Energy Saving

[Jacob]

Yes we used to eat it nearly all when we were kids - liver, tongue, heart, kidney, tripe, chitlings, sweetbread (pancreas), oxtail, whole pigs head, brains.
Poultry was not intensively reared and a slightly expensive luxury for special occasions, except for "broilers" - tough old birds
PS and rabbit, pigeon, etc. You name it, we ate it! Never did us any harm!
Steak and kidney suet pudding - absolute top of the charts!

 

[Thingybob]

the dishwasher can be bettered, but it takes sort of the old time soak and then quick wash and rinse method. And it's probably a difference of a gallon.

I am very stingy, and that makes me passively eco. But I cannot convince my spouse to line dry or skip the drying cycle on the dishwasher. Many of the articles expounding on the efficiency of dishwashers forget to mention the long needless heated dry and they compare the dishwasher to someone allowing the water to run continuously for 20 minutes.

The other benefit of hand washing, if one actually adheres to it, is the racks and shelves are rarely short of cups and spoons.

Your neighbers must wonder about you if your wife was to line dry the crockery

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Yes we used to eat it nearly all when we were kids - liver, tongue, heart, kidney, tripe, chitlings, sweetbread (pancreas), oxtail, whole pigs head, brains.
Poultry was not intensively reared and a slightly expensive luxury for special occasions, except for "broilers" - tough old birds
PS and rabbit, pigeon, etc. You name it, we ate it! Never did us any harm!
Steak and kidney suet pudding - absolute top of the charts!

The Guardianistas are gleefully extolling more poverty, less everything else, endless reduction and constraint - even rationing and forced changes. How may here are actually walking the walk? Lots of CO2 filled hot air about how everyone else should do something, but who is actually making a difference? Given that the planet is due to spontaneously combust next Wednesday, who here is actually trying to make a difference before everyone dies of heat prostration?

FWIW, my carbon footprint is allegedly similar to a third worlder, and if I offset the electricity from my solar panels then I am carbon negative. Note that I don't include my agricultural output, because other people eat that, so it goes on their account, not mine. Same for the tourists - it's their awful, destructive flying that causes the problem, not mine. I just give them somewhere to live when they get here. I do wish they wouldn't use the air conditioning, though.

So does anyone actually curtail their lifestyles for the good of the future? Or are we all waiting to be forced into it by Boris?

 

[Rustic Mike]

A boff interviewed on Channel 4 last night was saying that the oceans and their ecosystems play the biggest role.
Eg - The ocean and climate change :
"Coastal ecosystems like mangroves, salt marshes and seagrasses play a vital role in carbon storage and sequestration. Per unit of area, they sequester carbon faster and far more efficiently than terrestrial forests. When these ecosystems are degraded, lost or converted, massive amounts of CO2 – an estimated 0.15-1.02 billion tons every year – are released into the atmosphere or ocean, accounting for up to 19% of global carbon emissions from deforestation."

It doesn't get much of a mention as far as I can tell, but the oceans are also possibly the biggest threat in the form of changing patterns of global ocean currents.
Not that we can sort that as easily as planting trees, but we could stop industrial vacuuming of life forms from the sea, pouring all kinds of waste into them and so on.
View attachment 121237

But they are now saying the earth is slowing down, so gravity will be gone we will all be floating away, and if pigs can fly the price of bacon will go up, so there’s no need to worry as that will be the end of the world.

 

[Jacob]

.....

So does anyone actually curtail their lifestyles for the good of the future? Or are we all waiting to be forced into it by Boris?

Many people are in a small way but it takes massive government intervention to do what's necessary on such a scale on so many fronts. The most useful thing is probably political pressure.
It's a bigger threat than, say, WW2, which nobody thought would be won by public spirited citizens voluntarily forming themselves into little platoons or little dads armies having a go at invading France.

 

[Droogs]

The only way in which anything will be done at governmental level that really does have a meaningful impact is if those in the positions of privilege and power feel that their ability to remain so is seriously threatened. Until then all they do will be too little too late.

 

[Jacob]

The only way in which anything will be done at governmental level that really does have a meaningful impact is if those in the positions of privilege and power feel that their ability to remain so is seriously threatened. Until then all they do will be too little too late.

Yep. They'll do as little as possible except to look for whom to blame.

 

[John Brown]

But they are now saying the earth is slowing down, so gravity will be gone we will all be floating away, and if pigs can fly the price of bacon will go up, so there’s no need to worry as that will be the end of the world.

Why do you think gravity will be gone??

 

[Droogs]

@Rustic Mike Gravity works independently of the earths rotation. It is dependent on mass and is strong enough to overcome the centrifugal force of the earths rotation to keep us on the surface, we would all go flying off otherwise. Even if the Earth were a tidally locked planet i.e had not rotation at all and had the same hemisphere face the sun all the time, it's mass would be sufficient to allow us to walk around and not float away.

 

[John Brown]

@Rustic Mike Gravity works independently of the earths rotation. It is dependent on mass and is strong enough to overcome the centrifugal force of the earths rotation to keep us on the surface, we would all go flying off otherwise. Even if the Earth were a tidally locked planet i.e had not rotation at all and had the same hemisphere face the sun all the time, it's mass would be sufficient to allow us to walk around and not float away.

Good news for bacon lovers.

 

[Droogs]

indeed as it would be very easy to get crispy bacon

 

[heimlaga]

The Guardianistas are gleefully extolling more poverty, less everything else, endless reduction and constraint - even rationing and forced changes. How may here are actually walking the walk? Lots of CO2 filled hot air about how everyone else should do something, but who is actually making a difference? Given that the planet is due to spontaneously combust next Wednesday, who here is actually trying to make a difference before everyone dies of heat prostration?

