Are you trying to be eco friendly?

[Just that Mario]

3 hours ago, Lairlair said:

Is there a reason for that?

Probably because it just wastes time and energy. Why force yourself into some hippie mindset and wear yourself out over a problem that doesn't even exist? Your average European has no effect on any of the ecology. Same for people from highly developed Asian countries.

[Just that Mario]

8 hours ago, manikyath said:

if you literally only commute 20km.. do you really even need a car at all?

Yes and I own multiple and hopefully will own more. Cars aren't just a tool to me, they're a hobby. Also I am not walking 40km, nor using a e-scooter or a bicycle. 20km commute is enough to get to one end of the city and back for my case and public transportation is not an option (it's just terrible and sucks). Not to mention as I live in a house, you need a car to get stuff from hardware stores, etc.

[Lairlair]

3 hours ago, Just that Mario said:

Your average European has no effect on any of the ecology.

What do you mean? Who has an effect on the ecology then?

 

3 hours ago, Just that Mario said:

20km commute is enough to get to one end of the city

Maybe they meant 20km back and forth. In that case it's what I do sometimes and starting the day with a 10km bike ride is a nice thing and gives me more energy throughout the day. Plus traffic jams and gas price fluctuations don't affect me. Oh well, I guess you have your hobby and I have mine

[CBojorges]

Yes I care about the environment. I try to reduce, reuse and recycle (in that order). I can't stand people that don't care, which are the most where I live, unfortunately. They are really good at consuming but they can't beeven asked to separate their trash.

 

Check out the laptop cooler I made with trash from my PC build.

[Roswell]

13 hours ago, Just that Mario said:

a problem that doesn't even exist?

Whatever stance you take on causation, global warming still exists, takes 2 seconds to Google a graph showing the trend… 

My guess, along with every other climate science body in existence, is co2:

 

 

[Lairlair]

1 hour ago, Roswell said:

Whatever stance you take on causation, global warming still exists, takes 2 seconds to Google a graph showing the trend… 

My guess, along with every other climate science body in existence, is co2:

 

 

Thanks and agreed. I can't imagine he hasn't heard that before though

 

7 hours ago, CBojorges said:

Check out the laptop cooler I made with trash from my PC build.

Fun! How does it perform? Could be an idea for a new LTT video

[mr moose]

17 hours ago, Noble3212 said:

Nothing. Realistically we ourself can't do a whole lot to help with the COs emission's. Big companies have to change before we would have to. 3 people out a 100,000 trying to slow emissions isn't going to help a whole lot

This is how I feel about Australia, The powers that govern social narrative want us to shut down all of our 24 coal fired power plants in order to save the world.  Lets just forget than china has more than a 2000, the EU has over 450 and the US has 230.  I'm sure our 24 that don't even operate at full capacity will make all the difference .

[Just that Mario]

11 hours ago, Lairlair said:

Maybe they meant 20km back and forth. In that case it's what I do sometimes and starting the day with a 10km bike ride is a nice thing and gives me more energy throughout the day. Plus traffic jams and gas price fluctuations don't affect me. Oh well, I guess you have your hobby and I have mine

Yeah, go ride a bike when it's -25 outside and snowing. Also some people don't like to get to their destination covered in sweat.

 

11 hours ago, Lairlair said:

What do you mean? Who has an effect on the ecology then?

Large corporations and third world are the major contributors. Casual persons are negligible.

 

2 hours ago, Roswell said:

Whatever stance you take on causation, global warming still exists, takes 2 seconds to Google a graph showing the trend…

Earth does and has been doing warming and cooling cycles for millions of years. That's nothing new. I don't even find this as a "major new problem". It's like taking a piss into the ocean in overall timeline. But what I referred to originally is that a casual individuals footprint is so small, that their existence and normal behavior is a non issue. Like me driving my car, playing a video game on pc and having little fun is completely negligible. So a single person going full crazy hippie as many like to, is completely useless.

