by Sylvilagus floridanus
Once again it's time for your favorite mammals to answer your most pressing questions. We met by email this time for safety purposes-it's nearing hunting season, you know. By the way, if you must kill and eat us before tick season has properly ended, please be careful you don't get tularemia.
Thanks to readers Scott, Serema, and Elliot for their questions. You can send
your own questions to askarabbit@dancingrabbit.org for discussion in our winter
edition of the March Hare. Remember, there are as many opinions about any subject
as there are Rabbits talking about it-we have no official DR statement regarding
any of these questions, and we lack a giant communal brain in a jar. (Thomas
thought it was family-sized pickled okra, and ate it last February. Consensus
is much more difficult now.)
What do you think of nuclear power as an energy source?
Rabbit 1: It might be nice in theory, but the practicalities (especially dealing with waste) are way too scary. I think we can do better with other methods and with cutting back on power use in general.
Rabbit 2: I think we need to ask ourselves why we need the amount of electricity that would require us to unleash the power of the atom. Uranium is a limited resource just like oil and will run out, also just like oil. In order to be sustainable, we must learn to live off of the amount of energy that the sun provides (the differences in the amount of sun striking the earth also drive our global wind patterns, so wind power is still solar-based). As far as the pollution argument goes-I don't know which is better, acid rain from coal plants or radioactive waste that sticks around forever.
Rabbit 3: I'm against nuclear power. I feel that it's another dangerous dead end technology, that will leave a pollution problem that will linger for eons. I fear that Americans, in an attempt to hold onto their high energy lifestyle, will approve and support the building of new plants as oil declines-leaving the earth's ecology permanently damaged.
Rabbit 4: The risks involved in nuclear power are too great to make it worthwhile. It is too tied in with weapons production. And there is no effective way to deal with radioactive waste. Unless there is some radical change in the technology, I think it is a big problem. Sometimes I fear that if we did find a clean source of infinite energy, it would only allow humans to create more destruction and devastation on the planet. Rather than being limited by energy, we would not be limited until we had destroyed everything on the planet. Maybe this already happened when we found oil.
Rabbit 5: I have major concerns about nuclear power, the biggest of which have to do with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I hope humanity reduces and eventually eliminates the use of nuclear power, in order to reduce and eventually eliminate the threat of nuclear war.
Rabbit 6: Having worked at a nuclear power plant, and seeing how some people take jobs on nuclear power plant construction sites with the sole purpose of sabotage, I'm extremely fearful of nuclear power plants. Even the sabotage aside, nuclear power just seems to me to be a bad idea. How arrogant to think it is possible to produce "safe" nuclear power when the waste from the process is so long-standing.
Rabbit 7: I think that nuclear power has a bad image that is out of proportion to the actual ecological risks it presents. I certainly wouldn't say that nuclear power is great, but I think it is far cleaner than coal and probably on par with petroleum. I've read that a 1 megawatt power plant would need about 2.5 pounds of fuel per year if it were nuclear powered, and about 3.5 million tons of fuel if coal powered. I've also read that there's more nuclear material in the waste-stream of coal plants than there is in nuclear plants. Nuclear power has very few emissions compared to any of the fossil-fuel sources. The two big problems with nuclear power are waste disposal and the weapons market. I think that if you look at the whole life-cycle of coal power, the waste disposal problem is orders of magnitude greater than with nuclear power, but the general public is worried about nuclear waste. From an ecological perspective, I think nuclear power has some advantages over coal. That said, I'd rather not rely on either of them for energy.
Does cost of living at DR go down as you join co-ops?
Rabbit 1: The car co-op costs are probably about the same, and I like not owning a car. The shower co-op works okay for me, as the cost of a private shower would probably be pretty high. Food costs were higher for us in a co-op, and personal satisfaction with food was lower. Phone costs would be slightly lower (about $5 less/month) in the co-op, but having less privacy and convenience was not acceptable to me.
Rabbit 3: I did not experience a decrease in cost [regarding an eating co-op]. My diet is strange-being much simpler than any of the co-ops in the village. So when I joined a co-op, my food costs went up because I was paying for a variety of foods that I didn't actually eat. What goes down is your weekly labor, because you don't have to cook three times a day every day. So I think the primary savings is in labor.
Rabbit 4: I think it does or, alternatively, quality of life improves. For instance, our food co-ops are not the cheapest way to eat, but for the quality of food and having it prepared for you most nights a week, it's hard to beat.
Rabbit 5: I'm not sure if the cost of living goes down as you join co-ops, but I think it does. For example, I participate in a meal co-op where we take turns cooking for each other. We are able to buy large amounts of food in bulk, which reduces the cost of food, and we take turns cooking, which reduces the amount of time I have to spend cooking for myself.
What is the ecological footprint of an individual at DR?
Rabbit 1: Lower than in the outside world, but probably still "too high."
Rabbit 2: That varies by the individual-there are a few here that are probably close to a negative number if such a thing existed, while there are others who make a larger impact to be sure. What's more important than a number generated by some matrix of our actions, is to consciously make choices based on your beliefs of what is the best course of action. The ecological footprint is an excellent awareness tool, but I don't think that you can use it to dictate your life. I just took the quiz from the earthday.org site; and I need 4 acres to live on (4.5 available). So just 1.0 planet for me, and I eat meat. However, the quiz didn't ask me what kind of toilet I use, or where I get my water, or how many people I share ownership of a car with (over 30), etc., so you see that there is a lot of room to improve the footprint analysis.
Rabbit 3: My footprint, when I last ran the numbers this spring, was 3.5 acres. My goal is to get down to 2.5 acres next year.
Rabbit 4: 7 AFU (ambiguous footprint units)
Rabbit 5: I have not done an audit of my own footprint at DR (I have been here only a little over 2 months). However, I am fairly certain my footprint is far lower than it was before moving here. I'll be interested to see what my footprint is when I do calculate it. The biggest contributor to my footprint will be the traveling I do, which will be an ongoing issue that I debate how to deal with.
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