[speakeasy]

If you're one of the people that believes climate change is a hoax then there's no point in responding here. This thread is for those that believe man and his fuel usage is having a runaway impact on the atmosphere.

Given that we can't look to government at this point for any solution to this longterm problem, are you taking voluntary steps in your own lives to reduce your impact on the planet? Are there any ways that you try to be more energy efficient in your lifestyle?

[Chunnel]

Good topic,

Besides the obvious hippie answers like growing your own hemp, and eating sawdust, I feel the number one solution is biking to work.

In 2012 I biked to work roughly 175 days. With 6 miles (give or take) roundtrip of commute, I rode about 1050 miles to work. With a 20 MPG car (in the city) I saved roughly 53 gallons of gas which results in $180 saved ($3.40/gallon) for that year. This is not counting the countless other trips I used with my bike instead of my car.

While my contribution may not make a blip on the radar screen whatsoever, collectively getting communities on board can have a chained reaction impact that can start to lead to improvements. More bike commuters can lead to > a healthier public > leading to a more health conscious public > which leads to healthier food choices, lower health care costs, more sporadic doctor's visits, and of course a smaller carbon footprint.

Of course this scenario is filled with idealism, but it is closer to fruition than it was 10 years ago.

[speakeasy]

(04-22-2013 02:50 PM)Chunnel Wrote:  

Good topic,

Besides the obvious hippie answers like growing your own hemp, and eating sawdust, I feel the number one solution is biking to work.

In 2012 I biked to work roughly 175 days. With 6 miles (give or take) roundtrip of commute, I rode about 1050 miles to work. With a 20 MPG car (in the city) I saved roughly 53 gallons of gas which results in $180 saved ($3.40/gallon) for that year. This is not counting the countless other trips I used with my bike instead of my car.

While my contribution may not make a blip on the radar screen whatsoever, collectively getting communities on board can have a chained reaction impact that can start to lead to improvements. More bike commuters can lead to > a healthier public > leading to a more health conscious public > which leads to healthier food choices, lower health care costs, more sporadic doctor's visits, and of course a smaller carbon footprint.

Of course this scenario is filled with idealism, but it is closer to fruition than it was 10 years ago.

I use my bike to run errands in the neighborhood too. One thing I try to do as well is open my windows and use a fan instead of turning on the air-conditioner. I notice many of my neighbors have their air-conditioning running even when it's perfectly nice outside, like 75-80F. In most countries, people wouldn't even think of turning on the AC on when it's only 80 degrees out. I'll turn it on if it gets really hot out, but I've found that as long as the temp inside is below 85, I'm fine. Your body actually adjusts to it quickly and 80 degrees indoors starts to feel comfortable.

[Pacesetter20]

Things I do (or try to do):
- leave things unplugged that are not in use
- turn off lights when not in a room
- turn off heat when I go to work (in cold weather)
- don't use a/c (easy because I am in Europe and I don't have a/c)


This is an issue sans "climate change" whether you believe in it or not everyone wants clean air to breathe and water to drink, but that is not how the debate is framed.

[kosko]

Simple.

If Americans start living more like Europeans much of this issue goes away.

I care nothing for Earth day as it is a contrived puppy holiday to make SWPL feel good. I will start worrying about the earth when evreybody has a fair chance to fed themselves and prosper. Until then in cant jive with this hippie shit because Americans (and Canadian to a great extent) are the biggest culprits of GHGs and all we do is make puppy holidays like this instead of addressing the structral concerns.

[bonkers]

My question is, why aren't we targetting the bigger emitters?

Take the Formula 1 industry for example. That industry must be responsible for an exorbinant amount of CO2 emissions - right from testing cars to practice laps to all the transport of the vehicles all around the globe. Yet no one is even remotely lobbying them to make them change their ways.

So what difference is it going to make if I switch off lights for an hour once a year?

[speakeasy]

(04-22-2013 03:57 PM)bonkers Wrote:  

My question is, why aren't we targetting the bigger emitters?

Take the Formula 1 industry for example. That industry must be responsible for an exorbinant amount of CO2 emissions - right from testing cars to practice laps to all the transport of the vehicles all around the globe. Yet no one is even remotely lobbying them to make them change their ways.