[Lairlair]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

I'm sure our 24 that don't even operate at full capacity will make all the difference

If their hope is to save the world I'm afraid they're out of luck. No one is the hero of an action movie and no nation is a good example really, except Bhutan maybe. It won't make all the difference but it will make a difference. And every bit counts, for the impact is not only the avoided ton of CO₂ but the symbolic impact too.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Lets just forget than china has more than a 2000, the EU has over 450 and the US has 230

And let's forget that Europe has 30 times the population of Australia. 30*24=720 means Europe has less coal plants per capita than Australia. So shutting down one plant in Australia would actually have more impact than doing the same in Europe. As for China, it has 56 times Australia's population and they are basically the world's factory. So if you're concerned about China's CO₂ emissions, you may want to look into the mechanics of globalisation that relocated all the factories there, and maybe avoid buying any goods produced in China (good luck with that). If you're not willing to do that, consider thanking the Chinese for their cheap hard work and go back to actually making a difference where you can: around you.

 

Pointing fingers to others is such an overused trope and it does nothing but take the guilt off your shoulder by putting the focus elsewhere, which is never relevant. The thing is you probably shouldn't feel guilty to begin with. It's not your fault if you're born in a country that has coal plants, it's not your fault if your culture values consumerism. But it is your responsibility to ask yourself what type of world you want to leave behind. I personally don't see myself lying on my deathbed thinking: "well at least I overclocked my RTX 3080" wait scratch that, it sounds kinda cool. But I will also tell myself "I did my part in defending ideas for a better world". Which is why the topic here is: what do you actually do?

[Lairlair]

2 minutes ago, Just that Mario said:

Also some people don't like to get to their destination covered in sweat

Many workplaces will also provide showers, so you might look even fresher to start the day. As for the -25°C... Yeah okay, good luck with that

 

5 minutes ago, Just that Mario said:

Casual persons are negligible

But large corporations are made of casual people (workers) and sell stuff to casual people (consumers). It's not like it's a completely segregated thing.

And emerging countries emit a bigger portion of CO₂ than they used to because they're producing a bigger portion of goods for the West. So again, it's not completely disconnected. Increasing industrial activity always means more energy consumption = more CO₂

 

Previous changes in temperatures have been caused by Milankovitch cycles. Tilt of the earth, elliptic variations in its orbit affecting how the sunlight hits the globe. This time the change has been caused by the imbalance in CO₂ released during and after the industrial revolution, and change is okay, but it's happening faster than we have time to adapt. I'm not claiming it's the end of the world and such, but climate change will mean more natural disasters of higher intensity (droughts, fires, hurricanes, floods...). If you see houses nearby being swept in a landslide, it puts many things into perspective. I actually feel more grounded, calm and grateful for what I have, than crazy and hippie.

[mr moose]

16 minutes ago, Lairlair said:

If their hope is to save the world I'm afraid they're out of luck. No one is the hero of an action movie and no nation is a good example really, except Bhutan maybe. It won't make all the difference but it will make a difference. And every bit counts, for the impact is not only the avoided ton of CO₂ but the symbolic impact too.

 

And let's forget that Europe has 30 times the population of Australia. 30*24=720 means Europe has less coal plants per capita than Australia. So shutting down one plant in Australia would actually have more impact than doing the same in Europe. As for China, it has 56 times Australia's population and they are basically the world's factory. So if you're concerned about China's CO₂ emissions, you may want to look into the mechanics of globalisation that relocated all the factories there, and maybe avoid buying any goods produced in China (good luck with that). If you're not willing to do that, consider thanking the Chinese for their cheap hard work and go back actually making a difference where you can: around you.

 

 

Shutting down one coal plant in Australia would not have more impact than in any other country.  For one thing each plant operates at different outputs and efficiencies, for another each country uses their coal stations for different purposes. Ours are used more than the average to produce exported goods (coal, aluminium and steel).  You can bet your left arse cheek that many of the coal fired plants in the EU serve only to provide power for commercial and domestic use as oppsoed to heavy industry like

 

 

Besides all that,  Shutting down even one station In Australia will result in blackouts (as we experienced when they closed hazelwood). We run so close to the demand point that base load is an important factor, and I'm afraid that wind and solar are no match for steam generation when it comes to load balancing and supply quality.    So no we are not going to save the world by shutting down our plants and we are certainly not going to have a postivie impact in any way by doing so. 

