The Save the Planet thread

[FlashUNC]

To crib from Carlin -- who said it better than I could -- the planet will continue on. Whether we're able to continue as part of it and using it as our one and only home? Yeah, I think we've passed the point gets us back to anything resembling equilibrium.

I, for one, look forward to the orange groves in London and looming water and resource wars.

[echappist]

[timto]

We do a number of things that might qualify as consideration for the environment:

• We adjust purchasing behavior - going with a do without, or make do, repair, reuse, second hand, library, hand me downs approach
• We live central - chose smaller and closer living that enables us to car free which includes grocery getting, school and work commuting.
• We adjust our definition of fun - we go play at the park, walk along the river, throw Frisbee
• We reduced our income on purpose - we spend less and have more time and consider each purchase more carefully.

We enjoy a high quality of life despite not doing/having the best of the best. I hope we are setting a good example for our kids too. Years ago my wife and I took our family out of the rat race - for a better work / life balance we decided to reduce income , reduce spending. We still live well but probably running on 50% of the income we used to when we were both contractors. We've struggled a little adjusting but our eyes have been opened to the waste and cycle of consumerism and 'busy' work we were part of.

I feel more in tuned with needs, and in touch with the value of $

[spoonrobot]

Originally Posted by echappist

https://www.utc.edu/center-reflective-citizenship/images/cole1.jpg
https://www.utc.edu/center-reflectiv...ages/cole2.jpg
https://www.utc.edu/center-reflectiv...ages/cole3.jpg
https://www.utc.edu/center-reflectiv...ages/cole4.jpg
https://www.utc.edu/center-reflectiv...ages/cole5.jpg[

[Mzilliox]

Part of the issue to me seems to be exactly this. people dont actually want to take on the real issue, they want to skirt around it with little pat on the back actions that lead no no meaningful change. For this to mean anything at all, this is exactly the kind of civil discussion that must take place. "i feels" and "i likes", dont do anything for the environment. our egos have no place in the discussion

Originally Posted by daker13

I took marciero's original post to be asking, what can we cyclists--or let's say, the cyclists who care about such things--do to reduce our carbon footprint?

There's a related problem, though: in asking about the ways we can reduce our footprint on the planet, we inevitably have to deal with the question of whether any of these actions are 'worth it.' And this leaves the door open to anyone who doesn't believe that humans play a role in climate change, doesn't believe in climate change at all, doesn't think we can or should do anything about it, etc.

I'd prefer if the thread set aside the larger questions about climate change and simply focused on material things like the ones marciero mentioned--nitrile gloves, etc. Clearly environmentally friendly products form a distinctly successful market within the cycling community--citrus degreaser, things like that. And cycling itself is obviously an 'environmentally friendly' practice.

Granted, the meta questions are hard to ignore. But I think most of us are familiar with the various arguments for and against belief in climate change.

Here's a meta question, for example: I read recently that 100 companies are responsible for 70% of global warming (though this statistic has been disputed--surprise, surprise). So some argue that it's irresponsible to focus on individual consumer acts, when global warming isn't actually a result of you riding a bike to the post office, rather than taking your car.

Still, I'd be curious to hear people's ideas about what specific things we bike riders can do to reduce waste--assuming that it makes a difference.

[bigbill]

As a nation, we're far better than we were a few decades ago. We get most of our wood products from the Southeast US where there's a 10 month growing season. We use yellow pine for much of our pulp needs, yellow pine grows like weeds. We put scrubbers on coal fire plants, we shifted towards natural gas which is still fossil fuel but burns cleaner and more efficiently, we're constantly increasing our solar and wind generation plus increasing the efficiency of the generators, and our cars are more efficient.

The negative is our growing dependency on electricity. Electric cars, trucks, increased reliance on the internet, all those things are putting a strain on our electrical grid. Our grid has to be updated and we need to add nuclear power plants for the clean energy to supply it.

Other nations such as India, China, Viet Nam, Indonesia, etc are decades behind the US in moving away from high polluting sources of energy. They're growing their economy to be a world player just like the US did in the 40's and 50's where we polluted the living **** out of our nation to do so. China has abundant coal reserves, how do we tell them not to burn coal? India is a technological powerhouse but their infrastructure is ancient and inefficient. They're going to pollute to keep their place in the economy. It's pretty much hypocritical for the US criticize them for doing what we did, but it affects the whole planet, so something has to be done.

