Image of the Day: Which Halloween tradition causes global warming?

Image of the Day: Which Halloween tradition causes global warming?

The witching hour is less than 24 hours away. No, that is not a reference to Hillary Clinton’s next campaign rally. I am referring to Halloween, which this year comes with all kinds of warnings, and I don’t mean about kids eating candy.

One of the most dire warnings comes from an unlikely source: the U.S. Department of Energy. Amazing, but true. Energy advises against carving pumpkins, which it claims is hazardous to the planet’s health. How, you ask? Since most of the 1.3 billion pounds of pumpkins produced in the U.S. end up in the trash, they become part of the “more than 254 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) produced in the United States every year.”

MSW decomposes into methane, which is “a harmful greenhouse gas that plays a part in climate change, with more than 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide.”

pumpkinWaste_2015-update

But if you must carve that pumpkin, at least take the initiative to turn it into “pumpkin power.” No, pumpkins are not a protected class deserving of empowerment (at least not yet). But pumpkin guts can be used to harness bioenergy, “which benefits the environment and helps our nation become less dependent on carbon-based fuel.”

PumpkinWasteHelpsCreateEnergy_0

But as long as we’re having fun, why not go a step further and carve your pumpkin using one of the snazzy stencils the Energy Department has at its website. You can, for example, carve an atom into your pumpkin:

atom

Or maybe you’d prefer a Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL):

CFL

But don’t stop with your jack-o’-lantern. The feds also have some “energy” costumes you could force your kids to wear. For example, insist that your child go trick-or-treating as a solar panel:

solar panel

A page on the department website has complete instructions and materials needed. The above costume, for example, is made using cardboard, cellophane, permanent marker, duct tape, and string. None of those are biodegradable, but why should this department be any less guilty of blunt self-contradiction than any other in the Obama administration?

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles is a freelance writer and regular contributor to "Liberty Unyielding."

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