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People Who Claim To Worry About Climate Change Don't Cut Energy Use
schwit1 (797399) writes with news that a UK study has found that folks concerned about climate change don't do much to conserve power at home. From the article: Those who say they are concerned about the prospect of climate change consume more energy than those who say it is "too far into the future to worry about," the study commissioned by the Department for Energy and climate change found. That is in part due to age, as people over 65 are more frugal with electricity but much less concerned about global warming. However, even when pensioners are discounted, there is only a "weak trend" to show that people who profess to care about climate change do much to cut their energy use. The findings were based on the Household Electricity Survey, which closely monitored the electricity use and views of 250 families over a year. The report (PDF), by experts from Loughborough University and Cambridge Architectural Research, was commissioned and published by DECC.
High power use doesn't have to be dirty: Replace coal, methane, and petroleum with nuclear, wind, solar, etc.
This is slashdot. If there's one thing we know, it's that hoping users will alter their behavior doesn't work. Better technology does.
az0
Global warming is a money/power grab, the ultimate in "Do as I say, not as I do" diplomacy.
As long as it's cheap, I do not care how the power is generated - coal, gasoline, nuclear, enslaved environmentalists...
Oh, and unless there is an electric car with decent range that does not have software in it (actually, you can have a single ATMEGA MCU, but the source needs to be open), I'm keeping my gasoline powered car (that does not have software in it).
...it's just old fashioned human nature.
Those are low energy density devices. They will never supply enough energy, and in some cases consume much more than they supply. Innovative nuclear is the only way forward, and sadly I don't see much support for it.
People have a choice. Different cooking fuels, different hearing sources, not using A/C, Driving a smaller car (electric cars are not very piratical for a lot of people). This just goes to show that most people who bitch and complain aren't willing to to do without. They want to force the change at the top. Power companies/society. This will not work. They don't see how closing US coal plant just moves it overseas, put our people out of work and more. If anything you want it in the us where it is more tightly regulated! I say give them what they want close all US coal/natural gall plants tomorrow. Coal 39% Natural Gas 27%. With 66% less power, you won't be doing much of anything. and will shut the fuck up about climate change when you feel the real impact of it. Do what is right, conserve where you can and let the industry evolve naturally.
I wonder how many of those concerned about global warming also have teenagers running up their power bills.
People need electricity to conduct the business of their lives. The issue is not that we use electricity, Electricity isn't a pollutant, burning coal is a Pollutant. Electricity use isn't going to go down. The stupidity of this, is that we don't have Thorium power plants, or Microwave Satellites. (I think the reason Solar Power is failing is because the Earth's atmosphere is creating problems for the sun's Energy to reach us, but I could be wrong.)
But we're not, we are still, burning, to our own stupid jackassery, coal. It's insane.
All this concern about the environment does not prevent some of the biggest alarmists from using extravagant amounts of energy. Be it in the form of travel by private jet or by owning large homes...Outstanding examples of this hypocrisy: Al Gore, Tom Freedman, Pachauri.
Captcha: doubter
I'm concerned about the environment, but it is really a given that over time I'll use more electricity. Technology may get more energy efficient, but we will get more things that demand that energy. I'm under no illusion that I'll be able to meaningfully lower my emissions more then trying to fix the big things, like getting an electric car and upgrading my AC to a more energy efficient model. Everything else is just a drop in the bucket. Around here the pollution mainly comes from cars and trucks that are far out of repair and coal power plants. The only other thing we can do is get private solar power. ;)
So my part will be to get an electric car and solar panels, but those are still a couple years away for me for economic reasons. The sooner they are more affordable and have longer range, the sooner I'll be able to take advantage of those technologies. Or I need to get a raise
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
Is a possible interpretation of the data that "people who don't use much energy, don't feel the need to worry about climate change"?
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
I personally suspect that the people who might worry the most about it may already be convinced that it is too late... and any actions that we take now will at best only make a difference of a couple of generations, at most... leading them, perhaps ironically, to not really make any serious effort to take responsibility for what they may be able to do to slow it down.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"The findings were based on the Household Electricity Survey, which closely monitored the electricity use and views of 250 families over a year. "
Over a year? So what? If its based on a mere year or two, nearly every family in the world would have increased or remained at parity when it comes to electrical usage simply because of increased computer/electronics/cell phone usage. That doesn't mean they don't worry about the climate change, it just means energy usage changes have offset our increased electrical in electronics.
Do they drive electric cars, and use more electricity as a result. Electricity use is a rather misleading metric.
Maybe 20 years ago, there would have been a chance of doing something effective. That time is past. And as the comments here doubtlessly will show there are still enough dumb fucks who do even at this late time not "believe" in global warming. (As this was somehow a religious question...)
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
As reported they imply that they didn't control for other variables.
The real report says that age and socioeconomic factors have a significant impact on energy use.
Caring about the climate has a much smaller impact. But when controlling for the other variables, it does result in slightly less energy consumption.
I no longer have any patience, I'm old. When people tell me how important the environment is I ask them how many kids they have. It's amazing how few people see the connection between themselves and the world.
"Someone else will solve the problem, we have a career/life/car/house program to follow here, buster!"
Mostly random stuff.
and my electric bill is under $30 a month.
Will it cost me time or money ?
YES: Global warming does not exist
NO: Yes I care about the environment
I've been deliberately conserving my energy use. Adding insulation. Only using room air conditioners (Any one with central air needs to get a clue). For over 2 decades.
Not perfect, but trying to strike a balance. The AC runs less than a few weeks a year.
I'm not sure what this study is about. Probably someone is trying to game the system.
They'd do something about planned obsolescence.
We literally build things to fall apart. The waste from that alone is staggering.
Imagine if practically everything where build to last, be easily repaired, easily upgraded, etc.
When your washing machine breaks did the whole thing break or did a 2 cent nut break? Exactly. But it isn't practical to repair it because its so difficult that its cheaper to just buy a new one.
This is by design. What is more, the parts are intentionally designed to all wear out. They use plastic for parts of machines that should be in metal... parts that experience heat that over time melt and deform. This causes big parts of the machine to fail.
Then you have parts that really must wear out like light bulbs but they aren't modular.
If we did this the amount of things we needed to get made on a regular basis would fall dramatically.
This would have a bigger influence on climate change then any other idea proposed... EVER.
But no one wants to do it because it would effect our industrial supply chain that change the whole way everything is made.
Well, until we do this... all climate change talk is a waste of time largely propagated my the incurious and the stupid.
I have no patience for those discussions... they're a waste of time.
We don't need carbon caps. All that does is give governments an excuse to raise taxes which is the only reason the politicians are even interested in this discussion.
What we need is to change our industrial model. And the sick thing is that if we do this we won't even suffer for it. We'll maintain our existing standard of living. All of it. The gains in efficiency will so outstrip everything that it won't matter. The amount of STUFF that has to be made on a yearly basis could fall to less then a tenth of what we currently produce. Which means the carbon debt of our industry without any effort to make it use less carbon per unit production would fall to a tenth.
This would also mean we wouldn't need to import all this shit from china because if you're buying a lot less you can afford to pay more. US manufacturing costs are at most 20 percent higher then china. If you're purchases fall to 10 percent then paying 20 percent more then 10 percent is easily justified.
