Do you care about your carbon footprint?

tweek84 · 23-02-2018 4:20pm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Don't mind CFL's even some of the LED ones aren't that great. I've had a fairly expensive one with a fine lump of a heatsink on it pack up the other day. Probably used for less than 1,000 hours. I would have been better off with one of the ones that were banned.

Not a one-off either, I have had loads of expensive LED bulbs fail on me. Maybe the newer filament LED ones will be better but the problem with a lot of the heatsink ones seems to be that they still generate too much heat and end up roasting the power supply components.

LEDs are supposed to have improved in the past few years but the failure rate when they first came out was about 20% suppliers used to stand over them.

mr chips · 23-02-2018 4:40pm

Agree on the misinformation about electric cars - to argue that "coal/oil/gas etc have to be burned to produce electricity" is to ignore two key things. One, a lot (the majority?) of folk charge an electric car slowly overnight, when demand is low and the wind blows more strongly. So a greater proportion of the energy powering these cars comes from renewable sources. Two, there are much stricter emissions controls per given amount of fossil fuel burned in a power station than that burned in a car, so the actual amount of pollution per amount of energy consumed is still lower with an electric car than from the tailpipe of a conventional car.

All the same though, none of the electric cars really catch my interest apart from the Tesla range, and it'll be a fair while before I can afford a used one of them. But when the price and capacity of batteries is right, I'll happily rip the engine out of one of my nice comfortable cars and stick an electric motor and a battery in there. Means my biggest ongoing expense will be brakes & tyres. A 2 litre diesel engine weighs over 200kg, so the weight of the batteries won't be an issue. If they can make an old VW Beetle drive like a modern car, mine will be a limo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXsQGWWz3Is

freshpopcorn · 23-02-2018 5:10pm

Most people I know main incentive to recycle is because it's free or cheaper than sending rubbish to land fill.
I've never encountered somebody not wanting to buy something because of the packaging it's in.
In the last month or so there has being a good few campaigns about what you can and can't recycle lots of people thought once something was clean you could do it. The main response I heard was well just put it in the fire.
The only way things that will change is if there is something introduced that meant the majority of packaging should be recyclable when possible.

Rubberchikken · 23-02-2018 5:12pm

I dont waste. I dont buy takeout. I recycle. Try to walk whenever i can. In other words i try to do my bit.

Dravokivich · 23-02-2018 5:53pm

We fill the green bin within 5/6 days of it being emptied. It's collection period is on a 2 week cycle. Same with the brown bin. You want us to have an impact, fundamentally something about that needs to change. Charging for the black bin by weight isn't it. I used to only put that out every 5/6 weeks when it was full. It makes no odds to those who were smart about using it to keep their costs down. Those who paid for the tag with a half empty bin were penalising themselves as it was already.

Overall, while it's valid to be a consumer concern, I don't think it can ever be a consumer's problem. Looking at each footprint of us individually is like tracking an individual cow in the middle of a stampede. They aren't going to stop it.

Day Lewin · 23-02-2018 6:00pm

I bl00dy do care: and have been plugging at this one for at least thirty years. It is really frustrating, but it really matters.

Simple equation: carbon footprint represents our emissions from burning fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases accumulate: the earth gets warmer (this is happening). Climate change is the result and floods, hurricanes, drought...loss of usable habitat for humans...

This is the only planet we have; and it's not disposable.

farmerwifelet · 23-02-2018 6:18pm

mr chips wrote: »

Agree on the misinformation about electric cars - to argue that "coal/oil/gas etc have to be burned to produce electricity" is to ignore two key things. One, a lot (the majority?) of folk charge an electric car slowly overnight, when demand is low and the wind blows more strongly. So a greater proportion of the energy powering these cars comes from renewable sources. Two, there are much stricter emissions controls per given amount of fossil fuel burned in a power station than that burned in a car, so the actual amount of pollution per amount of energy consumed is still lower with an electric car than from the tailpipe of a conventional car.

