The Environment
 

I am going to be honest, I have turned into a clost environmentalist. I am not quite sure what has done it. But my mind is made up, I do believe in Global Warming and I will try and do my bit.

I say this for a few reasons. Firstly my mum lives in a place where they started off trialling but then implementing recycling. Instead of the bin bags, or even two bins we have four bins.

One bin for rubbish, one bin for grass, food waste, etc. One bin for paper and cardboard and one bin for glass, tins and plastic. Then once a week they collect the bins and empty them and they go off and be recycled.

It made me laugh, I was at my dads who doesnt have seperate bins like my mum. Finished my bottle of beer and asked my dad where does he want me to put it, he said in the bin. I said which one and he said the only one he had. When I questioned my dad he understood my concerns, but the bit that suprised me was that I questioned it, I wanted to recyle.

I also don't drive. So where possible I go on a train or bus, and I walk.

People still mock me because I don't have a licence. When they ask why don't you, I reply simply because I want to help out the environment. This shut them up.

But then I guess I started to believe my lies. If I am talking to people I make them try and realise that they could car share or use public transport or even walk.

A great example is this. The place I am currently working at has circa 1000 employees. That's a lot of people. I would say 900 probably drive to work if not more. I don't understand this, the place is next to where all the buses stop and a train station. Good transport links and a fair few live in the local area. My dad happens to live locally. It's a 20 minute walk. Down one hill, and up another and you are there. Every morning I leave at 8.25. I always see the same kids walking past me, the postman etc. The same routine, over and over again.

Some of you will remember Finance girl. Katie, she is hot. Probably not single but I don't care. Anyway apparently she lives around the corner. This makes sense, as I see her every morning drive past me. Now here is the funny thing.

I leave at 8.25, Katie leaves at 8.25. We are both from the same place, both have to be in for 8.45 yet only one of us is walking. She doesn't need her car at work, she is finance all she does is number crunch and pay my wages. Yet she can't walk.

Oh she sits in traffic for 20 minutes, we both get there at the same time (normally I arrive before her) So there is no benefit for driving except wasting energy and polluting.

Then there is finance girl number 2, also fairly hot. Sarah. Likewise she lives near me and Katie. Does she walk? Does she balls. She drives as well. Now I wouldn't mind as much if Katie gave Sarah a lift. Heck they are good friends and work together. But no both want to spend 20 minutes in traffic polluting this place.

This example is certainly not unique. Many others who live 5,10,15, 20, 30 minute walks away who drive in. Not only that no one car shares.

Anyway this hasn't made much sense, more saying that I am aware of the environment and while I am by no means perfect I am trying to do my bit.

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If it rains then it will mess up Katie and Sarah's hair and that would be bad so they drive to work instead.

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Umbrellas, hoods, a haircut!

If two people didn't drive, that would mean we lose 80 minutes a day of car fumes. That's just two people. Imagine if it happened on a larger scale.

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You just want katie and sarah to hook up and see their office romances.

We have a finance girl aswell. Her name is Monique. She's 55 years old.

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It is actually more damaging to recycle paper than to get new.

Paper comes from wood, a renewable source. The whole destroying rainforrests thing has nothing to do with paper as paper comes from "paper forrests", forrests that would not be there if not for been used for paper. Therefore there is no supply problem.

The energy cost of picking up a lorry, taking it to a recycling plant, remaking it into paper (which creates some toxic sludge that you have to deal with) and transporting this new paper to the printers is far more than the energy cost to make new. Therefore yes think about the globe, but in the case of paper buy from new paper from sustainable forrest (like it all is in most countries) rather than buying recycled.
(got to love watching penn and teller bullsh*t)

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Is that correct Rc-mayhem? Sorry to question it, but your only legitamacy seems to be a couple of magicians come comedians.

I would hope that by recycling I am doing more than saving trees.

Going by the same logic as penn and teller.

By me recycling I am saving a forest, saving animals, plants, species. I am leaving more trees on this planet, which in turn converts more carbon to oxygen, which makes the air we breathe a lot nice. In turn I prevent the machinary, lorrys, cutters etc from destroying the forest and causing yet more pollution, I then prevent ships, planes and lorries from carrying paper from one side of the world to another (once again helping the environment).

What i mean by this is yes, think about the globe. But in the case of new paper, make sure it is recycled.