This is the solution. It has always been the solution. Until this happens... nothing in the discussion of climate change is relevant. Its just hot air.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
People with brains don't cut back on energy use. What's easier? Every single person, as in millions of people, lives like a post-apocalyptic refugee and uses 50% less power while the population continues to increase by 50% quite quickly
or
That power plant down the street starts pulling power out of thin air with solar and wind and everyone keeps doing whatever they want. Gee, I wonder which solution is more durable. There is no level of power saving that will fix climate change. It HAS TO be fixed at the source.
Mine the landfills instead of picking though crap at every house.
It is a wonderful thing to tell everyone else how to behave, shame them when they deviate from your plan, and then do the opposite privately. It is what humans have aspired to for thousands of years.
See, when you start thinking your shit doesn't stink, this is what happens. You want more. You think that the law is a fine thing, but just for the little people to follow. Someone such as yourself shouldn't be held back by such trivial concerns. Morality? It's backwards, its only purpose is to hold you back from what you deserve in life. Hypocrisy becomes not something bad, but a stamp of approval for your lifestyle. You relax and let everything flow. Of course, in public, you strongly condemn others, and you will take action and spend money to maintain the mask of respectability.
Why do the powerful always become outraged when the little people successfully make a point? How dare those little shits speak to me like that? It's not something new, it's been around forever. This is the default of human behavior, when it doesn't happen, that is exceptional. Why is it noteworthy that the global warming brigade does the same thing? The fact that they hold themselves over the rest of us should be a flashing neon sign that things just ain't right.
-- The Magician's Nephew
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
In any case there are probably more significant way that a person contributes to the carbon problem. Cars are a good example. Petrol is mostly carbon, and no matter how clean we make the exaust, and it is clean, there is still carbon that has to be expelled as CO and CO2. Asking someone how much petrol they consume a year is therefore a much better indicator, although in the UK the car ownership and use is probably not as great as in the US.
Then there is food. A kilowatt hour of electricity is like a kg of CO2, burning a gallon of gas is like 8kg, and eating a pound of beef is like 50 kg. Eating chicken, according to the OECD, cuts that in a quarter. So someone who uses too much electricity but each chicken instead of beef, or even tofu with cuts in a quarter again, is probably doing more good that some who has beef every day but is very frugal on the electricity.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
If they knew how much they (and the entire economy) had to cut back to do anything substantial about AGW they'd be climate change deniers.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I mean, really, why would I cut my electricity use? I often see on the news my power company asking it's customers (pretty much everyone, since they have a monopoly, no competitor or alternative on that side) to limit their consummation during x and y time... Are you kidding me? They are producing so much that there's a massive excess of energy in the hundreds of MW, even during peak hours, that they can sell it to other countries/provinces...
Not only that, but my power is made from Hydro energy, it's as green as can be, while it can damage the immediate environment(dam construction, water flooding valleys..), it doesn't pollute the air or the soil.
So really, why should I cut my energy usage?
People who're worried about climate change would likely be people who've already started cutting electricity usage. If you've already been doing things to cut down for several years already, how likely are you to be able to still make big gains? Not very. It's a lot easier to get those when you haven't cared and can still do the easy things like replacing burned-out incandescent bulbs with CFLs or LEDs, or replacing an old less-efficient refrigerator with a new one when remodeling the kitchen. It's not so easy when you did all those things, and replaced the windows with double-pane insulated ones and had the heating/cooling system upgraded to a modern unit, several years ago and now all that's left would be very-big-ticket items like a solar power system or infeasible stuff like completely rebuilding the house using modern materials and construction.
uhhh maybe people who are in favor of energy conservation correctly realize that an individual acting alone to conserve power is pointless and insignificant given the scale of the problem they are worried about, while political policies, protesting or speaking out might actually have a measurable positive effect.
i could go live a energy-neutral lifestyle as a hermit in the woods and it would do no good in the long run. maybe it's naive, but working for political policies that support energy conservation seems to have far more potential to address the problem than a thousand recluses.
i could live a little longer in this prison
And those are the sort of numbers you are talking.
Lower part of India, most of the Coast US - hell, most of coastal everywhere, which are the mostly densely populated urban areas. And guess what, the people who aren't flooded out aren't going to be exactly welcoming of refugees.
Consumer autos in the US are less than a percent of global fuel use. Home heating is slightly more, but China owns the lions share. My state uses primarily hydro electric power. Thus, using less energy in my home is unlikely to have a significant impact on global fuel consumption.
If you want significant change, you're going to need an accord with India, China and every other major fuel consumer.
-Gandhi
Until they have to change their lifestyle. Then, they'll only do it if there is some reason. Otherwise like like to whine that Someone should Do Something! They'll wring their hands about the evil corporation/rich/whatever that are supposedly responsible, like shit on Facebook that says it is about change, and go back to living how they always have.
Reason is reducing energy use requires compromise in one form or another. You can either choose to stop doing/using some things, or you can invest more money in more efficient equipment (which of course means less to spend on fun stuff, at least in the short term).
Personally I'm a fan of option 2. You put more money in to efficiency and you reduce your energy usage and, in the long term, expenses. However it can cost a lot up front. My AC died a few years ago, cost of repair was way too high so it needed replacement. Well I had the option of getting a replacement for about $4800ish. However that was low efficiency, equivalent to the unit that my place came with. A high efficiency unit was $7000ish. Whole lot more money, I've not made it back, but it was worth it in my opinion.
Turns out you can affect a fairly substantial energy reduction if you work to buy efficient devices. Now that doesn't mean run out and replace everything (there's a lot of energy in building something too) but if when something needs replacement you get a high quality model that is more efficient and has a longer service life, you can do a good bit. You can then do even more with other changes to your life, like biking to work if feasible.
However I find most people don't agree. They go for what's cheapest now, long run be damned. That includes those that care about the environment, climate change, oil, etc. They "care" only to the extent of talking about it and suggesting others should do something. They are disinterested in making changes to their life.
The worst way of producing electricity CO2-wise is coal with about 1kg CO2 per kWh. American households, on average, consume 10 MWh annually. There are 115 million households in US. I.e. all American households combined, if they consumed only coal-fired electricity, would produce 1.15 billion tons CO2. In reality this figure is much lower because not all electricity is from coal (according to EPA, it looks more like 0.66 billion tons of CO2). This is 12% of total US emissions. Say we are to cut electricity consumption of households in half (how?), we will get only 6% of US emission reduction or 325 million tons reduced. Reduction of domestic electricity use will produce the most irritation to the populace while not delivering any significant benefit. If one wants to look at reduction seriously, she needs to consider commercial electricity, transportation and industrial emissions (here's a good place to look for non-CO2 greenhouse gases as well). But if you want to make an appearance of caring about the environment or somehow "educate the next generation" which will be living when catastrophic climate change will become irreversible according to current models then of course, let's live in cold and darkness and feel good about ourselves.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/sources/electricity.html
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources
Ahem... Al Gore
Convenience trumps personal philosophy most of the time.
