The Green Thread

[wjfox]

Okay, so what are you personally doing to help the environment? I'll start this off - yesterday I switched my phone bills to "paperless". In other words they won't be printed and sent to me anymore, it will be done entirely online. In addition, British Telecom are planting a new tree for every person who signs up to this. Over half a million saplings have been planted so far.

By the way, has anyone seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth? - I was planning to watch this tonight.

[Splish]

I've started eating less Baked Beans.

[GNU]

I put my rubbish in the bin and thats it.
This global warming agenda is nonsense anyways imo

[wjfox]

Originally Posted by GNU

I put my rubbish in the bin and thats it.
This global warming agenda is nonsense anyways imo

Oh dear...

[The Hunted]

Originally Posted by wjfox2002

yesterday I switched my phone bills to "paperless". In other words they won't be printed and sent to me anymore, it will be done entirely online.

Do you get a discount?

[Butterfield]

The usual recycling of tins, newspapers, cardboard etc. And making compost from food scraps.

I also drive one of the most fuel efficient and cleanest diesel cars.

[JackSwan]

...erm, i recycle about 20-25% of my household waste.

i use energy efficient lightbulbs.

i walk quite a lot when other means of transport are available.

but on the downside i am a serial arsonist, specialising in forests and parched scrubland.

[Butterfield]

I've just remembered - I've had the same energy saving lightbulb in my bedroom since 1996!

[NothingBetterToDo]

Well, let see -

- We recycle whatever we can, the council has given us 2 green boxes and they take a good deal of stuff.

- We compost the old fruit and veg peelings/ leftover food etc. Although, we don't do that all the time, because the compost bin starts to overflow. But, when it all rots down we add more.

- Most of our lightbuilds are the eco-friendly type. And as the old ones blow, we tend to replace them with the good type.

- I get my backstatements online - but i didnt choose that because of its 'eco-friendly' credentials, i was just getting pissed off at the ammount of letters they sent me...i was ending up with piles of unopened bank statements.

- I use public transport all the time...since i passed my test at the start of the year i have not had any need to use a car.

- And the usual stuff - not leaving electrical stuff on standby, turning off the tap when brushing my teeth etc.

hmm...i think thats about it.

[Stefan88]

We recycle all of our cardboard, glass, tins and clean plastic wrapping and bottles. All of the bulbs in the house are energy efficient, even the one in the cellar.
The central heating is only on for about an hour a day as the house gets too hot.
I walk everywhere when Im at uni, but take the bus to uni when it's raining.
My housemates do a car share thing to uni even thogh they all have their own (there at a different campus to me)
Thats about it really. Not bad for a house full of students.
And who said students were bad eh?

[GNU]

Originally Posted by wjfox2002

Oh dear...

Is there something you want to tell me?

[Medo]

I watched that Al Gore movie earlier this year, it's quite good.

We use energy efficient light bulbs
Recycle paper, cans and glass.
I planted two trees in the summer.

[NothingBetterToDo]

Oh yeah, our house has the Cavity Wall insulation, and brand new Loft insulation as of a few months ago. So it cuts down on the need for heating.

We don't have double glazing, but the original windows look so much better than the crappy PVC windows other people have installed (which i think is actually illegal..as i was under impression we lived in a conservation area...)

[Molly]

I actually got sick of doing my bit for the environment and making sacrifices in how we live and what we and oir kids do just to be environmentally friendly all my adult life when no one else cares a shit so now I don't put too much effort into it...and I'm probaby still more environmentally friendly than most people in this country. End of the day you only live once so you may as well enjoy yourself. So I no longer consider myself environmentally friendly... but anyway we are not wealthy enough to be wasteful or be too bad for the environment.

[nezzybaby]

PLEASE CAN EVERYONE STOP RECYCLING PAPER.

Buy paper from sustainable forests, and compost or throw away your used paper.

Paper from a sustainable forest will ensure that for every tree cut down another is planted negating one main problem of paper. Producing a tonne of paper from trees requires less energy than producing a tonne of paper of a similar quality through recycling. Therefore recycling paper is bad for the environment, it generates more CO2 not less. The traditional reasons for recycling paper was to save space in land fills. If you buy really low quality recycled paper (toilet paper/newspapers) it isnt too bad, but the high quality photocopier paper is evil!!

continue to recycle everything else by all means, and pursuade your local council to develop ways of recycling tetra paks, as they are undoubtedly evil.

[GNU]

Originally Posted by Splish

I've started eating less Baked Beans.

People who are concerned about the environment shouldnt drink sparkling water btw

Flatulence is often blamed as a significant source of greenhouse gases owing to the erroneous belief that the methane released by livestock is in the flatus.[16] While livestock account for around 20% of global methane emissions,[17] 90 to 95% of that is released by exhaling or burping.[18] This means only 1–2% of global methane emissions come from livestock flatus.

[Jonny 5]

Originally Posted by wjfox2002

By the way, has anyone seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth? - I was planning to watch this tonight.

It's a good advert for Apple products...

I do all the regular recycling stuff, paper, cans, composting etc...

But i'm not going to fool myself into thinking it's going to do anything to help the environment in the long run.

Recycling has just become a way for the local councils to con us into thinking we're being greener, so we don't feel as guilty about driving down the new bypass to the out of town retail parks in our huge cars, so we can buy new products that have little stickers on them that say they are 10% better for the environment, but come in 50% more packaging than is really needed.

[GNU]

Volcanos should be banned too btw, or atleast fitted with particle filters for polluting our atmosphere with all that carbon dioxide

[NothingBetterToDo]

Indeed, i'm with Johnny 5 on this - anything i do is not going to help the environment in any way shape or form, even with a concerted global effort to cut our CO2 i think its probably too late to make any huge differences to the chain we've set in motion.

However, i feel that the whole 'Climate Change' issue is hijacked by both sides of the argument, the people who don't believe we are causing it use it as an excuse to go on as we currently are - being wasteful, inefficient and polluting. Whilst the people who support Climate change use it as an excuse to implement all sorts of supposedly 'eco friendly' initiatives.

The stuff that i do, in an attempt to be 'eco-friendly' is not my way of trying to avert a global catastrophe. I just think its stupid to be wasteful and inefficient - why dump stuff in landfill when it can be recycled?, why use old fashioned bulbs when you can use energy efficient ones that last longer and save you money? Why drive everywhere when i can use public transport (i am lucky to live in london in that respect)?, Why should we belch out all manner of pollutants from coal/gas power stations when we can use natural forms of energy production which doesn't result in nasty emissions?.

If it was proved tomorrow that Global Warming is categorically not caused by humans, and our CO2 emmisions make no difference. I would still have every support for being eco-friendly and 'green' - it will save us money in the long run, and allow us to live in a nicer, healthier environment.

We should be trying to change our ways because its better for us, not because we are scared of impending global doom (although that is a big incentive)

[eusebius]

I sit in my car and watch driving directions on Google Maps on my laptop computer and shout vroooaaaam.