All the same though, none of the electric cars really catch my interest apart from the Tesla range, and it'll be a fair while before I can afford a used one of them. But when the price and capacity of batteries is right, I'll happily rip the engine out of one of my nice comfortable cars and stick an electric motor and a battery in there. Means my biggest ongoing expense will be brakes & tyres. A 2 litre diesel engine weighs over 200kg, so the weight of the batteries won't be an issue. If they can make an old VW Beetle drive like a modern car, mine will be a limo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXsQGWWz3Is

In Ireland at night we switch to our peat burning stations - so not renewable source of energy yet.

Your Face · 23-02-2018 6:28pm

Tbh I can't even remember ever walking on carbon.

mr chips · 23-02-2018 6:33pm

I lived in Germany for a while about 25 years ago and they were way ahead of where we are now even back then. After you'd gone through the checkout in the local supermarket there was a big countertop running the whole width of the till area, where customers could lift out the shopping they'd just paid for and remove any excess packaging to put in the containers underneath the counter, in order for the shop would dispose of it on their behalf. Pretty much everyone did it - it was just what you did after paying for your shopping. I remember the first time I saw it happening, looking at a woman lifting the interior bag out of a box of Cornflakes and flattening the box before chucking it into the recycling, and thinking "jeez that's weird". How little I knew!!

The thing is, it has to be the responsibility of producers and retailers to cut down on packaging, not us as consumers. Why should I have to traipse to four or five different shops just to get stuff that won't end up in the sea, choking dolphins or turtles to death? It boils my pi55 to have to bin e.g. the plastic clingfilm wrapping used as a cover for a box of mushrooms, when some supermarkets won't sell loose mushrooms and provide a paper bag to put them in, i.e. one that's biodegradable/compostable. Even my local greengrocer - dotted round the shop are rolls of tear-off plastic bags for when you're buying loose stuff, but there are paper bags behind the till on a hook, out of reach! I asked him for a paper bag to put stuff in, and there was a plasticised panel all down the front of it just so you could see what was in there even though it was an open-top bag ...

adox · 23-02-2018 6:46pm

snow_bunny wrote: »

https://www.google.ie/search?q=plastic+in+the+ocean&client=safari&rls=en&dcr=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjyle2Vm7zZAhXsBcAKHUvQARgQ_AUICigB&biw=1296&bih=864#imgrc=Q16jqQOl8-cRtM:

Have a look at this and what plastic alone is doing to the planet. You don't have to believe in Global Warming or be a tree hugger to know that this is both disgusting and devastating. It isn't up for discussion or a matter of opinion, it's a fact that plastic waste is wrecking the planet in a multitude of ways.

People who can't be arsed recycling or feel that their efforts are pointless are just lazy IMO, if everyone tried to reduce, reuse and recycle it would go a long way towards preventing this getting even worse. There's absolutely no excuse for not doing your bit, lack of convenience doesn't count.

The issue isn’t really plastic per say but what we do, or 8mdeed don’t do with it.
Most plastic and the vast majority of plastic food packaging is fully recyclable. Indeed a lot of it now is made up by a large percentage of recycled plastic.

Banning plastic just isn’t a goer without an alternative and there isn’t really one at the moment when it comes to food packaging. Compostable alternatives don’t have the shelf life of their plastic counterparts or indeed their temperature tolerances and extremes.

Plastic could be a posssible sustainable product if countries were serious about recycling etc. As usual things are oversimplified and the narrative is “plastic is bad” which is an incredibly simplistic way of looking at it.

With regard to carbon footprints and reducing them, again this can be looked at in a simplistic and inaccurate way. Shop local, buy homegrown produce etc is a big mantra and one that has a lot of merit. However I remember watching a programme about tomato production and the huge import of tomatoes into the UK from the likes of North Africa and only a small percentage of those on supermarket shelves were grown in the UK.

It turned out that produc8mg tomatoes in the UK actually left a bigger carbon foot print than import8ng them from Africa.