People who advocate giving money to "the poor" and "disadvantaged" do not give their own to the poor and disadvantged -- they just get other people to do it. Just like the people who are pushing the UACs all over the US. Are they inviting these children into THEIR gated communities? No. "It's the right thing [for other people] to do."
When will people just open their eyes? Radical socialist nations got that way under the leadership of and influence of famously rich and exploitative people who united people under the promise of equality and utopia and are somehow suprised when their government takes away their freedom and points guns at them all the time. How many nations ended up like this? And we want that here too? Really?
You know what makes people save energy? High energy bills. We don't have "high" energy bills in areas where the government supplements [corporate welfare] energy companies. All these "capitalists" are amazingly non-capitalist.
Look on either side. Nobody does or means what they say.
And I still can't believe that people still don't know what was really behind the Hobby Lobby issue. Maybe you heard it from me first, but it has been out there for quite some time. But it turns out that such exemptions already existed but previously just for non-profits. And in those cases, under Obamacare, those birth control benefits (keeping in mind that birth control means abortive measures, not prevention measures) are STILL covered but are required to be paid for by INSURANCE COMPANIES. This battle was never about whether or not for-profit conpanies can have moral objections to anything. It is about insurance companies not wanting to keep their end of the bargain they wrote for themselves. They are making windfall profits on this and they don't want to give any of it back.
Okay going a bit off-topic but I don't care. Things are getting increasingly stupid and the media is pushing out increasingly obvious and blatant lies. I just wonder at what point the common drones out there will begin to notice.
I mean seriously- why not save $450 a year by slowly replacing your light bulbs with LED and CFL bulbs? Or putting in a little insulation. Or having a higher SEER rated AC unit (in the north or temperate areas) or a higher EER rated AC unit (in areas that are really hot for several months). (Seer is measured with a lower temperature difference than EER).
As for climate change. Well, maybe I care a little but we are not going address the root cause (too many human beings on the planet) so it's going to happen. Heck- the "max" population keeps rising lately. I think the max projected is up to 11 billion now.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Yeah, it's because they don't see much real benefit from the suggested austerity. And the others do much, much more sensible steps, like encouraging birth control and not having 10 kids because they don't run farms that need cheap manual labor.
Funding sexual education that includes the facts about birth control is *much* more effective at reducing humanity's "carbon footprint". And educating women, especially, helps. Too bad too many poor countries, or countries with ridiculous disparities between the wealthy and the rest of the quite poor population, specialize in making them headscarf burdened, clitorectomized, uneducated, receptacles of much older men's seed to bear as many children as possible to promote their particular version of Yahoo-Wahoo. (The original Hebrew did not include vowels, so it might have been Yahoo-Wahoo!)
I blame monotheism. The idea that there is one god, and His Word Is Law(tm) with no other gods to turn to, is the source of so much social and personal evil, it's beyond Belief.
already knows about the Jevons' paradox.
Live it up. Use it all liberally before some horde of misers ration it sparingly.
I am not sure this study captures the some of the bigger decisions made to conserve energy. For instance, here is what I have done: I live in a condo that has a high walk score, so I don't have to drive much. We are close to transit and we use it. I purchased a Prius, which gets 60mpg. Given that and the fact that we barely drive, our monthly gas bill is about $50. One tank per month. I don't eat much meat. This substantially reduces the carbon emissions from the production chain of my food. However, according to this study, I am being remiss if my electricity bill isn't lower than my neighbours' bills. The study is flawed. My overall carbon emissions are way lower than average but this study would overlook me.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
.
"Research" (and I use that term loosely) about the problems with the science of climate change apparently is quietly funded by the very energy companies that are pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Energy companies which would have revenue issues if they were held accountable for the pollution they pump into our ecosystem.
.
The main question I have to ask is what the opinions reflected in the survey really reflect, a reaction to the misleading campaigns of the climate change deniers, or an actual understanding of what is happening to our planet.
Take a look at the issues in Miami due to increasing water levels...
The lifeboat argument, or some variations thereof: If you really believed in overpopulation/ bad environmental effects by people (Westerners, ) of which you are a group / negative effects of consumption by any who isn't poor/ etc. etc, then it logically follows that you should a. kill yourself (jump off the lifeboat) / give away all your money/ etc. etc.
Lifeboat arguments are more often used by conservatives against people who point out humanity as a whole, or chunks of humanity is harming, well anything, by the accumulated effects of the people in the class defined as doing harm.
So, humanity via overfishing is causing the decline of fish populations: if you believe that, you should stop eating fish. Of course, a lot people believe that, but still eat fish. I eat fish, I like sushi, and I want fish populations to recover.
This is one area of a possible fallacy: that believing in something or accepting evidence in something requires you to behave in a certain manner. But if your are a sociopath, even a high functioning sociopath, you can have you fish and eat it to, and who cares about the fact you and millions of others are causing the extermination of some fish.
But then, take guilt. Some people want, or high energy consumption, but also do not want to think of themselves as a sociopath of any kind. Ah, if we can only deny that we are causing any harm, then we can continue to eat our fish or burn oil like it was...oil. Deniers are not limited to global warming, there are population deniers, over fishing deniers.
A version of the same mental juijitsu occurs with some who engage in some sexual behaviors that some may feel are perverted:
I (not me, we have a rationalizing pervert on stage)
I, the pervert, believe that sex is dirty, naughty, bad, evil, etc. etc. I firmly believe that. But, I'm also horny...so, if I engage in sex, by engaging in some kinky dressed up version, I get to keep my belief that sex is dirty, etc., etc, while getting my rocks off. God forbid I should have a 'normal' (missionary position with the lights off in marriage?) sex life, cause then I would have to reconcile it with a deep belief that sex is dirty.
Anyway, sorry to challenge the sub-geniuses..
...energy conservation in western Europe do not do any good for the climate due to the CO2 quota system.
If I use less energy (which is produced in quite clean, natural gas powered power plants) the CO2 quota I don't use is SOLD to someone who produces energy in a coal fired power plant.
The only way we really can help climate is to produce power in the most green way possible... GLOBALLY!
Here's the thing: individual energy use is fairly insignificant. Turning off the light leads to a miniscule reduction of total energy use because: residential energy use is only 14% of humanity's total energy use [ Source: http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/... ], you are just 1 person out of 1 billion people living in the developed world (i.e. people with high-energy consumption), and turning off a light or two leads to a small reduction in your individual use. In other words: a fraction of a fraction of a fraction.
If people are concerned about global warming and humanity's energy use, you can do totally ineffective things like turning off a light or two more often, or you can push for more effective means of curbing global emissions: change the source of our energy (for residential energy, industrial/commercial energy, and transportation), push for more energy-efficient devices (e.g. a lot of Western European countries use about half as much energy per-capita as the US), and throw taxes on carbon-based energy sources to influence consumers via their pocketbook and influence the market towards forms of energy without all those carbon-emission externalities.
I can see that the conservatives are out in droves on this Slashdot story, flaunting their ignorance and conspiracy theories. You guys should really be ashamed of yourselves because you're only making yourselves look like cavemen.
