THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CHATTER => Topic started by: explicit on 30 Jan 2015, 22:16
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I said I'd make a pure, environmentally focused thread, so here it is. I'd like to use this space as a way to give others little pieces of advice to live a more environmentally conscience life. Advice on composting, light bulbs, water use, recycling, gardening, food use, places to boycott for being dicks; if you have a good idea about how to be better to our planet then please share it! Also, any questions about habits, environmental thoughts, issues or questions are encouraged.
These things are important to me (which I always found weird, because I'm probably more right leaning than left leaning - in the American political spectrum that is) and I hope they can be to you as well. And with that I'll open it up here.
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I just wish that more people would realize that it isn't the environment we need to save but rather our place in it. Ultimately the planet will be fine however our survival on it is tenuous at best. Someday probably sooner than later humans will tip the ecologic balance out of our favor leading to our extinction.
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Should this go in Discuss?
Also, remember - do not throw those CFL bulbs (the twisty ones) in the trash! They contain mercury. So do regular flourescents (the long tubes), but not as much as the little ones. They all need to be recycled properly.
Anyone know any drawbacks to the LED bulbs that are coming out?
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I toss burnt out bulbs in the Kerbside Recycling anyway.
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Anyone know any drawbacks to the LED bulbs that are coming out?
As far as I know, they're the most environmentally friendly. They have excellent power efficiency, unlike the old school bulbs that mostly generate heat, and assuming they don't something weird with the bulbs, diodes don't rely on chemicals to generate light the way fluorescent lights do. I have no idea what goes into the actual manufacture of them, but I can't imagine that the manufacturing process would outweigh the advantages they have over other kinds in the actual use of the bulb. And diodes last practically forever, which is another plus.
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Should this go in Discuss?
I thought about this, but I wasn't sure. I only didn't put it in there because I was figuring this could also be used for simple advice stuffs. If a mod moves it I wouldn't be upset, I was just 50/50 on where to put this.
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Yeah I think it can go here, it's not like we have to get into huge debates about how the earth is being destroyed and what all humans should do about it, we can just share tips, ask for/give advice and talk about what we do personally.
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Also LED bulbs don't give off uv light so they dont attract bugs!
We have a light at the top of our outdoor stairs that we can't turn off (landlord liability thing I think) and it was always swarming with bugs in the summer , which meant bugs always got in the house when you opened the door. We replaced it with an LEad bulb last year and problem solved!
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Hmmm.
1. Get into the habit of eating vegetarian meals more often if you aren't already a vegetarian. Added bonus: greater diversity in your life.
2. Change how you buy, cook and save food in such ways as to minimise food waste. Bonus: save money, empty trash less often, have less smelly home.
3. Don't buy/replace stuff with new stuff all the time. Learn to make the most of what you have and take advantage of second-hand stuff. Bonus: save money, get satisfaction from squeezing value out of old things by creatively modifying or fixing them.
4. Spend some time on insulating your home a little better. Bonus: you'll be less cold.
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Also LED bulbs don't give off uv light so they dont attract bugs!
I actually didn't know about that at all, we're learning already!
This one is more of something that's obvious, but we forget about a lot. When shaving or brushing your teeth you're allowed to turn the water off in between strokes (heh) and it's okay to not flush after some pees. If you're an American those toilets can use up to 5 gallons of water a flush, it's okay, just put the seat down sometimes to cover it up.
Also, just a personal gripe, if you have a lawn, please don't use thousands of whatever units you use to water it. It's a lawn, there are droughts across the globe right now and the ones in America are being exasperated because of water usage in farming and lawn care.
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One of my pet peeves is those self-flushing toilets in public restrooms. I've had them flush on me anywhere from three to five times, and I'm usually pretty quick about things. Then the damn thing keeps flushing every few minutes, even if there's nobody using it. How many hundreds of gallons are wasted per toilet per day on something like that?
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Maybe that's why those sinks with the motion detectors never work? So they make up for all the flushing their toilets do.
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Also LED bulbs don't give off uv light so they dont attract bugs!
That's actually really useful info. Maybe I just don't see enough advertisements anymore overall, but I've never seen this advantage advertised ant that seems silly.
2. Change how you buy, cook and save food in such ways as to minimise food waste. Bonus: save money, empty trash less often, have less smelly home.
On this subject: even if you aren't really into recycling, having separate trash cans for recyclable containers/paper/cardboard can make it to where you really reduce the amount of trash you have to take out every week. And if you have a garden, composting can reduce it even more. I'm lucky in that my city issues free recycling bags for our trash cans, and we can put the recycling out on Mondays along with the trash and the recycling crew will come through behind the trash crew.
Maybe that's why those sinks with the motion detectors never work? So they make up for all the flushing their toilets do.
Joke's on them; that's why I just wash my hand in the toilet.
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I don't drive. Even if I did have more money, I wouldn't. I cycle or take transit everywhere.
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On this subject: even if you aren't really into recycling, having separate trash cans for recyclable containers/paper/cardboard can make it to where you really reduce the amount of trash you have to take out every week. And if you have a garden, composting can reduce it even more. I'm lucky in that my city issues free recycling bags for our trash cans, and we can put the recycling out on Mondays along with the trash and the recycling crew will come through behind the trash crew.
My town gave us a bucket for recycling, though I was surprised when I found out some towns don't have any recycling options (I have no idea how really small work really). Given two options people are going to choose what's easiest and just throw everything away together..
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I don't drive. Even if I did have more money, I wouldn't. I cycle or take transit everywhere.
I'd love to not need a vehicle, but there're just too many things I can't do with public transportation.
My town gave us a bucket for recycling, though I was surprised when I found out some towns don't have any recycling options (I have no idea how really small work really). Given two options people are going to choose what's easiest and just throw everything away together..
Unfortunately fixing our environmental problems (or even settling for not making it any worse) takes people making to choose the less easy option. It does seem people are becoming more aware these days, though, myself included.
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I don't drive. Even if I did have more money, I wouldn't. I cycle or take transit everywhere.
I'd love to not need a vehicle, but there're just too many things I can't do with public transportation.
It's obviously dependent on where one lives. Transport isn't as reliable or as frequent as when I lived in SF, for example, but my area still has a high enough population density to support a halfway decent system.
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It's obviously dependent on where one lives. Transport isn't as reliable or as frequent as when I lived in SF, for example, but my area still has a high enough population density to support a halfway decent system.
Oh, definitely. I'm originally from Houston, where the public transportation is practically non-existent. Now I'm in a college town in central Missouri, and while there are bus routes for the apartment complexes and student dormitories, there isn't anything where I live.
On top of that, even if I could do away with a daily driver for most of the year, I do a lot of stuff where I need my truck. Not every day or even every week, but at least a couple dozen times a year. Transporting scuba gear, kayaks, mulch, and lumber is difficult at best on a Metro bus. Plus it's nice to be able to help people move.
Now if Dodge or somebody could come out with an all-electric pickup truck, I'd be golden.
