The Boomer generation isn’t used to being inconvenienced after all these years.

There’s a curious thing that you sometimes see in certain parts of America – signs at gas stations advertising their fuel as “100% GASOLINE! NO ETHANOL!” If you’re wondering exactly what kind of seal-clubbing, earth-befouling hillbillies these signs are meant to attract, I’d like to introduce you to my parents.

They drive giant SUVs any time they have to travel farther than two driveways away. Everything they buy is either single-serving or disposable, to assure maximum trash. They print their emails, double–bag their groceries in plastic, and run the A/C with the windows open. And, they believe that ethanol is bad for their cars because someone once forwarded them an email saying so.

I, their tomato-canning, bus-riding, cloth-napkin-using pinko commie daughter, am a constant source of mild puzzlement to them, and whenever I visit, I always try to drop a few hints.  Judgmental, yes, but I can’t help it. “You know,” I say, “you guys go through so many soda cans, it’s a shame you don’t recycle.” I even point out that their town offers free unlimited curbside pickup as well as free bins. But to them, it’s just not worth the hassle. I once asked my dad if he’d ever consider switching to grass-fed beef, explaining all the problems with factory farming. “But Allison,” he said between bites of steak, “That’s what makes it so tasty.”

We recently had a conversation in which he claimed new research is proving that oil doesn’t really come from dinosaurs, and is actually a renewable resource. I am not making this up. He was totally convinced that once the data came in, the world could forget about all this wind and solar stuff and just drill baby, drill. (I actually looked into this theory, and it’s a fairly popular topic on World Net Daily, on the home page between birther conspiracies and ads for Goldline.)

Although my parents’ tendency to throw garbage from moving cars probably puts them slightly further on the spectrum of environmental disdain than the average American, there are sadly, millions of people like them. People who will only accept green living when it becomes cheaper, easier, and more convenient than the way they live now.

It’s not that they haven’t noticed what’s happened over the past 30 years – it’s that their generation, aside from that tiny vanguard who gave us the first Earth Day, doesn’t want to be put out. They care, just not enough to do anything about it.

This difference in philosophy isn’t about Democrat versus Republican, science versus religion, or coastal versus heartland. It’s a generational thing. My parents and everyone before them grew up believing that the environment and all its bounty were simply theirs for the taking. They came of age in a time when land was plentiful, oil was cheap, America was the greatest country on earth, and God put the fish and the trees there for us to consume.

To them, slow food, reusable bags, and riding bicycles is undoing decades of technology and innovation that made life easier and more convenient. When they play golf in Las Vegas, they don’t look at lush, green desert fairways and see an abomination, they see a triumphant example of man’s ability to harness nature.

The problem isn’t just convincing people like my parents to acknowledge scientific facts or making green technology affordable and available. The problem is convincing them to endure a little inconvenience. It’s convincing them to eat a little less beef, hitch a ride to work, and leave some cake for the rest of us. It’s also convincing them of the scariest thing of all – that much of that magical progress they and their generation made wasn’t really progress at all.

I don’t know what the solution is, besides waiting for them all to die out (doesn’t that seem like the answer to all Boomer-related problems?). For now, I try to nudge my parents in the right direction when I can. They’ll never install solar panels or think about food miles, but I’ve already convinced my mom to start buying vegetables at the wonderful farm stands that populate the Midwest during the summer and fall. That’s a start. The next step, when she gets home with a dozen ears of sweet country corn, will be getting her to recycle the damn bag.

Image: Dominic’s Pics

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The Deepwater Horizon disaster has leaked more than one million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The magnitude is so large that many people are struggling to put the numbers into tangible context. Cutler J. Cleveland, a Boston University professor of Geography and Environment, and the editor of the Encyclopedia of Earth, has calculated the energy equivalents for EcoSalon readers to better grasp the enormity of this disaster. Dr. Cleveland is also a Senior Fellow at the National Council for Science and the Environment.

The energy content of one million barrels is about 5.8 trillion Btu (British Thermal Units), which is equivalent to:

1. Years of energy used in a single average America home: 61,117

2. Number of miles that could be driven by a Prius: 2,320,000,000

3. Number of airplane round trips between London and Louisiana that could be taken by BP CEO Tony Hayward: 198,352

4. Hours of motor gasoline consumption for the entire United States: 3

5. Minutes of world energy use: 6

6. Minutes of energy that could power the entire country of Ghana: 22,252 (about 15 days)

7. Members of the Chinese population whose energy consumption could be met for year: 98,472

8. Number of Americans whose energy consumption could be met for year: 17,211

9. Dollars of GDP produced in China: $210,893,753

10. Dollars of GDP produced in the United States: $743,971,267

11. Amount of energy harnessed from 3,385,540,566 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

12. Number of acres of corn needed to produce the equivalent amount of ethanol: 159,928

13. Number of Tour de France races that Lance Armstrong could complete burning an equivalent amount of food energy: 81,408,631

14. Years of energy use in Boston’s John Hancock Tower: 30.3

15. Equivalent amount of energy in tons of firewood: 494,459

16. Tons of steel that could be produced: 354,393

Images: Steve Punter, (A3R) angelrravelor (A3R), goldberg, Kossy@FINEDAYS, futureatlas.com, RaSeLaSeD – Il Pinguino, nova3web, cathyse97, lauren keith, docsdl, scalleja, spcbrass, Lars Plougmann, malias, Adam Pieniazek, smith, on1stsite.

The post Gulf Oil Spill by the Numbers: 16 Different Ways to Understand the Disaster appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you think that watermelons are only good as thirst quenchers during the hot summer months, think again.

Last year, watermelons made headline news when scientists announced that it can have a Viagra-like effect.

Now, studies conducted at the Oklahoma Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have proven that the simple sugars in watermelon juice can be converted to ethanol. But with each 20 pound watermelon only producing enough sugar to derive approximately seven-tenths of a pound of ethanol, it’s going to take a whole lot of watermelons to make enough biofuel to get anything moving.

This shouldn’t be a problem given that approximately 20 percent of all watermelons are left in the fields (due to blemishes or deformities) are usually destroyed when the field is cleared for new planting.

Is there no end to the get up and go power of the common watermelon?

Image: theilr

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