Doltanian · 23-02-2018 6:47pm

My carbon footprint was over 100 ton per year last time I checked it several years ago, should have reduced by now, either way I couldn't give two damns. We are nothing but an inconsequential speck of dust compared to the Chinese, Indians, Indonesians and Americans in terms of global emissions.

mr chips · 23-02-2018 7:25pm

And the residents of Shinjiang in China or Buttfcuk Louisiana* can say the same thing - "compared to the whole world, my impact is just a speck of dust so there's no point me doing anything".
Just because the amount of us living in this local place isn't a huge percentage of the global population, we still don't exist here in isolation. So what we do matters after all.

*may not be real places

Dakota Dan · 23-02-2018 7:57pm

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Al gore the climate whore.

Dakota Dan · 23-02-2018 8:04pm

mr chips wrote: »

I lived in Germany for a while about 25 years ago and they were way ahead of where we are now even back then. After you'd gone through the checkout in the local supermarket there was a big countertop running the whole width of the till area, where customers could lift out the shopping they'd just paid for and remove any excess packaging to put in the containers underneath the counter, in order for the shop would dispose of it on their behalf. Pretty much everyone did it - it was just what you did after paying for your shopping. I remember the first time I saw it happening, looking at a woman lifting the interior bag out of a box of Cornflakes and flattening the box before chucking it into the recycling, and thinking "jeez that's weird". How little I knew!!

The thing is, it has to be the responsibility of producers and retailers to cut down on packaging, not us as consumers. Why should I have to traipse to four or five different shops just to get stuff that won't end up in the sea, choking dolphins or turtles to death? It boils my pi55 to have to bin e.g. the plastic clingfilm wrapping used as a cover for a box of mushrooms, when some supermarkets won't sell loose mushrooms and provide a paper bag to put them in, i.e. one that's biodegradable/compostable. Even my local greengrocer - dotted round the shop are rolls of tear-off plastic bags for when you're buying loose stuff, but there are paper bags behind the till on a hook, out of reach! I asked him for a paper bag to put stuff in, and there was a plasticised panel all down the front of it just so you could see what was in there even though it was an open-top bag ...

But the waste is still there, leaving it in the shop doesn't magically disappear.

Atlantic Dawn · 23-02-2018 8:09pm

Let me see, about 15/20 years ago they were telling us that the burning of fossil fuels was causing the earth to warm up and lead to a phenomenon called Global Warming, this was the theory given by scientiest bankrolled with glee by governments who continued to tout this until it was actually proven that the earth was not warming up and in fact some areas were actually getting colder. A new tune was then touted for these scientist to earn their keep and allow governments to use this to generate tax, they called this climate change, this is so hard to prove one way or the other as you could put the last 300 years of temperatures down and would see crazy fluctuations before and after the introduction of mass industrialisation.

So no I don't give a flying fook about my carbon footprint. I do recycle though

pleas advice · 23-02-2018 8:15pm

oh, i believe 100% in anthropogenic global warming, I just don't care

snow_bunny · 23-02-2018 8:23pm

adox wrote: »

The issue isn’t really plastic per say but what we do, or 8mdeed don’t do with it.
Most plastic and the vast majority of plastic food packaging is fully recyclable. Indeed a lot of it now is made up by a large percentage of recycled plastic.

Banning plastic just isn’t a goer without an alternative and there isn’t really one at the moment when it comes to food packaging. Compostable alternatives don’t have the shelf life of their plastic counterparts or indeed their temperature tolerances and extremes.

Plastic could be a posssible sustainable product if countries were serious about recycling etc. As usual things are oversimplified and the narrative is “plastic is bad” which is an incredibly simplistic way of looking at it.

With regard to carbon footprints and reducing them, again this can be looked at in a simplistic and inaccurate way. Shop local, buy homegrown produce etc is a big mantra and one that has a lot of merit. However I remember watching a programme about tomato production and the huge import of tomatoes into the UK from the likes of North Africa and only a small percentage of those on supermarket shelves were grown in the UK.