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Electric cars aren't actually as good for the environment as you would think. The large battery banks used require a lot of extremely toxic materials, and it's not like those things last forever. In addition, a lot of the toxic components are manufactured in countries where things like tumor-riddled factory workers don't get on the news. So, yeah. Woo. I'm just waiting for my atomic car. Nuclear power is actually better than most other forms of power production, assuming you have the kind of modern fail-safes that were invented after Chernobyl. And if you use the kind of breeder reactors France uses, nuclear waste is recycled multiple times as additional fuel. Downside: With breeder reactors, the waste isn't moderately radioactive depleted uranium, it's very small amounts of motherfucking plutonium. The only really safe thing to do with plutonium is launch it into the sun. Or use it to blow up commies. Ya know, whichever.
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Well, a pick-up is a practical vehicle for a lot of people. A lot of my friends are either tradesmen, or otherwise have to haul heavy shit a lot of the time. I won't judge anyone for using one, even though they're not normally the most energy-efficient. And one can't always afford another vehicle. The last time I drove one, though, I didn't like it. The seating was too high, compared to what I was used to, but I was the only person there besides the person whom I was driving who knew how to drive a standard transmission.
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Also LED bulbs don't give off uv light so they dont attract bugs!
You mean I can get rid of the ugly yellow CFL bug lights I have outside my house?!?
:lol: :laugh:
Yay!
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Electric cars aren't actually as good for the environment as you would think. The large battery banks used require a lot of extremely toxic materials, and it's not like those things last forever. In addition, a lot of the toxic components are manufactured in countries where things like tumor-riddled factory workers don't get on the news. So, yeah. Woo. I'm just waiting for my atomic car.
Atomic, hydrogen, dark energy, dark matter, antimatter, gluons, quarks, angstroms, thalidomide, post-scarcity, quantum string theory, whatever car.
Nuclear power is actually better than most other forms of power production, assuming you have the kind of modern fail-safes that were invented after Chernobyl. And if you use the kind of breeder reactors France uses, nuclear waste is recycled multiple times as additional fuel. Downside: With breeder reactors, the waste isn't moderately radioactive depleted uranium, it's very small amounts of motherfucking plutonium. The only really safe thing to do with plutonium is launch it into the sun. Or use it to blow up commies. Ya know, whichever.
I don't know if we would need to do that, but I'm torn on nuclear weapons. On one hand, they're weapons and they're nuclear. On the other, I can imagine them being useful in various space operations, and I'm a big fan of space operations. Propulsion or some crazy engineering thing, or maybe we'll need them to fight an asteroid. So I think they should be around in case we want to make a hole in something bad or hack the planet or whatever.
But yeah I'm a fan of nuclear power.
Well, a pick-up is a practical vehicle for a lot of people. A lot of my friends are either tradesmen, or otherwise have to haul heavy shit a lot of the time. I won't judge anyone for using one, even though they're not normally the most energy-efficient. And one can't always afford another vehicle.
Whatever crazy energy-efficient vehicle technology they can come up with, I want a pickup truck version. And one that can be autonomous.
The last time I drove one, though, I didn't like it. The seating was too high, compared to what I was used to, but I was the only person there besides the person whom I was driving who knew how to drive a standard transmission.
Anti-theft devices.
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Actually, I was wrong, it was the *owner* who could also drive a standard, and my passenger was just to shaken-up. Mea maxima culpa. But a standard is certainly useful to ward off thieves. I generally left my first car unlocked, since I never left anything that I cared about it in, and the clutch was so bad that my father was the only other person who could drive it.
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Electric cars aren't actually as good for the environment as you would think.
Even if issues with the batteries can be overcome by improved manufacturing and recycling, which they probably can, the key question with electric cars is "How is the electricity that charges the batteries generated?" An EV might not have a tailpipe, but that does not mean it does not have an exhaust. (http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21636715-why-electric-car-may-be-much-dirtier-petrol-one-cleaner-what)
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That's the problem with a lot of things that use electricity, you kinda have to use whatever the grid is providing you with (unless you generate your own electricity) and sometimes the only sources they use are dirty fossil fuels. If they use natural gas, renewable sources or nuclear then yeah, it's probably better. You can find out what is used to generate your electricity at your power companies website.
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Electric cars aren't actually as good for the environment as you would think.
Even if issues with the batteries can be overcome by improved manufacturing and recycling, which they probably can, the key question with electric cars is "How is the electricity that charges the batteries generated?" An EV might not have a tailpipe, but that does not mean it does not have an exhaust. (http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21636715-why-electric-car-may-be-much-dirtier-petrol-one-cleaner-what)
Excellent point, and it brings us to a new environmental topic: methods of power production.
I already said what I think about nuclear power, which is a bit of a mixed bag. Everything goes right, it's good, anything goes wrong, it's bad. I think we can all agree that coal is just terrible for the environment, regardless of how cost efficient it is. Most power plants that burn something as fuel are pretty bad. I did, however, hear about some power plant that runs on old motor oil, engine grease, and other second-hand oil based products. I like the idea of putting used oil to good use, but I would imagine the smog is terrible.
Wind power. We have a lot of wind farms in Texas, mostly in all the huge stretches of mostly-uninhabited land we have. They're a good backup for an existing network, but they're stupidly expensive to build and maintain, and I think that's going to be what prevents them from being used on a larger scale. Same goes for solar power. Until a breakthrough either increases the output or decreases the costs, they're just too expensive to keep running. And environmental groups keep saying that wing turbines chop up birds. It seems ridiculous if you watch the windmill from a distance, since they don't seem to spin very fast, but when you consider the length of the blades, those suckers gotta be moving at a good clip.
I'm a fan of water power. Hydroelectric is a proven technology, it doesn't burn anything, so there's no exhaust being pumped into the sky, and in the right spot, it puts out a ludicrous amount of power. Downside, people complain that it's bad for the fishies, though the catfish that live around the bottom of dams seem to be doing fine. Those suckers get fat.
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Wind power. We have a lot of wind farms in Texas, mostly in all the huge stretches of mostly-uninhabited land we have.
Didn't know beans were a large crop over there.
I'm a fan of water power. Hydroelectric is a proven technology, it doesn't burn anything, so there's no exhaust being pumped into the sky, and in the right spot, it puts out a ludicrous amount of power.
The concrete that's used in the construction isn't too great though.
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Dams can be horrible for river systems and wetland areas. Think about it, they have to flood a huge area for them to work. What is it? The 3 Ganges Damn in China (I think that sounds right, I don't feel like google), that did some pretty significant damage, especially to people who lived upstream.
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I'm a fan of water power. Hydroelectric is a proven technology, it doesn't burn anything, so there's no exhaust being pumped into the sky, and in the right spot, it puts out a ludicrous amount of power. Downside, people complain that it's bad for the fishies, though the catfish that live around the bottom of dams seem to be doing fine. Those suckers get fat.
I am too, but unfortunately damming rivers can have pretty disastrous effects. Look at the Aswan High Dam in Egypt, or as explicit said, the 3 Gorges Dam. Those issues can be mitigated, of course, but aside from the problems they have with the ecosystem, they also remove silt from downriver, and they can cause slumping and other erosion-related problems in their reservoirs.
I am excited about the potential for tidal/wave power, but those also require a ton of infrastructure and likely involve some ecological damage to the ocean floor, as well.
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IIRC, India is putting a metric-arseload of money into work on throium reactors, since it can't be potentially used as a weapon, do a Chernobl, and is easier to dispose of.
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Using molten salts as a battery (http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525121/molten-salts-might-provide-half-price-grid-energy-storage/#comments) looks like a good idea to add to our existing power generators.