The thing is, even though they use an insane amount of energy on a per-capita basis, that is such a tiny industry with a small number of cars relative to the amount of normal cars that it would barely show up on the radar. You're talking like a few hundred F-1 cars versus maybe a billion regular cars. The latter is creating 99.9999% of the smog.

Quote:

So what difference is it going to make if I switch off lights for an hour once a year?

If everyone collectively turns off lights not in usage or unplugs things that don't need to be on, it makes a measurable difference because of the scale of people doing it. Think of it like this, if one person uses their washing machine during midday while there's a summer heat wave, it will have no effect. If lots of people are doing it, the demand on the power grid during these hot days can start rolling brownouts. Here in California they have public announcements during heat waves to try and conserve electricity because the power grid just can't take the load of everyone doing these things all at once.

[kosko]

(04-22-2013 04:04 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

(04-22-2013 03:57 PM)bonkers Wrote:  

My question is, why aren't we targetting the bigger emitters?

Take the Formula 1 industry for example. That industry must be responsible for an exorbinant amount of CO2 emissions - right from testing cars to practice laps to all the transport of the vehicles all around the globe. Yet no one is even remotely lobbying them to make them change their ways.

The thing is, even though they use an insane amount of energy on a per-capita basis, that is such a tiny industry with a small number of cars relative to the amount of normal cars that it would barely show up on the radar. You're talking like a few hundred F-1 cars versus maybe a billion regular cars. The latter is creating 99.9999% of the smog.

Quote:

So what difference is it going to make if I switch off lights for an hour once a year?

If everyone collectively turns off lights not in usage or unplugs things that don't need to be on, it makes a measurable difference because of the scale of people doing it. Think of it like this, if one person uses their washing machine during midday while there's a summer heat wave, it will have no effect. If lots of people are doing it, the demand on the power grid during these hot days can start rolling brownouts. Here in California they have public announcements during heat waves to try and conserve electricity because the power grid just can't take the load of everyone doing these things all at once.

Your still talking hippie stuff. More efficiency can be gained from re-formatting the decaying Western power grid. That along would reign in emmense GHG units. They keep telling you that turning of your lights will save the polar bears but it won't. You only achieve true efficiency and emission reductions from re-formatting large scale from the top end. Living patterns, trade, transportation, that's where you get the gains. It's both costly and not polo calmly viable to do this so hippes keep telling you to turn of your lifts I make you think it's doing something. That saved capacity just gets used up later down the road - it's all a joke.

[Chunnel]

Buildings use much more energy than automobiles. Though enormous strides have been made in "greening buildings" dramatically cutting down emissions.

However, Coal fired plants and their offshoots are still a problem. Unfortunately with extremely high levels of energy needed to operate these energy intensive facilities reusables are still an unrealistic solution.

(04-22-2013 03:44 PM)kosko Wrote:  

Simple.

If Americans start living more like Europeans much of this issue goes away.

I care nothing for Earth day as it is a contrived puppy holiday to make SWPL feel good. I will start worrying about the earth when evreybody has a fair chance to fed themselves and prosper. Until then in cant jive with this hippie shit because Americans (and Canadian to a great extent) are the biggest culprits of GHGs and all we do is make puppy holidays like this instead of addressing the structral concerns.

This is entirely untrue. Earth Day can be a huge learning opportunity for students to learn more about how human's effect on the environment. Much of the adult population is unfortunately stubbornly set in their ways, but teaching children good habits now is preparation for a better future. There are still trees thriving in my parents backyard that were given to me as seedlings 15 years ago from my school's Earth day celebration.

[speakeasy]

(04-22-2013 04:24 PM)kosko Wrote:  

Your still talking hippie stuff. More efficiency can be gained from re-formatting the decaying Western power grid. That along would reign in emmense GHG units. They keep telling you that turning of your lights will save the polar bears but it won't. You only achieve true efficiency and emission reductions from re-formatting large scale from the top end. Living patterns, trade, transportation, that's where you get the gains. It's both costly and not polo calmly viable to do this so hippes keep telling you to turn of your lifts I make you think it's doing something. That saved capacity just gets used up later down the road - it's all a joke.