It turned out that produc8mg tomatoes in the UK actually left a bigger carbon foot print than import8ng them from Africa.

I'm afraid you're looking for the oversimplicity in my post rather than it being there.

I stated plastic was a massive issue, which it is, I didn't say this was caused by the plastic itself but linked to images of how humanity's over-use, under-utilisation of recycling and disposal of said plastic is destroying the planet.

"It's a fact that plastic waste is wrecking the planet."

I then went on to say that people who don't make an effort to reduce, reuse and recycle are at fault and lazy IMO, which actually aligns with your point about it being more about what PEOPLE do or indeed don't do with it.

odyssey06 · 23-02-2018 8:24pm

For all we know, without fossil fuels we wouldn't have dragged Europe out of the Little Ice Age... but maybe we kinda overshot a return to the Medieval Warm Period.

mr chips · 23-02-2018 8:39pm

Dakota Dan wrote: »

But the waste is still there, leaving it in the shop doesn't magically disappear.

If there was an obligation placed on large retailers to be responsible for the disposal and recycling of packaging waste, meaning it would be a direct cost to them, you can be 100% certain that the problem of excess packaging would magically disappear.

23-02-2018 10:08pm

mr chips wrote: »

And the residents of Shinjiang in China or Buttfcuk Louisiana* can say the same thing - "compared to the whole world, my impact is just a speck of dust so there's no point me doing anything".
Just because the amount of us living in this local place isn't a huge percentage of the global population, we still don't exist here in isolation. So what we do matters after all.

*may not be real places

They were probably figuring that with European countries just exporting their waste to China and other countries, there might be a bit of hypocrisy going on. It's possible.

Or that they're not particularly well educated, very tradition-bound, have always burned their rubbish, so why stop now? I suspect that they're more interested in a daily wage than worrying about the environment. I guess that's why many others near the cities will be searching rubbish dumps for recyclables to sell. (Although, then again, my neighbors out in Connemara still burn most of their rubbish including plastic, and their incomes are sorted.)

I'm sure that you do make a difference. Every little bit helps, I guess. A minuscule difference compared with a major company/corporation doing the same... but a difference nonetheless. Maybe.

Dakota Dan · 23-02-2018 11:48pm

mr chips wrote: »

If there was an obligation placed on large retailers to be responsible for the disposal and recycling of packaging waste, meaning it would be a direct cost to them, you can be 100% certain that the problem of excess packaging would magically disappear.

I fully agree, back in the 70's we had very little plastic, of course we had less rubbish and gimmicks for sale also. meat was packed in brown paper, veg straight off the shelf, milk in returnable glass bottles even soft drinks paid a bounty on glass bottles returned. Shopping was brought home in paper or owned canvas bags. sometimes I wonder are we going backwards or forwards.

odyssey06 · 24-02-2018 12:09am

Dakota Dan wrote: »

I fully agree, back in the 70's we had very little plastic, of course we had less rubbish and gimmicks for sale also. meat was packed in brown paper, veg straight off the shelf, milk in returnable glass bottles even soft drinks paid a bounty on glass bottles returned. Shopping was brought home in paper or owned canvas bags. sometimes I wonder are we going backwards or forwards.

True but the fridge you put them in was killing the ozone layer...

Dakota Dan · 24-02-2018 12:19am

odyssey06 wrote: »

True but the fridge you put them in was killing the ozone layer...

We didn't have a fridge back in the 70's, bought our food fresh every day, sorry to burst your bubble

harry Bailey esq · 24-02-2018 1:29am

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Now that things are tigering again the greenies and the lads that just bought a new electric car on the PCP are trying to make the carbon footprint fashionable again since it's demise in 2008.

As people poshen up with the rise of this new tiger expect to see an increase in people voluntarily enduring token hardships so they can pretend they care about the environment and signal their virtues. They'll be buying more short-lived Chinese consumer goods with plenty rare earth metals packed inside than ever before but we'll gloss over that. If they really wanted to do something about the environment they'd ban all this crap that comes in and only lasts a couple of years before it breaks or goes obsolete.