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I will say that every type of power generation has environmental issues with it, you kinda are just stuck with trying for whatever does the least harm.
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I will say that every type of power generation has environmental issues with it, you kinda are just stuck with trying for whatever does the least harm.
Too true. That's why I'm hoping we can make enough technological breakthroughs to mitigate them.
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I can't really think of too many egregious environmental issues for solar power though. It's mostly just... not very good right now...
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I can't really think of too many egregious environmental issues for solar power though. It's mostly just... not very good right now...
I think -- though I'm working from memory here -- it has to do with the minerals used in the photovoltaic cells. The mining would bring with it certain environmental (and probably human rights) issues, while the expense of extraction and the rarity of the stuff used contributes to expense. There've been cells designed more recently that use stuff that's more commonly available, but those haven't gone into production yet. Will add a link if I can find one.
ETA: Found a link for the environmental consequences of rare earths, but can't find the article I'd read about the alternative solar panels.
http://news.thomasnet.com/imt/2013/08/22/rare-earths-and-other-chemicals-damaging-the-environmental-value-of-renewables
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I can't really think of too many egregious environmental issues for solar power though. It's mostly just... not very good right now...
Mostly basic infrastructure concerns as well as building the things. I've been knocking on wood for graphene to advance the state of the art for like a decade now.
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I'm a fan of water power.
Leaving aside the issues associated with construction of dams (displacement of populations, loss of productive land, requirements for gigantic quantities of concrete and steel), the environmental effects others have mentioned, and the political problems where rivers run through multiple nations/jurisdictions, hydro-power only works where there is sufficient precipitation and suitable topography close to where the power is needed.
I think -- though I'm working from memory here -- it has to do with the minerals used in the photovoltaic cells.
One has to bear in mind that solar does not necessarily require photovoltaic cells. Solar thermal is another option, and one that does not require rare-earth minerals. Arguably the heat produced by thermal solar is easier to store than electricity (at the present state of the battery art), reducing the problem of generating solar electricity at night. Thermal solar tends to come in "big chunks", however, and the collectors can require large flat areas to be bulldozed.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Four_solaire_001.jpg/1920px-Four_solaire_001.jpg)
I present the solar furnace at Odeillo in the Pyrénées. Reaching temperatures over 6,000 degrees F (3500 C) since 1970. The plane mirrors in the foreground follow the sun, reflecting light onto the parabolic array from dawn to dusk. It's at an elevation that's above much cloud cover and provides for a long day.
And hydro power doesn't always require a dam. Most of NY state and the surrounding area gets power from a simple diversion of the Niagra river before it goes over the falls...
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It's all based on the power of the river. A damn is usually built to add force to the water when it passes through the turbines.
I like the pic and I may be talking out my butt here, but I believe the solar power arrays (mirrors) can provide a lot more power than the cells. The arrays just do what all other power plants do - make things hot and use steam (though I believe instead of water solar arrays use a salt mix in a closed system).
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There was a theory a while ago that a satellite could trail a long copper cable behind it to generate a current off of earth's magnetic field, but the obvious problem is getting power down out of orbit.
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There was a theory a while ago that a satellite could trail a long copper cable behind it to generate a current off of earth's magnetic field, but the obvious problem is getting power down out of orbit.
MOTHERFUCKIN' LASERS, let's do it.
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There was a theory a while ago that a satellite could trail a long copper cable behind it to generate a current off of earth's magnetic field, but the obvious problem is getting power down out of orbit.
MOTHERFUCKIN' LASERS, let's do it.
I know that this issue of power transference has long been the stumbling block for orbital power generation. One solution had been a high-power microwave-wavelength radio beam, which would penetrate the atmosphere as if it wasn't there. However, someone did some calculations and realised that even a tiny fraction of a degree of a drift in the aiming point of the transfer beam would literally flash-boil any life-form it its in its skin in a second if they were unfortunate enough to be within a few miles of the receiving station.
In reply to Orkboy, I don't think that they make lasers that powerful yet, at least not in operating wavelengths that can penetrate Earth's atmosphere.
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I present the solar furnace at Odeillo in the Pyrénées. Reaching temperatures over 6,000 degrees F (3500 C) since 1970. The plane mirrors in the foreground follow the sun, reflecting light onto the parabolic array from dawn to dusk. It's at an elevation that's above much cloud cover and provides for a long day.
And hydro power doesn't always require a dam. Most of NY state and the surrounding area gets power from a simple diversion of the Niagra river before it goes over the falls...
Oh that's pretty cool. The last thing I read about a solar furnace was the one in Nevada that reflects the heat from the ground to a tower, which poses the problem that any birds passing through that area get roasted mid-flight. Presumably that's less of a problem with one on the ground, but how does that one work? I see panels on the field and mirrors on the building; where is the heat collected? It could be that building in the center but that doesn't look like a solar collector at all.
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The thing's 8 stories tall, the solar collector is on the side of that center building that's facing the mirror. You can't see it in reflection because of the missing central mirror panels. It's there, but partially surrounded by the building's sides.
You can see the scaffolding and lower parts of the collector in this pic.
(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/k9YfyzJ7S8Q/maxresdefault.jpg)
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Does anyone have a good way of remembering to bring their reusable bags into the store? For the life of me I always forget.
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Laundry Day
Same day I do the Shopping, so I take the Laundry down to the Laundrette in the cloth bags, stick it on and go do my shopping locally. Take the Shopping home, wander back down to the Laundrette and pick it up and hang it out at home.
FYI, I live three to four minutes walk from my local Shopping Centre.
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We keep a handful in the car. I usually keep one in my camera bag or my messenger bag, too (they're not the bulky reusables; they're the thinner nylon ones that have a storage pouch sewn in). I also keep a plastic bag in my camera bag... I shoot a lot in cemeteries, and people littering in cemeteries bothers the shit out of me. That way the trash gets carried out and the plastic bags get re-used.
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Does anyone have a good way of remembering to bring their reusable bags into the store? For the life of me I always forget.
Always keep them on your person. I have a shoulder bag I always have with me and there's always one two plastic shopping bags in there. You could also keep one in a coat pocket.
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Except I think he was talking about the heavier duty reusables. Those flimsy plastic things tend to tear, especially with the crap I keep in my coat or pants pockets, or my wife's purse.
We keep three in the back of the van.
Then forget to take them into the store...
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Yeah I hate carrying extra stuff with me.... cause I'll inevitably lose those things... I had a habit of leaving my bags in the trunk and not realizing it until I was in the checkout line already.
They're really good for carry bottles around to parties though. So at least I used them.
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I'm a fan of water power.
Leaving aside the issues associated with construction of dams (displacement of populations, loss of productive land, requirements for gigantic quantities of concrete and steel), the environmental effects others have mentioned, and the political problems where rivers run through multiple nations/jurisdictions, hydro-power only works where there is sufficient precipitation and suitable topography close to where the power is needed.
That doesn't really address Northern Quebec.
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I listened to Fox News have an executive from the Heartland Institute come in and talk about global warming and now I'm just upset. Ughhhhh, the dumbness
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I listened to Fox News...
That was the frst mistake.
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Isn't Fox News an oxymoron?