There certainly is a problem here. Humanity has already changed the earth quite a lot, down to making entire forests vanish (the amazon isn't the first), and now we can see it in the climate too. But consider that energy generation does play a part and that then the biggest three hundred million energy users are using twice as much energy as the next 700-odd million, who in turn use more than the rest. And the top users aren't cutting their use, on the contrary.
Yet "environmentalists" have already advocated and lobbied for stopping development of "developing nations" to avoid them rising to power use reminiscent of developed nations. They even didn't quite understand why the developing nations thought that suggestion entirely unacceptable. Or unrealistic, since the populations and tech levels and therefore power use will rise in developing nations, in fact is rising, no doubt about it.
The same thing on individual level doesn't surprise, but that justifies finger wagging at neither scale. There are more factors at play here, like how more efficient power usage invites more use, not doing the same thing with less use. We do have a multitude of problems, but mere admonishing clearly gets us nowhere. In fact, just better technology alone gets us nowhere. We need to really think about it and learn to look at it the right way to crack this nut.
Or... You could stop buying a whole new set of electronics every two years.
Fact is people in the South of England have already started growing grapes in order to produce wine. Global warming could turn England into a wine producing country such as France currently is. Researchers predict the British Isles will turn from a cold and rainy island into a tropic zone and become a holiday paradise. With such an outlook on global warming who in their right mind wants to do something against global warming?! I do not believe too many Brits still care about global warming.
I claim to care when co workers pass away, i claim to be enraged when i see suffering, i claim that i didn't have anything to do with it
There's no surprise here, folks. Most people care just enough to avoid catching the blame from their neighbors and co-workers. As individuals, people are predisposed to make their own individual situation better (or not worse), even if it harms the community at large. History is full of examples: racism, tobacco farmers, heroin smugglers, vain conquering rulers, religious figureheads, professors of arcane subjects, etc. etc....
Here's another news story for these outlets: people don't change without motivation.
Whee...
In other news, people who were most worried about the government misusing their taxes, tended to pay the most taxes.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
What's the point of cutting down your own use? You won't make a difference. And your actions don't influence anyone else. If you're the only one who cuts down, and the other 6,999,999,999 people don't, then it won't matter, global warming won't be stopped. And if you don't cut down, but 6,999,999,999 do, then global warming will be stopped without you. What you do personally does not matter, because it does not determine what the other 6,999,999,999 people. Their decisions are not bound to yours. Cutting down can help if you can decide it for 7 billion people, not just for yourself.
TL;DR It doesn't make a difference, except as posturing.
I don't expect anybody to follow my advice, i'm just saying what I do. Microwaves, Toasters, Coffee Makers, I unplug it. As for my TV, consoles and other power sucking devices, i've placed them on a green switch type powerstrip. I set the device that uses the least amount of power as the primary device that will turnoff all other devices if that device goes off. When it is switched on, it will allow the other devices to be able to use energy. Yes given this type of power strip doesn't allow standby mode for devices that are slaves, it has greatly reduced my power bill from things that just suck power when they are doing nothing. Going from about $90 a month down to about $35-40 a month is pretty awesome (I bet most of that is still my Refrigerator). Obviously your wattage? mileage? will vary. I'm surprised that this kind of tech isn't incorporated into the actual wall sockets and just put a little button on them to activate the socket. if this is a real thing, I would love to know more.
There is a high correlation between not believing in climate change and being stupid. There is also a high correlation between being stupid and not having a lot of money to spend consuming energy (e.g. buying a giant house and keeping it climate controlled, etc). Hence the correlation between not believing in climate change and low energy usage.
For all those out there who don't know what a "high correlation" is, please look it up before you reply with a response like "Not all people who ..."
Someone didn't play Sim City as a kid.
They collect broken bottles and replace heating with internal catalytic combustion of alcohol and thick layers of clothing.
No "conscious lifestyle" can even come anywhere close. In fact, anything that can be called "lifestyle" is already far into the waste-of-energy realm.
The environment cannot afford everybody in China and India driving an "environmental friendly car", which is a term like a peace-friendly machine-gun.
People do not cut consumption of energy only because of warm feeling of reducing their carbon footprint. They DO respond to economic incentives that encourage them to cut energy use and pollution.
I am not at all surprised.
Here in Denmark, the government is all about global warming. So, what have they done for the climate recently? Given permission for arctic oil drilling around Greenland, then sent a war ship to protect the drilling against Geen Peace. And given permission for shale gas fracking. Looks like there is still a whole lot of hydrocarbons down there that can be turned into CO2.
They say that this gives off less CO2 than the coal we would otherwise buy, but conveniently "forget" that the coal we don't buy doesn't just sit there, it gets sold to someone else.
Me, on the other hand. I don't really worry about global warming. If it does happen, we could use a few degrees warmer temperatures. I actually worry more about the upcoming ice age, that I'm sure will come even if we have managed to postpone it by a few years. So, as a "global warming denialist", what do I do? I ride my bicycle to work, while the car that I do have (and use for visiting my family a few times a year) keeps developing problems that my mechanic tells me is caused by me not using it often enough. My light bulbs are either CFL (most) or LED (bed room). I switched from incadescent bulbs 15 years ago, long before they became illegal. Not to save power, but because I'm too lazy to keep replacing those stupid bulbs that break all the time. In 15 years, I haven't had a single CFL die, though the one on outside the front door is getting close.
Only 26 households? That seems like an extremely small sample size. And: why not measure the actual power consumption?
It seems a bit premature to draw conclusions about a households' power use based on a single months' measuring. My power use fluctuates tremendously. (That ice cream maker gets used regularly in summer.)
In all, it seems like a tiny amount of not very reliable data to write a large report about.
* Replacing five lightbulbs with fluorescent lights which cost more energy to produce and contain way more toxic materials will not save the world. Especially because many of them do not last longer for the simple reason that we switch on and off the lights way too often.
* If you reduce the power consumption of 10% of the users with 50%, you still only won 5%.
* Solve the real problem: The fact that I switch off one TV won't save the world. Samsung should make TVs with ultra-low stand-by power. They make millions.
Don't get me wrong, I am very worried about the future of our planet. I just don't think that environmentalists shouting at people that they should replace their lightbulbs get the whole picture. With 7 billion people, you will never be able to shout at everyone. Shout at the CEO of General Electric, Samsung, Philips, LG. THEY can make a difference.
LED lightbulbs *are* amazing.
I have moved my entire home to them. They aren't even that much more expensive - you can get ones bright enough for reading with standard lamps for about $8-10 each. When you consider their benefits they are well-worth it. It's not even that they use even less energy than halogen, but how long they are rated to last (the brand I buy has the almost absurd rating of like 30 years under normal usage 4-6 hours a day), the quality of light and the speed of coming on (much better than those damn halogen pieces of junk), plus the little to no heat factor (I can place my palm directly on the brightest one I have, that's been going for hours, and just feel slightly warm; lower powered ones like I use in the bathroom are actually cool to the touch while in use), they are a no-brainer.
The sad part is, they aren't being sold very widely at general retail yet. The only place I have found really pushing them is Lowe's in the US - where I've bought all of mine. You can find a few here or there elsewhere, but they usually only carry a tiny selection of the more expensive types that are $25+. I really have to give it to Lowe's on this one - at least half of their light bulb selection now is LED and they support them with endcap displays and sales.
