What can individual people do about global warming?

Metrics are indeed needed but the primary metric of GDP is poorly implemented and does not take into account sustainable or unsustainable factoes.

The conservation discussion is a difficult one because directly linked to a curtailment of human aspirations, questions of distribution, reminiscence of deprivation and poverty, etc
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Horsepucky - outdated meme as is curtailing energy use as a blanket statement.

Curtail non-renewable, sure. Use all the renewable you can afford....won't hurt the planet.
 
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I have a question about human population growth, but couldn't find any of the information myself. Back when I took an Ecology course, I learned that there are two possible population curves that a species can follow. In the first, which IIRC tends to apply to short-lived species, the population reaches the environmental carrying capacity and then it crashes dramatically, only to pick up again and repeat the process. In the second, which would apply more to longer-lived species, the population slowly levels off as it reaches the carrying capacity, and then oscillates around that level. What does the evidence show about humans? Are we going to crash ourselves, or are we going to level off and oscillate?

I know this is probably over-simplified, but it's the best I can remember it.
 
Frozenwolf150 said:
I made a small change today at my workplace, the cat rescue.

The director feeds the cats canned food 3 days out of the week. She has to throw the cans into the garbage, in sealed bags, because if she puts them in the recycle bin it will attract flies and wild animals. She lives next to a wooded area, after all. This means that all those cans don't get recycled, even though her town does have a recycling program, and she does recycle other items. I told her that at home, I rinse out the cat food cans before putting them in the recycle. I said that on the days when I'm working at the rescue, I would offer to do that for her. She said she once tried that, but it still wasn't enough. However, I could take the cans home with me. So this is exactly what I did today. After we were done feeding the cats their canned food, I rinsed out the cans, put them in a separate bag, and brought them home to be recycled.

I just hope it makes a difference.
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And now you have wasted water rinsing the cans and possibly extra fuel transporting them home, which might balance out the savings of the recycling. I'm not saying it does, I just want to point out that it's not always straightforward. Things that might look like a saving could actually be worse. Think about older discussions like glass bottles versus tetra packs, or paper versus plastic bags. Or even going to the car wash instead of cleaning your own car. Scaling up can help in being more efficient sometimes.

The only way to be sure is executing measurements and doing calculations, and most people don't have the knowledge nor information to do that. We need more of those!
 
Soapy Sam said:
There's a lot of text been added since I last looked at this thread.
Does any of it, I wonder , add anything to my earlier post?
(1.Don't have kids. 2.Plant trees.)
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I have stated that world population is set to level off in the future. In fact, there are only a small number of countries left who have birth rates that are problematic.

Red Barons Farm seems down on planting trees, but the IPCC are all for it in certain areas:
http://climateviewer.com/2013/10/09/terraforming-earth-geoengineering-megaplan-starts-now/
The areas close to the "T"s are thought to be good places to plant trees.
 
wobs said:
Red Barons Farm seems down on planting trees, but the IPCC are all for it in certain areas:
http://climateviewer.com/2013/10/09/terraforming-earth-geoengineering-megaplan-starts-now/
The areas close to the "T"s are thought to be good places to plant trees.
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I don't have any problem planting trees. Reforesting deforested areas is a worthy goal in and of itself. But reforesting doesn't pull as much carbon out of the short term carbon cycle and sequester it into the long term carbon cycle as restoring degraded grassland. Not in terms of per acre, nor in total worldwide. But more importantly concerning the topic in this thread........it is what an individual can do to help. So unless you own large acreage that was either historically a forest or a savanna/grassland, an individual can't really do anything about it by themselves.

The primary reason either grassland or forest is in a degraded state is agriculture. So this is where the individual can help. Because every person on the planet has to eat. And at least here in the industrialized countries of the world, we can choose to eat pastured animal products over grain fed CAFO products or even not eat any animal products at all (if CAFO raised animal products is all they have to choose from). Combine that with a garden wherever possible and this can have a major impact on an individual's carbon footprint.
 
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Red Baron Farms said:
I don't have any problem planting trees. Reforesting deforested areas is a worthy goal in and of itself. But reforesting doesn't pull as much carbon out of the short term carbon cycle and sequester it into the long term carbon cycle as restoring degraded grassland. Not in terms of per acre, nor in total worldwide. But more importantly concerning the topic in this thread........it is what an individual can do to help. So unless you own large acreage that was either historically a forest or a savanna/grassland, an individual can't really do anything about it by themselves.

The primary reason either grassland or forest is in a degraded state is agriculture. So this is where the individual can help. Because every person on the planet has to eat. And at least here in the industrialized countries of the world, we can choose to eat pastured animal products over grain fed CAFO products or even not eat any animal products at all (if CAFO raised animal products is all they have to choose from). Combine that with a garden wherever possible and this can have a major impact on an individual's carbon footprint.
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I'm not saying you are wrong.
BTW, do you have some links with regard to the sequestering of carbon in grassland issue please
 
lauwersw said:
And now you have wasted water rinsing the cans and possibly extra fuel transporting them home, which might balance out the savings of the recycling. I'm not saying it does, I just want to point out that it's not always straightforward. Things that might look like a saving could actually be worse. Think about older discussions like glass bottles versus tetra packs, or paper versus plastic bags. Or even going to the car wash instead of cleaning your own car. Scaling up can help in being more efficient sometimes.

