I've been thinking a lot lately about this modern fad about " being green " and ways for you to actually accomplish some of it. Turns out, it is pretty hard , if not impossible, to do anything that will relieve the Earth from some of the poison you excreting as you go with your visit on this planet. Whatever you do, no matter how big or small , makes an impact on the planet. Whatever you choose not to do is also making an impact as it creates opportunities for other people to do it. If you spend any money in any way, you create pollution. If you don't spend any of your money, you credit everyone else's buying (read polluting ) ability through inflation. If you hedge yourself against inflation by buying... no matter what-- again you are causing pollution by supporting gold-diggers, silver traders, wheat-growers or whatnot... and thousands of other people along the way.
Now what happens if you quit your fancy job/business/inheritance and will go live in the forest/subsistence farm/homeless shelter and whatnot. How much of a difference will it make? 0. Big fat ZERO. Other people will get your jobs/market shares and will keep riding the wagon and whipping the horse till it dies.
Lets look at a few projects that are peddled now days as a Gaia-saving measures.
Plastic bags: where I live , in US, there is a huge onslaught on the customers by supermarkets in order to make them give up free plastic bags. Having less plastic bags around is an admirable idea, but a few questions remain.
1) Stores spend insane amounts of money on plastic bags. What are they gonna do with all that money that they will be saving? Something tells me they wont be buying rain forests for conservation purposes. They will spend it, in one way or another, causing additional pollution.
2) Many are using these plastic bags before throwing them away--cat litter, some temporal storage, I use them as regular trash bags. If they are gone, these people will be forced to use something else for this purpose--read buy more plastic, cause more pollution.
3) What exactly will happen with NG and oil that is used to produce these bags? Will it be left alone in the ground? i somehow doubt it. It will be used anyway.
4) What about alternatives--will it be a pollution-free production and recycling? Is there such a thing at all?
Solar panels: everyone is daydreaming about using them as an alternative to coal.
It is pretty obvious that these panels are either money-making, or money-losing project. If its a money-losing project , then you support an entire new industry that will be polluting through production of these panels and spending their profits. if its a money-making project then let me ask you this, what are you going to do with the money you just saved? Most likely you will spend it as your other income causing additional pollution and additional need for energy.
The only way to have "pollution-savings" through solar panels is if the new industry will employ LESS people for LESS money, than whats needed to dig a comparable by energy output amount of coal.
to be continued
Now what happens if you quit your fancy job/business/inheritance and will go live in the forest/subsistence farm/homeless shelter and whatnot. How much of a difference will it make? 0. Big fat ZERO. Other people will get your jobs/market shares and will keep riding the wagon and whipping the horse till it dies.
Lets look at a few projects that are peddled now days as a Gaia-saving measures.
Plastic bags: where I live , in US, there is a huge onslaught on the customers by supermarkets in order to make them give up free plastic bags. Having less plastic bags around is an admirable idea, but a few questions remain.
1) Stores spend insane amounts of money on plastic bags. What are they gonna do with all that money that they will be saving? Something tells me they wont be buying rain forests for conservation purposes. They will spend it, in one way or another, causing additional pollution.
2) Many are using these plastic bags before throwing them away--cat litter, some temporal storage, I use them as regular trash bags. If they are gone, these people will be forced to use something else for this purpose--read buy more plastic, cause more pollution.
3) What exactly will happen with NG and oil that is used to produce these bags? Will it be left alone in the ground? i somehow doubt it. It will be used anyway.
4) What about alternatives--will it be a pollution-free production and recycling? Is there such a thing at all?
Solar panels: everyone is daydreaming about using them as an alternative to coal.
It is pretty obvious that these panels are either money-making, or money-losing project. If its a money-losing project , then you support an entire new industry that will be polluting through production of these panels and spending their profits. if its a money-making project then let me ask you this, what are you going to do with the money you just saved? Most likely you will spend it as your other income causing additional pollution and additional need for energy.
The only way to have "pollution-savings" through solar panels is if the new industry will employ LESS people for LESS money, than whats needed to dig a comparable by energy output amount of coal.
to be continued
Vicious circle/cycle.
ReplyDeleteQuestioning things is dandy, but questioning them to the point that you decide to just stick with the status quo without trying does no one any good. To pick a metaphor, if I don't step on that endangered ladyslipper plant in the forest, someone else might come along and do so. And they might _not_. So why not do my best? Should I go out of my way to grind it into the ground, just to have the privilege of destroying it myself? Is destruction really that much fun, that I want to get into the game?
ReplyDeleteI read that a plastic bag costs approximately one cent. So the stores might save a nickel a week for each customer with reusable bags. And it's not inconceivable that they'll use that nickel a week to lower prices by a barely-perceptible fraction, to compete against the store across the road. Or, really, since bagging groceries into reusable bags seems to take a few seconds longer per order, they'll probably spend that nickel on labor.
Re plastic bag reuse: Most people get, and throw out, far more bags than they reuse. So if one out of ten bags is used for cat litter, and the other nine out of ten end up in the trash, then using reusable bags keeps those nine out of ten out of the trash.
The oil used to make the bags? It's not a matter of them using it for something else - it's not as if there's someone saying, "We've taken out enough oil this week - stop now." They're going to take all the oil they have a use for anyway, so there's no harm in using less.
On production and recycling of the reusable bags: The cotton canvas bags and cotton net bags that I use for groceries will probably be good for several hundred uses, and when they wear through or get gunky, the cotton can rot. The several hundred plastic bags that I would have used instead will not. And many of the ChicoBag bags that I use are made from recycled soda bottles, and Chico will take all of their bags back back and reuse them. Yes, many people won't bother to send them back. That doesn't make it a bad thing for some people to do so.
How much energy was used in making them? I don't know, but energy is used in making the plastic bags, _plus_ they're going to make their way to the landfill, or the ocean, after a couple of hours of use. If I use reusable bags, fewer bags end up in the landfill, and choking fish, and adding to the plastic islands in the ocean.
And that ignores the issue of using no bag at all. If I put that candy bar or magazine right in my purse, without using any bag at all, that's, again, one more bag not adding to those problems.
It's a little bit of trouble to try to change one's habits. It's easier to shrug and say that it's hopeless and change nothing. But that doesn't make it the best strategy. There's no need to rush to grind that plant into the ground. There's always a chance that if we don't, if we do our best, it might survive.
And if the next guy comes along and does grind it into the ground, what harm was done to us by refraining? It's not, I hope, as if we would have enjoyed the destruction.
That is a great metaphor about a plant Chicken Freak, thank you. However I dont suggest that we do nothing with plastic bags. We could put a tax on each plastic bag, say 10 cents a piece, and use it for some conservational effort and for recycling. Some stores already are charging 5 cents a piece. This way people will be forced to use something else to save some money.
ReplyDeleteBasically my point is that we always concentrate on solving a problem and completely disregard consequences of our ingenuity.
For example, you didnt take a plastic bag for your candy or a magazine. Now you have an extra dime in your pocket. What are you going to do now? You will spend it. Replacing one garbage with another is not always a good solution.
True say my friend! its this whole cycle that got us in a knot! Glad im finding blogs very similar to mine! About the environment!
ReplyDeleteIn many cases solar panels will be a pollution-saving measure. Perhaps not where you live
ReplyDelete