I really hope they catch on soon. I know many folks who switched to halogen years ago when they first became available, but since they have so many drawbacks (they just are a pool of suck), they've since switched back to incandescent because, you know, they actually turn on at full brightness, don't have that wispy strange lighting quality, and since they don't last any longer than incandescent just end up costing more. I've gotten many to switch to LED, and everyone raves about them - especially when the first electric bill comes in.
Wow, someone with a reasonable view of how climate change happens - prepare to be down-modded by the "YOU MUST ASSUME THE WORST! ASSIMILATE!" crowd.
FWIW, I agree with the dryer thing - even though I still use one, I'm too lazy not to. Things like sweatshirts just get worse and worse with every washing, and I can't make a towel last more than a year before it starts to tear. My aunt swears by outdoor drying (you can actually do it in the winter, oddly enough - makes no sense but it does work if it's sunny out, finishing in the house). Her clothing lasts absurd amounts of time - I recently put a picture up on a social media site of myself at 5 years old in the early 80's with a picture of my aunt running after me in a brightly colored sweater. One of her friends commented on it and said "She wore that sweater last week!" and it's still in virtually the same condition. And she wears it regularly, she doesn't have a large wardrobe. The kicker? It was my mom's originally, a hand-me-down from the early 70's.
In general I think you'll find that someone who makes twice as much money will spend about twice as much money and most dollars spent are directly or indirectly paying for power. I think the only way you could really cut energy use is to take your money and put it under your mattress. That doesn't mean there aren't cleaner forms of energy, of course.
Because they're pissing about changing a couple of lightbulbs and thinking that changes the world, while their heating is still whacked up, they drink umpteen cups of tea/coffee, and their solar panels do SHIT for actually reducing their bills after costing so much energy and resources to produce.
Sorry, I'm in agreement that we should probably be reducing our energy use. But whenever people tell me that they've done something along those lines, I invariably feel that it's a complete waste of time. If you do "save energy" at one point, it's because you've used more to get to that point in the first place, or used up some even rarer mineral in order to do so. People only count the "last mile" of energy use and not all the stuff before that.
And I actually handle energy-reduction in the same way I handle people who diet. Sorry, if your self-control and nutritional knowledge is such that you think any particular energy-saving scheme / diet is actually doing anything more than making you THINK you're achieving something that you couldn't achieve by just setting a decent overall limit and NOT going over it, then you're really not understanding what you're doing. As soon as someone tells me that "a diet" didn't work, I judge them, not the diet. Chances are that, if followed correctly, any diet will lose you weight.
Similarly for energy-saving, people are embarrassed to tell you - or worse, just don't know - how much energy they've actually saved by doing so. They'll extrapolate from what the packet says and tell you that they "probably" saved X amount of energy (or "should have lost X pounds") and given that the actual figure is inherently measurable, I write them off as idiots unless they actually did save/lose that much. Either they didn't stick to the plan, or the plan they followed is complete bullshit and they never realised.
Want to impress me with your energy-saving? Stop using external energy, yet continue to live a modern life. It's possible. But nobody actually does it because it means compromise, time and dedication.
Sticking yet-another-device to measure your energy, driving an electric car that cost more than every car I've ever owned added together, or putting up a solar panel that will never recoup its purchase cost does not impress me. Tell me that in the winter you turn off the electricity and gas supply to your house, and I'll be incredibly impressed.
The school I work for put in a whole roof of solar panels a few years ago. Even with a completely open site, with perfect-facing on their roofs, with all the equipment in the world to feed it back to the grid, with even a little fancy display to show parents how much energy they've produced - they haven't made a profit and don't expect to for several years (by which time, they envisage that maintenance and normal building work will wipe out the solar panel viability anyway). Sure, you CAN deploy solar panels and make an energy profit - but the vast majority that I see, I can't begin to fathom when they'll start actually paying back.
I already stopping using airplane over 10 years ago. I don't own a car and except for really long travels I go by foot or by bicycle. I recycle as much as possible and I also try to use what ever I buy until it is impossible to use it anymore. My only sin currently is that I eat meat and even that I'm trying to reduce.
So at this point it is really hard to cut energy use. Next step would pretty much be living in a cave and growing my own carrots.
At this point, considering the inability of congress to get anything done, maybe all those people who believe the scientists about AGW have come to the conclusion that it's too late to do anything about it and have given up. Or maybe they realize that changing their personal lifestyle is nothing compared to the size of the problem.
I lived in Phoenix for a while. Golf courses everywhere. No water anywhere. Billboards reminding me to use less water everywhere. The message I got was that I should feel guilty about every drop of water I used so a bunch of rich a-holes who spend their winters in Phoenix could have more water to dump onto their golf courses. AGW is a lot like that.
The change has to start with the most visible and egregious offenders. Then people will see that there's something going on that they should be concerned about and will modify life style en masse. The only way to deal with the most visible and egregious offenders is via the law. Unfortunately, those offenders have money and use it to keep congress in a perpetual state of suspended animation, because it is through their offense that they make their money.
In terms of criteria air pollutants (CO, NOx, SO2, PM2.5, PM10), it's certainly true that modern cars are cleaner, even an F150. But that 150 gets 12 mpg, less than half of the U.S. average mpg for new cars. Since climate change is a thing, since automobiles are collectively a significant emitter of CO2, and since the F150 emits twice the CO2 per miles as an average new car, and since those average new cars also emit small amounts of those criteria air pollutants, no a 2011 F150 is not a green car.
Then you just slip into some strange piece of climate change denier and anti-tax zealot. There's no question that the impacts of climate change are systemic, pervasive, and real. Parts of Miami and Norfolk VA are under water during high tide. Hell, there are island nations preparing to no longer exist. Somehow, these "local" disasters are hand-waved, along with the hurricanes, droughts, floods, etc. But you call high gas taxes ruinous for the economy and claim that they have no impact on the environment, despite the facts that (a) most Western European nations have high gas prices, (b) most have higher mpg fleet averages, and (c) most have economies that are functioning just fine.
We get it. Regardless of your actual age, you behave like the old Brits referenced in the summary. That doesn't warrant a 5: interesting, except that it's interesting that old British-type dudes who are entirely wrong on the science and implications of climate change (and foolish about tax policy) are on slashdot.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Neo-Eco-Hypocrites is what I call these. They pretend to be ecologically mind and green, except when it inconveniences them. Then they're always finding excuses. They talk the talk but trip up on the walk. There's a lot of this going around, especially in the extreme liberal end of the political spectrum where they want to tell everyone else how to live their lives but won't actually improve their own.
Perhaps those concerned about climate change can try to raise awareness? #climatechange #conserveenergy I feel better about myself already!
It's no secret. Without government changes in laws and subsidies, nothing will ever change.
Sadly, the government will be reactive instead of proactive on this one.
Oh, good by coral reef. It was nice while you were here.
Didn't need a study to tell me that people "most concerned" about climate change aren't necessarily the must frugal per-capita energy users.
Just look at Al Gore.
He's considered the biggest climate change advocate by many.
