What am I doing to reduce AGW?

[Cuddles]

There are many on JREF who are genuinely concerned about AGW, and it's potential impact on our planet, and our lives.

I was interested in what people were actually doing about it.

The trouble with your poll and question is that it misses three very important points that most realists also make. Sure, global warming is happening and it's almost certainly at least partially our fault. However, that doesn't mean we can actually do anything about it. No matter what a few people, or even a few countries, do, everyone else will make sure that all that coal and oil gets burned. Even if that were not the case, we don't have a viable way to reduce the carbon we've already released. There's very little point trying to stop global warming. Even without any human influence, the climate will change, as deniers are often fond of pointing out. What we need to do is make sure we can cope with whatever happens, whether it is our fault or not.

The second point is pollution. Arguing about carbon and its long term effects is all very well, but there are many other forms of pollution which are easily demonstrated to be harmful and often have much easier solutions. Acid rain was a big worry for a while. Whole forests were dying, lakes becoming sterile and so on. Fortunately we saw the problem, found the cause and it is now much less of a problem. Same for the ozone layer. It's still not looking happy, but the holes aren't getting bigger any more, although there's still a way to go before they actually heal. Smog is one that's much more of a problem. The Beijing Olympics gave a bit more focus, but there are many places with similar problems that no-one hears about. Toxic waste and disposal appear in the news occasionally, but they are a problem all the time. Landfills, chemical spills, heavy metals, radioactive waste, mine leavings and so on. There are many, many different types of pollution and almost as many different sources. We shouldn't need global warming in order to realise just how dirty the human race is. Even if you don't believe global warming is happening at all, there are so many other reasons to try to reduce waste.

Finally, there's the problem of resources. Does burning coal and oil cause global warming? Who cares? It'll all be gone in a few years anyway. We don't need renewables and nuclear to give us clean energy, we need them to give us energy, full stop. It won't be a decade, it probably won't be a century, but non-renewables will run out, by definition. And it's not just fuel. There's a limited amount of virtually everything that human civilisation runs on. Plastics are mostly made from oil, which makes burning it really quite stupid. Metals could all be recycled, but the way we use them tends to scatter them around the place which males it impractical to do so. Which brings up the point that I've noticed a couple of people mention recycling. Recycling is bad for global warming, since it often takens more energy than simply making new stuff. However, what recycling does do is make our resources last longer and reduce waste. We could theoretically have unlimited clean energy just using current technology. What we can't have is unlimited material resources.

This is why I generally have problems with both sides of the global warming arguments (I wouldn't consider it any kind of actual debate). On the one hand you have the deniers who are perfectly happy to ignore reality and lie as much as possible just to support their ideology. On the other hand, you have people making a huge fuss about something which their proposed solutions won't do a damn thing about, and which is unlikely to cause us any real problems until well after we have plenty of more serious things to worry about. Climate change is real, and it can be coped with by working out what will probably happen and planning appropriately. The doomsayers who make it out to be a big bogeyman just to score political or environmental points are just as bad as those who deny it exists at all. Humanity has enough problems without having to pretend some are much bigger than they really are.



As for the actual question, I have electricity from windfarms (and my flat doesn't have gas or oil), I cycle to work and walk to the shops. I have energy saving lightbulbs, I hardly use heating (high metabolism or something), and I recycle all the stuff I can. In order to offset that, I work at a particle accelerator which requires the equivalent of a small power station to run.

 

[GreyICE]

Finally, there's the problem of resources. Does burning coal and oil cause global warming? Who cares? It'll all be gone in a few years anyway. We don't need renewables and nuclear to give us clean energy, we need them to give us energy, full stop. It won't be a decade, it probably won't be a century, but non-renewables will run out, by definition. And it's not just fuel. There's a limited amount of virtually everything that human civilisation runs on. Plastics are mostly made from oil, which makes burning it really quite stupid. Metals could all be recycled, but the way we use them tends to scatter them around the place which males it impractical to do so. Which brings up the point that I've noticed a couple of people mention recycling. Recycling is bad for global warming, since it often takens more energy than simply making new stuff. However, what recycling does do is make our resources last longer and reduce waste. We could theoretically have unlimited clean energy just using current technology. What we can't have is unlimited material resources.

With all due respect, I'm going to have to take issue here. Recycling is very cost-effective for many materials, especially metals. It is so cost-effective, in fact, that when I am documenting recycled material costs, I am allowed to assume a certain percentage of many metals are recycled, with no documentation. None. It's just so cost-effective to recycle metals, that we are already doing it on a very large scale.

Furthermore, many uses of recycled paper, such as cheap insulation, are very cost effective as well.