I want to hook up with Katie and Sarah! 55 can be hot?

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And their researchers. They are right about most things and they do have evidence to back it up but thats too much detail for me to remember, and would be freeky if I did.

Except they are paper forests. They keep the same numbers of trees all the time. That was a point in my origional post.

I am only talking about paper. Some of the other stuff is good to recycle, some is bad.

Re: The Environment
 

Soil erosion from continual harvesting

Usually much less significant than moving lumber from a forest to the paper plant

again, a fraction of what virgin paper needs

nono
take that, Science!

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Recycling is only worth it if you don't drive to the recycling bins.

The amount of energy needed to collect, clean, sort and re-use the materials is only marginally less than the energy needed to make them from new.
If you make a special journey to take your recycling to the recycling point then you've used the difference in energy.

Also, my cars broken now so I'm using the bus :( I hate it.

Re: The Environment
 

The large increase in coverage of the issue over the last twelve months?

That isn't supposed to be a criticism btw, it's just I've noticed a significant amount of pro-environmental coverage in the political mainstream when compared to four or five years ago. Every single day any paper I pickup has at least three stories on carbon neutral schemes or climate research being announced, etc. There is still some anti-global warming stuff (a few months ago The Sun had a truly hilariously bad article about how it wouldn't make a difference if the average went up two or three degrees because Rochdale would still be quite mild...) but it seems to be firmly in the minority for the time being.

A good proportion of the global elite seem to have come around to the idea that we might have to do something.

On recycling, I find a good number of the arguments on this (and related fields) miss the point. It might be that some resources aren't worth recylcing at present but this might depend on market prices and will presumably change in time when such processes become more efficient. Also, even if we could prove that paper was always going to be impractical to recycle then the response would hardly be to do nothing.

I am a public transport zealot and despise many of the more wasteful aspects of modern consumerism, but I am also a deeply lazy man and as such have some empathy for all the fat bastards out there who want to drive everywhere or can't be bothered to reduce their use of air travel, etc. If someone is using their car, they're not doing it out of spite, they're doing it because it's cost effective, easier, etc. Why not adjust the cost-benefit analysis so it's not rather than railing against them like it's some moral point?

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You are a moron!

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I reckon that has had a certain impact, although I don't think it has come from that. It might be, I just don't know it. But I would like to believe that over time I have developed these opinions. I think it was much like T&F saying that he liked to think he had developed the idea that he was a communist on his own, when in reality he conceded it was probably partly down to yourself and his environment around him (ie family etc) which made him a communist.

The problem we have with cars is not that they aren't expensive enough, the problem is the lack of a decent public transport system.

Cars are expensive.

But so is catching the train, bus etc.

We need a cheap, clean and cost effective public transport system. I also think we need more trams and more tubes (outside of london) especially in cities like Birmingham.

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It's not that I don't like the environment. It's just that I'm an uncaring asshole who's amused by the prospect of rising sea levels and the fail of western civilisation in an orgy of violence and cannibalism.

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I kinda liked the "warm" temperatures during winter a few weeks ago, now it's just like every other winter and I find myself cursing out loud on my bike again cause my ears are freezing off and I feel uncomfterable with the cold.
Sure I could move to a warmer climate, but isn't screwing up the environment around me for global warming so much easier?

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All I am doing is putting a different side to the issue.

Tbh I recycle everything as my non recycling would not save energy as the infrastructure is already there so I am not the devil:)

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See the thing is there aren't really two sides to the Global warming issue if you are either:

a.) A globabl warming scientist

or

b.) Informed

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horn ... switch off and unplug your tv at night ( / when it's not in use). There's a simple one for you.

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I would agree and definitely want to see more mass transportation systems. But they cost a lot of money. And it's either the end users who are paying for them (via high ticket prices) or we're hiding the costs in some sort of subsidy (which means they're still not cheap). If you were building a town from scratch maybe it would be OK, but if you're building them in existing population centres then the costs have to include compulsory purchases, consultation processes, land purchasing, legal costs etc - all before you even get on site (at a time where commodity and labour prices aren't low).

I'm sure we can do better than we're doing at the moment, but I don't forsee it being easy to produce a cheap transport system (unless people cycle everywhere - which is hardly suitable for everyone). In the longer term it might be easier for people to work from home more often, or for people to live near their workplace.