He probably uses more energy in his mansions than 99.9999% of the people in the world, let alone the energy jetting around everywhere. But of course his houses only use "clean" energy and all his jet travel is offset by purchasing carbon credits (most likely through clean energy and carbon credit trading companies he has shares in.)
I tried to build a Nuclear Reactor in my backyard, government wouldn't let me. Then I tried a wind turbine, county thought it was too ugly...
Halogen. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Halogen lights run VERY hot and bright, but do not offer any energy savings, as they are still incandescent (glowing resistor) lamps.
Do you perhaps mean fluorescent or compact-fluorescent lamps (CFL)? They are filled with low pressure mercury vapor and argon, xenon, neon, or krypton. They are about the same efficiency as LED, but are slow to come to full brightness as you describe.
Otherwise, great post. Completely agree on the advantages of LED. I've actually skipped the bulb-style and have started installing LED strips with a standalone 12vDC converter.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
That's liberals style. They know whats best for everyone, but they employ a "do as I say not as I do" mentality. Al Gore's house / lifestyle sucks more energy than several average homes. Does he care, no. Does he care that I can't buy 100 watt bulbs if I want to, no. I am not sure they even listen to what they are saying. First it was global cooling, then global warming, now climate change. Its just like religion. Something so a few can control the many.
Here in an area known for bitterly cold winters, every new home goes up with an air conditioner, every second big home investment is a pool, and every other driveway has an SUV. Facts I've used to successfully shut up the local climate change propagandists for years. Oh well, I guess it's now official.
One supposes that the climate change outcry should really be: " I want someone else to take care of the effects of climate change so I can keep living just the way I please."
You really want to help the planet? Lighten your own footprint on it.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
It struck me while watching the movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", that all the cut-away scenes show Al Gore either in the back of a limo driving around or private jet going off to conference in a foreign locale. Were those cut-aways for effect, or is it just the innate hypocrisy of the AGW movement where YOU need to reduce YOUR carbon emissions, but I don't need to because I'm on board with the plan.
Individual choices to use less energy will not affect the climate significantly. We need global action on a large scale that can only come with governmental standards and regulation. If by some miracle half the people cut their petroleum use by 80% and prices dropped the other half would buy giant SUVs and take up the slack. Admittedly, using a lot of energy is fun. That's why we need auto efficiency standards, construction standards, power plant standards. Less "freedom" but an overall improvement in quality of life. The days of digging up rocks and burning them are over. Old growth hard wood forests are gone. Oil bubbling out of the ground has been scooped up. It was nice while it lasted.
Took you dumb asses this long to figure that out? All you need to do is visit some place like oh I don't know, lets say Black Mountain NC. Lots of tree huggers there, funny at seeing the unexpected large numbers of H2/H3 and the like in peoples driveways. To say I am in shock and awe is to lie.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Which is technically also called halogen because that describes the type of gas inside but that label is also on very hot and bright lights that consume more power than CFL lights.
I saw that complaint about CFL lights a lot here and thought it was bullshit - then I bought a piece of shit Phillips CFL that pretended to look like a incandescant globe and found out what so many were going on about. Don't get the good looking dimmable CFLs aimed at the US market, get a cheap and nasty Chinese thing with long loops everywhere and you'll have something that seems to come to full brightness within a couple of seconds, is cheaper and puts out more light.
You mean Libtards don't practice what they preach? Oh tell me more!
I can attest to this personally. I'm unfortunately the most green person I personally know but I never wear it on my sleeve. My motives aren't completely altruistic all the time since I'm often motivated in doing it by saving money. My town's recycling tote is full every week, I turn off appliances and devices like a nazi, I carpool at every opportunity even if it's me the one driving, I keep the temperatures very conservative in my house, I minimize my laundering, I reuse grocery bags instead of buying garbage bags, I buy LEDs whenever I can score 50%-off or more (my house is 75% LED now, rest is CFL), I drive instead of flying whenever practical, I've always hypermile'd all of my vehicles including my latest Prius which pushes 60mpg, buy things in bulk to reduce packaging, solar powered exterior lights, and I even use the bare minimum for soaps and detergents. Notice nearly all of these save me money. The green aspect is extra bonus. Whether or not global warming is man made, no one can dispute the benefits of keeping our environment clean if it's easy to do.
However, contrast that with some friends and family which are bleeding heart tree huggers, but all have gigantic houses with AC on full blast, drink their plastic water bottles on a daily basis, throw things out that are perfectly recyclable, running incandescent lights, have 3 cars, and driving their SUVs, sports car, and/or Hummers. But they donate money to renewable green energy sources!!!! lol
If anyone is going to accuse me of being a tree hugger it's going to be because they've been watching me carefully, not because I've been preaching it...
Because, you know - solar and stuff.
...are all about controlling OTHER peoples' behavior (and redistributing THEIR property).
Does anyone else find a story published by a conservative British newspaper criticizing climate change a bit suspicious? Or perhaps question the validity of a survey consisting of just 250 people for the entire UK? All one has to do is follow the money that fights climate change to see who has a vested interest in keeping the world addicted to fossil fuels.
Sound like the study would favor young people to sit in the dark, sip tea, rocking slowly back and forth mumbling how global warming is a myth and government is out to get you.
Seriously, we put solar city on our house (46 panels). Right now, we pay $100/month for electricity and are locked in on that rate. We even end up with extra that is sold to Xcel (we expect about $300 back at the end of the year from them). Xcel is already pushing to increase their rate for next year (to 14.5/KWH) and we will continue to pay only $8 / month to Xcel for their base. Even better yet is the fact that we grandfathered in with this so that as Xcel's prices increase, they will be forced to pay us the same price. Down the road, they will get that part removed for NEW installs.
We then changed out our bulbs from a mix of incandescents/CFLs to mostly LEDs with about 13 more bulbs to replace. We did that when Cree bulb prices dropped to below $10/$5 for Br30/A19. We will replace the other 13 when the prices drop again (6 of these are the global bulbs used in a bathroom; so the bulbs are right now $20 for good ones and I refuse to buy the cheap junk from GE, Lights of America, ecosmart, etc ). Once that is done, then only 3 bulbs will remain, which will simply continue to use the old bulbs on (crawl space; under-stairs;outside light that is almost never used).
We have figured out that based on the KWH, that we save about $5-10/month (we have kids that leave lights on). As such, these will be all paid for in 2 years. That is not a bad deal considering that we have removed nearly all of the mercury, and no longer have to wait for CFLs to come on (well 7 bulbs, but they will be replaced at the next sale of cree ).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If there's global warming, I honestly don't give a flying fuck (or even a ground-based one) about whether it is human-caused or not.
I want to know the plans for actually DEALING with it.
"Carbon credits" isn't the answer. All CC are is a gigantic profiteering tool that does little to actually help the problem. Worse, it diverts funding away from real solutions into what is, effectively, a betting pool.
Reduction in power consumption. Sorry but that just is NOT going to happen. Our lives are getting more and more energy dependent every year. Reduction in consumption, at its core, reduces to the idea of (as someone else put it) "shivering in caves, waiting for the clean energy utopia".
