What is Digg?103 Comments
- inactive, on 11/08/2007, -0/+10Forget 100 little tips. Do the two most effective things to save the environment.....the one your kids and their kids will be living in:
1. Limit your family size to 2 children, if you have kids educate others about the world replacement rate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replacement_rate#Repl ...
2. Eliminate or reduce animal products from your diet:
In late November, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization issued a report stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/business/media/2 ...
These two things, if not being the most effective green choices to make are among THE most effective. However, talking about personal choices offends people so environmental groups don't talk about them. It is nuts. It is like not telling a person to lose weight when they are 300 pounds, have diabetes, you are a health expert, and they ask you how they can improve their health. - inactive, on 11/11/2007, -1/+11Asking people to do 100 things is a bad idea. Better to ask them to do a smaller list that has a better chance of being remembered and being done. Then make sure that list has the most effective things to do for the most important problems. BTW, this book is being updated soon.
The Consumers Guide To Effective Environmental Choices:
Practical Advice From The Union Of Concerned Scientists
by Michael Brower, PH.D. and Warren Leon, PH.D.
ISBN:0-609-80281-X
( from the back cover )
“Paper or plastic? Bus or car? Old house or new? Cloth diapers or disposables? Some choices have a huge impact on the environment; others are of negligible importance. To those of us who care about our quality of life and what is happening to the earth, this is a vastly important issue. In these pages, the Union of Concerned Scientists help inform consumers about everyday decisions that significantly affect the environment. For example, a few major decisions such as the choice of a house or vehicle have such a disproportionately large affect on the environment that minor environmental infractions shrink by comparison. This book identifies the 4 Most Significant Consumer Related Environmental Problems, 7 Most Damaging Categories, 11 Priority Actions, and 7 Rules for Responsible Consumption”. Learn what you can do to have a truly significant impact on our world”
( from page 85 )
PRIORITY ACTIONS FOR AMERICAN CONSUMERS:
Transportation:
1. Choose a place to live that reduces the need to drive.
2. Think twice before purchasing another car.
3. Choose a fuel efficient, low polluting car.
4. Set concrete goals for reducing your travel.
5. Whenever practical, walk, bicycle, or take public transportation
Food:
6. Eat less meat.
7. Buy certified organic produce.
Household Operations:
8. Choose your home carefully.
9. Reduce the environmental costs of heating and hot water.
10. Install efficient lighting and appliances.
11. Choose an electricity supplier offering renewable energy. - funktimus, on 11/07/2007, -1/+6sad to say it, since i love a good steak, but the livestock industry is terrible on the environment, far worse than the automotive industry and people who drive a hummer down the block to pick up some milk.
1. Cows poop a lot, release tons of methane
2. They're kept on minimal amounts of land that becomes overgrazed, making the industry rely on grains (which leads to less tasty meat, waste of grain, waste of land).
3. Huge run off. Cows poop a lot. They often serve as indirect hosts for pathogens that infect humans. That gets into streams in HUGE amounts. Have to clean it.
4. The close quarter living leads to this treadmill of
5. large amounts of land is cleared in rainforests to graze cattle. rainforest soil is pretty poor in the nutrient department. hard to believe, but all those exotic giant plants have evolved over the years to get the most out of it. imported grasses dont do well so you basically gotta fertilize it a lot, but the soil doesn't hold nutrients well anyway, so most of it run offs and then your basically left with useless soil after a while... go chop down new forest and keep the unsustainable cycle going.
list goes on, but all in all, the message is the same... meat is bad for the environment. - dezman2003, on 11/07/2007, -2/+5How about instead we make bigger cows but fewer of them? Then can I still have meat?
- Caps, on 11/11/2007, -0/+3Another good one is to request that bills and statements for bank accounts, health insurance, credit cards, payslips, etc are emailed to you instead of sent via the post. Most providers already have this option so all you need to do is ask!
- ironhide, on 11/07/2007, -0/+3Evolution and Relativity are also scientific theories bright boy.
- luchid, on 11/07/2007, -1/+4Yeah! Caring for the envirnment is so wrong!! Damn liberals!
/sarcasm - nblsavage, on 11/07/2007, -2/+5How do you know it won't help? You have a degree in environmental science? Oh wait, I know your qualifications, you're a random Internet loudmouth.
- riomx, on 11/07/2007, -0/+2People laugh and think the methane issue is a huge joke...but it's seriously damaging and disgusting. I was on a road trip recently and came back from the midwest driving through northern Colorado. It was absolutely unbearable driving through some towns that smelled like nothing else but cow *****. I can't imagine just how much it would take to reverse that AND the environmental effects of farms and slaughterhouses
- JudgeWinchester, on 11/07/2007, -2/+4pedrovoltaire, are you part of the solution or part of the problem?
Nothing is proved in science....science is all that survives against attempts to disprove it.
Until Attributed Global Warming is disproved all of these attempts to find solutions are valid with you only being part of the problem called apathy. - 89992, on 11/07/2007, -0/+2"How about instead of eliminating animal products we start improving our farm management."