FWIW, my carbon footprint is allegedly similar to a third worlder, and if I offset the electricity from my solar panels then I am carbon negative. Note that I don't include my agricultural output, because other people eat that, so it goes on their account, not mine. Same for the tourists - it's their awful, destructive flying that causes the problem, not mine. I just give them somewhere to live when they get here. I do wish they wouldn't use the air conditioning, though.

So does anyone actually curtail their lifestyles for the good of the future? Or are we all waiting to be forced into it by Boris?

I am doing a bit. Still not enough but as much as my very fragile private economy can withstand at the moment.
My next big step withing a few years will be to move my part time workshop home to reduce commuting. At the moment I am squrreling together secondhand and leftover materials and windfallen timber for the build.

I do not fly.
I have no motor in the boat.
I go by bicykle instead of car when the distance is short enough and not too much stuff has to be brought and the weather allows.
I use axe intsead of chainsaw for most limbing in the woods. Saving about 2/3 of the chainsaw fuel. Felling and bucking would take too much time by hand so for that I use the chainsaw.
I repair and repair and repair just about everything far beyond the point where others give up.
I avoid buying unecsessary things and buy a lot secondhand and make stuff from secondhand materials.
I have no motordriven toy vehicles of any sort.
And so on


What governments should first start doing is to enable us to be more energy efficient. There is way too much forced consumption at the moment and too many who just cannot afford to mind their environmetal footprint in the struggle top make ends meet.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Some (possibly many) people will individually make small changes to lifestyles and behaviours to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Overall these voluntary efforts will be inconsequential - eg: locally grown not imported food, slightly more economical car, kids walk rather than drive to school, turn-off lights etc.

These are not worthless actions - it allows folk to feel personally virtuous and able to better comprehend and accept the much larger changes necessary.

The big changes will come from government - eg: banning sales of ICE from 2030, banning gas boilers from 2035 would not have happened without legislation.

IMHO the government needs to go much further to have any prospect of zero carbon - mandating better new build standards, increasing (2, 3, 4 fold) taxes on energy consumption and plastics to influence consumer decisions, taxing embedded imported energy etc.

Additional consumption taxes should be matched with reduced direct taxes to ensure changes are fiscally balanced, although there will be winners and loser (who will bitterly complain).

Invoking the wartime spirit of we're all in it together, rationing, etc will not work - in WW2 occupation by the Nazis was an immediate and real threat, climate change is a slow burn which impacts mainly future generations long after most of us will be dead.

 

[Sandyn]

We are doing small things such as eating less red meat, but that's for health reasons as well, we have a small petrol car and a bigger one for the trailer, but don't drive all that much, but that's because we don't work any more. We only really heat two rooms in the house. We would still fly somewhere for a holiday. We won't get an electric car until forced, I might get a hybrid if it was cheaper to run. We have a 35 year old gas boiler. I won't replace that until I am forced. I re-purpose things all the time. There are some amazing data here, and here. Lots of maps with date sliders at the bottom, so you can view data per country over time.

 

[Jacob]

.....

Invoking the wartime spirit of we're all in it together, rationing, etc will not work - in WW2 occupation by the Nazis was an immediate and real threat, climate change is a slow burn which impacts mainly future generations long after most of us will be dead.

Climate change is here now. It's already affecting people in the UK with unprecedented flooding in many areas, which is likely to be the new normal and increasing in severity, although nothing compared to the effects being experienced in other parts of the world. The biggest local threat to the UK is change in the gulf stream, which could be sudden and produce a massive change of climate.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ts-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse

 

[Chris152]

I feel sorry for the richest 1%, I'm sure they'll be doing all they can to help out.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ould-jeopardise-1point5c-global-heating-limit

 

[Sandyn]

gravity is just an illusion!! it's curved spacetime

 

[Just4Fun]

We are doing small things such as eating less red meat, but that's for health reasons as well ...

There is a profound truth hidden in that comment: motives are often difficult to discern and often overlap. I could argue that many things I do are good for the environment but do I really do them because I am green or because I am mean? Difficult to say and I will of course claim to be highly virtuous rather than stingy. Perhaps a better measure is "what is the worst thing you do environmentally?". That might present a very different picture. It certainly does in my case and you might conclude that I just don't give a toss.

 

[Sandyn]

There is a profound truth hidden in that comment: motives are often difficult to discern and often overlap.

I think so. and there is a profound truth in what you say

do I really do them because I am green or because I am mean?

I think I will do things as long as it doesn't cost me too much money or alter my lifestyle too much and I have a fairly simple lifestyle. I just don't believe in some of the bad science of high tech solutions, that are around just now. I'm not going to throw my money at bad solutions. I would at a really good solution.
If the government said everyone has to replace their old boilers next month..... It's the law, I would have to do it, but until then, I won't. For the amount of gas I use the improved efficiency would make next to no difference.
It's up to the government to force change, but it has to be a well proven solution that really will make a difference. I would support that 100%

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Perhaps a better measure is "what is the worst thing you do environmentally?". That might present a very different picture

This may actually be a far more insightful measure - we can all point to things we do or don't do to demonstrate how environmentally aware and virtuous we are.

Carbon zero will change what we do - air travel, home heating, diet, walk vs drive, food mles etc. The extent of the sacrifice we are prepared to make is in those things we have little intention of stopping, short of legislative mandate.