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I switch between the 3 major stations, that way I can get mad at three different things. This is usually how I view the three American stations:
FoxNews: Way too conservative
MSNBC: Way too liberal
CNN: Way too stupid
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For me, I switch between Al Jazeera and BBC World
Of course, I also watch 3 News down here in Kiwiland
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I switch between the 3 major stations, that way I can get mad at three different things. This is usually how I view the three American stations:
FoxNews: Way too conservative
MSNBC: Way too liberal
CNN: Way too stupid
I wouldn't mind the ideological bent of Fox if they'd at least get their facts right, which they don't. Actually, that's too charitable, since it suggests they tried to report accurately in the first place, which they generally don't. MSNBC at least does that much, though there are a few of their anchors/pundits who needed to be put out to pasture ages ago (Matthews, Schultz, Sharpton, anyone associated with Morning Joe). CNN usually manages fine, too, as long as Don Lemon's not on (then all bets are off). I find myself watching Al Jazeera America a lot more lately, though (especially since FIOS makes you pay extra for BBC World).
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(http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/How+news+works_0e55ca_3742064.jpg)
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I saw that before, it's pretty spot on.
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I have no idea how true it is, I just thought it was funny.
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Sad fact is that there is probably more truth in that Image than there is on the News Channels
Especially Fox.
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Regarding the comment in the image about MSNBC: Generally speaking, when someone's complaining about "playing the race card," it's been after they've said or done something racist. Call me a silly bastard, but there's something more than a bit disingenuous about sending an email comparing the president to a monkey (to cite just one example among dozens), and then when you're called out on it, shrieking, "Why do you people always play the race card?"
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I think you're simplifying things too easily. It's often, for example, that someone would get pulled over speeding and say the cops only pulled them over because they were black, there's two sides to every coin is all I'm getting at. I agree with you mostly, it's like people are playing the "race card, card". It does not promote objective discussion of whatever happened, just as not taking any personal responsibility for a mistake.
Anyways, I'm going to ask a question about an environmental issue to get us back on topic: how does everyone feel about GMOs in general?
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I like to remind people that every plant and every animal that has been bred by human ingenuity is a GMO - I love them!
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There's a big difference between crossbreeding and genetic splicing.
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I like to remind people that every plant and every animal that has been bred by human ingenuity is a GMO - I love them!
You are technically correct but I believe the term GMO applies when an organism has been modified in the lab. It's a completely arbitrary distinction of course, as virtually anything you can do in the lab, you can do with traditional culturing. Apparently when agricultural scientists with lab coats and pipettes get involved, people get kinda antsy.
Anyway, the thing about genetic modification is that geneticists know exactly what the protein is that they are making the modified organism encode, so for a GMO to become directly harmful to humans when eaten, you would literally have to add a gene that produces actual toxin. The detailed knowledge of the modified genes means this cannot possibly happen by accident. If a protein is not directly toxic to humans but sets off a cascade reaction that does produce toxic products, this can be either predicted from the plant's known metabolism, or observed in the first-generation modified specimen. Finally, if a gene does not produce a toxic product by itself but allows the plant to tolerate an externally added toxic product, then yes, you might have a reason to be worried. The best known example of this is the Roundup-ready gene which allows a plant to resist the Roundup herbicide, courtesy of our friends at Monsanto. I recall this herbicide getting some bad press but a quick check of Wikipedia doesn't indicate its use has resulted in harm to humans.
tl;dr: if you're worried about GMOs, wash your vegetables.
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What Stephen said. Mendel wasn't inserting fish genes into tomatoes. The one reason that I'm skeptical is that there are plenty of things that were "safe" 'til they weren't -- asbestos, DDT, and artificial sweeteners off the top of my head, though I'm sure if I Googled, I could come up with more examples.
On the other hand, between global warming, water shortages, and an exploding population, it's pretty clear that our food problems aren't going to solve themselves. What bothers me more about GMO crops isn't so much the fact that they're modified, anyway; it's the fact that LTK mentions... lots of things have been modified specifically to make them resistant to higher strengths and doses of pesticides (some of which are neurotoxic to humans) and herbicides, neither of which are good for human consumption no matter how hard anyone tries to spin it.
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Point number 1.) Monsanto can eat a dick.
Other points (hurr hurr): I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with GMOs, but I do agree that the fact that they're resistant to many pesticides/insecticides/other cides, makes it so they're liable to be covered in the stuff. Not to mention that farmers will use more (seeing as the plant won't get hurt) which can wreck havoc on the ecosystem.
I'm with the people who say a GMO will give you cancer because of it's structure though. That and even if you try to stay away from all GMOs I can almost guarantee that you eat them on a daily basis.
Despite ecological damage they can do - by both existing (possibility to become invasive, harming insect population, etc) and because of the shit people put around them - they do what they're supposed to. Which is use less water, on less land and produce a higher yield. This can be especially important for impoverished nations. Unfortunately when it comes to feeding people there's always a yin and yang.
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I know I over-simplified. The point is, though, that humans have been changing the world around them for their entire existence, and these effects have always been a mixture of good and bad. Modern GMOs are no different. I love that they can increase yields, or be used to create or deliver medicines in new ways; I hate that they can be used to force farmers to buy seed instead of creating and reusing it. Overall, I think that we have more to worry about with global warming than GMOs.
Also, when people talk about "preserving the world", they nearly always mean "in the state it was in when I grew up" rather than the state it would have been in if humanity hadn't influenced it.
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Personally, I'm more worried about monoculture, and people like Monsanto owning the imaginary property rights to our food, than I am about the safety of such foods. I wash everything anyhow, but I can't stand the idea of farmers not being able to save seeds for the next year, even though there is genetic drift happening which causes them to get sued into oblivion, or indenture.
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Personally, I'm more worried about monoculture, and people like Monsanto owning the imaginary property rights to our food, than I am about the safety of such foods. I wash everything anyhow, but I can't stand the idea of farmers not being able to save seeds for the next year, even though there is genetic drift happening which causes them to get sued into oblivion, or indenture.
Which is why Monsanto is continually voted one of the worst companies in America. They have lost the last couple to Comcast though.
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I think EA was in the top spot for a good while above both of them.
I'm with the people who say a GMO will give you cancer because of it's structure though. That and even if you try to stay away from all GMOs I can almost guarantee that you eat them on a daily basis.
Wait, are you sure you wrote this right? You think a GMO will give you cancer?
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I think EA was in the top spot for a good while above both of them.
I'm with the people who say a GMO will give you cancer because of it's structure though. That and even if you try to stay away from all GMOs I can almost guarantee that you eat them on a daily basis.
Wait, are you sure you wrote this right? You think a GMO will give you cancer?
Yeah, I forgot the "not" I often write so fast I skip over words, my bad!
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Carl_E suggested I copy my blog post here:
My kitchen is lit by twelve 50W low-voltage halogen lamps. Well, it was; today I replaced them with twelve 6W mains-voltage LED lamps (removing the transformers took most of the time). I now have the same or slightly higher light levels, and more uniform, because some of the halogens had lost brightness with age and not all had the same beam width. I calculate that the saving in electricity consumption will be about £1 a day - for a capital outlay of under £120 (bulbs and GU10 tails for the fittings).
I have another room with similar lights and usage which I will make the same change to soon, and a third that is little used so can be left till last.
Eighteen months ago I put into a new extension what at that time were the first LED lights I'd seen whose quality was satisfactory for domestic living. The new bulbs each cost one fifth as much money - that's how fast things have changed.
