title: Scary or Silly? The Feds Are Warning About What This Halloween Tradition Will Unleash
text: I vote for silly since anyone with half a brain can figure this one out it s NOT scary! Remember composts and how they were supposed to be great for the planet these Energy Department goofballs need to understand what happens naturally is not a bad thing. How scary are your jack-o -lanterns? Scarier than you think, according to the Energy Department, which claims the holiday squash is responsible for unleashing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, says the Energy Department s website, becoming part of the  more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste produced in the United States every year.  Municipal solid waste decomposes into methane,  a harmful greenhouse gas that plays a part in climate change, with more than 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide,  Energy says. Ok, apparently the whizkids at the Dept. of Energy need a refresher course in something called the carbon cycle. It s  settled science . You see, as every living thing grows it incorporates carbon into it s structure. That s why it s called carbon based life. Then when it dies, it releases that carbon back into the environment so some other living thing can use it to grow. Now it doesn t matter what you do with the dead thing. Whether it rots away slowly or you burn it or you convert it into some thing else that gets burned, it still releases the carbon. Either as carbon dioxide or methane (which is 85% hydrogen and 15% carbon). It s like a giant carbon recycling program that makes life possible and it s been going on like that for hundreds of millions of years. Truth is, there s no more carbon on Earth today than there has ever been. You can t make new carbon that has never existed before, it s elemental. And carbon isn t a pollutant, it s essential to life. That s the simple reality. Deal with it. Seriously, absurd news stories like this are crafted to appeal to someone without even a sixth grade understanding of basic science. I can envision some 8-year-old running home  Mommy, mommy, teacher said Jack-o -lanterns are destroying the planet!  Via: WT