Glass recycling is also cost effective.
http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/Glass.htm

Plastic is the only one that's a tough nut to crack, and that's because of the number thing. When you mix different numbers of plastic together, they tend to separate when they're melted down. That produces an exceptionally weak plastic, since it's striated into layers. So you have to sort the different numbers of plastic. The numbers are NOT quality, but literally type of plastic, chemically.

 

[quarky]

We grow food here; pull drapes to block passive solar gain during summer; opposite strategy in winter; catch rain water and gravity feed to toilet; wear sweaters in winter...simple stuff like that...keeps the power bills low. yet, we've been that way all along, because it makes sense for us. It will do little to fix the problem, true.

 

[Furi]

I have reduced my Chilli, Soya and Cask Stout intake, as such my flatulence has decreased significantly

 

[Lonewulf]

Plastic is the only one that's a tough nut to crack, and that's because of the number thing. When you mix different numbers of plastic together, they tend to separate when they're melted down. That produces an exceptionally weak plastic, since it's striated into layers. So you have to sort the different numbers of plastic. The numbers are NOT quality, but literally type of plastic, chemically.

We should do what they do in Germany; have procedures where you can give the plastic bottles to a certain center, where they wash it out and refill it.

 

[Cuddles]

With all due respect, I'm going to have to take issue here. Recycling is very cost-effective for many materials, especially metals. It is so cost-effective, in fact, that when I am documenting recycled material costs, I am allowed to assume a certain percentage of many metals are recycled, with no documentation. None. It's just so cost-effective to recycle metals, that we are already doing it on a very large scale.

Note that I didn't say anything about cost.

 

[GreyICE]

Note that I didn't say anything about cost.

Quote by Cuddles:

Recycling is bad for global warming, since it often takens more energy than simply making new stuff.

If you followed the links, you'd realize this simply isn't true for glass or metal.

If recycled glass is used to make new bottles and jars, the energy needed in the furnace is greatly reduced. After accounting for the transport and processing needed, 315kg of CO2 is saved per tonne of glass melted.

Paper depends strongly on what's being done with the paper, and plastic, as I said, doesn't work out too well, but for metal and glass it's highly beneficial.

 

[Cuddles]

Quote by Cuddles:

Nope, nothing about cost there.

If you followed the links, you'd realize this simply isn't true for glass or metal.

Did I say it was? Oh look, no I didn't. Why would I bother following links that aren't arguing about anything I actually said? What I did say is that it is often impractical to recycle because of the way we use certain things. Sure, metal is great to recycle when it's all collected in one place. What about when it's scattered around the countryside in the shape of little tin cans? Still think it's more energy efficient to hunt it all down than to just dig it out the ground in big lumps? What if I break my window? I can't put that in a bottle bank. Will a glass recycling company come and collect it from my door, or will it just end up in a landfill? Why do we have scrapyards full of old cars and other junk, yet people still keep digging metal out of the ground? And this is before I even point out that there is no such thing as "metal" or "glass", there are many different types, all of which have different methods of production and recycling and therefore very different costs and practicalities involved.

As I thought was apparent from my original post, I'm all for recycling. But there's no point pretending it's better than it really is, and the simple fact is that the way we use things and produce waste often makes recycling impractical, less efficient and/or more costly than just dumping stuff and making more.

 

[quarky]

Yes, but:

If we ever achieve elegance with technology, we need to do some pretending now, like recycling, to get in the mood. We're children playing with dolls and toy trucks. Eventually, we'll transfer our playing to real world concerns.

Similarly, we'll need to use our remaining oil most wisely, to get from here to there.
It will require enourmous amounts of lesser technology to create better technology.

We need lots of practice paying attention, on whatever pathetic level we can start at.
The alternative doesn't even offer the training camp.

 

[GreyICE]

Nope, nothing about cost there.

Did I say it was? Oh look, no I didn't. Why would I bother following links that aren't arguing about anything I actually said?

Wow, your psychic skills are impressive. I'm glad you know there's nothing that's actually there before you even click on the link.

FYI, cost effective = less human time involved, or less energy used. With raw materials, there's really no other options. If we assume the time is reasonably equal (not an overall bad assumption) if it's more cost effective, it's more resource effective.

Moreover, if you followed the link, OR read the excerpt I posted, you'd realize glass recycling is more material effective. They posted the amount of CO2 reduction, including transport energy usage.

What I did say is that it is often impractical to recycle because of the way we use certain things. Sure, metal is great to recycle when it's all collected in one place. What about when it's scattered around the countryside in the shape of little tin cans? Still think it's more energy efficient to hunt it all down than to just dig it out the ground in big lumps?

