I’m one of the most avid reusers, reducers, and recyclers you’d ever meet. I have an electric lawnmower, and every scrap of food waste, every bit of paper and cardboard, and allowable plastic is composted or recycled. When I’m out walking and see cardboard sticking out of a garbage bin (not my own), I’d been know to move it into the compost bin.
Despite this and mostly agreeing with you, I have no illusion that the little bit I do is really meaningful when so many others hardly care and China doesn’t give a sh1t.
I’m one of the most avid reusers, reducers, and recyclers you’d ever meet. I have an electric lawnmower, and every scrap of food waste, every bit of paper and cardboard, and allowable plastic is composted or recycled. When I’m out walking and see cardboard sticking out of a garbage bin (not my own), I’d been know to move it into the compost bin.
Despite this and mostly agreeing with you, I have no illusion that the little bit I do is really meaningful when so many others hardly care and China doesn’t give a sh1t.
Composting and reducing, I believe, are the biggest and easiest contributions we can make on a day to day basis. We recycle a lot at home but I'm less convinced that has much of an impact when I see news reports about recycling stuff ending up in landfills. I don't necessarily follow that stuff well enough to know the full truth on recycling programs though. But not making as much waste or purchasing things in excessive packaging is relatively easy to think about and accomplish.
Composting and reducing, I believe, are the biggest and easiest contributions we can make on a day to day basis. We recycle a lot at home but I'm less convinced that has much of an impact when I see news reports about recycling stuff ending up in landfills. I don't necessarily follow that stuff well enough to know the full truth on recycling programs though. But not making as much waste or purchasing things in excessive packaging is relatively easy to think about and accomplish.
I do follow it as I was involved in creating recycling and composting programs in my city, and I know that lots of what we (try to) recycle is trashed anyway.
So, to repeats Pepsi’s question why do I do it, my answer is two posts up.
That's because China produces most of the consumer goods for the entire world. They make all our stuff, then it has to be shipped from there to here. All those emissions go on their total, but the reason for those emissions is the consumers around the world who demand cheap products.
You're contributing by just not buying so much crap that you don't need.
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Because I think everyone has an ethical responsibility to do what we can.
On a side note, I’m shocked almost two thirds in the poll said humans are the main cause of climate change.
I agree with that. I think people get too caught up with looking outside our borders when talking about this stuff. It’s easy to say, “Well, China…” but, for the most part, we all put forth some degree of effort individually knowing our individual contributions mean very little. Recycling is easy, but throwing everything into the trash is easier, yet I don’t actually know of anyone (I’m sure they exist) that doesn’t at least recycle.
Canada has an ethical responsibility here. It doesn’t matter if another country is worse, just like it doesn’t matter if other people are worse when we decide as individuals to make ethical decisions.
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I guess we should define that, then. What would you say are reasonable steps, and what aren't?
I would say the biggest impact we can have is recycling, tech development, and selling “cleaner” fuels to the worst offender’s and the Irving’s. You sure don’t increase the cost of living for those that have no reasonable alternatives to heat their homes, commute, etc.
I was curious about how heat pumps worked (pretty much what I expected) and one of the videos was by a person in BC. Good explanation, but he ended with “for those on hydro grids, you can actually save some money, for those that aren’t, it’s just the right thing to do.” Yeah right, spend thousands to add a heat pump that will increase an already brutal electric bill by another $100+ a month, only to save a bit on my natural gas bill, just so Trudeau, or whoever, can say “But look, Canada did it!”? Fk that. There needs to be a result.
If Hydro powered provinces are so into carbon reduction, I guess they can spend more as well, and subsidize those who have no choice, and we can all share the “feel good” pain together.
If Canada was an enclosed climate and my paying for a heat pump, and higher utility bill will mean a smoke free summer, bring it on.
I’m one of the most avid reusers, reducers, and recyclers you’d ever meet. I have an electric lawnmower, and every scrap of food waste, every bit of paper and cardboard, and allowable plastic is composted or recycled. When I’m out walking and see cardboard sticking out of a garbage bin (not my own), I’d been know to move it into the compost bin.
Despite this and mostly agreeing with you, I have no illusion that the little bit I do is really meaningful when so many others hardly care and China doesn’t give a sh1t.
We’re social creatures man. People in your life learn from you, and continue to do those good things. Which is more people than just you. It absolutely makes a net positive difference. I guess it just depends on what you consider meaningful. We’re looking at generations of improvements needed to make it another century and beyond.