I now also have LED bulbs in my desk lamps and in corridors. Lighting is a major part of many people's electricity usage these days, as higher and higher standards of illumination are expected. Changes that cut the cost by a factor of seven while additionally decreasing wastage associated with the short lifetime of incandescent bulbs are a significant and now reasonably affordable way to help reduce the pressure on resources.
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I'm wondering about LED performance in extreme cold. I have many twisty CFL lights, and they cut our consumption by quite a bit. One of them is a yellow bug light on the back porch.
Now, the old one (lasted about 8 years) was a regular twist in a yellow shell. The shell would hold in enough of the bulb's own heat so that it shone about as brightly in severe cold as it did in warmer temperatures. The same is true of the two CFL floodlights I have aimed into the yard and the street (for the steps up into the house). A CFL in a floodlight reflector and lens.
But when the bug light burned out, I couldn't get a new one in a shell like the old one. So I have a yellow painted twisty CFL. And in the severe cold we've been having, it's not giving much more light than a night light bulb! The one in the garage is about the same - it's a 100 watt rated (so about 26 watts), but shines like a 20 watt bulb when the temperature's near 0 F. It just never warms up!
Does anyone know - before I go investing in them for the outside lights - how LED bulbs perform in severe cold?
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LEDs are much better suited for colder climates than CFLs. Apparently they work slightly better in cooler temperatures according to my super scientific google research. I couldn't find anything for their performance in 0 degree (F) temperature, but for 20ish degrees they said they're perfect.
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This is our porch LED bulb. It is on a covered stairway, though that window thing has nothing in it, and the stairs are backless, so it's essentially outdoors. It is not noticeably dimmer to me:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-N8R3S_miNY4/VOFOUixiHmI/AAAAAAAAK6Q/nL2r_pISQwU/w306-h542-no/Screenshot_2015-02-15-20-48-54.png)
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Now, that's some empirical evidence!
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They use LED streetlighting in Mayerhofen in Austria. Gets down to around -20C on the worst nights there. Now I'm not able to provide any observed comparative data, but I would expect there would be tests to make sure that the lighting worked at an appropriate standard without having to provide overkill lighting at more common conditions.
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I read somewhere (and it may have been bullshit) that they couldn't use led lighting for traffic lights in cold weather locations because they didn't generate enough heat to prevent snow building up.
Now as someone who lives in a city that has an extensive network of led traffic lights (and a distinct lack of snow) this seems plausible enough to me.
But is it true?
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Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/17/led-traffic-lights-dont-melt-snow-do-cause-accidents/) has reported this, seems to be the case.
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Should be easy enough to design a traffic light model that eliminates this issue without significantly compromising the energy savings. Of course I retain my view that anyone unable to drive safely around an obscured/non-functioning traffic light should immediately have their license recinded permanently but that's for a different thread.
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The limit on LED performance is typically keeping them cool, so low temperature performance on a LED bulb should be excellent.
It is worth noting that many of the better LED bulbs have phosphors in them (essentially, a good LED bulb consists of blue LEDs exciting a white or yellow phosphor - sometimes that's in the LED itself, sometimes it's a remote phosphor), and they'll all have some nasty stuff in the drive circuitry and the PCB. Also, the mercury emissions of a broken CFL are lower than the mercury emissions of incandescent bulbs powered by coal over the same lifetime, but you should still properly dispose of the CFL.
As far as vehicles... cold start is by far the highest emission operating regime for an internal combustion engine. Combine trips to minimize cold starting, you'll cause less emissions, use less fuel overall, and it's kinder to your engine too.
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Should be easy enough to design a traffic light model that eliminates this issue without significantly compromising the energy savings. Of course I retain my view that anyone unable to drive safely around an obscured/non-functioning traffic light should immediately have their license recinded permanently but that's for a different thread.
Well, the problem is that if snow has any moisture in it, it sticks to pretty much anything, so redesigning the metal cowl around the light won't stop snow buildup in all conditions. If you also account for the ludicrous levels of ice that forms anywhere by a windy lake, then many places would require some kind of heated traffic lights, and if you're going to add a heating coil, you might as well just use a standard bulb anyways.
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Except the heating coil only reduces efficiency to incandescent levels in winter - the other three seasons, it's not needed, and you get full LED efficiency (and lower maintenance) the rest of the year.
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If you add a means to enable and disable the heating coil in different seasons or weather, you have extra costs right there.
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True, although a basic single point temperature sensor is hardly a major expense. A simple filamented cowl would cover all three lights eliminating the need for multiple systems.
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Hmmm,
Done some further digging on this one. Turns out it's a bit of a red herring. Turns out it's not a common issue, even in lakeside cities prone to blizzards such as Toronto.
While they do sometimes become obscured, this basically occurs less frequently than incandescent bulbs fail. Therefore there is no decline in safety. If anything it's technically safer because it happens when people are going to be driving more cautiously. Blizzard snowfallis usually a relatively short lived occurence and current remedies include use of Rain-X, anti-freeze squirt guns and men with pokey sticks.
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I like this thread, but I'm sorry, every time I see the title on the forum page, all I can think of is this:
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So, I usually don't flush the toilet if all I had to do is pee (unless I'm at someone else's house), because it saves water. Many toilets use 5 gallons (in the U.S. many other countries have lower water pressure toilets, which is why in many countries you have to throw out your toilet paper instead of flushing it), but despite that, apparently I'm still gross. Thoughts?
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So, I usually don't flush the toilet if all I had to do is pee (unless I'm at someone else's house), because it saves water. Many toilets use 5 gallons (in the U.S. many other countries have lower water pressure toilets, which is why in many countries you have to throw out your toilet paper instead of flushing it), but despite that, apparently I'm still gross. Thoughts?
I do the same thing, for the same reason. Drives my wife nuts.
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There's always using the sink, or storing it in bottles until there's enough to justify the flush. I'm sure she'll be elated if you offered to go back to the way that you're doing now.
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On a semi-related note, one of my friends had a roommate who used to pee in bottles instead of getting up at night to pee. He was kicked out.
Went into their room once (they were both slobs) and it smelled like rancid milk. The joys of college.
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Many toilets use 5 gallons (in the U.S.
Standard in UK is 2 gallons (UK gallons, so 2.4 US gallons).
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To be honest, the 5 gallon ones are older models. Newer ones use about that. Public toilets usually use more than home toilets.
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Hmm. The toilets at my local are about 1.6 gal (US).
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I have no idea what the capacity of my toilet tank is, but your toilets have a stop button too, right? That can't be just here, because it's stupid to empty the entire tank on a few milliliters of urine. I'd forgo flushing urine if it weren't for the smell, so I do a one-second flush at the longest. I notice that public toilets that don't have a stop button at least have two buttons for short flush and long flush. Which makes sense given that the owner wouldn't want to pay for more water than the toilets actually need. It's one of those features that makes environmental and economic sense, so I'd be surprised to see places without it.
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Standard in UK is 2 gallons (UK gallons, so 2.4 US gallons).