Why are you talking about this as if it's an either/or situation? Environmentalists obviously want to see large scale change as well. What do you think cap and trade is all about? And trying to raise fuel standards, or lobby to build more high-density housing, etc. But smaller things make a difference as well. What's the point of using electricity that doesn't even need to be used? When I'm visiting my parents for example, my dad will often do things like leave the TV and lights running while he goes to the market. Never understood the point of any of that. These are the type of small changes that have no impact on your standard of living and really aren't even an inconvenience to anyone. Or even things like single-use plastic water bottles. My parents only drink water from those and I kept trying to encourage them to buy a water filter and just drink from the tap. Then they just throw the water bottles in the trash. The collective effect of people doing this means you have literally millions of new bottles every day piled up that must go somewhere. Have you ever volunteered for a river cleanup before? I have and the amount of plastic and garbage I pulled out of the water was just depressing.

(04-22-2013 04:33 PM)Chunnel Wrote:  

This is entirely untrue. Earth Day can be a huge learning opportunity for students to learn more about how human's effect on the environment.

Unfortunately, for some segments of society, even teaching kids environmental awareness is a political issue. They'll think that you're trying to indoctrinate them to be Green Party supporters or something and give up our sovereignty to some global governing body.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

Glad that you started this topic. I don't have a car (will have an electric one if I ever get it), meticulously divide stuff for recycling and take care of using the electricity at night (more out of price concerns than ecological, but still), and that's basically it. My carbon footprint is probably slightly below the average. That said, I think everyone should have a look at this fascinating book. It's literally the best resource on the topic of energy conservation (and consequently, global warming) that I've ever read, and its lessons extend far past its examples that are based in UK:

http://www.withouthotair.com/

p.s. I don't believe cap and trade can solve anything, it will just end up being a bubble machine for Goldman Sachs and other criminals. A flat, small but noticeable carbon tax is the way to go.

[MasoMenos]

We certainly can't expect the government to step in and do anything.

The way I see it, the people on this forum are ambitious people, the type that can make a difference. I feel like all of the activists who don't do anything but lecture people can convince others to live more sustainably (recycling, biking, saving water, etc.). I don't want to lecture to people who won't listen to me.

The way I want to make a difference is to get into business and change things. The reason CO2 emissions are so high is because it isn't economically beneficial for companies to lower them. There's your economic opportunity right there.

I'm an engineering student and my dream is to start a company that can provide an opportunity for buildings, automobiles, factories, etc. to lower emissions AND save money on energy production.

Not realistic, but a kid can dream, no?

[JimNortonFan]

10,000 sq ft house

thousands of gallons of water a month

1 grand a month electric bill

Drives sports cars SUVs

Go after them before 3rd world countries get screwed by carbon control

[soup]

I think about how much fuel would be sparred if the oil lobbyists didn't push to have the suburbs built in a way that requires great amount of gas to get around.

[JimNortonFan]

GM and Firestone tire bought up about 40 or 50 public transit systems and junked them in the 40's or 50's. They got found guilty of a conspiracy. their fine: $1.

The business of America is business.

[InternationPlayboy]

I try my hardest not to litter, and rarely do.

I turn off things when I'm not using them.

I don't drive at the moment.

[EisenBarde]

I celebrated Earth Day like every other Earth Day, by chopping down a live tree and using its embers to cook my skirt steak.

I planted about 30 trees on Arbor day, which was the real holiday for conservationists before the Marxists and Hippies tried to rationalize away the fact that communism ends in famine and shortages.

-We use plastic because glass bottles cost way more in payload per gallon of gas.
-We use one use grocery bags because reusable ones are e. coli breeding grounds when you don't wash them.
-We buy fruit from Ecuador because it uses less fuel to transport a banana halfway across the world in a shipping container than it does to buy it from the small organic farm 50 miles away.

Are all of these things unmitigated goods? Of course not, but the policy proposals against them are almost always never based on rational thought.

The real culprit of American pollution is the female, who as a group:
- Nearly doubled the labor force to outsource the home economy to others, letting themselves be taxed for the work women did anyway at home.
- Nearly doubled the ubiquitousness of the automobile by requiring a second family car so they can go to their job of watching somebody else's kids.
- Drive most consumption to begin with.

[JimNortonFan]

If you like the environment, don't consume, it's that simple.

[liberman]

I dont have a car so I use my mountain bike to get around, my city is very small so this is very easy to do, at most it takes me 30 minutes to get anywhere. I buy very little in the way of personal possessions (all my belongings could fit into a large backpack) most of my money goes to rent, food, clothes and paying student loans. In the future I can see that the biggest contribution I will be making to rising CO2 levels is air travel.