UH OH: Study Shows Booming Marijuana Industry is Causing Massive Increases in Carbon Emissions
Shane Trejo
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A new study conducted by researchers at Colorado State University have discovered the carbon footprint of the marijuana industry, and it turns out that the widespread manufacture of weed is far from green.
With marijuana becoming a $13 billion dollar industry as states rapidly adopt legalization measures, an excess of natural gas and electricity is used to sustain indoor growing operations. The high-intensity grow lights needed to sustain large indoor operations are particularly harmful to the environment.
“We knew the emissions were going to be large, but because they hadn’t been fully quantified previously, we identified this as a big research opportunity space,” study leader and graduate student Hailey Summers said in a press release. “We just wanted to run with it.”
Researchers have estimated that every kilogram of marijuana cultivated indoors under these grow lights produce between 2,283 and 5,184 kilograms of carbon dioxide. Growing one kilogram of marijuana outdoors produces between 22.7 to 326.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide. This shows how indoor marijuana grow operations contribute to climate change.
“We would like to try and improve environmental impacts before they have become built into the way of doing business,” researcher Evan Sproul concluded in the study.
Big League Politics has reported on the unintended health effects after marijuana’s legalization and acceptance in broader society:
“With legal marijuana now available in states across the country, more Americans are toking up while they sit at home during the coronavirus pandemic.
However, experts are warning that blowing the ganja smoke can make individuals more prone to catching coronavirus.
“From China and Italy, we see people who developed COVID-19 and had underlying lung disease, [they] have more complications and die more often,” said Dr. Barry J. Make, a pulmonologist for National Jewish Health. “So this is the perfect time to stop smoking.”
Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonologist who serves as national spokesperson for the American Lung Association, notes that smoking marijuana has been known to kill lung cells. This could make it much more difficult for a smoker to recover from coronavirus than a non-smoker.
“A good portion of the world will be infected by [the coronavirus], but the level of severity of symptoms is going to depend on so many variables, from genetic components to just your overall preexisting conditions,” Galiatsatos said.
“From my standpoint, meshing [together] all of the variables that put in things that are not air into your lungs, I would view them all kind of in the same category,” he added.
Galiatsatos notes that cigarette smokers and vapers are also putting themselves at greater risk during the coronavirus pandemic by doing potential damage to their lungs.
“We know cigarettes and marijuana both cause cellular toxicity and changes in cellular metabolism and cellular behavior, so that would be a biologically plausible explanation to say if you got an infection from [COVID-19], you’re likely to have more dire symptoms,” he said – adding that smokers are more likely to catch pneumonia or have difficulty breathing.“
It is unclear if lefties will turn on weed now that they understand its proliferation harms the environment. They will probably look the other way since it gets in the way of their high.
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