I don't think Ireland and UK have the capability to make or break the eventual extinction of mankind due to excessive CO2 emissions if such an event is on the cards. We could even stand to gain by going completely the opposite way of the rest of the world as they "go green". Build a massive coal fired powerplant just across the border in post-Brexit NI with a huge chimney and burn the coal that nobody wants to buy anymore. Import loads of petrol and daysul through NI on the QT without the boys over in d'EU knowing about it.

I don't wear carbon shoes so it'll be another nolle prosequi.... Seriously though, I couldn't give two fux about my carbon footprint, if I did, I'd probably be posting this from a tree I'd chained meself to sporting a beard. I use public transport all day, Luas mainly, but I heat the house with a big coal fire that heats all the rads from a back boiler. Kinda cancels each other out really doesn't it?

Here we go · 24-02-2018 2:17am

I often find the people who tell the rest of us about carbongoot prints will have s bigge impact n a year then I'll have in my entire life flying around the world in private jets or celebs who go on world tours with convoys of trucks and trailers

24-02-2018 4:21am

I don't give a toss about it but my carbon footprint is really low anyway.

I spend about $5 / month on petrol, don't get things delivered internationally etc., I don't and can't have kids, I don't fly around the world, I don't go on cruises. And poor people go through the trash here and recycle my waste.

If my lifestyle changed and my carbon footprint increased dramatically, I'm just one in seven billion anyways. And like a lot of things, the militants about it have sapped any interest I used to have in supporting their cause.

Minderbinder · 24-02-2018 7:08am

Dakota Dan wrote: »

mr chips wrote: »

I lived in Germany for a while about 25 years ago and they were way ahead of where we are now even back then. After you'd gone through the checkout in the local supermarket there was a big countertop running the whole width of the till area, where customers could lift out the shopping they'd just paid for and remove any excess packaging to put in the containers underneath the counter, in order for the shop would dispose of it on their behalf. Pretty much everyone did it - it was just what you did after paying for your shopping. I remember the first time I saw it happening, looking at a woman lifting the interior bag out of a box of Cornflakes and flattening the box before chucking it into the recycling, and thinking "jeez that's weird". How little I knew!!

The thing is, it has to be the responsibility of producers and retailers to cut down on packaging, not us as consumers. Why should I have to traipse to four or five different shops just to get stuff that won't end up in the sea, choking dolphins or turtles to death? It boils my pi55 to have to bin e.g. the plastic clingfilm wrapping used as a cover for a box of mushrooms, when some supermarkets won't sell loose mushrooms and provide a paper bag to put them in, i.e. one that's biodegradable/compostable. Even my local greengrocer - dotted round the shop are rolls of tear-off plastic bags for when you're buying loose stuff, but there are paper bags behind the till on a hook, out of reach! I asked him for a paper bag to put stuff in, and there was a plasticised panel all down the front of it just so you could see what was in there even though it was an open-top bag ...

But the waste is still there, leaving it in the shop doesn't magically disappear.

A great business practice though. The customer is paying for the packaging at one side of the checkout and giving it straight back to the supermarket who will be making money on it through recycling.

Also isn’t Germany one of the worst countries for diesel cars and emissions. Laughable to suggest them as the benchmark.

Shenshen · 24-02-2018 7:47pm

Minderbinder wrote: »

A great business practice though. The customer is paying for the packaging at one side of the checkout and giving it straight back to the supermarket who will be making money on it through recycling.

Also isn’t Germany one of the worst countries for diesel cars and emissions. Laughable to suggest them as the benchmark.

