I don’t know about you, but, if I don’t shower at least once a day I feel icky. It’s usually twice a day. Which makes me a climate heretic, especially since bathing a lot is something knew. I’m betting that the NY Times has rules about people coming to work unbathed
See Fewer People. Take Fewer Showers.
Robin Harper, an administrative assistant at a preschool on Martha’s Vineyard, grew up showering every day.
“It’s what you did,†she said. But when the coronavirus pandemic forced her indoors and away from the general public, she started showering once a week.
The new practice felt environmentally virtuous, practical and freeing. And it has stuck.
“Don’t get me wrong,†said Ms. Harper, 43, who has returned to work. “I like showers. But it’s one thing off my plate. I’m a mom. I work full-time, and it’s one less thing I have to do.â€
A shower can take a couple of minutes, right? Sure, we all probably take longer, luxuriating under the water. I can be in and out in 2-3 minutes. Within one song (of course, some of the songs, especially metal ones, can take 4-7 minutes).
The pandemic upended the use of zippered pants and changed people’s eating and drinking habits. There are now indications that it has caused some Americans to become more spartan when it comes to ablutions.
Parents have complained that their teenage children are forgoing daily showers. After the British media reported on a YouGov survey that showed 17 percent of Britons had abandoned daily showers during the pandemic, many people on Twitter said they had done the same.
After the pandemic forced her into lockdown, Ms. Whaley, 49, said she began thinking about why she was showering every day.
“Do I need to? Do I want to?†she said. “The act of taking a shower became less a matter of function and more of a matter of doing something for myself that I enjoyed.â€
I prefer being clean. Even during lockdown.
Daily showers are a fairly new phenomenon, said Donnachadh McCarthy, an environmentalist and writer in London who grew up taking weekly baths.
“We had a bath once a week and we washed under at the sink the rest of the week — under our armpits and our privates — and that was it,†Mr. McCarthy, 61, said.
As he grew older, he showered every day. But after a visit to the Amazon jungle in 1992 revealed the ravages of overdevelopment, Mr. McCarthy said he began reconsidering how his daily habits were affecting the environment and his own body. (followed by paragraphs about this being a rather new phenomena)
An eight-minute shower uses up to 17 gallons of water, according to the Water Research Fund. Running water for even five minutes uses as much energy as running a 60-watt light bulb for 14 hours, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And frequent washing means going through more plastic bottles and using more soap, which is often made with petroleum.
And here we go
The individual choice to stop showering or bathing daily is a critical one to make at a time when environmentalists are calling on countries to take more action against climate change, Mr. McCarthy, the environmentalist, said.
Still, Professor Armstrong said, it would take a huge number of people changing their bathing habits to make a difference in carbon emissions. To make a real impact, local and federal governments have to invest in infrastructure that makes showering and water use in general less harmful for the environment.
In other words, they would have to pass laws and rules to restrict bathing.
No Teach this article does not day people should bathe less
Just continue to reduce heating their water with fossil fuels just as you yourself are currently doing by buying your electricity from Duke
Duke Power’s goal is carbon neutral in 30 years
Duke Power in 2019 had a carbon emission total 40% less than in 2005helped partly by customer Teach using more efficient lighting (still sadz over losing your incandescants?)
Well Hairy since 97 percent of the world believe we are all going to die in 10 years cause Greta the Great and AOC says so, then why the fuss. Shouldn’t we all go out clean.
But since 97 percent of you believe this nonsense then I suggest that you 97 percent just stop taking baths or use cold water or shower when it rains or whatever the hell it is you want to do.
The other 3 percent of us will continue to be sanitary and healthy which is a great reason why humankind, especially in the west has killed germs and disease and are living healthier, happier and longer lives because we have mastered sanitation.
Why don’t we stop picking up the garbage in the big cities. That would save trillions of pounds of co2 and methane because the garbage would decrease. I also believe that in the big cities you should outlaw all automobiles, trains, planes and buses since they use Fossil fuels too. No more biking or skate boarding or rollerblading to work. That uses fossil fuels to make those items.
Certainly only one 3 minute shower per week or…or you can drink the water instead because we all know a planet that is 70 percent water is running out.
