Author Topic: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact  (Read 16942 times)

ian

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #100 on: 06 January, 2020, 11:07:32 am »
I think a worse problem is that a significant minority of people (if not a majority) don't really care despite being in a position to care. This is a group of cyclists so, by definition, we're the sort of middle-class people who are kept awake by the fact we might have put something in the wrong recycling bin and how best to dispose of our wine boxes. There's lots of people who don't even fritter around the edges. Some may have convinced themselves that climate change isn't a thing, it's the most convenient of beliefs really since it offers an instant indulgence from doing anything to mitigate it; others, I expect, simply don't care. They only care about stuff that immediately benefits them. Everything else is someone else's problem.

Coupled with increasingly populist politics, governments less willing to tell us to take the medicine and more willing to tell us that, well, we don't need it. I'm pessimistic that we'll make the necessary changes. If, as a society, we can't even take the few minutes to put stuff in the recycling bin or not chuck our fried chicken take-out waste into a bush, well, I think saving the world might be a challenge and anyway Celebrity Love Master Baking Challenge Island is on.

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #101 on: 06 January, 2020, 12:36:09 pm »
It's worse than that. If you stumble into the wrong right wing circles there's a whole parallel universe where climate change is a hoax, Greta is a stooge, everyone who believes in climate change is a death cultist or virtue signaller, etc. I've encountered some otherwise normal people who quote this stuff as fact.

ian

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #102 on: 06 January, 2020, 12:53:33 pm »
I mentioned the brilliant thread on a US conservative site (research, your honour) where – in a space of a dozen or so posts – climate change wasn't just decried, it was turned into a conspiracy by liberals to force women to have abortions. And this wasn't some febrile UmpteenChan anger-pile, it's basically Mumsnet given the teeniest nudge to the right.

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
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Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #103 on: 06 January, 2020, 02:19:31 pm »
The latest Gammon – literally, in his case – to stick his oar in is Meat Loaf, a man who thought appearing in a movie with the Spice Girls was a Good Idea :facepalm:
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
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Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #104 on: 06 January, 2020, 05:07:12 pm »
Not buying a bigger house than I need. Not changing my car every 3 years. Not having a holiday
(abroad by plane) every year.

ian

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #105 on: 06 January, 2020, 06:10:41 pm »
We are guilty of having a too-large house, there's two of us in four bedrooms. We could have bought a bigger one (but preferred to get rid of our mortgage) but that's not an excuse.

In mitigation, we both work from home part of the time, so two rooms are offices, but the other is mostly empty other than if we have guests or a lot of washing to dry. In reverse mitigation, since we're in the office part of the week, that means our motherships are wasting light and heat to keep unoccupied desks open for when we do go in, but in reverse reverse mitigation we're cutting down on commuting.

Of course, there's the fact I go swimming, and I've no idea how that works out, that's a lot of water to heat, but equally, given the SHC of water, once it's warm the inputs might be modest but that's another first-world luxury.

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #106 on: 06 January, 2020, 06:41:55 pm »
<snip> Meat Loaf, a man who thought appearing in a movie with the Spice Girls was a Good Idea :facepalm:
As did Gary Glitter (they managed to cut his scenes before release)
"No matter how slow you go, you're still lapping everybody on the couch."

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #107 on: 06 January, 2020, 06:55:48 pm »
the stuff that kinda happened without concious changes are things like not changing my car in 10 years, downsizing the house massively (divorce :) ) and not really buying clothes unless they'll last for ages. 

the most recent deliberate change was stopping eating meat about 3 months ago.  As a farmers' son bought up on meat & 3 veg every meal it was a bit of a shock to the system but it's been surprisingly easy and I feel *great*.  I first tried for vegan but missed eggs and milk too much so after a month slipped back to vegetarian, with only the very occasional lapse for ham or sausages (once a fortnight?).

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #108 on: 06 January, 2020, 09:25:00 pm »
Stopped eating meat and try to avoid dairy most of the time.

Rarely fly.  One flight in the last year - to Burgas for the TCR.  Will try to avoid flying at all this year, including using train to visit clients in Germany.

Rarely drive. Virtually all of my travel is by bike, from grocery shopping to commuting, visiting clients in London, friends, etc.  Have a car but have had it for 11 years (when it was already quite old) and probaly won't buy another.  Do 3-4,miles per year, most of which is visiting parents and in-laws at 7-800 miles round trip.

Don't buy much stuff.  Bits for bikes is a bit of a weakness but I expect I'm in good company here!  Haven't bought an N+1 for 5 years, not upgraded to through axle, disc brakes, etc.

Campaign for and donate money to and am active in organisations / political parties which support the green agenda.


Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #110 on: 10 January, 2020, 05:56:39 pm »
Here's the supermarkets' view on single use plastic [pdf]
Key quote for me:
Quote
In relation
to targeted interventions like the promised deposit return scheme, a brand representative
noted: “If I could have a magic wand, I’d like to see more joined up, top-down government
intervention…We would like to see government be braver.”

Thanks for posting, fboab.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #111 on: 11 January, 2020, 08:30:02 am »
Yes well researched and  written.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #112 on: 11 January, 2020, 05:32:05 pm »
The thing that confused me in there was the reference to 'single-use glass'. Does this mean that some glass cannot be recycled? I wasn't aware of such a thing. How do you tell which?

Or does it mean glass that is not intended to be reused – as opposed to recycled? In other words, not made to be refillable or with a deposit?
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #113 on: 12 January, 2020, 12:12:32 am »
I've decided that I'm going to try to go for the whole year to buy as little brand new stuff as I can. I am still minded to go for new wheels, as I literally live or die by their health and I trust my local wheel boffins very much, but pretty much everything else I want to be second hand.