It was initially something you could call a "citizen's initiative". It was started by the public in the 1980s, when all rubbish went into only one bin, with the intention of forcing the industry and government to introduce an actual recycling system and infrastructure.
And it actually had the desired effect, at the beginning of the 90s the German government introduced the dual system, with recyclable materials labeled with the "green dot". You may have seen it :

I don't think that many shops in Germany these days would take packaging back, the initiative has after all achieved its end.
However, these days there is a rise of shops that do not do any sort of packaging. You want to shop there, you bring your own bottles, jars and containers. Everything is being sold open and by weight.

Ubbquittious · 24-02-2018 8:07pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't give a toss about it but my carbon footprint is really low anyway.

I spend about $5 / month on petrol, don't get things delivered internationally etc., I don't and can't have kids, I don't fly around the world, I don't go on cruises. And poor people go through the trash here and recycle my waste.

If my lifestyle changed and my carbon footprint increased dramatically, I'm just one in seven billion anyways. And like a lot of things, the militants about it have sapped any interest I used to have in supporting their cause.

What do you run off the $5 petrol? Lawnmower ?

Capt'n Midnight · 24-02-2018 9:31pm

jaxxx wrote: »

We're overdue an ice age so that'll sort us out good and proper like

no we aren't. We've pumped so much CO2 into the air that there won't be a natural ice age for 250,000 years or so.

then again we could trigger one by dumping a large ship load of fertilizer into the sea

Capt'n Midnight · 24-02-2018 9:34pm

farmerwifelet wrote: »

In Ireland at night we switch to our peat burning stations - so not renewable source of energy yet.

peat is political.

it's not economic, takes more energy subsidies than wind and generates far less energy.

the only goodish news is that the peat stations are moving slowly to biomass

of course if we had better insulation for space and hot water then we could save an awful lot of energy.

Capt'n Midnight · 24-02-2018 9:39pm

farmerwifelet wrote: »

In Ireland at night we switch to our peat burning stations - so not renewable source of energy yet.

peat is political.

it's not economic, takes more energy subsidies than wind and generates far less energy.

the only goodish news is that the peat stations are moving slowly to biomass

of course if we had better insulation for space and hot water then we could save an awful lot of energy.

Lord Glentoran · 24-02-2018 10:04pm

I drive a diesel car in an area where we have three buses a day (not Sundays). Given that the resale value will be hammered by the backlash against diesel I have concerns all right. At this stage I'll run it into the ground and if the diesel is hiked up with carbon taxes I'll buy fuel over the border instead. Don't fancy rewarding ERSI virtue signal taxes.

25-02-2018 5:23am

Ubbquittious wrote: »

What do you run off the $5 petrol? Lawnmower ?

A scooter that I don't use all that much.

Montgolfier · 25-02-2018 5:59am

If we look at waste produced today its mainly due to globalization, throw away products that are designed to fail after a certain period.
If we look at greenhouse gases the biggest contributor are cows. So what do the government do? Get rid of milk quotas, which will allow farmers to double their herd over night. While diesel cars are also a contributor they will be targeted with hikes in tax over the coming years. Its a much more profitable way to be environmentally friendly and the government will look like hero's but they really won't be making much of a impact.
Electricity could be generated from implosive fuel rather than explosive fuel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower
Unfortunately when JP Morgan found out Tessler wanted to give power to the power for free he pulled the funding. The technology is still there sitting in a vault.

So we the people are having our freedoms taken away bit by bit and a slave to our jobs and controled by the rich.
The only thing killing our planet is greed but yes I still recycle.

OldMrBrennan83 · 25-02-2018 6:08am

This post has been deleted.

Yamanoto · 25-02-2018 10:30am

The app I use to track my flying informs me my footprint currently stands at 123.3 tonnes CO2, 6.67kg methane & 5.45kg nitrous oxide.

I tell housekeeping I'll use the same towels for the duration of my stay though, so that's me making it right with the world.

Ger Roe · 25-02-2018 11:22am

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Don't mind CFL's even some of the LED ones aren't that great. I've had a fairly expensive one with a fine lump of a heatsink on it pack up the other day. Probably used for less than 1,000 hours. I would have been better off with one of the ones that were banned.