There if have fixed the problem for you. The rest of you prisoners to the AGW TERRORISTS stuck in the big cities can move to the Midwest where sanity still reigns. Just leave your insane politics behind.
Problem solved.
The Hirsute One wrote:
When we moved into our retirement home, it was all-electric. Then, in January of 2018, we had an ice storm, and the sparktricity was out for 4½ days. That settled it for us: not only were we going to add propane for the range in the kitchen remodel, but we would extend it to the water heater, and add a propane fireplace as well. Now, when the power goes out — and here, being at the end of the line for our local provider, we’re among the last to get power back after a major outage — we can still stay warm, cook our food, and have hot showers.
The warmunists, of course, would love it if the government would force us back into all electric utilities, not really caring that 4½ days in January can get pretty chilly. Given that our local provider burns coal to generate electricity, I’m not sure how much good that would do.
As it happens, I have very fine hair. I do remember a couple of young ladies, one of whom was actually named Dana, complimenting me on how soft my hair was.
But a byproduct of that is, coupled with perhaps a bit oilier scalp than some, my hair looks like [insert slang term for feces here] if I do not shower every morning. Even though it’s short, it goes every which way, and washing my hair daily is a must. While I do not normally take a second shower during the day, unlike our esteemed host, I will if I have gotten fairly dirty or sweaty working during the day.
I read more than our host’s excerpts from the New York Times article; I read the article itself. And though the article never said so specifically, I did note that while the author got comments from several women, in which they talked about children, sometimes adult children, none of them ever mentioned anything that would have indicated or even suggested that they had husbands or boyfriends. I’m guessing that it’s easier to forgo showers when you are sleeping alone.
Our esteemed host wrote:
Water is, of course, conserved: water doesn’t disappear because it was used once, but recycles. Since our home is on a septic system, no electricity is used to treat it, but rather, it seeps out the drain field from the septic tank, is filtered through the soil, and returns clean into the aquifer. My biggest concern is that if Mr Dowd in Missouri is on the city sewers, his urine goes into a treatment plant, the water evaporates into the air, then falls into Kentucky and North Carolina streams, rivers and lakes, and we are stuck drinking his pee.
Ahhh, but there’s that energy, whether derived from fossil fuels or not, used in heating water. That is what Professor Underarmstrong wants “local and federal governments” to deter. Perhaps he wants to mandate that everyone heat their water through at home solar systems, which are actually not a bad idea at all, but I have to ask: how many people could maintain such?
The Pyrite State has mandated solar panels for most new construction, but most solar panels are mounted on rooftops, and other hard-to-reach places. At 68 years and 15 days old, I’m still physically fit enough to climb onto the roof, could clean solar panels and check the wiring, but there’s an obvious question of how much longer I could do this. And, having worked on heights for most of my life, I’ve encountered people who simply can’t climb, can’t work on heights at all. Solar panels are like any other device; they have to be maintained.
Mx Dana doesn’t seem to understand modern sewage systems. He seems to think all Americans should just piss and poop on the ground and let nature take care of things. There’s about 7 acres of America for each American, so a family of 4 would have 28 acres. It’s possible that’s enough area to allow Americans to urinate and defecate on the ground, but not if your 28 acres is in northern Alaska. The problem is that people congregate in cities which are increasingly the economic engines of the nation. And in India each person only has 1.5 acres to purify their shit! Oh well.
The professor said:
Sounds like a perfectly good idea that allows the flexibility to accommodate neurotics like Teach and piss/poop-on-the-ground advocates such as Mx Dana to live in harmony. The idea of transitioning to energy sources that rely less on fossil fuels leaves a lot of room for innovation, yet the Republic Party continues its distrust of market forces to allocate fossil fuels use. Ironic, right?
Rimjob, dipshit that he is, assumes others are neurotic.
Now that’s funny.
#BelieveTheLie
Bwaha! Lolgfy
Moderns have been convinced by product manufacturers to shampoo, shower, powder, spritz and pamper ourselves. Teach overshares that he showers twice daily! We’re convinced that every soap, furniture polish, toothpaste, moisturizer and surface must be “anti-bacterial”, but based on marketing not science.