Older toilets in Australia can have an uncontrolled flush of 12 litres, but modern ones have variable flush. Normally there are two buttons on top, marked for full-flush and half-flush, but in fact neither empties the cistern. The half-flush uses 3.5 litres (less than one US gallon), while the full-flush uses 4.5 litres (roughly one UK gallon). If you have something truly horrible to get rid of, you can press and hold the full-flush button which empties the 11 litre cistern, but that is rather wasteful. One should get rid of skid-marks with a toilet-brush, not multiple flushes that waste water and rarely work anyway.
Many toilets use 5 gallons (in the U.S. many other countries have lower water pressure toilets, which is why in many countries you have to throw out your toilet paper instead of flushing it), but despite that, apparently I'm still gross. Thoughts?
The problem with getting rid of toilet paper is not typically one of water pressure; water closets are generally fed from a cistern mounted above the pan which is only filled by the mains, or other water supply, until the float-valve shuts it off, so the pressure feeding water into the bowl is only that generated by the difference in level between the cistern and the pan (so the old high-cistern, pull the chain systems had their advantages). The problem of getting rid of toilet paper (apart from gross over-use of the stuff), is the capacity of the pipework and sewage system to which the toilet is connected.
Many toilets in Asia still hark back to the days when toilet paper was not used, and users were expected to wash their bottoms with water, so they don't handle TP well at all. You will often find a bucket next to the toilet into which you should put your paper. These toilets will usually be "squatters", however, so the TP bucket might be the least of your challenges...
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I have no idea what the capacity of my toilet tank is, but your toilets have a stop button too, right?
I have never heard of a stop button on a toilet. I'm completely serious.
Many toilets in Asia still hark back to the days when toilet paper was not used, and users were expected to wash their bottoms with water, so they don't handle TP well at all. You will often find a bucket next to the toilet into which you should put your paper. These toilets will usually be "squatters", however, so the TP bucket might be the least of your challenges...
I plan on going one day, good thing I exercise my legs. As far as the bucket thing, I only had to do it a few times and that was in Belize, which is when I learned that many toilets can't handle paper.
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Standard US toilets nowadays are 1.6 gallons, and you push the flush lever, and it's not gonna stop flushing until the tank's emptied.
The annoying thing with many of the 1.6 gallon toilets is that they were a rush job to comply with the law, basically just reducing the capacity of an old 3.4 gallon toilet design. Upshot is, if you take big shits, it'd take a couple tries to flush.
I've seen exactly one toilet that has variable flush volume, through two buttons (a small button for a small flush, big button for a big flush). One problem is that they're not at all common, so parts for them are rare, and when they break, you end up having to order far more expensive parts, and can't just get them at the hardware store.
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I'm just astounded that such a thing even existed, it's so simple, why haven't I heard of this?
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I have seen a few of the variable flush ones around, as well as "power-flush" models which use less water at higher pressure to accomplish the same task.
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I'm sure I once saw a cistern that had a little sink over the top of it.
When you flush, the water comes out of the tap on the sink.
you wash your hands and the waste water then fills the cister.
I can only recall seeing this once. I'm sure I didn't imagine it.
It seems like such a brilliant idea. I can't understand why it's not more common.
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Sounds like a simple grey-water type of device. Something we should use more of seeing as I don't think my poop water has to be all that clean.
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The National Trust building in Swindon has a rainwater system for all of their toilets which is a good innovation.
The problem with grey water flush systems is basically twofold.
1) Grey water generally tends to occur lower down. That means that you have to have a pumping mechanism to get it back up to where it needs to be. Putting grey water under pressure in a pumping system introduces it's own issues and requires a more robust set of components and a maintenance schedule. You then get into a negative water cost in an effort to save water. Don't for get that pressure requires power generation and power has a water cost. The production of additional components and the provision of additional maintenance also requires water in itself. Although wasteful at the point of usage, use of clean water can be more economical than a grey water system.
2) Grey water also necessarily contains impurities. That's OK on something that is going into a sewerage system but less so for something that by design is going to be standing water for a significant proportion of it's cycle. That in itself poses a health hazard that will require additional measures to keep safe. You'd be more likely to use additional cleaning products to keep your toilet clean and healthy which adds a chemical cost which has to be countered when whatever you flush reaches your local waste water/sewage treatment works. Shit, toilet paper and other organic matter is easily handled by the digestion systems but even relatively low bleach spikes can be a big issue for your local utilities. I refer you to the earlier comments about water costs.
So how does the National Trust do this in an environmentally friendly manner? Rain water is relatively clean stuff. In fact it's already destined for the sewers anyway. All rain water then runs across a neutralising catalyst and runs through a static filtration system (ceramic I think) that makes it clean enough for usage. You can install one of these as a home system but you would need a sufficient scale of head in order to counter the absence of pressurisation. You'll also need a functional run off system and a valved back up from the mains for periods of low rain.
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All of which is part of the building I work in.
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I am familiar with the "don't flush if you're only peeing" rule from my grandfather, who lived in the Cayman Islands. Because there are no rivers and so much of the fresh water supply comes from reverse-osmosis desalinization, it's especially important not to waste water. I have to admit, even though I followed that rule when I was visiting him, I've never done that back at home. I just can't abide the lingering urine smell from an unflushed toilet. Smells just gross me out way too easily. :(
I've never heard of variable flush toilets, or toilets with a stop button (or toilets that use hand-washing water to refill the cistern) before today. All of these ideas sound so brilliant; they just seem like common-sense once you hear them. I don't know why they haven't been more widely adopted everywhere. If I ever get my own house, I would totally get something like that to prevent waste.
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I'm sure I once saw a cistern that had a little sink over the top of it. When you flush, the water comes out of the tap on the sink. you wash your hands and the waste water then fills the cister.
Something like this?:
(http://www.savewater.com.au/library/Caroma/Profile%20w-%20handbaSIN%20013_NoSoapWater.jpg)
They certainly work, and have a small footprint in tight spaces. I find them a little awkward to use, and they are generally only plumbed to cold water. There are other systems where the toilet and washbasin are linked, but side-by-side. These are more like a conventional wash-basin to use, and can be plumbed to hot and cold supplies. Either way, I think there are problems with installing such systems in your primary, or only, bathroom, because I don't know how well they'd cope with toothpaste spittings, men's shaving-cream and whiskers etc. Rainwater or some other cleaner grey water would probably be best.
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Yeah that's the one.
It's only intended for use in wc's for washing your hands.
It's not meant for general bathroom duties.
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Explicit (and anyone else), the house I live in had one bathroom when we moved in, and it was last updated in 1926 (according to the date of manufacture stamped in the toilet tank lid, they all have it). The toilet flushed a full five gallons, the whole tankful.
We decided to keep all the fixtures - it's like walking back in time - but after about 6 months I had to replace much of the hardware inside the toilet. I did so, and adjusted the float down considerably, until the tank filled with the least amount that provided a decent flush. I got it down to about 3 gallons, which is still a lot more than a modern low-flush model (standard is 1.6 gallons), which is what I used in the powder room I added.
But we're saving about 2 gal per flush, and that's an improvement.
Get inside your tank and make some adjustments, it's pretty basic hardware and simple to adjust. Until you actually replace the beast, you can at least put it on a diet!
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The standard trick in Australia to reduce the water usage of an old style cistern was to put a couple of bricks in it!
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My apartments I lived in for school were all really old. My last one there were actually bricks in the toilet.
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When I arrived in my present house I had to remove the bricks from the toilet because it became clear that one effective flush was more economical than two ineffective flushes!