As far as global climate change, specifically warming, increased amounts of CO2 push up into the atmosphere, higher and higher as the concentration increases. The temperature required by our atmosphere to process this gas is pretty much a constant. The issue is the higher up the CO2 travels, the hotter it is in the upper atmosphere. That translates to higher temperatures at lower elevations all the way to the surface. That's just science.

[Ozz]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

...You can't prove it. Get me an independently written scientific paper of merit that proves it is not just a "next earth cycle" warming and I'll consider it. Until then, I'm unconvinced.....

What if you are wrong? Other than you (and others that believe like you) not be around for the consequences...

[Elefantino]

I swear that sometimes I think I'm living in an Onion world run by flat-earthers who believe in the Easter Bunny.

[gasman]

Tickdoc-

There are actually a ton of well written scientific papers talking about global warming and the impact humans have had on the Earth. It just takes some time to seek them out and read them.
The UN report on climate :

https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=5789

While simplistic, covers the science at a superficial but accurate level.

Your correct that the Earth has gone through many cycles of warming and cooling but looking at the paleoclimate records those cycles took millions of years to occur. Not the current 100-200 year warming that we've seen that 97% of climate scientists say is largely human caused.

As others have eluded to, there are just too many people on this planet using too many resources and stressing the carrying capacity of the planet.

Though my thoughts align with George Carlin, one of my favorite comics ever.
The planet will still be here in a million years though I'm positive we won't be around.

[notsew]

Folks that have decided they just need to see "real science" to be convinced can't be convinced. It's a belief, not a lack of information.

Also for y'all talking about recycling nitrile gloves....that **** is not recyclable, no way no how. You send that to the recycler and its going to end up in a river in Bangladesh and then the ocean. People need to come to terms with the fact that plastic is basically not recyclable - especially that kind of stuff. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to assuage your guilt and support your consumerism. Just throw that **** in the garbage, at least that way it has a better chance of ending up in a landfill here in the good ol' USofA where we have a couple regulations left.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by gasman

Tickdoc-

There are actually a ton of well written scientific papers talking about global warming and the impact humans have had on the Earth. It just takes some time to seek them out and read them.
The UN report on climate :

https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=5789

While simplistic, covers the science at a superficial but accurate level.

Your correct that the Earth has gone through many cycles of warming and cooling but looking at the paleoclimate records those cycles took millions of years to occur. Not the current 100-200 year warming that we've seen that 97% of climate scientists say is largely human caused.

As others have eluded to, there are just too many people on this planet using too many resources and stressing the carrying capacity of the planet.

Though my thoughts align with George Carlin, one of my favorite comics ever.
The planet will still be here in a million years though I'm positive we won't be around.

Thanos was right.

[cgolvin]

Opportune timing for me as recent purchases made me think about one specific contributor to excess waste that is highly relevant to cycling.

Background: I decided to try a new brand of hydration/nutrition. My default is Skratch, which I buy in bulk, but I wanted to try Maurtens and they're very specific about the water to mix ratio so only sell in individual packets. The site I bought from threw in a few bonus items, again individual hydration/gel packets.

I'm not comfortable using these products because of the ratio of waste to powder/gel. OK, fine, I won't buy them, just trying to minimize my own impact. But I think these companies could do a lot better, and given their target audience they could likely offset any increase in packaging costs by clearly communicating to their customers that their choices are based in reducing negative environmental impact.

I don't have concrete ideas beyond selling in bulk packaging with resealable single use containers, but then again most companies have staff responsible for package design and they have the knowledge and experience to bring solutions forward.

Now I need to ride my bike down to the local co-op to refill my peanut butter jar. Damned hippie granola cruncher.

[Tickdoc]

Originally Posted by notsew

Folks that have decided they just need to see "real science" to be convinced can't be convinced. It's a belief, not a lack of information.

I am convincible and would love nothing more than to be convinced, I just haven't seen it yet. I am not a climate change outlier, just a very skeptical person.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by Tickdoc

I am convincible and would love nothing more than to be convinced, I just haven't seen it yet. I am not a climate change outlier, just a very skeptical person.

Just start with the level of CO2 in our atmosphere.

[Ozz]

Thanks "Flash".....that chart is scary as hell....but are you sure NASA knows anything about the atmosphere?? ;-)