 

 

In fact I would argue that if they were to close down any coal stations then all the coal proponents around the world would point to us as an example of what happens when you shut down reliable power generation without an equally reliable alternative in place.  Pretty much like how Germany is suffering right now after shutting down nuclear and investing in Russian gas and renewables that are not as reliable.  And even before the Russian gas issue arose they had some terrible winters because solar panels and wind don't operate very well when covered in snow and no wind.

 

I'm all in favor of replacing coal with something greener, so long as it is done in a way that does not interrupt the power supply and is actually greener. You know, like nuclear.

 

16 minutes ago, Lairlair said:

Pointing fingers to others is such an overused trope and it does nothing but take the guilt of your shoulder by putting the focus elsewhere, which is never relevant. The thing is you probably shouldn't feel guilty to begin with. It's not your fault if you're born in a country that has coal plants, it's not your fault if your culture values consumerism. But it is your responsibility to ask yourself what type of world you want to leave behind. I personally don't see myself lying on my deathbed thinking: "well at least I overclocked my RTX 3080" wait scratch that, it sounds kinda cool. But I will also tell myself "I did my part in defending ideas for a better world". Which is why the topic here is: what do you actually do?

 

This is not pointing fingers or trying to absolve oneself of guilt, this is just being realistic.  I want my government to actually recycle what it collects as recyclable and to install base load nuclear power until such times as genuine green renewables become feasible and not just a political point scoring tool. Because everything else is just rhetoric,  nothing is ever done that actually makes a difference, it's all just words, lies and vote grabbing.  

[Lairlair]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Pretty much like how Germany is suffering right now

Yep, I live there so I know how crap everything is. You're making very fair points and I more or less agree with everything you said. I'll just add that changing the energy mix should be accompanied with changes in how we live, work, move. Just shutting down coal plants for the sake of putting solar panels up doesn't amount to much, especially if you didn't plan on backups for the downsides of intermittent energy sources... That said, in northern Australia you probably have more sunlight than Germany no?

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing your views

[kumicota]

2 hours ago, Lairlair said:

for the impact is not only the avoided ton of CO₂ but the symbolic impact too.

 

I disagree with the symbolic impact, because it doesn't work. And there's a few good examples of it. Like how only 100 companies is responsible for about 71% of annual global emissions: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change

 

The symbolism point related to the 100 companies above , where a lot of them are on green indexes like the like S&P 500 green(like Exxon for example), and receive a lot of green-credits from the government because they donate or promote green causes making them look good companies while polluting in a day more than an average city in a decade.

 

While I'm pro-green policies, symbolic impact is just making everything worse because you sweeping big polluting companies like Exxon or Chevron because they give a few millions for green companies just to receive some tax exemption while creating more pollution

[da na]

When it comes to computers, I would say I am. I refurbish and resell ewaste systems that would otherwise go to landfill, and all of my hardware is bought secondhand. Though, if we're talking about wattage, I suppose I'm not super clean there with my 300w of CPU power.

[Noble3212]

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

This is how I feel about Australia, The powers that govern social narrative want us to shut down all of our 24 coal fired power plants in order to save the world.  Lets just forget than china has more than a 2000, the EU has over 450 and the US has 230.  I'm sure our 24 that don't even operate at full capacity will make all the difference .

Exactly 

[tikker]

4 hours ago, Just that Mario said:

Earth does and has been doing warming and cooling cycles for millions of years. That's nothing new. I don't even find this as a "major new problem". It's like taking a piss into the ocean in overall timeline. But what I referred to originally is that a casual individuals footprint is so small, that their existence and normal behavior is a non issue. Like me driving my car, playing a video game on pc and having little fun is completely negligible. So a single person going full crazy hippie as many like to, is completely useless.