Coal, Oil, Natural Gas. These technologies aren't going to get us "there". And the industries they've spawned are holding us back from cleaner solutions. And big hydro power is pretty much tapped out. Plus hydro power has its own ecological problems that set the enviro-nuts wrangling amongst themselves instead of being productive members of society.
What the world needs is a clean, modern nuclear system for baseline power, augmented by wind, solar, and existing hydro. And, if we can find another form of clean, renewable power that doesn't damage the environment, for fucks sake, add it in there too!
The fact is, the people in power don't WANT clean energy. Not really. Because the status quo is too financially renumerative for them. They can also make political hay about it REGARDLESS of which side of the idiotic "debate" they're on. Meanwhile, they, at every turn, castrate any and every industry that has a chance of providing humanity with clean, renewable power.
About the only government that ISN'T doing this is China. Yeah, they're chugging out massive pollution right now. But they're putting money and research into clean technology. Because they HAVE to. They have too many people and their power requirements are too high to get it done with non-renewables. Worse, the non-renewables, at this juncture, become a point over which their government could be toppled (if supplies dry up or become too expensive).
Right now the US on a fast track to become a nuclear technology CLIENT STATE instead of pioneering the tech themselves.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I already don't waste power, there's not much more for me to reduce. And since I don't own any power plants or write legislation for a living, I don't know what you expect of me.
Maybe you should complain to the people who DO own power plants or write legislation. Just a thought...
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist" -I guess I should leave then
You propose nuclear power. I feel all rational thought stopping.
Sperious noise is overwhelming my brain. Radiation to perverting
my DNA - we're all gonna DIE!
Finally. Someone who understands that saving time, gas, and energy is not always about hypermiling and driving 10 or 15 under the speed limit. I have argued on Slashdot many times this same point. It is invariably the hypermilers, blocking both lanes driving side by side that constipate the flow of traffic during the 5:00 rush for my 4.4 mile trek home through 15 traffic lights. And why do the idiots commuting by themselves in a F250 Supercab 4x4 or a Tahoe bother trying to hypermile anyway? Do they expect to get 12.7 MPG instead of the usual 12.1?
My municipality spent $180,000 for upgraded coordinated traffic lights two years ago and it only takes one idiot "saving gas" to ruin the flow for everyone else. They double my commute time.
No dah people in the climate change religion don't reduce power. They are in it because it makes them money, they know very will that the climate change they see is natural. If people wanted to get people to use less energy would be more effective to concentrate on the cost side of energy not to help some imaginary climate change.
I notice that the neighbours who observe earth hour by turning off their lights are the same wasteful people who unnecessarily leave the outdoor lights and kitchen lights on all night when they are clearly sleeping in their darken bedrooms. To make matters worse the stupid outdoor lights shine right into my bedroom as I am trying to sleep and I had to get black out curtains to block the light! I think earth hour is way for people that are wasteful to feel less guilty about their lifestyles. I've noticed earth hour seems to be the most popular with those that are affluent and who like to go on overseas vacations every year and frequently fly. They love to preach about saving the planet but failed to recognize that their own wasteful lifestyles and littering are part of the problem. You don’t need to get the latest greatest IPhone or iPad just because Apple released to a new version. Needlessly buying the latest greatest tech toys all the time is not helping the planet any.
I guess that more educated people worry more about climate change, but at the same time they have better jobs and more money. This in turn leads more gadgets, better computers and larger homes to light and heat.
Lessons learned: controll for income when looking at the correlation.
caveat: I live in Canada, your mileage may vary.
When I see a person panhandling on the street, I know full well that there are social assistance programs, welfare, employment insurance, homeless shelters, retraining programs, health care programs, etc. In many cases, they have trained professionals who will probably do a much better job than me of helping people that need help. In a sense that means that *I have already helped them* by supporting a society and government that includes these programs, and by funding them with my tax dollars. In many cases the problem is just getting people into programs that will work for them.
That said, I still help people out sometimes if I think it makes sense. Most of the time though my charitable giving goes outside the country to places with less of a social safety net.
We are not burning coal because of stupid jackassery. We are burning coal because we have to.
Or did you think we could just shut off 1/3 of the power production in this country with no negative effect? Believe me, we understand your argument about coal being bad. Ok, fine: what's the alternative? How do you replace ~33% of power production with something better without seriously disrupting the electricity supply which seriously disrupts civilized society?
"Climate Change" is not some major conspiracy; But there are plenty of unscrupulous people who are trying to profit from it. This is the nature of people. Sorry, nothing to see here, move along...
That said, the only way to truly get people "on board" with reducing carbon emissons is to make it less expensive than the alternative. Otherwise, you have the (huge) uphill battle of making them believe it is their natural "God-given" right to be carbon-neutral. Good luck with that...
The answer is, and has always been, better technology. Do more with less energy, generate more energy with less fuel, "make" more fuel with less "fossil"... You get the picture.
The only catch is, "Who is going to pay for the R&D?" I would argue most people would be quite OK with the government providing grants & subsidies to research centers dedicated to doing just that. "Oh, you're using my tax dollars to help reduce my cost of living? Carry on!"
That's because it's a prisoner's dilemma. Even if everyone agrees climate change is a problem, it's still in an individual's best interests to pollute more. Making matters worse, it's illegal to defend yourself against pollution!
I see the same thing in my research in California. While many, many people are willing to profess the need to use less water (especially during this drought), use less electricity (with recent plant closures, summer peak demands), and use less gasoline, they have a very hard time reconciling these very distinct concerns with the demands of modern social expectations.
How do we over-use water and why?
-- Showering 1+ times per day - We do this for person comfort, to reduce the potential of being odorous around others, and because it's socially expected to shower daily regardless of actual need. The vast majority of people living California can get away with showering every other day, but choose not to.
-- Laundry - We try to buy water-conserving washing machines, but we still have to actually use the water. And the bigger you are and the lower your tolerance for wearing clothing for more than one day increases your water consumption for laundry.
-- Landscaping - The most onerous of water sins in California is the use of water-hungry plants to keep everything looking green. Our landscaping shouldn't be bright green during a drought. Many private citizens cannot simply stop watering their lawns for fear of receiving fines from their HOAs, City governments, or their landscaping actually dying and then needing to pay to replace them.
How do we over-use electricity and why?
-- Air Conditioning - Despite living in California, people don't like to feel the heat in their homes. Most important, though, is office air conditioning. The office I'm in right now is at 68 degrees. I sweat on my way to work and put a jacket in my office. And on cooler days? The AC is still on because none of the buildings in my area have windows that open.
-- 24-hour Appliances - Perpetual connectivity has convinced many Americans to allow newer devices to be active while they're away. DVRs, newer TVs, etc. all eat up big kWh.
How do we over-use gasoline and why?
-- Long-distance commuting - Everyone in California expects to some day own a 2-story track home or a large-footprint ranch home. However, if you want the job to afford the home, you have to work in an area of high-property demand. You must then decide: small home and short commute or large home and long commute. Many select the latter and end up with 80 miles of commuting every day-- just chewing up that gasoline.
