Ric2013's eco credentials
- Thread starter ekmdgrf
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http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/pdfs/migrated/MultimediaFiles/Live/FullReport/5575.pdf would go into far more detail than I ever could. I have seen this reported by others (other than Greenpeace) in the media.
While I may be a drop in the ocean, I see no reason to add to the problem myself. The only site on which I can decide environmental policy is my own, and I would particularly be sad to use PVC where I know it's only going to be in use for a year or so.
While I may be a drop in the ocean, I see no reason to add to the problem myself. The only site on which I can decide environmental policy is my own, and I would particularly be sad to use PVC where I know it's only going to be in use for a year or so.
Cajar wrote:
A computer is a massive use of energy in its manufacture, but this is the first new one I have had since 2000, and I realized that modern life really doesn't work without one. Type-written job applications, CVs, handwritten letters to tenants just aren't on these days. I have to live as part of our society, as best as I can, and I think I have more impact this way by influence than by retreating to the hills and living on state benefits.
Transport is a major chunk of our energy usage (I agree with this point of yours), but the transport of the PVC would be the same (once it leaves the builder's merchant). That said, it is light and could potentially be strapped to a bike if cut to lengths. However, if the work is being done by a company, the transport emissions are a fixed amount, and I can only do the best from my end. So if I cannot change the transport method, the best I can do is to change the material.
Silly answer: Like the asbestos cement guttering that is still produced in vast quantity but then landfilled as nobody is allowed to sell it?
Sensible answer: I work on building sites and have seen this happen to PVC that has been fitted. Obviously I can choose to spend time reclaiming trunking for re-use in my own house, but I cannot think of a situation where surface wiring is a lifestyle choice, more a temporary measure, so I wouldn't know what to do with it.
A computer is a massive use of energy in its manufacture, but this is the first new one I have had since 2000, and I realized that modern life really doesn't work without one. Type-written job applications, CVs, handwritten letters to tenants just aren't on these days. I have to live as part of our society, as best as I can, and I think I have more impact this way by influence than by retreating to the hills and living on state benefits.
Transport is a major chunk of our energy usage (I agree with this point of yours), but the transport of the PVC would be the same (once it leaves the builder's merchant). That said, it is light and could potentially be strapped to a bike if cut to lengths. However, if the work is being done by a company, the transport emissions are a fixed amount, and I can only do the best from my end. So if I cannot change the transport method, the best I can do is to change the material.
Silly answer: Like the asbestos cement guttering that is still produced in vast quantity but then landfilled as nobody is allowed to sell it?
Sensible answer: I work on building sites and have seen this happen to PVC that has been fitted. Obviously I can choose to spend time reclaiming trunking for re-use in my own house, but I cannot think of a situation where surface wiring is a lifestyle choice, more a temporary measure, so I wouldn't know what to do with it.
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Fair enough, it's just it seems like an inordinate amount of attention to place on one item that seems to me like it makes little to no difference at all to the environment, ie a few metres of PVC that's already been manufactured. Different if you were designing a block of flats and speccing the material, but not in my mind for a small one off job, even if I cared about environmental issues I'd probably be inclined to bite the bullet on that one as you have done with your computer and car etc.
R
RogueHanger
I'm a little late to the party, and it may be off-topic.
Here in France, for example the veg and fruit section, the furthest that fruit and veg has to travel is probably North Africe,,e.g. Morocco, etc.
Whereas in UK, fruit and veg comes from much further afield, e.g South America.
There are swings and roundabouts, of course. Here, there is only one bus a day, (I've seen it go but never seen it return.
), so private transport is a must. (and OAPs get a free bus pass. )
There are plenty of cyclists but the majority do it for sport rather than commuting.
Similarly, there are refuse collections but only for the communal bins, (literally for the commune) otherwise it's a trip, via private transport to either the local recycling bins or the dechetterie (local tip).