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I was watching the latest episode of The Smoking Tire podcast and someone from China wrote in and mentioned that half of the vehicles on the road were either hybrids or fully electric. We're nowhere near that and the trend is still going towards bigger, less efficient vehicles.
So you can say, "China doesn't care" all you want but their citizens are doing a way better job than we are. It's time to step up and quit making excuses for your own selfish reasons.
I was watching the latest episode of The Smoking Tire podcast and someone from China wrote in and mentioned that half of the vehicles on the road were either hybrids or fully electric. We're nowhere near that and the trend is still going towards bigger, less efficient vehicles.
So you can say, "China doesn't care" all you want but their citizens are doing a way better job than we are. It's time to step up and quit making excuses for your own selfish reasons.
Half of all electric vehicles sold globally are sold in China. And before anyone remarks about the electricity supply, it's irrelevant. An EV made and driven on the dirtiest grid still has a lower lifecycle ghg footprint, plus the grid is rapidly decarbonizing.
No country spends more on nuclear, hydro, wind, or solar
Last edited by Street Pharmacist; 11-26-2023 at 10:18 PM.
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Half of all electric vehicles sold globally are sold in China. And before anyone remarks about the electricity supply, it's irrelevant. An EV made and driven on the dirtiest grid still has a lower lifecycle ghg footprint, plus the grid is rapidly decarbonizing.
No country spends more on nuclear, hydro, wind, or solar
The guys at ENERGYminute put this visualization together which I thought was pretty cool. Interesting to see that China's renewable electricity growth has indeed been exponentially growing since 2008. However, their non-emitting electricity generation % of total has been linearly growing at ~1-2% per year since ~2011.
What happens a decade from now will be fascinating.
The guys at ENERGYminute put this visualization together which I thought was pretty cool. Interesting to see that China's renewable electricity growth has indeed been exponentially growing since 2008. However, their non-emitting electricity generation % of total has been linearly growing at ~1-2% per year since ~2011.
What happens a decade from now will be fascinating.
It's wild to look at this graph. Worldwide it is about a 5 year doubling. That is pretty impressive exponential growth, especially considering total electricity has taken 20 years to double.
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For perspective though, we added about 600tWh in the most recent year. Global energy consumption increases at about 2000tWh per year(average yearly increase over the past 10 years). Se we aren't adding enough to tip the balance, we are only at 25% of keeping up with the increased demand, which means on balance we are still increasing consumption of fossil fuels(unless I have something really wrong).
For perspective though, we added about 600tWh in the most recent year. Global energy consumption increases at about 2000tWh per year(average yearly increase over the past 10 years). Se we aren't adding enough to tip the balance, we are only at 25% of keeping up with the increased demand, which means on balance we are still increasing consumption of fossil fuels(unless I have something really wrong).
I think the 2000tWh you are looking at is total Energy consumption, where the previous graphs were specifically electricity consumption and generation.
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I think the 2000tWh you are looking at is total Energy consumption, where the previous graphs were specifically electricity consumption and generation.
Right, but it's all kind of the same thing if we are looking at electrifying everything. The challenge is to eliminate emissions, so you need to look at all consumption.
I think the dissonance comes from the way the argument is framed by climate change activists. The idea that if we reduce our carbon footprint, we can avoid this futuristic scenario of the oceans boiling and everybody getting cooked.
When you look at the graph above for example, and with some knowledge of the per capita energy usage of people in those high population countries, it looks fairly obvious that the ocean boiling future will not be avoided. So why bother turning your heat down and being uncomfortable when the inevitable approaches at the same rate either way?
It’s highly unlikely the oceans become hot enough for it to start boiling.
No, I’d say we can go at a more moderate pace that aligns with the players that will actually make the difference.
I don’t see the point of putting the environmental boot to Canadians unless we can say it’s going to have a “meaningful” impact. If I thought Canada could actually make the changes that would stop forest fires, reduce storm intensity, etc, then I would be all on board with making extreme changes at personal cost, but we will never have that kind of impact.
You are ignorant to the pace the players that will actually make a difference are currently at though. Stand still cause you think that everyone else is. They are not.
Summation: The world is already rapidly changing. If the weather is reasonable, 2024 has the potential to have more electricity generated from renewables than from coal.
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