Interest in a "green"/enviromental thread on AAM - practical slant.

Re skepticism and its value, I dont doubt it. I'm not one for dashing around clucking that the sky is falling in. Doom merchants wouldnt get much of a hearing from me.

All that said, what is the harm in people trying to do their bit so that they, personally, minimise their environmental impact? The problem I see with environmentalist thought is that the natural conclusion of it is that we should either like in a high rise block across the road from work, or it an earthen mound in the countryside.

So my focus is on realistic changes people can make, changes that dont run your life upside down or cost you a fortune. Changes that could be replicated in hundreds of thousands of households and then make a difference even if individually insignificant. Now neither you nor I can influence the population so I'd leave the crusading to others.

I think many people would make changes if they knew what to do and it was made accessible to them.

So, for instance, if I got a micro hydro electric unit going that ran my house I'd be delighted to share this knowledge with someone else interested. We wouldnt be singlehandedly saving the earth and claiming the high moral ground to pontificate a holier than thou view, but it would make a difference in terms of our personal contricbution to the environment (plus I'd hope to have the investment pay back after a few years).

I'm surprised in fact at the level of negativity to this thread. I dont mind arguing the views that certain steps may or may not be worthwhile but the vibe I'm getting is that its all just a waste of time... not to be encouraged. I thought at worst it would get the "another deluded idealist" reception, I wasnt expecting an almost "anti" reaction.

Betsy - I agree with the broad thrust of what you are aiming for.

In terms of the plastic bag levy - I think it is a great idea and has worked very well in the shops. The argument of whether or not other countries have adopted it is not relevant to whether it is a good idea or is working here as a way to reduce plastic consumption. Pure observation tells me that people are now consuming a tiny fraction of the quantity of bags that they used to at the check-out. It was not unusual to see people getting a single plastic wrapped product put into another plastic bag in the old days - this is very rare now. It was not unusual (before I mended my ways) to come home from the shops with 10-15 bags. Multiply that by the number of customers passing through a single large supermarket per minute and you can see the huge volume of bags that were being consumed. General observation indicates that the problem described as 'witches knickers' where plastic bags were to be seen in many hedgerows is greatly diminshed.

The whole debate surrounding whether it will take more energy to do X than to keep doing the old Y is also not great in my view. *IF* we accept/believe that at least some current practices are 'bad' (for any definition of bad there will always be some practice that each person regards as bad) then as individuals we ought to investigate ways to improve or change the practice. It is inevitable that some of the changes will not work, or will not be as efficient, or will cause other side effects, but if we never move for change then we are stuck by definition with the current state and 'bad' practices. We can't get every change right, but if we never try to change then we *know* the status quo will remain.

On the wind/hydro debate - there is an inherent unwillingness to move from existing insfrastructure for a number of reasons including the money already invested in these projects, but this in itself should not be used as a basis not to pursue other avenues *if* we accept that existing fossil fuel based methods are only going to become more expensive over time. I ain't no hydro-what-not engineer, but I find it hard to believe that on an island nation we would not be able to deploy enough hydro and wind based platforms to ensure continuous supply. I accept that there would always need to be an alternate supply for the time when we are becalmed for a few weeks, but in the same way there is also a need for an alternate supply when fossil fuel prices become prohibitive or supplies are serverly curtailed.

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