The only way to be sure is executing measurements and doing calculations, and most people don't have the knowledge nor information to do that. We need more of those!
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It's not a waste of fuel because I was going home anyway, and the cans hardly weigh enough to slow down the car. You might be right about the water, except the cans will have to be washed at some point down the line anyway, so it doesn't matter whether I do it or the recycling plant does it. My main concern is that the cans are scrap metal, and the benefits of recycling metals generally outweigh the costs. So it's not like I didn't think about this. Those cans were just going straight into the garbage before.

ETA: I suppose I could save water by using a can-opener (to eliminate the sharp edges) and letting the cats lick the cans clean. It's what I do at home. Works every time.
 
How is water within the hydrology cycle "wasted"? This wasting meme is a lot of nonsense.

And he's being efficient doubling up his vehicle use for another purpose.

Stay on point ....the risk is fossil fuel and unsustainable practices......anything within their normal cycles are not being wasted ...just a choice of use.
Rinsing cans is in the hydrology cycle.
 
wobs said:
I'm not saying you are wrong.
BTW, do you have some links with regard to the sequestering of carbon in grassland issue please
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I have posted many links on many threads in this forum. So I sent you a few privately, not wanting to bore the regular followers of this forum with repeats. But here is a good link by science writer Judith Schwartz that addresses the bigger picture and all terrestrial forms of ecological restoration of the carbon cycle, including grassland, but also including forests, wetlands, croplands etc...

Soil as Carbon Storehouse:
New Weapon in Climate Fight?

Again though, as I have repeated many times, this thread is about what an individual can do, not necessarily the "bigger picture". Although part of what individuals can do, besides their personal carbon footprint, is become politically active and attempt to sway public policy. So I suppose this might help somewhat in that context.
 
macdoc said:
Look at Japan for a reference. Population will be halved by 2080 or so
First world countries are generally well below replacement rate leading to re-wilding in some areas.

Decent overview
http://debitage.net/humangeography/population.html
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Projected trends don't necessarily happen. Can you think of a reason that Japan might want to tackle their demographic timebomb?

In the short term they will need to encourage immigration, but long term, they, and many other countries will likely implement policies to raise the birth to nearer replacement levels. Issues such as OAP care, and pensions cannot be ignored.

Your link confirms what I was saying, that world population looks set to level off. Although of course its not guaranteed to.
 
macdoc said:
How is water within the hydrology cycle "wasted"? This wasting meme is a lot of nonsense.

And he's being efficient doubling up his vehicle use for another purpose.

Stay on point ....the risk is fossil fuel and unsustainable practices......anything within their normal cycles are not being wasted ...just a choice of use.
Rinsing cans is in the hydrology cycle.
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In countries where water is less of an issue, this is largely true. Although there is an energy cost in using potable water (water treatment, and sewage treatment). Unless your water company is using AD to treat its sewage, their activated sludge plant will be using plenty of energy.

In areas that are water stressed, this is rather more of an issue, and wasting water really has to be avoided.

Here in the UK, we don't have much in the way of water stressed areas (South East to a degree.) Whereas places like developing countries, and the US have some rivers that are seriously impacted by over use:

http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/03/world’s-18-most-water-stressed-rivers
 
One fairly recent bit of kit one can install in your house to save energy is a weather compensator.

Basically, if you're getting a new boiler (only do so if you old one dies), your new condensing boiler will run more efficiently than with a normal thermostat.

With a thermostat, your boiler is either on or off. It reaches the temperature you set it to, and it stops, until it drops again, maintaining a comfortable level. As a result, it isn't actually in condensing mode as much as you might think.

With a weather compensator, you have the a sensor outside, and it calculates how much energy it needs to apply to the radiators (or whatever), to get your house to the required temperature.

It does so by learning, and measuring the temperature of the return water. Once it learns the basic heat leakage of your house, it can keep your boiler in condensing mode for much longer, increasing the efficiency of your shiny new boiler.
 
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macdoc said:
How is water within the hydrology cycle "wasted"? This wasting meme is a lot of nonsense.

And he's being efficient doubling up his vehicle use for another purpose.

Stay on point ....the risk is fossil fuel and unsustainable practices......anything within their normal cycles are not being wasted ...just a choice of use.
Rinsing cans is in the hydrology cycle.
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Well, he does have a point. We'll always have water, but it takes energy to clean, filter, and transport it. Water can't be expended haphazardly, because in many places, like China or the US Midwest, climate change is causing severe droughts and erratic weather patterns.

So I'm doing my best not to use an excessive amount of water when rinsing out stuff for recycle. Obviously I don't have to scrub it sterile. It should be reasonably clean. But I don't want to put something in the recycle that has a load of crap still stuck to it
 
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