How about both. :) - vikingcoder, on 11/08/2007, -0/+2Volcanoes emit 150 - 200 million tons CO2 / year globally. One of the most actively degassing volcano in the world, Mt. Etna in Italy, emits ~14 million tons CO2/year. The Yellowstone Caldera emits 45 ± 16 kt/day of CO2. That works out to an upper bound of ~22 million tons CO2 / year. During eruptions, emission rates typically increase to 5 to 10 times their pre-eruptive value.
Humanity emitted 28 billion tons of CO2 in 2005 from the burning of fossil fuels. That is more than all volcanic emissions during the entire 20th century.
In an average year, volcanoes release only 13% of the sulfur added to the atmosphere compared to anthropogenic sources. The difference being that volcanic SO2 is injected into the stratosphere and thus has an increased cooling effect.
Volcanic SO2 and dust injected into the stratosphere is why volcanic activity contributes to global *cooling*, not warming.
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/frequent_questions/g ...
>>
At Mount St Helens the maximum measured emission rate was 2.2X10^7 kg per day. The total amount of gas released during non-eruptive periods from the beginning of July to the end of October was 9.1X10^8 kg
>>
That is a total of 910 thousand tonmes. The largest Yellowstone Caldera "super eruption" 2.1 million years ago produced 2,400 times as much volcanic ash as Mount St. Helens's 1980 eruption. Assume a comparable increase in CO2 & that yields 2.2 billion tonnes. You can assume a ten-fold comparable increase and still come in at less than a single year of current anthropogenic CO2 emissions (22 vs. 27).
--
note: the numbers below are in weight of carbon, while the numbers above are in weight of CO2 - to match their sources.
atomic mass - C: 12 -- CO2: 44
C => CO2: multiply weight by 44/12
CO2 => C: multiply weight by 12/44
--
Concentrating on one side of a natural cycle is either militant willful ignorance or duplicity.
Humanity's 2005 CO2 emissions: 7.7
Oceanic CO2 outgassing: ~90
Terrestrial CO2 outgassing: ~120
(gigatons carbon - GtC)
Based solely on those numbers: 7.7 / 210 ~= 3.7%
Yes - insignificant. However...
Oceanic CO2 absorption: 92
Terrestrial CO2 absorption: 121.3
(GtC)
The oceans and land surface are net CO2 sinks. Since 1751 roughly 315 billion tons of carbon have been released to the atmosphere from the consumption of fossil fuels and cement production. Half of these emissions have occurred since the mid 1970s.
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man.html
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Emissions/ ...
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v351/n6325/ab ...
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2002GC000473 ...
http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/carbon.html
( table H.1co2 => http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tab ... )
http://www.yellowstonenationalpark.com/calderas.ht ...
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/CarbonCyc ...
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.htm - superdoofus, on 11/07/2007, -1/+3ah fantasyland, the only place you'll ever see someone sucking your knob anyway.
- dachiefsman, on 11/11/2007, -5/+76. Eat less meat.
yea..when cows are extinct maybe - rollem, on 11/08/2007, -0/+2Though population size does not increase, the amount of resources that each person uses rises steadily for decades.
- dezman2003, on 11/07/2007, -2/+4There is a coal power plant about a half hour up the street from me, the strange thing is it doesn't seem to be running all the time. It's almost as if it shuts down when its not needed, but I live in the technological utopia that is Canada I'm sure you Americans have yet to devise such a system.
- inactive, on 11/07/2007, -0/+2The US' population is not decreasing. Where on earth do you THINK you got that informaiton from?
- nblsavage, on 11/07/2007, -1/+3May I suggest some remedial education? You sound like one of the children Bush left behind.
- inactive, on 11/07/2007, -0/+2It is hard for anyone who makes REAL food. You simply cannot cook a regular meal in the microwave.
- tmbrwolf19, on 11/07/2007, -0/+2Actually most growth in developed nations is just from immigration, as native born birth rates drop drastically as the age of marriage and first birth increases as people become more career focused. This is actually one of the things looked at when deciding if a nation is 'developed' or not. I think silverstandards wording is just slightly off, but the general idea is on the right track.
- suxmonkey, on 11/07/2007, -1/+3Best list I've bookmarked all week.
- Chaoticfist, on 11/07/2007, -1/+3No offense, but write book, plus u have no life, writing 100 things we could do, the fact is people are lazy slobs that will not change until we are looking into death face and we oops. But really people i love the environment as much as the next guy, but i see no chance in humans saving it. It makes me sad thinking of the damage we have done, and will continue to do to our home.
- tmbrwolf19, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Your basing that argument entirely on land use. Reducing demand for paper and meat products means decreasing impact from the transportation, processing and storage of products which is typically higher then the actually impact of the raw good. Also, often ranching and forestry is taking place on crown or government land which means its unlikely to be turned over to an industrial purpose, as well as the fact they are located far from most developed areas. Overall, we are looking at net impact of factors (which is often ignored) not just single aspects of the production.
