You mentioning the "don't smoke" bit reminded me that the surgeon general in Scotland released a report this morning. The fact is that Scotland, being a bit of a hard country (i.e. lots of post industrial cities rethinking & building themselves out of depression) has shockingly bad health stats. However, since the no-smoking ban came into force last year there has been a 17% drop in the number of heart attacks! Now, I don't know about you, but as it was previously considered one of Scotland's worst health issues, that is a profound result. As Al Gore said "I wonder if those two things ever joined together?" My wife smokes (not nearly as much as she used to) and I don't. Most smokers I know are women. Most of my smoking mates gave up and stayed off. I can only guess that the edge women used to have over men regarding life expectancy will also significantly reduce, if not disappear in the coming decade.
My place uses unleaded petrol,every 1st Tuesday of the month is no plastic bags day.. Or bring your own bags day. I go to recycling station to send my recycleable stuff to the people there. Well.. There wat i did mostly.
If you're in the UK Limey (I assume you are) then look into the government grants you can get to help with the costs of solar panels. Of course, the UK doesn't get as much sun as some places, but when I looked into it a few years ago there was a scheme that assisted in paying for energy saving improvements on houses which included solar panels.
^^^Spot on^^^! There is so much bullsh1t talked about being 'eco friendly' its unreal. I'm not ingnorant or stupid, go back all through history and its easy to find vast periods in the earths evolution when the climate was far worse than it is now, uninhabitable in fact....And where were the people creating the pollution then??? ....They didnt exist!!!! ....No cars, no planes, no factories, yet carbon dioxide levels were uninhabitable!!! The 'blip' that we are encountering now is nothing compared to the 'bigger' picture of 3.5 billion years of ecology. I'd hate to be branded as 'eco-friendly' yet I do the following: I cycle to work. I use energy saving appliances. I recycle glass, paper and tins. My house has double glazing and insulation in the roof I don't do any of this to be 'eco-friendly' I do it for the following reasons: I prefer to cycle. Electricity cost's sh1tloads of money. A local authority statutory requirement...no choice in other words...we carefully sort it out and watch it all get chucked in one dustcart, all mixed up!!! I wanna keep warm. The classic thing is....NO ONE has yet been able to prove a bean that man is to blame!!!!! ....Yet it is man that is NOW paying the price for something that has been happening, naturally, for billions of years...Purely because some idiots in power think its a great money/political spinner!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr:banghead:
I'm just so glad you were able to work that out of your system OE, perhaps we could pencil in the next anger therapy session for say 17:45pm next Monday if that suits <ducks to avoid eco-unfriendly bike being thrown in a non-hippy manner!> ;-)
I think it's easy to prove that man is doing more harm to the planet then a bunch of cows are, don't remember the dinos chopping down large tracts of rain forest, pumping weird chemicals into the air and water, polluting the fresh water streams, pumping large amounts of crap into the rivers, causing oil slicks, etc, etc....
I remember the dinosaurs washing our dishes, being toilets, moving rocks, and.....nevermind, thats the Flintstones.
I don't have time before college to really answer this, and as I said before everyone is entitled to their own opinion. However, for the sake of balance... Firstly, the environmentalists have been lobbying politicians, successive governments and big industrial giants for decades in relation to various issues, which are directly attributed to mankind and our inconsiderate manipulation of natural resources. Of course when push comes to shove and these people can see public opinion changing, they'll start to use this to their advantage. That doesn't change the fact that many of them are NOT eco-friendly and trying to quieten public opinion so that we keep on spending! The post a few back is absolutely correct in stating that mankind has been a major contributing factor. Secondly, I don't literally think that the "earth" will wink out unless we dropped every nuclear warhead we have - even then, I am not sure that we'd actually destroy the mass, just the surface and surely this is the point. Saving the planet is a metaphor actually for saving ourselves, the natural habitat around us and the wildlife. There is enough statistical & scientific evidence to prove that we are having a massive impact through our ignorance. We thought we could have little or no impact and we do. Within the scientific community there is little if any doubt that mankind is causing a lot of damage, mostly through not appreciating the fragile nature of nature. The way I look at it is that people are very wasteful, they are very destructive and we are naturally pretty damned selfish. Governments & others are taking advantage, they are making claims & using taxation (or threatening new sactions) and this is something that should be guarded against. I do think our own Government has started doing it and we should be very clear that false information will turn people off the main subject. I don't see what the environmentalists who collate the data and have been discussing the impact of human activity v natural background changes would stand to gain from any of this? That's a bit like saying the guy who discovered AIDS stood to gain from it and we should ignore him. You don't have to believe everything, which is fantastic as it means that the bullshit we often hear in the press (which is incredibly unrealistic) goes ignored and we should all take government steps with a certain amount of sceptism and demand REAL action whilst also not having the wool drawn over our eyes by big industrial giants who suddenly say they are green! I for one would not be standing