With other longer journeys perhaps people should get used to it being expensive to travel long distances (if it is generated demonstrable external costs when they do).

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the UK will get colder

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I cant remember where i heard it but it does do more damage to the enviroment if you recycle paper. It may not be apparant now but when all those chemicals used to bleach and treat the old paper have been lieing around for a few years we will see the damge it will cause.
The other types of recyling do aid the enviroment but at the moment with our way of recyling the paper it is more harmful.

As for trees creating oxygen, really old trees use more oxygen than actually created. The majority of oxygen is created by algae and other plant life in the oceans, not trees.

I have a compost heap (kinda) in the back garden where we put stuff like grass cuttings and anything plant waste. I recycle tins and cans, the plastic recycling hasnt been introduced into my area yet otherwise i would probably do that aswell. I just dont recycle paper.

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It unveils a secret world of fairies and elves.

(What do you think unplugging an energy-consuming device might do?)

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What I want to know is - what's the environment ever done for me to deserve some kind of special treatment?! :mad:

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Oxygen and photosynthesis
With respect to oxygen and photosynthesis, there are two important concepts.

Plant and cyanobacterial (blue-green algae) cells also use oxygen for cellular respiration, although they have a net output of oxygen since much more is produced during photosynthesis.
Oxygen is a product of the light-driven water-oxidation reaction catalyzed by photosystem II; it is not generated by the fixation of carbon dioxide. Consequently, the source of oxygen during photosynthesis is water, not carbon dioxide.


Therefore the really big, old trees use lots of oxygen, ok it is offset by the fact they produce it during the day but during the night they still use oxygen, but cant produce it.

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Recycling paper...

First treated with sodium hydroxide or sodium hydrocarbonate. Then treated with peroxides or hydrosulphites to fully bleach it.
Its often mixed with new paper fibers so often recycled paper isnt 99% recycled.
And the left overs (old ink and weak fibers etc) get put in a landfill, burnt or used as fertiliser (the enviromentally friendly option)

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And that would do nothing moron. How do you think power is created? There is a line of uninformed thought that says if you switch things off for a little amount of time that will directly save energy and therefore reduce polution. While it could be argued that a tv on standby would create a little heat the energy created by powerstations will not change. You just do not turn powerstations off at night. We create a fairly level amount of energy all of the time in line with the max peak in energy demand, not equal to the current energy requirement. Therefore the only way to reduce the amount of polution caused is to convince powerstations that the max peak (such as world cup finals) will be low enough that they can decommission a powerstation.

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yeah guys you might as well just leave all the lights in your house on all the time. in fact, just leave the tv and stereo and oven and heating on all the time too. the power stations are constantly pumping out power so it won't make a difference turning lights off or things like the tv, when you aren't using them!!

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Only if they were electric.

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You are a retard.

If everyone reduced there energy use by 50% I think its fair to say the power stations would produce 50% less energy.

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As I said, it would only work if you reduced the max peak by at least a powerstations. If we reduced by 50% we would indeed need less powerstations, however things like a campagn to save energy I saw yesterday which suggested a time and everyone having 2 mins with no power will have no effect.

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It may not save the environment if you switch off your tv but it will save you money on your electricity bill.

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All I remember is it viciously attacking me. Trees throwing their fruit at me, insects attacking me, rivers trying to attack me. I saw destroy the bugger now before it causes us any more damage.

Well I suppose that might show them but it can get awfully expensive quite quickly :(

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power stations are designed to deliver energy at peaks in demand. at my uni many people believe that power stations on the scale they are used now, won't be necessery in the future anymore, because most energy shall be produced on local level; in structures. there will be agents on small-(buildings) and big (neighbourhoods, citys, regions) scale to regulate supply and demand of energy. this is kind of a hot item in the world of sustainable energy, as there's still much to gain on this field. there is for instance a rather interesting project set up now where they try to connect 'peaks in demand' to 'low energyprizes' in time. you can imagine that when, for example, we get more energy out of windpower, prizes will be more expensive when there's lack of wind. in structures itself there's much to gain aswell. you can think of heating up water for your coffeedevice by re-using water that's been used in the shower, or controlsystems that give you options on when to do what; when doing the laundry would be 'the cheapest' option because there's much waste-energy available, or when energy is relatively cheap.
about 40% of all energy is being consumed in the built environment. my prediction is that bringing this number back shall have a priority in the western world, the next 20 years or so.

