One Confused Consumer:
Rhoda Karpatkin on the Environment

Rhoda Karpatkin is the president of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports. But what are we to make of someone who oversees the testing of toasters and the advocacy of environmental policy? You be the judge. Check out today's Karpatkin-think, excerpted from Rhoda's essay in the November 1996 issue of Advancing the Consumer Interest.

Karpatkin-think for October 28, 1999

Rhoda wrote:

Several gases are present in the atmosphere at increasing levels as we burn more fossil fuels, while at the same time, we destroy too much of the very forests that remove greenhouse gases from the air. Damage comes from the cars we drive, and the way we light, heat, and cool our homes, heat our water, and refrigerate our food. It comes, in other words, from the way we consume.

• Rhoda has a blatant disdain for consumers and consumption. I wonder why she doesn't change her organization's name to "Anti-Consumers Union".

• Combustion of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and water vapor in to the atmosphere. But the amount of water vapor released is negligible for purposes of global warming. As part of the process of photosynthesis, plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So other than carbon dioxide, it's not clear what other greenhouse gas or gases Rhoda is referring to.

• The theory that forests may act as a "carbon sink," soaking up carbon dioxide may prove wrong over the long-term, according to a recent report in New Scientist.

• Contrary to Rhoda's statement, the U.S. has 20 percent more trees than it did on the first Earth Day more than 25 years ago, according to the American Forest and Paper Association. Each year about 1.4 billion tree seedlings are planted - roughly four million a day - more than making up for those that are harvested. If you include naturally regenerated trees the net growth exceeds the harvesting by 33% due to good forest management, according to the Society of American Foresters.

  Karpatkin-think for October 26, 1999

  Rhoda wrote:

  The way we consume, especially in First World countries, is depleting essential resources, just as the global population is expanding. That damage is resulting in "global warming" or the "greenhouse effect," an atmospheric buildup of gases that could raise the average temperature on earth.

  Consumerdistorts.com notes:

  • The president of Consumers Union reviles First World consumption -- even though that very consumption is the basis for employment that paid her $421,955 in 1997.

  • Paul Ehrlich predicted doom-and-gloom from resource depletion and overpopulation long before Rhoda. Click here and here for how well Ehrlich's predictions turned out.

  • "Global warming" is not the same as the "greenhouse effect." Global warming is the theory that manmade emissions of greenhouse gases are dangerously increasing the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is the natural and beneficial warming of the Earth, mostly by water vapor. It raises the average temperature on Earth by about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Without the greenhouse effect, there would be no consumers alive to subscribe to Consumer Reports.