at the end of a runway trying to stop flights taking off, but I would be lobbying the manufacturers to produce far more efficient engines or cutting down on air travel when other means of transport would be far better. For example you can get to Paris by train, why fly? If you think it's quicker then it's already been proven that if you add all the waiting, baggage checks and getting to the airport together it's actually quicker by train! It's good that you do what you do as a matter of course, which is how it should be. Whether we manage to save the planet (and we are talking about the things resting on it, rather than the thing itself) or save ourselves is the point and I for one would rather stop being so wasteful if it means we can have a more sustainable future. Trust me, I still have my doubts about the impact we have, I still query things and I still wonder whether the current climate issues are natural, being fed additional weight by mankind, or completely outwith our control. I.e. Mother earth has decided there are too many of us on her own and is going to bring about an iceage to kick our butts lol - Who the f**k really knows? But the scientists who are tracking this change are hardly at fault and not gaining from saying "excuse me, I think we need to do something about this". What we should be thinking however is how to minimise the impact to ourselves and the next few generations. Instead of building houses on flood plains and dumping toxins in to the atmosphere, I think we should start learning to survive. You mentioned about the "billions of years" behind us. Well, the thing back then was that earth would change and we would adapt. We'd skin a polar bear, put on thick socks and march south in this new winter. This time we are driving to work, demanding sunny holidays, flying further to find them and chained to our property, belongings and inability to think for ourselves. So like the proverbial frog in a pot, we might be making a mistake. Might! Not we are, but we might, so as long as I can minimise my impact (cause I have kids I owe it to) then I will. Apart from that, there is no question that you and Barc0de are intelligent. Surely the best thing human kind has got is intelligence! That's why I personally think we should be using technology to improve our situation. Lastly, a lot of these measures actually save me money! I couldn't argue with that.
I try and be eco friendly. I dont take plastic bags from shops, I take my own cotton bags, I compost food waste & old cotton/wool clothes & cardboard. I recycle most of my other rubbish. All 3 of my children have been in washable nappys, not disposable ones. I use public transport wherever possible (we dont usually have a car but have been running one over the summer & done about 800 miles). I am sure my house could be insulated more etc but that isn't an option just now due to lack of finance.
As a means of being even more energy-efficient than a train, I cycled to my other university (~30 miles) yesterday, slept at a friend's and will now cycle back. Well, to be honest, I'm doing it because I lost my 'free train travel for students' card and otherwise I'd be spending 16e daily for two weeks 'til I get a new one OH:
Mind for all the good I do, the industry that Im in kinda undos all of it. I also travel by air every few weeks.
If you are using the Wii for it's virtual console capabilities then it's a false econemy as you use at least double the power as a Famicom, Megadrive, Super Nintendo or PC Engine would ever use. It's more then the Neo Geo too. So to be green with a Wii remember to get out your old consoles and say No to planet burning games on a cheap shot at money making console. :thumbsup: The Wiimote also use bad batteries which are bad for the envioronment. Bad Nintendo.
Yeah, perhaps we can take it too far like "I don't buy toothbrushes 'cause the bristles are plastic, that's oil, that's a fossil fuel" and then all your teeth falling out through neglect & decay! There's a world of a difference between using a Wii for a few hours a day and being careful with other stuff and perhaps being like John Travolta (I don't care 'cause I'll be saved by aliens) with 5 f**king aeroplanes and his own bl**dy runway!
Have any of you seen the dummy plastic packaging that games shops display for 360 peripherals? I was totally shocked they are exactly the same as the sealed packaged items but are empty with a picture of the item cut out of card. They can`t even be opened to add preowned items to them for sale! This is the biggest waste of plastic/card i have seen in ages! but......If anyone works at a games shop and wants to recycle any I`m looking for a couple of controller and faceplate ones :icon_bigg
Recycle, low water taps, showers, have a garden, use low current bulbs. However: Own a 8mpg car, and old appliances... Planted 11 trees but they aren't big and trees actually contribute to global warming if you read about them... Though they do remove carbon. Best case is th hope that the carbon sequestering works, they are trying that out in iceland. (basically all carbon from power production is pumped deep underground in empty oil sands.)
The point of planting trees is in actual fact that they lock up a lot of the carbon. It's only when they are chopped down or burnt that you get the negative effects as they either decay or burn, so 11 trees of any size is surely a good start! The other thing is that obviously once a year the carbon jumps up as leaves fall from the trees and decay, only for the trees to lock an equal amount the following spring. I did notice that the likes of British Airways were pointing to their "green" credentials by offering to plant trees and/or involving themselves in carbon offsetting - which I think is a cop out! Apparently, as a concerned passenger you can make a "green" payment to them, almost an extra tax which they then put into the development of sustainable energy or planting programmes. The jurys out on that one!
That carbon deposition is a bad idea IMO. We're just creating a time bomb for the future. One day that is all going to come back to the surface.