Not a one-off either, I have had loads of expensive LED bulbs fail on me. Maybe the newer filament LED ones will be better but the problem with a lot of the heatsink ones seems to be that they still generate too much heat and end up roasting the power supply components.

I certainly agree with this one. In my experience all of the low wattage bulb alternatives (CFL, Halogen and LED) last a far shorter time than the white burning element bulbs that we have been used to. They are beginning to cost an arm and a leg too - very 'designer' marketing hype is now being used to increase the price of what is in the end a dimmer bulb that is not going to last anywhere near the time predicted on the package.

The regulatory compulsion to switch to low wattage alternatives before the tech had been developed properly has resulted in a situation where manufacturers can charge high prices for dim bulbs that burn out before their expected lifetime.

The consumer ends up paying through the nose again so that notional regulatory quotas and targets can be achieved. The focus needs to be changed from governments making up taxes and charges to force consumer change to providing goods and services that work properly and will encourage change because the benefits in terms of cost and performance will be obvious to anyone.

DavyD_83 · 25-02-2018 11:27am

I do in theory, but wouldn't exactly change my life based on it. If I want to go on holidays and flying is the easiest option, carbon footprint wouldn't enter my mind.

25-02-2018 11:34am

well... I think of it this way. From my own personal experience from traveling, countries outside of the EU/US tend to ignore environmental concerns until it bites them in the ass, and even then, it's mostly face-saving initiatives. Throw some money (which is really needed elsewhere) at the problem, build a few recycling or water plants, make the press releases, and then move on with business as usual. There is little to no encouragement for the domestic population to change their habits regarding usage or disposal of items. Schools and Universities hold debating competitions, assign research homework etc to students, to raise awareness but there's usually a rather hefty chunk of the population who leave school in the early teens or don't go to school at all. These people along with their parents revert to traditional practices and ignore the faint rumblings of the government or rich people activists.

And that's what it comes down to. The only countries or people who actively talk about environmental change, pollution, etc and the need for change come from prosperous countries. Which is pretty much the "West" or a few particularly rich cities around the world (like Singapore). But even then, with all the government, & activist promotion, there's still a rather large part of the populations who either don't care or just find it too inconvenient to bother with it.

I took a walk down by the river yesterday and found at least 8 places where people had dumped all manner of rubbish. From plastic to TVs. Some were partially burnt, but most were left right on the bank by the water's edge. Hate to think of what kind of rubbish has been dumped directly into the river itself.

The population of Europe is around 740 million. The US 323m. and then we have India 1.3B, China 1.3B.

The point is that even if everyone in the "West" was to be full-on environmentally friendly(which they're not even close to being), there would still be frickin loads of people in other countries who are not. And aren't likely to be concerned until their own lifestyles are as prosperous as those in the "West", which, in turn, encourages massive investments in manufacturing, heavy industry, pollution, etc.

Look at China. It's nuts the amount of pollution being produced there. They have it all. Their drinking water sources are becoming contaminated to the extremes. Contaminated soil means that large parts of their country is incapable of growing crops. Most of the rivers of Asia pass through their territory bringing all that pollution to other countries, who they themselves are rather selective about enforcing environmental laws. Especially, when it comes to burning away forests to provide land for farming, which becomes less productive within a short time, requiring more expansions into the forests. I remember living in Beijing where some days the air quality was so bad that it actually burned my skin from simple exposure. It's apparently better now, but better is a rather subjective term when it comes to these levels of pollution.

I would like to care about the carbon footprint... but TBH I just don't see the point. Even if the whole populations of the US/EU were on-board with reducing pollution, there would still be another 6 billion people who don't give a **** about it. [And that ignores the continued population growth in lesser economic regions, and declining population growth in prosperous regions.]

mr chips · 25-02-2018 3:56pm

I'd agree with a lot of that, but the only thing is that the carbon footprint/environmental impact of a given number of people living in rich countries like ours, or the wealthier classes in the India/China etc, is many multiples that of the same number of people living in the likes of Gambia, Madagascar et al. So it's not just about population, but the consumption patterns among the wealthier (which includes you & me, whether we feel flush or not!).

