Published on 12, July, 2020
I've got a few ideas about this myself, having spent two years collecting and processing every bit of burnable paper that goes though our house, implementing solar and wind "solutions" being involved in recycling WEE. (Waste Eectrical Equipment)
Here's the deal, 1 billion people manage to live similarly comfortable modern lives as you do, the remaining seven billion now though the power of media WANT TO have what you have...
Our response is MORE technology, electric everything, etc.
I've tried sharing what I have, it's next to bloody impossible and people have no concept of looking after what you have, there's always another newer one avaialble.
Electric cars, use a horrible battery technology, that completely offsets any perceived environmental gain, and is leaidng to premature disposal of other more durable techncology, whilst overloading aour transmission grid which is already suffering the insult of copper being replaced with aluminium conductors....
Climate change though CO2 emissions is NOT settled science by any means and even if it was, there are alternative (always undiscussed) ways of tackling it, rather than "stopping oil".
The thing you all need to know is this: Energy is measured in watts. YOU can produce approximately 100 watts of energy continuously and sustain it for as long as you are physically fit.
YOUR house if it's "normal" continuously draws as much energy on "standby" as can be produced by between two and four people pedalling constantly day and night to keep it going. A shower requires the equivalent of 110 people pedalling whilst you clean yourself.
MY motorcycle at full chat makes about the same power as one thousand people pedalling!!
A rebalancing with nature can only be avoided by making A LOT of energy available by means of technolgy as yet unexploited, but we can't have that because people will misuse the technology for war as soon as it goes mainstream.
ANY effectvive strategy to maintain our standard of living I feel will require much greater "sharing", and use of glass and ceramics, instead of "packaging".
There's a bit of my take. the energy figures lack academic levels of precision but are generally not too far form the truth that they aren't useable enough for basic energy education.
AND PLEASE. Someone tell me why they are shuttng down food production all over Germany and Holland, right when we are importing more hungry people by the millions?
Please don't tell me that isn't happening, I know that this is happening and has been ongoing for a while. There were HUGE protests about it, but the policy is still in place. It does not take nostradamus to figure out what will happen if the foood gets in short supply..
There's also a major shooting war happeing in "The Bread Basket of Europe" and the only thing that stopped the fields being salted with depleted uranium FROM US (an irreversible act of radiological polution right wehere our wheatabix is probably grown) was a well placed RF Iskander missile that nailed the lot in a warehouse! (Ive used a bit of licence, I'm not 100% sure what air attack asset the RF actually used, but they DID get all those DU shells before they were distributed...) Well done them, from an ecological perspective!
Over to you guys, for hopefully another well balanced discussion like we've seen a lot of recently.
I think we consume too much. We as a society produce and consume too much. I studied logistics and our lecturer explained that with the example of Mercedes. Their old cars were really durable and high quality. At some point their sales started decreasing, because the customers didn’t need to buy more new cars when their worked good. So they found a solution for this problem- make less durable cars. Make it the way that they work for example (I’m not sure if I remember the figure correctly) - 10.000 km and after that they are supposed to start breaking do the owner is kinda forced to buy a new one. It’s also another strategy to force the customers buy more things - mini jack, different cables etc. another obvious strategy is advertising. It screams to you: MUST HAVE! When I hear this “must have” I think - who the hell are you to tell me what I must have? I’m not perfect, but generally I don’t like shopping and I don’t buy all those “must haves” I don’t care about trends, I love my clothes and other stuff and I use them as long as possible and repair them whenever possible (I even remember myself repairing mobile phones at home). If I can’t repair something, like clothes for example- I look how to reuse them. So I consider options before I finally throw something out. Another problem is that, as Nikola Tesla said, people don’t want free energy. We must pay bills for the electricity because someone wants to get rich.
One more problem I see: disposable items, packages etc. here I can see two possible solutions (maybe there are more) - more foods sale in reusable materials such as glass, metal, paper whenever possible etc, for example liquids in glass with refundable deposit. Or other solution for liquids - dispenser, scale, customer with their own reusable glass. There are solutions for the horrible pollution, but problem is that they would be uncomfortable for the customers. The customer would have to go with empty glasses to the shop and refill them or change in order to buy food etc. it’s a shame and I often feel it, although I personally did not create these things but I contribute to them whenever I go buy something.
It seems these days, if it's not making money for the "shareholders" then nothing is going to be done!
I do find it ironic that we are going back to practices from years ago. My gran always took her string bag shopping, and used the brown paper that things were wrapped in (covering precious school books, writing lists, mattress protectors, carpet underlay...). I remember we used to get 10p back when we returned glass bottles to the shop - that bought a sweetie mix that costs around £1 these days.
It is even hard getting some things fixed these days, as you say they have built in times to become obsolete or wear down. Most things aren't built to last. I am not keen on shopping, or on changing things at home, so I only buy a sofa if the old one is falling to bits. There are so few things I throw away, as I keep them until they are beyond use.
I remember about 20 years ago going to an environmental sustainability talk, and I had to challenge the speaker. She was saying that everyone should give up flights, cars etc. because of the environmental impact, because there are alternatives (move closer to work/family, call family abroad...). She was doing a presentation on a computer - so I challenged her that we should also get rid of computers.
She was a bit aghast -
"but everyone has one" - they don't actually, and you can use that argument about cars, everyone I know has one.
"there are no alternatives" - we managed perfectly OK for thousands of years with word of mouth, letters, books, paper photographs, using our memories to remember and pass on information, and did she know how damaging the interior components of the computer are to the environment, we used to use horses and steam trains to carry messages, OK it was slow, but that isn't a bad thing the information still got there.
Instead of saying I'd made an interesting point, she wasn't aware of the computer thing and she'd think about it, she started insulting me and lost her credibility with the audience. I think we are still fighting this level of un-awareness of where things come from, and the impact of us having them. It's not really enough to print on a packet of salad the number of air miles it has travelled... The rate of change of technology is starting to be really worrying - phones, computers, cars, smart things - watches, plugs, bulbs, appliances. We still don't recycle the components enough, most people put them to landfill.
I used to use a shop called Scoops which had big bin-sized containers you could scoop out how much you needed into the containers you brought. Rice, oats, pasta, cereal, things like that. It was great as a student, as you could buy just the amount you needed, rather than the quantity the supermarket wanted to sell you.
Another bug bear is the sell by dates excuse for throwing things out. That must introduce an awful lot of food waste...
Desmond79 said:Usually Guardian Readers, who spent their young Adulthood in Latin America.
Let me know who they are and I'll see if I can look them up and give them a piece of your mind
Too many Wannabe Tinpots becoming Teachers. Usually Guardian Readers, who spent their young Adulthood in Latin America. Probably even went to Illegal Raves, back in the day.
Fiona said:That must introduce an awful lot of food waste...
This becomes so much more obvious when you see things like bottled water and packs of salt with expiry dates. Sheer greed on the part of the producing corporations.