Certainly, plastic is totally replacing copper for plumbing (though not at chez-nous) and buried (not hidden) cable must be in a flexible plastic conduit.
Here in France, for example the veg and fruit section, the furthest that fruit and veg has to travel is probably North Africe,,e.g. Morocco, etc.
Whereas in UK, fruit and veg comes from much further afield, e.g South America.
There are swings and roundabouts, of course. Here, there is only one bus a day, (I've seen it go but never seen it return.
), so private transport is a must. (and OAPs get a free bus pass. )There are plenty of cyclists but the majority do it for sport rather than commuting.
Similarly, there are refuse collections but only for the communal bins, (literally for the commune) otherwise it's a trip, via private transport to either the local recycling bins or the dechetterie (local tip).
Certainly, plastic is totally replacing copper for plumbing (though not at chez-nous) and buried (not hidden) cable must be in a flexible plastic conduit.
I will admit that I have only skimmed it, but as far as i can tell, while is goes in to a lot of depth about why PVC is bad, it spends little or no time considering what the alternatives are, and how may they or other plastics are.
Personally I do actually do make and effort to make ecologically friendly choices in what I do; spending money on re insulating my house, not heating it excessively, using bags for life and reusing carriers, car sharing and using trains on long journeys, reusing material from skips and the like, but equally as an engineer I find the majority of 'eco advice' to either be unworkable, or just plain nonsensically crap, which sadly make my natural reaction to be to shot down eco-warrier types in flames.
It's great that some people care about the environment but unfortunately individual action will have next to no impact.
We in the UK are trying to cut down on greenhouse emissions yet at the same time vast countries like China and the US have no targets to cut down on theirs.
At the risk of contradicting myself, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It has no adverse health effect (unless you try to breathe 100% CO2?). CO2 is in fact essential to plants. Yet it constitutes the vast majority of greenhosue emissions, thus the expression carbon footprint. Why do you want to cut down on CO2 if it's not harmful? Makes the earth hotter?
Let's accept that and see what is happening.
First, the greenhouse effect is nothing new. Off the top of my head, we have been aware of the earth warming up since the 80s. May well have been earlier. The Kyoto protocol was agreed as far back as 1992. Yet nothing much changed. Suddenly, in the last decade, politicians jump on the green bandwagon and that's when everything changed. The government also discovered a way to raise more money, e.g. the Air Passenger Duty tax that Gordon Brown issued. He even admitted that none of that money raised from air travel is earmarked for environmental use.
Another e.g: carbon trading as a way to cut down on carbon footprints. How in the world swapping carbon emissions can cut down on it. It ended up as a way to make money.
Yet another e.g. burning wood pellets because it is a renewable source of energy. Drax power station has been converted to burn biomass to meet EU's targets. Its source of biomass is trees cut down in the US forests, transformed into wood pellets (needs mor energy for that) and then shipped over to here. How can cutting down trees help cut down on carbon dioxide in the air? Biomass may well be a renewable source of energy as new trees that are planted will absorb the CO2 emitted during combustion but it doesn't cut down on the overall level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
When we do genuine efforts, for e.g. through the use of wind farms, people complain that they don't look 'pretty' in the backyard. I'd rather have a windfarm next to my house than a dirty coal power station polluting the air. And personally, I don't find them ugly. In fact, they make a rather serene picture, turning slowly in the wind. Didn't we have windmills in the past?
Any environmental effort should tackle the biggest polluters first - China for e.g. with their coal power station. Whether we agree or not that CO2 should be cut down, coal still produces a lot of other harmful gases. Within the UK, transport produces a lot of toxic gases. Yet what effort has the government done for promoting electric cars? Cutting down on vehicle excise duty while the cost of an electric car in itself is prohibitive. City centres are full of traffic during rush hour because everyone drives into town to work. Public transport is pitiful yet expensive. If the government was really serious about reducing harmful emissions, it would start making changes there, within transport.