- TridenTBoy, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Bookmarked it, but sadly a lot of these are not going to be possible for me and a lot of these are already done.
One that won't happen, using an electric lawn mower... I don't know if they often sell those now, but I've never heard of 'em. Also, probably very expensive!
I thought that keeping the grass on the lawn that was dead was sort of bad for it actually... Guess I am wrong, but it does look like *****. - ItsMyWii, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Using a microwave over an oven would be really hard for me.
- tmbrwolf19, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1I am pretty certain this article was about reducing general environmental impact and nothing to do with global warming. Think whatever you want about global warming, but there is much debate about potential hazards of the chemicals we use in our households daily or the impact of particulate on respiratory systems. The government on Ontario released a report last week estimating that 440 people die every summer in Toronto just from air pollution, and overall air pollution costs the city of Toronto 2.2 billion a year in health costs (passed on to tax payers). Reducing our impact on the environment is just a smart thing to do.
- y0smokey, on 11/07/2007, -2/+3How about instead of eliminating animal products we start improving our farm management. The amount of methane gas that is wasted every day by dairy farms is ridiculous. There are some great examples of farms out there harvesting gas to take care of 100% of the electrical needs of the facilities...the problem being a huge startup cost. Eventually it would pay for itself, but initially it is pricey. Instead of spending billions on missiles, maybe the GOV should help subsidize a little GREEN gas harvesting, get the extra electricity for free (or have the farmer pay off their debt), and everyone wins. (I get to eat my meat/dairy products, and we reduce emissions, all while having a little extra juice to spare)
- nblsavage, on 11/07/2007, -1/+2you first
- Chaoticfist, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Well perhaps if u read the comment, you would see that i said i use the oven, and that i can cook much better food in the oven. Maybe you should invest in some basic English class's before coming back to digg.
- superdoofus, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1cite your data or go make a pop tart.
- rollem, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1You're blaming people in the third world for global warming? I really think you should research the actual data and find out how few emissions the rest of the world has when compared to the US and a few other industrialized nations. Even big scary China emits far less CO2 than we do. Their potential for growth is larger, however, but it will take decades for them to come anywhere close to our standards.
- schnikies79, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1If you don't count immigration, it is dropping in the US.
- rollem, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1In order to be environmentally responsible, people must have a high internal locus of control (ie they feel like they have an impact) they must have the correct knowledge about what actions have a positive benefit, and they must care about the environmental issues.
- dezman2003, on 11/07/2007, -1/+2Why is eating less meat better for the environment?
- rollem, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1Why are you so hostile? What was said that is so controversial?
- spyd3rweb, on 11/07/2007, -1/+2Rothschild == major douche bag.
- schnikies79, on 11/07/2007, -1/+2He meant that the population begins to decline. It's called sub-replacement fertility and means the people don't have enough children to replace them when they die, thefor the population of the country declines as people die.
- inactive, on 11/07/2007, -1/+2You have absolutely no idea how to cook if you think yo can cook much better food in a microwave than in an over.
- 89992, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1101. Become a Vegetarian (This alone will conserve more natural resources than all of the 100 above steps combined)
102. Produce paper from Hemp instead of trees. (If paper was being produced in a sustainable manner, recycling it would be unnecessary) - lolwtfhaha, on 11/07/2007, -1/+2Very handy list! I printed out copies for my friends and family
- schnikies79, on 11/07/2007, -1/+2Some theories show that volcanoes caused mass extensions. So yea, they can cause problems.
- jeff303, on 11/07/2007, -1/+2It's not necessarily. Usually when you see this statement it's really a critique of current factory-farming techniques for raising meat. But it IS possible to raise meat in a completely sustainable (zero energy input), environmentally friendly, humane way. For more information on this search for Joel Salatin, Polyface Inc. and read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. (not affiliated with any of these)
- spyd3rweb, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1I dont go around toting them as irrefutable fact.
- bugsy187, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1It seems obvious to me that my comment is more about informing and responding to the comment in question than merely to create a "sound bite".
- Subterfug, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Did you read the rest of it?
"...buying carbon offsets feels like throwing money into a black hole." - 89992, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1http://earthsave.org/ Earthsave International. This organization does a very good job of explaining why.
- Subterfug, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Cool, show me the numbers on that.
- 89992, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Or until you die of a heart attack. Of which the chances are about 50/50
- inactive, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1You still listed it in your small list of "few things the average Joe can do to save the environment."
Plus, the solar and wind comment still stnads. IT take real ignorance to think that they are good choices in all areas. - tmbrwolf19, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Except that the westernize world consumes more then the undeveloped world by leaps and bounds. If everyone in the world consumed as much as developed nations, the planet would already have been bleed dry. The idea is to alter our way of living and help the undeveloped world 'skip' the part of their development where they are wasteful by providing more efficient technologies instead of our inefficient throw outs. That is why this issue requires change on both the individual and government level.
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