It's important to distinguish between a long-term cycle and the rapid warming (the anthropogenic global warming/climate change) that we observe today. You mention it yourself: those cycles operate on hundreds of thousands to millions of years, not the 150 years or so as we are seeing now. It hasn't been a debate in the scientific community for a long time that we have caused it. See the articles referenced here, for example, and this study from last year.

 

The example that a single person doesn't use or contribute much ignores that there are millions to billions of people that could think that way. If one person uses 1L of fuel less or more per day that doesn't amount to much, but if 20 million people do it, that adds up. If millions of people dropped the thermostat from 22 to 20, that does add up etc. Unfortunately we live in a "compensating" society. Once we see that something is technically possible, a decrease in something will likely be seen as an opportunity or allowance to increase it somewhere else. If people use less, probably the companies will simply use more, so we do definitely need to tackle this from the top by cracking down hard on large corporations' emissions and dumb stuff like "CO2 vouchers". Individuals indeed won't avert climate change. Despite that, I do think it a bit of responsibility goes a long way and that it is exaggerating to say you need to go "full crazy hippie" or that the individual is meaningless. This is of course a two-way street and things like bikes over cars should be accomodated by the government as well, by changing infrastructure, for example.

 

 

OT:

If I owned a house I would put in solar panels, a heat pump etc. For now I try to be conservative with my heating that still runs on gas, separate waste and be more mindful about wasteful packaging. My old tech usually finds second life as e.g. a NAS or something.

 

[Lairlair]

2 hours ago, kumicota said:

While I'm pro-green policies, symbolic impact is just making everything worse

Hm I see what you mean and I agree. Though I would call that green washing and it's not really what I meant by symbolic. A lot of the change has to happen collectively, and one way to do that is inspire each other by contagion. If one country makes an effort in their policies, many others can be inspired by that. Humans have a tendency to copy each other's behaviours. I worked in a kitchen for a while, and oddly enough, if one person ordered the chicken, 3 similar orders followed once the dish made it to the table. It sounds a little silly, but I wouldn't downplay the effects it can have, especially in an era where news travel fast and governments are sensitive to what's happening on twitter.

[kumicota]

13 minutes ago, Lairlair said:

Though I would call that green washing

This is a better term for that to be honest but I do agree with you

[OhYou_]

3 hours ago, Mel0n. said:

When it comes to computers, I would say I am. I refurbish and resell ewaste systems that would otherwise go to landfill, and all of my hardware is bought secondhand. Though, if we're talking about wattage, I suppose I'm not super clean there with my 300w of CPU power.

Wattage doesnt matter when you factor in the environmental impact of replacing it. 
it almost never does for anything. 

The impact of manufacturing the new lower wattage cpu is admittedly small, but then a motherboard has to be made, and usually ram too. 
All that stuff has to be developed for year(s) in buildings and factories that use power and produce waste. It all then has to be moved around the world to get to you.
And now a portion of your environmental impact by working has to go into paying for it. 
 

[Sauron]

The problem is that these issues can't be solved through individual action. it's good if you try to reuse hardware and not use too much power, however your impact is negligible compared to megacorporations which pollute more than entire nations of individuals.

[Jtalk4456]

6 hours ago, Just that Mario said:

1. Yeah, go ride a bike when it's -25 outside and snowing. Also some people don't like to get to their destination covered in sweat.

2. Large corporations and third world are the major contributors. Casual persons are negligible.

3. Earth does and has been doing warming and cooling cycles for millions of years. That's nothing new. I don't even find this as a "major new problem". It's like taking a piss into the ocean in overall timeline. But what I referred to originally is that a casual individuals footprint is so small, that their existence and normal behavior is a non issue. Like me driving my car, playing a video game on pc and having little fun is completely negligible. So a single person going full crazy hippie as many like to, is completely useless.

1. Electric cars with a green power grid will get you to work without polluting, so you don't have to ride a bike to be green

2. Why do you think those large corporations exist? To sell products to those casual people you seem to think are negligible. So without market drive from us casual people, those big corporations won't be doing what they are doing. Corporations certainly play their part, but to call the individual negligible is just ignoring the reality of why the corporation is there at all

Also your point is simply not even close to accurate.