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When I first moved in here I had an old style wooden boxed cistern. Landlord changed it over to a more efficient one about a week after i moved in.
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Don't use bricks. They have a tendency to degrade and then clog up valves and generally break your toilet. A lot of water companies will provide a "hippo" for your cistern free of charge.
not an actual hippo though. Its a bag of beads that expand in water. Can be tricky to site but work well once settled.
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My apartments I lived in for school were all really old. My last one there were actually bricks in the toilet.
Eat more fibre.
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(http://cdn2.scratch.mit.edu/get_image/user/3576470_60x60.png?v=1394566026.36)
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Behold, the science of pooping.
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Behold, the science of pooping.
I go to a doctor for that
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Saw this on twitter
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-JSlQfCYAAKcsF.jpg)
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So, this fall I started working a seasonal position at Macy's, and continued on after the "season" was over.
I started on the loading dock, unloading trucks. We open the boxes which get compacted and recycled (good). Every article of clothing or handbag or whatever is individually wrapped in plastic inside the boxes (not great). We strip off the plastic before sending the stuff out to the stockrooms and sales floor, and all the plastic goes into a huge (like, 4x4x7 foot) poly bag which is theoretically recycled also. Good? I dunno, most plastic gets recycled as those annoying shopping bags that blow around town whenever the wind picks up...
Everything clothing item comes on or with plastic hangers, unless it's meant to be put out on a table. When sold, the hangers are taken off and reused. Not bad.
However, we sometimes get sent shit where there's one or two tiny things in a big box on the truck. Wasteful, at best.
I also learned how to do what's called fulfillment. Online orders or things people want sent as a gift or something go into a computer system, and get sent from the store. We go out, pick the items from the stockrooms or the floor, pack them up and ship them out. We ship all over the country - the system figures out the closest store that has the stuff ordered. For instance, yesterday I sent a set of three down coats to Sarasota FL thanks to the recent freeze, I guess. We were the closest Macy's with enough down coats leftover...
When we ship something, we wrap it up in plastic again (why did we unwrap it in the first place?), and ship it out in UPS shipping envelopes of various sizes or cardboard boxes, all with the Macy's logo, of course. But we only have so many sizes of boxes, and we pack the excess space with newsprint - rolls and rolls of newsprint. Very wasteful. And when we pull something off a hangar, we trash the hangar, unless it's a wooden suit hangar. No one can explain that one to me. They reuse the ones from the floor, why are we throwing them out in shipping?
Retail is a wasteful business. We have trucks coming and going every day, it's ridiculous.
And don't even get me started on the pricing... there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. If you can discount something 80 - 90% and still make a profit, what the hell was your initial markup?
Oh, and if you ever order something from Macy's, and it gets sent from the Logan Valley Macy's in PA, and the shipping card is signed "Carl", that was me. :-D
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Just on the pricing, you can't discount 80-90% and make a profit. However, you'll get to the point where is clearly isn't going to sell and is just going to get in the way of new stock and displays. If you make very dramatic reductions like that, someone will come and take it of your hands. This means that and employee isn't spending their paid for time on getting it off the shop floor, documented as a non-sale/wastage and preparing it for shipping. You're then not spending money on haulage to take it away from the store and not paying for landfill costs where it would likely otherwise end up. Economically and environmentally it's generally a win for the company. If you take a look a the net profit for the whole of the stock of one product, it will likely be profitable overall. That's what big companies look for, not single unit profitability.
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Sometimes there are huge mark-ups ahead of time as well. Depending on the item they put on a huge pricetag on at first knowing that people think a $300 sweater 50% off is somehow better than that same sweater at $150. JC Penny actually lost a lot of money when they said they'd stop doing these practices, people just like to think they saved money I guess. These are usually for clothes, at least more than anything else, for whatever reason.
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Yeah, it's generally clothes, and the biggest discounts are online, so I actually am picking, packing and shipping a $50 cashmere sweater for $6 plus $4 shipping (according to the receipt I packed with it).
I guess they sell enough of them at $50 that they can afford to do that with one or two of them? Still seems nuts.
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Clothing retail traditionally has a very high initial mark up and a planned reduction cycle for a % of the merchandise; e.g. 10% of the merch sold at full price, 30% at 25% of, 50% at 50%, and the last 10% at 70%. They could just offer it for the equivalent of 40% off all the time, but there is more value in doing it like this:
Clothing is a time sensitive product, you want shorts just before it is warm, and sweaters before it is cold. People are willing to pay more for good that are just released. Clothing customers are also segmented into "trend setting, I want it now, my time is valuable" and "bargain clearance shoppers, hunting for a bargain" A cycle that starts with a high mark up and then drops to 70% off gives you a chance to serve both.
Also, we like to buy goods that are on sale. The initial price is usually only offered for a very short time. I also worked at Macys for a while, and Most goods are 25% off within a week of being on the floor. The brands that get higher discounts faster are ones that are targeting bargain shoppers. A whole group of Karen Scott things might be 50% off the day it hits the floor, but that Ralph Lauren shirt is going to go through a longer cycle, og full price, 15% off, 25% off, 50% off, 65% off...
The cost of producing clothing is very low (artificially low one might argue because it is produced, and sold by underpaid employees) When my mother worked at JCPenny in the 70s their employee discount was "you get it at cost" and she told me that this was usually 80% off of retail. (The current employee discount scheme feels more like a scam to steal employees pay back from them: at Macy's they offer you a credit card when you start (or a pre-paid), and you have to use the card to get your 20% employee discount. Many of my coworkers had a rolling balance on a Macy's card at nearly 25% interest.)
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Then there's the tradition of marking things up before the holidays so you can put them on "sale" (MSRP) during the busy season. The same thing is done when stores close, so people who don't pay attention to what things normally sell for (much less what they're worth) the rest of the time tend to get screwed pretty hard there.
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I think we may be significantly diversifying from the original subject of the topic. Perhaps a seperate thread could be set up if people want to discuss retail practices and economics any further.
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If I had my way, I'd live somewhere where I didn't have to get the lawn mowed every couple of weeks.
'
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If I had my way, I'd live somewhere where I didn't have to get the lawn mowed every couple of weeks.
'
I plan on using rocks. Or maybe just put a lot trees and bushes. Rocks sound heavy.
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Trees. Lotsa Pine Trees
And a Treehouse
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Fuck that, I plan on living in a treehouse. Those things look sah'weeeeeettttttt
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And free Firewood.
But remember, plant two for every one you chop down.
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If I had my way, I'd live somewhere where I didn't have to get the lawn mowed every couple of weeks.
Lawns are a bad idea in Australia, because they require too much watering, even with drought-resistant grasses. I have a paved yard, which just needs sweeping, and grow my plants in pots and planters of various sizes.
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Given CA's continuing drought problems, I see more and more people switch to rock gardens, often with more climate-appropriate plants. Now if only we could we cut off the water supply to So-Cal, where we're sending far too much water to rich people who don't have the sense to know that you shouldn't build golf courses and swimming pools in the fucking desert.
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I do know it's mostly agriculture in CA (that is, what contributes towards water usage). The whole situation is pretty dumb. Personal use only takes up a small amount, most of it is farms and lawn care. The soil and weather is great in southern CA to grow stuff, but seeing as they don't technically have their own water source, large scale anything down there makes no sense. Last I checked they were considering tousand mile long pipes to bring in water from across the country. Everyone stop moving to Cali! Here in New England we have plenty of water, just happens no one wants to live here...