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Presumably recycling policies could be amended when that happens though (and in a free market that happens automatically ;)). Most metals are worth recycling today because it's currently cheaper to re-use them then it is to dig up more ore and refine it. In my city, recycling is mandated by law. Obviously, this is difficult if not impossible to enforce; the city estimates that about 45% of all recyclable material is actually being recycled (which, if true, is well above the national average of about 35%). The recycling company (essentially a government monopoly) comes around once a week to collect paper, cardboard, metal, glass and some plastics. They actually make a profit on the metal (particularly aluminum cans), break even on the glass and lose money on the rest. Because there's so much more paper than metal (by both weight and volume) they end up losing money overall and require subsidies and manditory fees to cover costs. The more people recycle the more money they lose and the more taxes have to be collected to pay for it; so there's actually a slight economic disincentive to recycle. :(

So many people were "stealing" the metal that was put on the curb for recycling that the city had to make stealing trash a crime. :) This leads me to believe that there's enough of a market for metal recycling to actually pay for itself. Enough to throw a few coins at people who recycle plus pick it up for free and maybe even take the glass too. But by mandating paper recycling the city has effectively poisoned the well and ensured that recycling remains undercapitalized and marginalized. I doubt they will get above 50% compliance without massive indroctrination and/or draconian enforcement.
But sometimes doing something doesn't help or actually makes things worse. Good intentions aren't sufficient.
I thought making a moral point was what environmentalism was all about? :confused: But yes, it's always better to let people act in their own interests. However, if by "adjust the cost-benefit analysis" you mean "raise taxes on things you find morally objectionable" then I don't see the difference.

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mmm.... soapy coffee, yummy!

And pig, I find your willingness to walk to work very noble. However, I can't help but think your environmentally friendly transport policy might have something to do with the fact that you can't be arsed / can't afford to get a driving license and a car.

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The questions you need to ask yourself before you start caring about the environment:

• [1] Do you have children, or plan to have them?
  [2] Do you live a healthy life and plan to live until you die at a 3 digit age?
  [3] Do you care more about others then yourself and your immediate satisfaction?
  [4] Do you really care, i mean REALLY?

If you answer yes to more then 3 of thease questions, there might be a point into turning into a hippie (aka environmentalist) , if not, enjoy your life and think about the fact that it wont be fubar until after you are dead.

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Correct, and this is already happening. The easy bit is simply changing a countries building regulations - you can just insist that any new building adheres to certain standards. In the UK Part "L" of the Building Standards already requires certain insulation standards in the walls and roof of the dwelling, as well as certain heating requirements. I suspect that it'll eventually be a requirement of any new build to be carbon neutral, or something like that.

The much harder bit is to convert the existing buildings we've got. Certainly in the UK even the more dramatic forecasts on how many new properties we'll construct builds would mean something like 70% of existing buildings still being in use by 2050 or something like that. And making old properties so efficient is much harder to achieve - especially when there's no cavity to fill in the walls, they're not suitable for double glazing, etc.

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Yeah, as I wrote about this on my blog recently but a few years ago people used to dump/abandon cars on our estates (because scrapping rates were outweighed by dumping costs) which used to cause us various problems. Now, thanks to higher commodity prices people not only scrap their cars, they nick the copper pipes out of our empty properties. And having seen how ingenious people can be when it comes to stealing "scrap" metal (including removing an entire set of metal railings from a staircase using a portable cutting tool) I'm confident that when the incentives are right people will sort out many of the problems we're having now.

Overall everything is probably some kind of moral issue, but I just mean that in some cases it's not really practical to waste our time condemning why people do certain things but instead understanding why they have certain behaviour patterns. I think for example that a hell of a lot of office paper could be saved if computer applications were designed in a slightly different way, or if users were better trained to understand alternative ways of seeing similar sets of data. That isn't an issue where someone needs to get overly excited about the pig dogs ruining our planet, but might yield some modest results.

Taxes might be the only practical way we can represent certain externalities. Again, I wouldn't phrase that as some kind of punishment for driving your car, but merely representing the true cost of transportation. Mass transit isn't much better - as I said earlier, a lot of the time the costs are just hidden via subsidies, tax breaks, etc. In other cases, if organisations and individuals can show slight bias towards eco-friendly options when procuring goods and services which would mean that businesses would find certain options more profitable than otherwise.

