annually burns 750 gallons of fuel.\u00a0 That’s only about 5.6% of the more than 13,400 gallons of fuel DiCaprio will waste in 90 days during his meaningless publicity stunt.<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy, thy name is \u201cHollywood\u201d.\u00a0 Or here, maybe that should be “DiCaprio”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Look, I’m all for conserving resources for the next generation.\u00a0 I don’t want to see the environment spoiled. I want my kids and grandkids to have a nice place to live.\u00a0 They won’t if we screw up the planet.<\/p>\n

But what DiCaprio’s doing here isn’t “saving the planet” – it’s nothing more than meaningless grandstanding to feed his ego.\u00a0 Like so many other libidiot<\/em> ideas and causes, it sounds good initially and makes people “feel good”.\u00a0 But when you analyze it, just like many libidiot<\/em> ideas and causes it’s actually wasteful and counterproductive.<\/p>\n

Want to really<\/em> help \u201csave the earth\u201d, Lenny my boy?\u00a0 Then freaking stay home<\/em> vice traveling the globe – and promote conservation from and within Hollywood<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You make films for a living.\u00a0 You should be able to figure out how to reach people from a distance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Author’s note:\u00a0 the original version of this article used diesel fuel as a basis for calculation of the amount of CO2 generated by DiCaprio’s upcoming “save the world” tour.\u00a0 That was an error.\u00a0 The reference originally consulted erroneously implied modern jet fuel is chemically similar to diesel fuel. That is not the case; like most older jet fuels, modern Jet A and Jet A1 are kerosene-based. The error has been corrected above.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looks like our Hollywood \u201cdo-gooder\u201d environmentalist extraordinaire Leonardo DiCaprio is at it again.\u00a0 This time, he\u2019s … “Good for the Environment”, Eh?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dumbass-bullshit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}