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I'm of the mind of sending them all still-suits, and letting them harvest the Spice.
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Here in England we have a bit of the opposite problem. Too few lawns. A lot of basin regions have been overdeveloped with housing with small gardens and some of those being turned into driveways for 2nd and 3rd household cars. Without these small patches of natural drainage, more rainwater gets diverted to the sewerage. In any area that was already on the cusp of flooding it suddenly tips over a lot more frequently.
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Plus we are building more in flood plains, while at the same time insurers are starting to refuse flood insurance!
(I once had a house at the top of a hill; the insurers classified its flood risk not as "none", nor even "slight", but "moderate"!)
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Hey, if they can't make money off it they're not going to insure you, which is one reason why so many people near the shore aren't insured anymore. There's no money in an insurance company covering those places unless they jack up the rates. Certain environments just aren't meant for housing anymore... (whether or not insurance coverage should be mandatory is another topic, I'm just saying that they'd insure everything if there was money in it).
As far as the hill thing goes it depends on what it's built on. If it's clay or something similiar I'm not surprised they classified that as a moderate risk to flooding.
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Paul, I cycled through floods above Membury and Lambourn around this time last year. Some days, nowhere is safe.
I do generally look for houses with some elevation though.
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Plus we are building more in flood plains, while at the same time insurers are starting to refuse flood insurance!
(I once had a house at the top of a hill; the insurers classified its flood risk not as "none", nor even "slight", but "moderate"!)
I can haz ur water?
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I can haz ur water?
Quote by: every Californian :D
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I can haz ur water?
(http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100113012502/roadwarrior/images/a/ab/Lord_Humungus.jpg)
*edit* just realized that it says Beyond Thunderdome above my avatar. :laugh:
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I can haz ur water?
Quote by: every Californian :D
Every summer, I'm tempted to look for wormsign.
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I do know it's mostly agriculture in CA (that is, what contributes towards water usage). The whole situation is pretty dumb. Personal use only takes up a small amount, most of it is farms and lawn care.
It is a bit hard to maintain motivation to save water in your home, when you know that leakage from under-maintained water-mains in Sydney accounts for well over one hundred million litres per day (according to Sydney Water's own reporting (https://www.sydneywater.com.au/web/groups/publicwebcontent/documents/document/zgrf/mdq3/~edisp/dd_047419.pdf)), and that mispricing of the two-thirds of Australia's annual water supply consumed by agriculture leads to us growing thirsty crops like cotton in arid areas.
Oh well... You can't control the world; you can control yourself.
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I want to mention something about overpopulation, because apparently most people don't get it (I'm not saying you guys don't, but every environmental story comes down to this for some God awful reason).
It is NOT overpopulation that is the issue. It's overconsumption. A family of ten in India uses fewer resources than a married couple in the U.S. If the population was the same, but use the same resources an American and other developed countries use, then we would have already far exceeded our carrying capacity.
It's not the amount of people, it's the amount people use, I don't understand why people don't get this whenever they say things like, "we need the people in Africa to stop making so many babies". This is a simple concept, right?
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However, I'd say that developed economy babies are a bad idea, at the very least, until de-developed stable economies are a thing.
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Which can make things interesting actually. Most developed countries are currently below replacement level reproduction. Not looking it up so I maybe wrong, I believe the U.S. has one of the higher rates of fertility (which was 1.9 babies per woman, I think? Again, I'm basing this off previous studies so things could have changed.) However, our population is still set to increase over the long term due to immigration. European countries and Japan have the problem of not enough babies being born. Economically it's a problem, I mean. Environmentally that's fine. My point is that developed countries' fertility rates have already leveled off.
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But, for sustainability, they need to shrink, not level off.
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Well, it's a time thing. They can't shrink until people start dying, even if fertility rates are below replacement level.
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It is about consumption, but it is also about the number of people. We can't expect the family of ten in India to continue at the same consumption level. It's not about having a big, all mod cons house and driving a couple of cars and all of the luxuries and comforts that the US couple have. It's about the background costs to those common essential services such as policing, healthcare, transport and clean water inrastructure etc.
Absolutely we in the developed countries need to reduce our consumption of resources, but equally the tradition of larger families in developing countries will have to be accepted as unsustainable if they are to continue with that development.
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Generally speaking, this is a "problem" that fixes itself. Rising prosperity and economic development tend to result in lower birth rates. This is why the One Child Policy in China was arguably unnecessary, as well as unarguably brutal and inhumane.
However, even if everyone in the world had the same birth-rate as the members of the OECD, there's no escaping the problem of numbers when it comes to sustainability. According to the World Bank development indicators published in 2008, 80% of the human population lives on less than US$10 per day. Just how low-resource a life-style will they and their 2.1 kids have to adopt to be sustainable? Never mind SUVs, or imagining everyone in India living the American dream; just providing everybody with bicycles and refrigerators would maintain a pretty massive demand for resources. I don't think anyone in the developed world is remotely ready to confront just how low a level of resource consumption would be involved in an equitable, sustainable world.
Arguably even the relatively low standard of living (by rich-country standards) enjoyed by the citizens of Mumbai or Shanghai is unsustainable. At purchasing-power-parity (PPP), the average global GDP per head in US$ is around $11,000 per year, or a little less that of Brazil and less than a quarter of that of the USA. Yet most of the human population lives in countries that are poorer:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Average_GDP_PPP_per_capita_2010.svg/500px-Average_GDP_PPP_per_capita_2010.svg.png)
Blue is above the Global Average PPP GDB. Orange is below.
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I've just watched the documentary DamNation. I can't recommend it highly enough for any Americans interested in environmental matters
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Is it on Netflix or youtube or something?
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Not sure, I saw it as part of the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival.
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The film's website says streaming on Netflix.
http://damnationfilm.com/ (http://damnationfilm.com/)
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http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/nestle-california-national-parks-bottled-water/
I wonder what's going to happen when Cali runs out of water. Anyway, just a reminder, please don't buy bottled water.
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Boom! On volcanoes, climate and economics (http://econ.st/1GrQHQy).
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http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/nestle-california-national-parks-bottled-water/
I wonder what's going to happen when Cali runs out of water. Anyway, just a reminder, please don't buy bottled water.
Or almonds. Or almond milk.
It would also likely help if they stopped fracking, but I don't think Brown has the stones for that.
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http://gizmodo.com/seriously-stop-demonizing-almonds-1696065939
Almonds aren't so terrible. Feel free to boycott Nestle though!
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Eat Whittaker's!!
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(http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/9/8/4/420984_v1.jpg)
Also, the Pope has a Masters in Chemistry, but that's neither here nor there.
This is a bit old (few weeks), but still relevant, I think.
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So, I had this question posted to me by my scientist friend (seeing as I have more experience on the environmental and energy side of things).
It basically came down to, "what would be your ideal energy system that is feasible?". The question is one that sounds simple, but gets more and more complex once you factor in everybody. Now, I'm not expecting an essay (like I gave him), but I'm hoping for some responses for how people think about energy in general, especially because it's not something many people (especially politicians) think about.
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Energy has many forms so, I'm not sure what forms of energy that you are asking for opinion.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q