Quote

On the global level, 72% are related to household consumption, 10% to government consumption (compared to a 16% share in global GDP), and 18% to investments (compared to a 21% share in global GDP). Nutrition is the most important consumption category, with food accounting for nearly 20% of the GHG emissions.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es803496a

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618310314

72% is not negligible

3. Cycles are nothing new over thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, but a rapid global temperature increase in the span of a few decades IS new. This attempt at ignoring our impact has been debunked time and time over by the scientific community. This is no longer a scientific debate. Human caused global warming is extremely well documented and studied. It is a fact whether you'd like to take responsibility or not.

22 hours ago, Just that Mario said:

Your average European has no effect on any of the ecology. Same for people from highly developed Asian countries.

Read above, this simply is not even remotely accurate. Heck you walking on the grass in your yard 'affects' the ecology, building a house affects the ecology, non pourous surfaces like streets and driveways affect the ecology greatly. You cannot honestly claim you have no ecological effect unless you live in a tent in the woods and forage for food.

7 hours ago, mr moose said:

This is how I feel about Australia, The powers that govern social narrative want us to shut down all of our 24 coal fired power plants in order to save the world.  Lets just forget than china has more than a 2000, the EU has over 450 and the US has 230.  I'm sure our 24 that don't even operate at full capacity will make all the difference .

I get what you're saying, but I think it lends to a false dichotomy where because China has more to shut down, they need to shut down and not yours in australia. Both can be shut down to help. Will yours have quite the impact as china, no, but every bit helps

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

1. So no we are not going to save the world by shutting down our plants and we are certainly not going to have a postivie impact in any way by doing so. 

2. In fact I would argue that if they were to close down any coal stations then all the coal proponents around the world would point to us as an example of what happens when you shut down reliable power generation without an equally reliable alternative in place. 

I'm all in favor of replacing coal with something greener, so long as it is done in a way that does not interrupt the power supply and is actually greener. You know, like nuclear.

1. It will have a positive impact if done correctly, but it's not about finding one thing that magically saves the world. It's about finding any impact we can and making it count.

2. I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly wouldn't expect you to shut plants down without a replacement, you're absolutely right that would be awful PR. But Australia is a great location for solar, and geothermal I'd imagine would be great too. And as you point out, nuclear is a great short term get rid of coal while we make other renewables better.

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

The problem is that these issues can't be solved through individual action. it's good if you try to reuse hardware and not use too much power, however your impact is negligible compared to megacorporations which pollute more than entire nations of individuals.

The above information has that 'negligible' point debunked, but I want to make a separate point. individual action ON ITS OWN cannot solve anything. But collective individual action across tons of individuals absolutely WILL make a difference. If we as individuals say it's not worth it, then why wouldn't every other individual say the same? Then you've got a whole planet worth of people who think their efforts don't matter and that's just not true. Think of those CC scams where people took a few pennies out of people's accounts. just a few pennies, made essentially no impact to the individual. But the criminal did this for millions of accounts and made a fortune from pennies at a time. Collective action matters. You choosing to be someone who cares does matter. That one action might not make a significant impact, but it will make some impact, and every impact you make adds up over time to a larger impact, and then the world making that small impact every day makes a GIANT impact. On top of all the reasons we have to make this effort, there's simply no reason NOT to make the effort. Pollution affects health, extreme weather damages lives, economies and infrastructures. We are already seeing people driven out of their homes permanently due to the affects of climate change. The impact is already happening and it's simply not worth ignoring.

[Sauron]

13 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

72% is not negligible

Divide that figure by 8 billion and you get your personal impact (even if you multiply it by 10 to account for different living standards it's still virtually nothing). Divide it by the amount you're actually saving by adopting "green" habits and you get something that's negligible.