And embark on a serious campaign of planting trees everywhere to absorb more carbon dioxide.
Incidentally, the insulation material you cram into houses is not environmentally friendly. If we had hydro-electricity here, maybe it would be better to cut down on insulation and use more electricity to warm houses.
Anyway, all this 'green' talk is just a big scam from all sides. I do what I reasonably can to protect my environment just so I can say I did my part although it will have no impact.
We in the UK are trying to cut down on greenhouse emissions yet at the same time vast countries like China and the US have no targets to cut down on theirs.
At the risk of contradicting myself, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It has no adverse health effect (unless you try to breathe 100% CO2?). CO2 is in fact essential to plants. Yet it constitutes the vast majority of greenhosue emissions, thus the expression carbon footprint. Why do you want to cut down on CO2 if it's not harmful? Makes the earth hotter?
Let's accept that and see what is happening.
First, the greenhouse effect is nothing new. Off the top of my head, we have been aware of the earth warming up since the 80s. May well have been earlier. The Kyoto protocol was agreed as far back as 1992. Yet nothing much changed. Suddenly, in the last decade, politicians jump on the green bandwagon and that's when everything changed. The government also discovered a way to raise more money, e.g. the Air Passenger Duty tax that Gordon Brown issued. He even admitted that none of that money raised from air travel is earmarked for environmental use.
Another e.g: carbon trading as a way to cut down on carbon footprints. How in the world swapping carbon emissions can cut down on it. It ended up as a way to make money.
Yet another e.g. burning wood pellets because it is a renewable source of energy. Drax power station has been converted to burn biomass to meet EU's targets. Its source of biomass is trees cut down in the US forests, transformed into wood pellets (needs mor energy for that) and then shipped over to here. How can cutting down trees help cut down on carbon dioxide in the air? Biomass may well be a renewable source of energy as new trees that are planted will absorb the CO2 emitted during combustion but it doesn't cut down on the overall level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
When we do genuine efforts, for e.g. through the use of wind farms, people complain that they don't look 'pretty' in the backyard. I'd rather have a windfarm next to my house than a dirty coal power station polluting the air. And personally, I don't find them ugly. In fact, they make a rather serene picture, turning slowly in the wind. Didn't we have windmills in the past?
Any environmental effort should tackle the biggest polluters first - China for e.g. with their coal power station. Whether we agree or not that CO2 should be cut down, coal still produces a lot of other harmful gases. Within the UK, transport produces a lot of toxic gases. Yet what effort has the government done for promoting electric cars? Cutting down on vehicle excise duty while the cost of an electric car in itself is prohibitive. City centres are full of traffic during rush hour because everyone drives into town to work. Public transport is pitiful yet expensive. If the government was really serious about reducing harmful emissions, it would start making changes there, within transport.
And embark on a serious campaign of planting trees everywhere to absorb more carbon dioxide.
Incidentally, the insulation material you cram into houses is not environmentally friendly. If we had hydro-electricity here, maybe it would be better to cut down on insulation and use more electricity to warm houses.
Anyway, all this 'green' talk is just a big scam from all sides. I do what I reasonably can to protect my environment just so I can say I did my part although it will have no impact.
My understanding is that CO2 is toxic in concentrations > 15%
I certainly wasn't disputing that, merely disputing your assertion that CO2 is not harmful.
I agree with all of this.
I must say, though, that although the sight of wind turbines doesn't upset me at all, what does upset me about them is the money that has been wasted on something that contributes next to nothing to our power generation needs.
Those in power ought to help the country rather than their mates (and themselves).
To an extent it is true, but equally if everyone toke time to reduce there impact, the net effect would be significant. And obviously, that includes China/India etc but leading my example is a good start!
My houses energy use is inline with a couple living in a small 2 bed house, yet its a large 3 bedroom (ex 4 bedroom) with three independent professionals living in it.
Daniel
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