It's good to see that in recent years, China has been making huge strides to decarbonise their energy usage, with over a quarter of their energy demands now met by renewables. Even India is on board with banning the internal combustion engine from sale by 2030. Norway and Holland have set 2025 as their deadline. That doesn't address the problem with plastic waste etc, but it's better than nothing.

Shenshen · 25-02-2018 4:19pm

Ger Roe wrote: »

I certainly agree with this one. In my experience all of the low wattage bulb alternatives (CFL, Halogen and LED) last a far shorter time than the white burning element bulbs that we have been used to. They are beginning to cost an arm and a leg too - very 'designer' marketing hype is now being used to increase the price of what is in the end a dimmer bulb that is not going to last anywhere near the time predicted on the package.

The regulatory compulsion to switch to low wattage alternatives before the tech had been developed properly has resulted in a situation where manufacturers can charge high prices for dim bulbs that burn out before their expected lifetime.

The consumer ends up paying through the nose again so that notional regulatory quotas and targets can be achieved. The focus needs to be changed from governments making up taxes and charges to force consumer change to providing goods and services that work properly and will encourage change because the benefits in terms of cost and performance will be obvious to anyone.

We moved into our house in 2009. The lightbulbs that were in place were halogen, and yes, one by one, they burned out in the space of the first year of us living there.
We replaced them with LED, and haven't had to replace a single one since then. At this point, the oldest one lasted nearly 10 years.
I can honestly say that I haven't ever seen a regular, tungsten-thread bulb with that kind of a lifespan.

Ubbquittious · 25-02-2018 11:14pm

Shenshen wrote: »

We moved into our house in 2009. The lightbulbs that were in place were halogen, and yes, one by one, they burned out in the space of the first year of us living there.
We replaced them with LED, and haven't had to replace a single one since then. At this point, the oldest one lasted nearly 10 years.
I can honestly say that I haven't ever seen a regular, tungsten-thread bulb with that kind of a lifespan.

Those last notoriously short as well. Much shorter than the usual tungsten bulb.

I do have one LED bulb that has burnt nearly continuously since 2007 but it's only 0.8 of a watt. Are your ones with MR11 fitting and running off a 12v supply? I'd expect those to last a long time because they lack the power conversion circuit packs up in most of the other LED bulbs

Ubbquittious · 25-02-2018 11:20pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Which is pretty much the "West" or a few particularly rich cities around the world (like Singapore).

Singapore?! The place that generates 100% of its electricity from fossil fuels? Despite the sun shining nearly all the time.

They might have some extreme anti-car laws that John Gormley might approve of but that's only because you can hardly drive a car into Singapore without pushing one on the opposite end of the country into the sea.

26-02-2018 9:21am

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Singapore?! The place that generates 100% of its electricity from fossil fuels? Despite the sun shining nearly all the time.

They might have some extreme anti-car laws that John Gormley might approve of but that's only because you can hardly drive a car into Singapore without pushing one on the opposite end of the country into the sea.

I spent a few weeks there at one stage (kinda Middle-class area), and every apartment block nearby had recycling bins for collection. One of the few places in Asia where I've seen that, except in the wealthy areas.

Shenshen · 26-02-2018 9:25am

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Those last notoriously short as well. Much shorter than the usual tungsten bulb.

I do have one LED bulb that has burnt nearly continuously since 2007 but it's only 0.8 of a watt. Are your ones with MR11 fitting and running off a 12v supply? I'd expect those to last a long time because they lack the power conversion circuit packs up in most of the other LED bulbs

Tbh, I've no idea. We haven't had to replace any in nearly 10 years now, so I simply don't know.
We do have a few non-LED table lamps in the bedrooms, and I can tell you exactly which ones are barrett and which ones are screw-in, as they would need to be replaced every 2 years or so.

Do you care about your carbon footprint?

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