 

Further that figure is not entirely honest. By "household consumptions" it just means all greenhouse emissions produced by everything that contributes to things you consume in your house, meaning almost everything we do as humans. How much of those gases are produced just by exxon mobil refineries? How much is produced by inefficient production of consumer goods that can't be just given up on? How can you expect individuals to use their cars less if there is no good public transport in their area and they're forced to show up to work 40km from their home every day?

13 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

But collective individual action across tons of individuals absolutely WILL make a difference

We call that "legislation" and "infrastructure". Instead of expecting individual people to change their life in circumstances they may not control using means they often can't afford, try making sure climate friendly actions are both accessible and legally required.

[mr moose]

22 hours ago, Lairlair said:

Yep, I live there so I know how crap everything is. You're making very fair points and I more or less agree with everything you said. I'll just add that changing the energy mix should be accompanied with changes in how we live, work, move. Just shutting down coal plants for the sake of putting solar panels up doesn't amount to much, especially if you didn't plan on backups for the downsides of intermittent energy sources... That said, in northern Australia you probably have more sunlight than Germany no?

Northern Australia has enough sunlight to make a huge difference solar wise, unfortunately it's also some of the most baron parts of our land (or it's rain forest which I strongly oppose cutting down for the sake of solar).  Most of the population live in Sydney and Melbourne (just under half Australias total pop), which is several thousand Km's from the best places to have a solar farm.   For domestic housing we are good with solar, unfortunately the size we need to really make it work is out of the price of most Australians.   More political and economic barriers to making a change .

 

22 hours ago, Lairlair said:

Anyway, thanks for sharing your views

You're welcome.

15 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

I get what you're saying, but I think it lends to a false dichotomy where because China has more to shut down, they need to shut down and not yours in australia. Both can be shut down to help. Will yours have quite the impact as china, no, but every bit helps

Problem is the people who want to shut them down think they are saving the planet while completely ignoring the fact we need to replace that energy source with something just as reliable.   

15 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

1. It will have a positive impact if done correctly, but it's not about finding one thing that magically saves the world. It's about finding any impact we can and making it count.

With all the current technology we have today, the biggest and most immediate impact would be to replace our coal power with nuclear power, but the powers that be are trying to brainwash us into thinking that nuclear does not make sense in a land with plentiful Uranium and some of the worlds best scientists and engineers.  

 

15 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

2. I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly wouldn't expect you to shut plants down without a replacement, you're absolutely right that would be awful PR. But Australia is a great location for solar, and geothermal I'd imagine would be great too. And as you point out, nuclear is a great short term get rid of coal while we make other renewables better.

If we ignore the ecological impact of solar and wind, they are both great in Australia, however they still don't hold a candle to nuclear, especially here where we have the best mining, uranium resources, engineers and our power grid is already setup up for centralized power distribution.  Building nuclear power plants right next to the old coal plants (there is plenty of room because they were specifically built were they were for the room to expand) would literally take our electrical CO2 output to almost zero. Certainly it would take it low enough that planting a few more trees would almost legitimately offset what co2 it did produce (unlike the current system where some clown goes into the bush and kills a half dozen wild goats and camels then sells the co2 credits to the bank who then pretend they have a carbon neutral footprint).  

 

[Arika]

49 minutes ago, mr moose said:

With all the current technology we have today, the biggest and most immediate impact would be to replace our coal power with nuclear power, but the powers that be are trying to brainwash us into thinking that nuclear does not make sense in a land with plentiful Uranium and some of the worlds best scientists and engineers.  

"No,you don't understand. Fukushima. Chernobyl"

*refuses to elaborate any further*

*leaves*

 

Nuclear should be the backbone of any energy grid.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Arika S said:

"No,you don't understand. Fukushima. Chernobyl"

*refuses to elaborate any further*

*leaves*

 

Nuclear should be the backbone of any energy grid.

Ahh yes,  an earth quake/tsunami that most (if not all) of Australia don't get and a 40+ year old accident with 80 year old technology compounded by an inadequate ruling communist dictatorship is the only argument you'd get from a twit with only slightly more nous and knowledge than a tomato.  

 

I find it ironic that with everything humans have done wrong to this planet, it will be the greens who prevent us from fixing any of it.