How Green Is Your Green?

Do you think it’s catchy? I came up with it myself.

Yes, I know: “Cristina, please keep your day job, because you’re never going to be an advertising mogul.”

But my mind wanders already. And before you come to any hasty conclusions... it’s merely due to an excess of Pinot Noir, my reward for surviving another deadline.

Oh, I’m sorry. Did you say it was Mother’s Day today? And I spent the day working?

But I digress.

As many of you are aware, a group of Salmon Creek residents has begun meeting to brainstorm about how best to deal with the diesel-dope crisis, which is a scourge on the environment, a high fire risk, and an economic disaster. I attended a meeting in Salmon Creek (well, not in the creek) last week, and I was impressed with their efforts. The people involved are working really hard to come up with ideas for tackling the problem on a multitude of fronts – from educating their neighbors, to waging a public-relations campaign against diesel dope, to collecting hard data about its effects.

I have a lot of thoughts about this issue, both on an individual level (22-year-old boys driving $50,000 trucks, without a care for the land or the community that sustains them) and on an industrial level (the devastation wreaked in our state and national parks, other public lands, and timber lands). I will post these at a later date, along with all the other thoughts I’ve promised to post at a later date (about Hillary, polygamy, my mother – remember those?).

In the meantime, here are a few numbers, courtesy of one of those Salmon Creek residents.

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The numbers are out!

So, how much energy does it take to make one pound of indoor pot grown with diesel? First off, here are some numbers – and then I’ll show you what they mean.

-One gallon of diesel burned produces 22.4 lbs. of CO2.
-One gallon of gasoline burned produces 19.4 lbs. of CO2 at 20 mpg (average SUV/truck), which equals .97 lbs. of CO2 per mile (let’s just call it a pound per mile).
-It is estimated that it takes one gallon of diesel per day, per light.
-On a 75-day cycle, that equals 75 gallons per light, at an average of one pound per light.
-75 gallons per light x 22.4 lbs. of CO2 = 1,680 lbs. of CO2 released per pound of pot produced.

And now you ask, “What does that mean?!”

That means that producing one pound of pot indoors is roughly equivalent to:

-Jumping in that SUV at 20 mpg and driving from Eureka, California, to El Paso, Texas!
-Driving that same SUV from SFO (that’s San Francisco to you acronym-debilitated) to Vegas three times! Or...
-SFO to L.A. four times! Or...
-You can say growing 1 & 3/4 lbs. of pot indoors is equivalent to driving from SFO to NYC!

Feeling nauseous yet?

These estimates are based on a 75-day cycle, and may need to be adjusted as we obtain more information. The numbers may increase or decrease slightly, so it’s a little too early to settle into these findings. Still, it’s a real testament to the severity of the situation, taking into consideration that these numbers still don’t take into account the energy used to mine and transport soil and fertilizers, and the energy used to haul in the fuel.

In general, you don’t see these folks racing to turn on their generators driving hybrids, either. Most are driving big gas guzzlers to check on and maintain their scene.

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The person who crunched the above numbers is also working on plane-travel equivalents, as well as Kilowatt hours used to produce one pound of indoor marijuana.

And yes, this will be a news story sometime in the next few months.