Making obvious exceptions on safety grounds... Saw this corker today....

YACF touring/audax bargain basement:
https://bit.ly/2Xg8pRD



Ban cars.

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #114 on: 14 January, 2020, 10:36:29 am »
The thing that confused me in there was the reference to 'single-use glass'. Does this mean that some glass cannot be recycled? I wasn't aware of such a thing. How do you tell which?

Or does it mean glass that is not intended to be reused – as opposed to recycled? In other words, not made to be refillable or with a deposit?
It means not intended to be re-used. Most glass isn't refillable, so you waste energy in recycling and remanufacturing. The glass manufacturers share the cullet content of their glass and for my suppliers, that's somewhere between 25 and 75%, depending on the bottle.
Some glass is not recycled/recycleable. Generally it's quite bespoke, things like fancy finishes- maybe metallised. The other thing with glass is the weight, even if it is recycled it's quite the carbon footprint to shift it around.


Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #115 on: 14 January, 2020, 10:45:40 am »

It means not intended to be re-used. Most glass isn't refillable....


Can you expand on the reasons behind that please?
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #116 on: 14 January, 2020, 10:56:41 am »
I'm no expert, but generally, food packagers just aren't set up for cleaning the packaging before they fill it. The legislation is against us, too, for example only virgin plastic can be in contact with food. There's a perceived conflict between food safety, cost and environmental impact, and food safety has historically won, with cost a very close second. I'd like to think that is, at last, changing.
For me the most interesting thing about the report is that we as consumers are not putting our money where our talk is. We're still buying the same stuff we always have done. Which makes the comment Cudzo highlighted even more relevant.

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #117 on: 14 January, 2020, 11:56:15 am »
I'm no expert, but generally, food packagers just aren't set up for cleaning the packaging before they fill it. ...

OK, I can understand that. I've been in a couple of factories where they did re-fill glass containers, and it's a big investment in both space and equipment.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #118 on: 14 January, 2020, 12:01:53 pm »
Presumably non-food glass can be refilled without the same safety concerns. I'm thinking of perfumes, creams and ointments. If it's good enough for milk, it must be safe enough for those, surely?
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #119 on: 14 January, 2020, 12:10:23 pm »
Anything that touches your body is subject to pretty strict, erm, strictures, too.

Milk is the exception for historical reasons. We were already using and re-using glass when we started worrying about food safety. New dairies pack into plastic, mostly.

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #120 on: 14 January, 2020, 04:50:14 pm »
Presumably non-food glass can be refilled without the same safety concerns. I'm thinking of perfumes, creams and ointments. If it's good enough for milk, it must be safe enough for those, surely?

They'd have to be just as clean to prevent damaging/contaminating the new product (you'd have no idea what use the container had been put to after it was emptied of it's original contents), so no real difference in costs.

The great advantage of plastic over glass are easy on-site manufacture (not many large facilities will buy in empty plastic containers, they'll be blow moulded on site - and in the case of some contact lens solutions, the solution is used to cool the container as it's filled), and of course volume and weight for transport. Rectangular containers enable some (IIRC) 30% additional volume over circular.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #121 on: 15 January, 2020, 12:10:41 pm »
Apparently researchers at the University of Leeds have found that washing clothes at 25C for 30 minutes reduces the number of microfibres shed and amount of dye that bleeds, while Proctor & Gamble reckon their detergent gets stuff clean at just 20C. But why 25C?
Quote
Lucy Cotton, the report’s lead author, explains that 25C is usually the “inlet” temperature of water in a washing machine – the natural, unchilled and unheated temperature at which the water enters the drum.
Really? That might be true in summer but even then I reckon it would need to be a fairly warm day. I'm sure our cold water in winter is nowhere near 25C.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #122 on: 16 January, 2020, 07:39:58 am »
I'm no expert, but generally, food packagers just aren't set up for cleaning the packaging before they fill it. ...

OK, I can understand that. I've been in a couple of factories where they did re-fill glass containers, and it's a big investment in both space and equipment.
Our local brewery manages it, though they are apparently the only one. Shows its possible though.  https://www.harveys.org.uk/our-green-credentials
I could claim reusing bottles transported by foot here too, i suppose.

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Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #123 on: 16 January, 2020, 10:19:55 am »
Apparently researchers at the University of Leeds have found that washing clothes at 25C for 30 minutes reduces the number of microfibres shed and amount of dye that bleeds, while Proctor & Gamble reckon their detergent gets stuff clean at just 20C. But why 25C?
Quote
Lucy Cotton, the report’s lead author, explains that 25C is usually the “inlet” temperature of water in a washing machine – the natural, unchilled and unheated temperature at which the water enters the drum.
Really? That might be true in summer but even then I reckon it would need to be a fairly warm day. I'm sure our cold water in winter is nowhere near 25C.
ours mains water varies from around 6°c in the winter to 16 in the summer (record high of 17.5)(min 4.4)

I have no idea what temp our storage tank is throughout the year but considering the energy involved in heating water there could be savings made from selecting between main and storage to make use of the warmest.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Changes You've Made that (Might) Have a Climate Impact
« Reply #124 on: 16 January, 2020, 10:36:24 am »
I've never measured ours – don't even have a thermometer that would do the job – but that sounds the kind of range I'd have expected.

And how come I've only just noticed the wonderful nominative determinism in the report?  :D
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.