I'm disturbed that you scatter tin cans around the countryside and think that tin comes out of the ground in hunks. I assure you, you will never find a hunk of 'tin' from the ground, or a hunk of any other metal.

It's very cost effective to collect and remelt tin, or even to separate it from the waste stream (hint: Magnets help) and recycle it. If people throw their cans around the landscape, cost effectiveness goes down, but if you, say, throw them in recycling bins, it's very cost effective. Also, litter has other negative impacts that means that cleaning it up is often something people do even with no recycling benefit.

What if I break my window? I can't put that in a bottle bank. Will a glass recycling company come and collect it from my door, or will it just end up in a landfill? Why do we have scrapyards full of old cars and other junk, yet people still keep digging metal out of the ground?

I submit the amount of glass that you use in food bottles is anywhere from 100 times to 10,000 times more than the amount of glass you go through in the form of 'broken windows.' If your window breaks, sweep it up and throw it in the garbage. It's still NOWHERE close to the amount of glass you go through in food containers. Your example is missing the forest for the trees. Or, in this case, one single tree that's three feet tall in one corner of the forest, when you're surrounded by 40 foot tall oaks.

Yes, there's cases where recycling is not effective. I imagine you could think of many of them (I throw the glass over the edge of a cliff and it sticks, taking a rock climber 40 minutes to get to it, oh look, not cost effective to recycle). These cases are the vast minority. Even if you break, say, one window a year, which is absolutely absurd, and you shatter it into pieces (instead of just cracking the pane, which is easy enough to recycle) you will STILL go through many times that glass in food containers.

As for metal recycling, check this out:
http://www.southeastny.com/

Do you suppose they are paying cash for your scrap metal because they are kind environmentalists who love to hug trees? Or because they're making money recycling scrap metal?

And this is before I even point out that there is no such thing as "metal" or "glass", there are many different types, all of which have different methods of production and recycling and therefore very different costs and practicalities involved.

I submit that there are such things as metal and glass. If you mean there are different costs involved for each type, yes, that's true. However, each and every type is cost effective to recycle, and that includes separation costs.

As I thought was apparent from my original post, I'm all for recycling. But there's no point pretending it's better than it really is, and the simple fact is that the way we use things and produce waste often makes recycling impractical, less efficient and/or more costly than just dumping stuff and making more.

I submit you're working with 15/20 year old information. This is the state of recycling in the 80s/early 90s, not the state of recycling today. There have been vast improvements in the field of recycling in terms of resource usage, and cost effectiveness. A lot of this is due to superior computer technology (making separating types much easier), and other technological advances.

 

[Arthur Denton]

I live in a farm, my car runs on ethanol, we save everything we can regarding food and energy. We planned to install a solar water heating thingie in top of the house, but the climate is too cold and the tree leaves would block the sun, so no, we didn't. We recycle everything we can too, even gathering pieces of plastic that other land owners have left laying on the ground, and we go deliver it two kilometers from home once a week (the recycling truck won't pass at our home). We don't use pesticide and look out for cultures who doesn't need them. I think my family is really really into energy and planet conservation. But what does AGW stands for?

 

[GreyICE]

I live in a farm, my car runs on ethanol, we save everything we can regarding food and energy. We planned to install a solar water heating thingie in top of the house, but the climate is too cold and the tree leaves would block the sun, so no, we didn't. We recycle everything we can too, even gathering pieces of plastic that other land owners have left laying on the ground, and we go deliver it two kilometers from home once a week (the recycling truck won't pass at our home). We don't use pesticide and look out for cultures who doesn't need them. I think my family is really really into energy and planet conservation. But what does AGW stands for?

Anthropogenic global warming. It's mostly a term created by the denier crowd. Because the evidence for a warming trend has been so strong , a lot of them have moved from claiming that there was no warming trend to claiming that there's a warming trend, but it's all natural. You know, standard goalpost shifting nonsense.

Because of this, the term anthropogenic global warming was developed so they could separate the people who think that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are increasing heat retention on the planet from people who think it's all just a giant coincidence, and there's really no reason to assume that it's human caused.

One could suggest these people are the sort who, upon seeing a shattered window, and a baseball lying on the floor surrounded by broken glass, conclude that the baseball is unlikely to have anything to do with the situation, and that the window must have failed because of preexisting stress cracks, and it's far too radical of an assumption to suggest the baseball had anything to do with the situation, but that would be snarky.

Of course the rest of the crowd is the sort who say "Oh look, a free baseball," and tell you the window is perfectly okay, and that draft is all in your head.