Of course, we need to be careful that we don't engage in irrational behaviour - we could be back in the same mess we are with certain subsidies. But it's a mistake that market prices don't already take into account a range of subjective factors (e.g. a products brand) so there's nothing objectively true or real about current prices. If that makes sense.

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Used to be called Economy 7 in the UK. Midnight to 7am was 'cheap-rate' on your leccy if you'd signed up. People had storage heaters and these would use off-peak electricity.

I guess once the power companies went private the scheme was scrapped.

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The funny thing is that people have said this shit for 40 years and have been labeled morons, idiots and laughed at for being stupid idealists. Not so fun now when the snow starts melting, eh?

The thing is, I think it's good that people take action in their lives to consume less. But this is more a personal health issue, as I actually believe that less consumption is a good way to get a better life, and also save money to do something worthwhile with (Ie, if you turn of your computer at night, drink two less cokes and ditch the car for public transport you can save money for traveling, spending on loved ones or whatever comes to mind).
However, the effect it has on the world in a larger scale I'm unsure of. I think the blame lies on the people who profit on ****ing up the environment. The corporations who sells their products to "us" as ecological, or advocates less pollution schemes have the same shareholders who pollute water supplies in the third world or dump huge ships in places where there are no laws regarding waste or pollution. The fact that I neither have a car license or drive does not affect the environment at all, and the problem with many of the people advocating less-use is that they do it in a moralistic way, the same way as the left (it is mostly the left, at least until recently) has alienated many of the working class they're supposed to be part of due to being moralistic bastards who points the finger in the wrong direction.

All in all, I think it's good people do take action, but it's like pissing against the wind if not drastic changes occur.

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Theres probably some truth behind certain enviornmental positions, but the movement as a whole has been so absurdly hijacked by nutcases (mainly radical treepeople who hate humans and are upset about technology causing the extinction of some species of beetles , and the bogstandard anti-capitalists who are eager to grab at any possible stick to hit the West with), thats its far easier to just ignore it altogether than to waste time sorting out the truth from all the propaganda. Which is why I do.

Also if someone told me walk rather than take a car I'd laugh at them for being silly.

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Nope, Economy 7 still exists although it's a lot less common than a couple of decades ago. It's partially because of the unpopularity of storage heaters (which are both unpopular with residents and score poorly in any energy rating scheme) - now the vast majority of our stock have gas heating and the last few storage heaters are being replaced when they fail. The few properties which can't easily get a gas supply are using more modern methods of electric heating.

Ignoring the technical problems, I think they're very much against the modern ethos of choice. Government standards place a reasonably high emphasis on the occupants of a dwelling being able to control both the timing and the temperature of the heating system. Which of course storage heaters weren't great at...

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They really aren't. They present just as biased a view as the people they decry, it's just biased towards secular liberalism, so I find it less annoying. It's decent entertainment, and a good place to start for avenues of investigation into a topic, but it's not the be-all and end-all of intelligent debate.

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Actually, I seriously don't know how power and power stations work in terms of storing it.

I always thought they produced energy which was stored. I didn't think they produced it and it was used up pretty much immediately (as Rc-mayhem seems to be saying). So they produce it and it is stored and used as and when it's needed. Or do they produce an excess of energy at all times which is used immediately, and there is always a percentage of wasted energy (into heat or similar)?

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How do you think they store it TK?

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I dunno, lots of AA batteries? :salute:

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a few weeks ago i completed a project on energyconsumption within structures; how to (partly) feed the necessery input of one device with the waste-energy of another. because there's a big time-factor in this all, we also did a literature-study on storage for thermic energy. if you are seriously interested in that i can summarise, translate a bit and DCC it, if you like.

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I have to echo Ste. I am fairly sure (I wont say 100%) that it is not stored.

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power stations have no way of storing the energy. Its pumped straight into the national grid. They tend to up energy production during peak times and decrease it at other (eg night) so they produce slightly more than is needed at all times.

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Thanks for putting it in layman speak for me :)

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Based on that am I incorrect in saying that turning off a few lights would reduce polution? If so I will happily back down on this side of the discussion, not the paper thing though, thats as evil as mother teresa (she believed people should feel lots of pain to get to heaven amongst other less publicised things)