-- Designing communities around the automobile - Modern cities and housing communities are designed around the expectation that the vast majority of transportation trips (non-recreational) will be done by personal automobile. This enables designers to create ped/bike un-friendly housing communities, roads, and intersections that make it *feel* less safe to travel by anything but a car/truck. Thus, small trips like going to/from K-12 school or to pick up eggs and milk from the closest market imply a very distinct need to consume more gasoline.
Given all these engineered and socially enforced standards of resource consumption, I can't really be surprised when, as the article describes, people who are concerned about the environment don't reflect those concerns in their own personal habits.
If we want to see actual change, we have to either change those social/engineered constructs or bend them in such ways to make them more environmentally-sensitive.
But the Hobby Lobby issue was about religious fundamentalism, pure and simple. Insurance likes birth control. It is available generic, is reasonably cheap to synthesize and is way, WAY cheaper than a childbirth. A covered childbirth is stupidly expensive. The prenatal care, the actual birth and follow up (that's the biggest part) and then young kids cost more. They would very much like to not pay for that. Some cheap pills are far better than that.
The case was about controlling women's reproductive rights. That has been a major feature of a number of fundamentalist religions, and Christianity is no exception.
My electricity use is cut due to switch to newer lower power electronics not due to global warming propaganda.
My gasoline use is cut, food industry energy use is cut, use of petrochemicals on crop lands is cut, due to my switch to home aquaponics systems with goal of reducing ingestion of food designed for profits, not nutrition; our diet changes are not due to global warming propaganda.
Our use of electricity, roads, gasoline, oil, diesel fuel is reduced by plan to prepare for Demonrat Party reducing USA to third world living conditions, not due to global warming propaganda.
Our purchases of solar electric equipment are driven not by $0.1 per KWH electricity but by prospect of failing mass electricity web due to policies of Demonrat Party, not due to global warming propaganda.
If Gore & his followers would quit exhaling CO2, the climate would improve.
I haven't reduced my energy usage because all I have working is a light and a computer whenever I am at home. I don't have large tvs, I don't have AC, I don't have a f*cking fan, nor a heater. WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT FROM MEEEEEE!? *cries*
*Gasp* People claim to be something but do the opposite? Say it ain't so.
Being concerned doesn't mean that in the face of irreversible damage to the planet there is any way to fix it. The Earth is toast so at this point it no longer matters what anyone does. Think of the Titanic. The damage is done and the lifeboats are gone. Might as well just make the best of the remaining time.
Thanks guys, I am counting on everyone else's energy savings to offset mine. (heads phones back on)
That's why people with any sense know that "cutting down" is futile.
If you don't want lung cancer the answer is to not smoke... not just drop from 100 a day to 99 a day... if everyone saves 1% of their energy usage, it will add up globally to whopping... 1% reduction, in combination with the global population growth rate that is utterly pointless.
Change in energy production is the answer, and for that it's not quite as easy for everyone to "do their bit". Trying to justify quantity is impossible, because there is no line to draw, and ultimately not existing is the answer to solving the problem using quantity as the only variable.
Remember the Al Gore roadshow a few years ago? $50 a seat to be lectured to by a con man. No opposing views, only distain for all who dare question him. Noted even in the mainstream press at the time was that Gore owned 4 houses, NONE of which even had CFT light much less solar power or grey water recycling. It was also revealed that the Gore Trust was the largest individual holder of a major petroleum company.
Of course, none of this would deter the faithful.
Al set the stage for the GW faithful of today. The modern Moonies.
It starts from the very title "bla, bla" It should have specified that they they are AMERICAN subjects who do that. Else they wouldn't be able to explain policies passed in the EU... yes, yes, we all know, the Governements are Big and Bad. but WE vote them. And down here we actually have a good degree of control over them.
Well, I have found a crack in the very logic of this "study" from the very beginning ;)
Sorry for that guy. Rembmeber: THe IPCC is EVIL because it wants to take our guns!!!
-- 29A the number of the Beast
most people who "care" so much about environment, the poor, etc. are bigger on telling OTHERS what to do rather than do anything of substance themselves.
Rather than drive less or go smaller, they demand $100K electric cars they park alongside their supersports or large SUV's, spend ten thousand subsidized dollars for a solar rig on top of their home rather than cut power usage, demand others drive less so they can get a HOV sticker, and do everything they can to reduce their tax burden while demanding public services be increased for paying all these subsidies.
Those who are the loudest are the worst. Those who live by example, excepting those few who are selling their lifestyle products, are generally quiet about it. There's no sexy drama in downsizing and cutting waste. No "green wang waving" by taking the bus and riding a 20 year old biycle that you get from that new Model S.
I'd like to voice in here. As a geek I keep records in a spreadsheet just because I can. Electric, natural gas and water for 20 years since I've moved into my house. I'm a skeptic about man made global warming.
320 kwh/month (elec), 7 gigajoules/month (gas), 12 cubic meters (water) and that is for a family of 3
Biggest savers? Fescue lawn and dual flush toilets for water, power bars for electrical stuff, and hang dry clothes for a day before tossing in the dryer (de-lint, de-wrinkle & soften).
Anyone else got their data?
I took my sample from my friends in the Facebook Group "Dead Metal Addicts"... it's as valid as the one in the article, isn't iit? The population is 250, the same as in the featured study.
BTW, when I was studying about samples in statitics intro... I can't recall how many were needed but for all I know If I had presented a dataset of 250 samples I would have been laughed at.
Nevermind. Anybody has the phone number of Mr Cameron? If he pays well I can make a study with 50 stoners from the coffe-shop around the corner demonstrating that gravity is a lie fabricated by the IPCC to tax the fuck out of the British Worker :), 15000 pounds and it's yours (I'm cheap)!!
-- 29A the number of the Beast
No, I didn't change my behaviour. Instead I (and many others like me) bought Solar Panels so that I was using renewable energy instead of the local coal/natural gas plants electricity, and I even gave energy back to the grid.
How utterly ridiculous. One person has no affect on climate change! nothing appreciable, anyways. The only answer is top down change.
I like electricity, and when you've had your power cut off you really, really appreciate it. Generating it in a clean, efficient manner has no drawbacks other than initial investment, and will allow us all to thrive with a cleaner environment.
In other news, "Fire burns".
I care. But I can't do anything alone. Unless everyone changes behaviour, all that happens if I change mine unilaterally is that I end up paying more for my standard of living, or with a lower one, or both. Impact on climate change - effectively zero. All my effort can buy me is a clearer conscience - and frankly, that's not high on my list of priorities.
Yo Greenpeace, how many Arabs died for the oil you used to computer-generate the LEGOs in that movie you're trying to get unbanned claiming that it's because you offended Shell in some way when in all likelihood it's more to do with the recent movie release featuring those plastic blocks which are made from... you guessed it, oil byproducts!
Fucking hypocrites!
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Most people loudly concerned about the climate are only interested in making other people change... not themselves.
Coal is dirtier than nuclear, but fearmongers and the scientifically illiterate have destroyed any possibility of that. Instead we waste billions on passive power-begging solutions like solar.
Not that solar is bad. Free power is free power... but hippies and dreamers need to understand that the businesses and factories that make their iPads aren't going to scale back just because of a cloudy day. We still need power *generation.*