Slashdot Mirror
Green Geeks?
sigmatt asks: "I've often wondered where Slashdot readers stand on environmental
issues. This might be considered a little off topic for this site, but so many programmers that I know, including myself, are outdoorsy
people in their other life, and I'm interested in the opinion of the wider geek community. The local issue in my part of the world at the moment is logging of old growth forests, primarily used for wood chips. The wood chips are not very valuable (as low as AU$7 a ton - that's US$3.50!), but it
is the easy option - and I suspect it leads to the highest profits and quickest company growth. Unfortunately, our wonderful forests - with
so many potential future uses (fine furniture, tourism, and, of course, my own hiking trips) are being wasted away at an alarming rate. Recently
the tactics of those opposing the practice of woodchipping our old growth forests have turned to attacking the tourism industry in order to try to make a government who won't listen change its mind. For example this site
ripping off
another site, and the posting of a controversial bill board in Sydney
airport. What do you think about these approaches?"
And remember, the BIGGEST polluter in the world is the US government, and the worst one in this country is the all the federal and state governments.
Duh. This is as meaningful as the comparison "Nike pollutes more than my local shoe store". Well, FUCKING DUH. They're a lot bigger.
The US government is bigger than the biggest corporation, so it's not really surprising that they would pollute the most. It's still completely meaningless, though, and you quote no source either.
Private and coroporate pollution is almost nil by comparison.
You're saying that the entirety of corporate pollution is less that the pollution of the federal government? I seriously doubt that. Let's see some sources.
Most geeks are actually libertarians, though the geeks on slashdot seem to be mostly socialists
Pure speculation. My experience (a programmer, not a server admin) is that most are socialists with some libertarians, but I live in Multnomah County, Oregon, which is probably one of the most socialist-friendly counties in the country (7% voted Nader in 2000), so my estimates are as useless as yours.
Sustainable growth, of course, is a meaningless PC phrase which nobody is willing to define.
Have you asked?
Sustainable growth is a pattern of resource use that provides a reasonable degree of certainty that future generations will be able to employ the same pattern of resource use. Think "rotating crops" here.
Next!
I write in my journal
The ultimate accessory for any motor-vehicle-needing Green Geek is a Toyota Prius.
The Prius is a SULEV (super-ultra low emission vehicle), which puts out about 90% less pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and hydrocarbons compared with a similarly-sized car, while using about 50% of the fuel and producing about 50% of the carbon dioxide.
These savings come from the use of a drivetrain incorporating an internal combustion engine, electric motor-generators and regenerative braking. You never plug in your Prius, and it has a range of 500 to 600 miles per tank. Needless to say, all of this technology is controlled by a number of computers, and there's a group dedicated to hacks and mods for the Prius.
For more information on this ideal Green Geek car, see this eight page PDF from the U.S. Department of Energy, or this site, which includes more information on the Prius than you probably want.