The Cheryl Crow / Al Gore Brigade at it again...

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

The Cheryl Crow / Al Gore Brigade at it again...

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

We could have toilets running 24 hours a day in the U.S. and it won't help India or Africa with their water problems as you pointed out Cat. But most liberals are judged not on actual results but on intentions and feelings so for you to question them makes you a hateful white male who wants to destroy the environment.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Did you notice where the study was done?

Denmark...

Lundbaek, you have any comment on that mindset, seeing as you lived there?

I just remember the Green Party folks in Germany when I was serving a mission... they were like the conservative arm of Greenpeace or something... Lots of activism to further their cause to protect mother earth, but not a lot of common sense...

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

I love the following quotes from the article:

"The research suggests that in order to succeed, toilets designed to save water must hurdle our culture's long history of city planning and well-intentioned obsession with hygiene."

So now hygene is bad? Hmm, I guess we can go back to the good old days where a guy pulled a corpse laden cart around town yelling, "Bring out your dead."

"Westerners have not always been addicted to flushing toilets.

In the 1850s, for example, a recycling "earth toilet" was as American as apple pie.

It consisted of a seat placed over a container filled with dry earth. After use, more dry earth was piled into the container."

Yea, we called that an outhouse dumba$@! We also had other nice things like Tuberculosis, Cholera, and Polio back then. Should be bring those back too to help cull the surplus population? How about the plague. 3/4 of the earth's surface is water. Maybe we could just figure out better ways to use and store what already makes up 75% of the earth's surface instead of going all middle ages.

I can't wait to install one of those airline toilets either then my hand can be stained blue when I have to pull some toy out that my kid dropped in that is clogging the system. And the collection tank in the basement is another nice thing especially since I don't have a basement. But you folks with basements will enjoy playing ping pong or enjoying the basement family room next to 500 gallons of poo. Hopefully it doesn't leak.

arbilad · Head Chef

Congress should just stay out of my toilet. Oh wait...

The low flush toilets were a stupid idea, so they want to continue that failure with yet another. I frequently end up flushing multiple times with low flush toilets, so I use more water with a low flush toilet than I would have otherwise.
And you're right, Jason, hygiene is a very good thing. Hygiene is primarily responsible for the eradication of many diseases from the populace of 1st world countries. We are much, much healthier today because of improved hygiene, primarily improved sewage handling.
And you are further right in that there is water all around us, if we could just figure out how to use it. Heck, we have the technology. Set up a nuclear desalinization plant or two on the coast in India, and you'd have a huge addition to your fresh water supply. It's not that hard to desalinize. Seawater is typically about 3% salt, and the human body can filter out about 2%, if I remember correctly.
Water is a means of control, though, which is why they keep creating these "crises". They've denied the farmers in Weld county well water because the golf courses in Boulder want to be green. If they control the water, they control food production. If they control food production, you can be pretty sure that people will sit up and listen when they say something.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

The western world will go back to outhouses when pigs fly. This stuff is ridiculous.

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

What worries me is that our wonderful government might start mandating stuff like this just like the low flow toilets. As Arbi pointed out, those things are a complete waste because you have to flush them multiple times. Gray water which is basically treated sewage is already used in many areas for watering lawns, golf courses, and even watering crops not intended for consumption so the whole point of the article is basically a strawman. Water is two different molecules, hydrogen and oxygen. You can make it in a lab. To say it is somehow destroyed and lost for ever once it is used to flush your toilet is just alarmist extremism to push an agenda upon the ignorant "Eloi" in our world who lap it up willing ready to sacrifice personal freedoms in the name of the new false relgion of environmentalism.

lundbaek · Profuse Pontificator

Both Denmark and Sweden have a way of getting into things like this. As if Denmark doesn't have enough problems already caused by trying to be the saviour of the world.

Homestar Runner · Senior Member

So, if you've lived where there isn't any water for generations, how come all of a sudden it's the USA's fault?

salesortonscom · Wise and Revered Master

George Bush and Karl Rove's fault.