 

[wolfgirl]

I drive a small, fuel-efficient car and try to schedule my driving to make the most efficient use of my gas (stopping at the post office on the way to the store instead of making a separate trip, etc.).

I've switched to compact fluorescent bulbs in my house.

I recycle as much as I can.

I recently bought re-usable grocery bags. I couldn't stand trying to decide between paper and plastic any more; I tried to read as much as I could to see which one was worse, but they just both seem to be bad...

Turned the thermostat on the AC up 2 degrees (that one hurts, as I'm a great big ol' weenie when it comes to being hot - I must confess that I have the timer set to 2 degrees cooler just before I get up in the morning so that I can shower and dress comfortably, but it goes back up right after I leave).

 

[BenBurch]

I drive a Hybrid car (and have since 2002) run almost no lights in my house at night, and when I do they are CFLs, do without air conditioning except when its above 90 degrees, and then have it set for 85 degrees, recycle, buy recycled products, and have changed to a telecommuting job.

 

[Spud1k]

I drive a pretty small car (a 1.1 Peugeot) but that's more because I can't afford anything better. However, when we can finally afford a new one, it'll still be a smaller one. Partly for the environment, partly because I like how small cars handle, but partly because they are much cheaper to buy, run and maintain.

That's the crux - if there is going to be big reductions in CO2 output, it'll mainly be down to the direct or indirect results of government policy. The goodwill of the people will go so far but doing things like putting up road tax on big cars will go much further in real terms.

 

[Wangler]

Hey,

Thanks all!

These have all been good responses, just what I was looking for (except for maybe one or two joking ones).

I appreciate everyone sharing.

I envy BenBurch...I would love to have a Toyota Prius like the one my sister used to have.

 

[Ziggurat]

Because of this, the term anthropogenic global warming was developed so they could separate the people who think that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are increasing heat retention on the planet from people who think it's all just a giant coincidence, and there's really no reason to assume that it's human caused.

That's rather over-simplified. For one thing, not all greenhouse gasses are anthropogenic (water vapor, for example). And for another, you're presenting a false dichotomy. Warming being due to man and warming due to other factors are not the only possible answer. It's perfectly possible that we have a combination of both anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic warming, and in that context, the relative fractions of each may matter quite a bit. So the label makes perfect sense.

 

[GreyICE]

That's rather over-simplified. For one thing, not all greenhouse gasses are anthropogenic (water vapor, for example). And for another, you're presenting a false dichotomy. Warming being due to man and warming due to other factors are not the only possible answer. It's perfectly possible that we have a combination of both anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic warming, and in that context, the relative fractions of each may matter quite a bit. So the label makes perfect sense.

And yet somehow the climate scientists always refer to it as Global warming and try to break down the sources, while the conspiracy theorists who think it's all a giant plot to defraud the government of millions and destroy capitalism refer to the concept that humans could be responsible for any little part as "Anthropogenic global warming."

 

[Spud1k]

That's rather over-simplified. For one thing, not all greenhouse gasses are anthropogenic (water vapor, for example). And for another, you're presenting a false dichotomy. Warming being due to man and warming due to other factors are not the only possible answer. It's perfectly possible that we have a combination of both anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic warming, and in that context, the relative fractions of each may matter quite a bit. So the label makes perfect sense.

I think the point is that the term 'AGW' is never used in real climate science precisely because the term is such a bad description of what is a hugely complex situation. In the context of most discussions, 'AGW' is a convenient catch-all that the sceptics can rally against. Ten years ago they would have been called 'global warming sceptics' but as it's becoming increasingly difficult to argue that the earth hasn't been warming up, they needed a new flag of convenience.

I defy anyone to come up with a decent definition of the term 'AGW' and I guarantee that it'll either be horribly convoluted or not consistent with the actual scientific sentiment that it attempts to describe. But maybe that's something for another thread.

 

[Wangler]

Anthropogenic global warming. It's mostly a term created by the denier crowd. Because the evidence for a warming trend has been so strong , a lot of them have moved from claiming that there was no warming trend to claiming that there's a warming trend, but it's all natural. You know, standard goalpost shifting nonsense.

C'mon, GreyICE, you are better than that. From the IPCC website:

Mandate


The IPCC was established to provide the decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information about climate change. The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors. They should be of high scientific and technical standards, and aim to reflect a range of views, expertise and wide geographical coverage.

Bolding and underlines are mine.

Sounds like IPCC moved the goalposts as well, then doesn't it?

The IPCC mandate is to examine...not "climate change" in general, but "human-induced" climate change, and examine "options for adaptation and mitigation".

Which makes sense, because if and I say if the climate change is driven primarily by natural causes, there won't be much we lil' old humans can do to prevent it.