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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.
I've never made any concerted effort for "environmental reasons," but I do notice that I don't use nearly as much energy as most people do, which is a side effect of how cheap I am.
For example, most self proclaimed environmentalists I know leave their computers running 24/7 and deliberately disable the standby features. I myself have all of my machines configured to enter S4 after 15 minutes of no activity.
I also replaced all of the bulbs in my house with LED bulbs, which is more to do with helping to keep the house cool in the summer, which reduces AC usage (not to mention being more comfortable here in Arizona.) It's not a cheap thing to do short term, but DEFINITELY saves money long term so long as you get the bulbs at the right price.
Also I'm the only person I know who times my driving so that I minimize time at stop lights, as well as driving with the cruise control on at every possible time (most cars have a feature that allows you to nudge your speed slightly faster/slower, which is more fuel efficient than disengaging it in order to adjust your speed.)
And by the way, modern cars are so low emission that some of them actually clean up the air around them. The 2011 Ford F150 Raptor is one of them. If I were an environmentalist, (and I need to stress that I am NOT) I would push for more of these cars to be on the road than lobbying for higher gas prices (which serves to ruin the economy, and has almost no actual benefit on reducing emissions.)
(Source: http://www.edmunds.com/car-rev...)
If you've ever seen that movie Bad Santa, with the scene where Billy Bob Thornton tries to commit suicide with a Benz and it doesn't work, that's actually accurate. It wouldn't be a terribly effective suicide tool for the above mentioned reason. Newer cars are just too clean burning.
We've never seen climate-warming related disasters that result in sustained long-term famine/death. It is always localized (Katrina, Sandy) and recovery begins within months at the worst. However we have seen bad economic decisions cause all of the above not only on a local scale but on a global scale, and last for decades at a time before recovery can begin. We also already know that in fairly recent times, that places like Los Angeles were under sea water, and AGW had zero to do with that. I don't think anything we ever do can ever prevent it from happening again either. Also during the age of dinosaurs, CO2 levels were more than 20 times what they are today, temperatures were much higher as well, and macro-scale life not only lived but thrived even better than it does today, so I'm not so sure that AGW (which probably does exist) is a huge concern.
All of the above said, I think screwing with the economy in the interest of influencing the climate is a very bad idea in general.