Environmental impacts of smoking

[Scott]

Just another thing to make all you smokers feel more guilty ;D I was going to go off topic on the BC Ferries non-smoking thread but I decided I might get some reaction so I'd better start a new topic...

Whatever way you want to look at it, pot or tobacco, there are detrimental environmental impacts that I've never heard anyone ever talk about. The most obvious one is the smoke that is produced. I know one doesn't make too much (although it's still annoying) but if you combine the billions smoked every day it can't be good.

Just as obvious an impact would be the tons of garbage produced by cigarettes. I've never seen anyone smoke a whole cigarette 100%.. usually more like 70 or 80%. The rest gets chucked. Garbage and an eyesore.

The least obvious but maybe the largest impact is related to the production of tobacco and pot. Just think of the thousands or millions of square kilometers wasted to produce these products that only harm people. Not only is it land that could be used to produce food to feed the people of the world, it could be kept as rainforest to keep the people of the world breathing fresh air instead of first or second hand smoke. Add to that all the pesticides and fertilizers used to make sure the tobacco crops are safe and sound. And add to that the "slaves" who are working for a pittance on plantations in third world countries.

Marijuana isn't as land-intensive as far as I can tell. However, they require huge amounts of energy... and probably pesticides and fertilizers... to grow.

So tax them to the hilt, I'm all for it. The health care costs are probably reason enough alone. How about a carbon tax and an environmental tax too?

[Mill Bay]

How about the butts that are left lying around literlly everywhere... just imagine the chemical leaching out of them everytime it rains. And if it's ever been your job to pick them up ... if I could have charged 5 or 10 cents for everyone I've had to pick up, i could've paid for a lot of ferry trips by now.

[Retrovision]

admin said:

What about the environmental impacts of smoking?? Maybe a carbon tax would be a good idea!

Yeah, because smokers are more justification for a carbon tax than industrial polluters and our reliance on the internal combustion engine ;D

millbay said:

How about the butts that are left lying around literlly everywhere... just imagine the chemical leaching out of them everytime it rains. And if it's ever been your job to pick them up ... if I could have charged 5 or 10 cents for everyone I've had to pick up, i could've paid for a lot of ferry trips by now.

I love how smokers can rant about laws being broken and then blatantly flout the law by constantly littering their discarded filters.

[Scott]

tsawwassenterminal said:

Yeah, because smokers are more justification for a carbon tax than industrial polluters and our reliance on the internal combustion engine ;D

Interesting what a quick search turned up. New Scientist magazine (it's not a science journal, but I think has some credibility) had a story of how three cigarettes produces more particulates than a small diesel car running for 30 minutes. Surprised me.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn6312-cigarettes-more-polluting-than-diesel-exhaust.html

[Nick]

Particulates are not the worst things that our burning of stuff creates, however. I was reading somewhere (I can't remember for the life of me where so I can't provide a link) that our obsession with getting rid of particulates (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel for example) actually is accelerating climate change, since particulates in the atmosphere reflect heat back into space rather than it becoming trapped on earth. I don't know the source so it is kind of hard to analyze the particular bias of that article, but it is interesting none the less.

And don't even get me started on the internal combustion engine. [rant]The other day in my Thermodynamics class, we were analyzing a simple single-cylinder gas engine. Ignoring friction and other minor losses, it still comes out as being 27% efficient at turning the stored chemical energy in gasoline into usable mechanical energy. The rest is expelled as heat (because of the expansion and compression of the cylinder).[/rant] Sorry for this being so off topic already, but I really couldn't resist.

[Nick]

After putting a little more thought into the issue, I really don't think that smoke from smoking a substance really makes any difference on the grand scale. While it is a very inefficient burn process (and therefore produces a lot of smoke and particulates), I don't think that it causes much harm to the environment. People exposed to it in a semi-enclosed environment do experience a significant amount of harm. I always liken being in a smoking-permitted restaurant to being in a garage with a car running.

Think of the amount of wood-burning campfires in the country. That is also a very inefficient method of burning, but the overall amount of pollutants is much less when compared to even a single modern coal fired power plant (and we have quite a few of those in this country).

[D'Elete BC in NJ]

coxnnick said:

Particulates are not the worst things that our burning of stuff creates, however. I was reading somewhere (I can't remember for the life of me where so I can't provide a link) that our obsession with getting rid of particulates (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel for example) actually is accelerating climate change, since particulates in the atmosphere reflect heat back into space rather than it becoming trapped on earth. I don't know the source so it is kind of hard to analyze the particular bias of that article, but it is interesting none the less.

I think it was NOVA who did a show call "Global Cooling" which looked at the effect microscopic particulate matter had on the climate.

Back to the topic...you know that pot smokers aren't too likely to leave a butt around...their product costs too much to waste it like that! ;D

[D'Elete BC in NJ]

Not exactly smoking, but this is an interesting report on the possible toxic effect of printing off eveything you see on the web
www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/10/22/printer-study.html