Should I buy a diesel if living in the city?

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Drakon said:
Yes, it is hyperbole and it’s not meant to be taken literally.
The fact remains that we don’t have enough power in our national grid at present for a large-scale move away from petrol/diesel cars.
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It's like saying in the 1980s that there isn't even silicon in our warehouses for eveybody to shift to owning a personal computer in the 90s/00s. It is a fact, but to be a little blunt it's an irrelevant and uninteresting fact that can mislead those less familiar into thinking you're making some sort of cogent argument against electrification of transport.

Both the ESB and Eirgrid, who will know better than any of us, have stated that there is enough capacity to move 20% of transport to electric this minute and they have no concerns about scaling that up over the 20+ year timeline they'll have as we move towards 100%.
 
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Zenith63 said:
If the production of meat only creates 2.8% of CO2 emissions (including land-repurposing/deforestation) in the US, which I'd imagine is very siialr to Europe, stopping producing it would at most improve things by 2.8%. But as people will need to eat something to compensate, the improvement will be much smaller, probably <1%. That is not a big number. Now if you looked at programmes to repurpose the saved land as forests or solar farms or nuclear power stations then I can see the point, but again I'm just countering the simplistic "stop eating meat and you'll make a dramatic difference to CO2 emissions". "Stop eating meat, reclaim the land for a massive reforestation and solar generation programme" is different...
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Firstly meat farming and deforestation are the same thing so add those figures together.

It takes 113399kj of energy (27,103 Calories) to produce 1 pound of beef. There are 1134 Calories in a 15% fat pound of beef. Therefore the energy input is 23.9 times higher than the energy output. To put it another way if we ate the crops which we feed to the cows we'd need 23.9 times fewer crops.
The fertilizer production, water usage and other industrial inputs are also staggering; there are 6,800 litres of water required to produce a pound of beef. There are 480 litres needed to produce a pound of corn and there are 390 calories in that pound of Corn.
 
Drakon said:
The fact remains that we don’t have enough power in our national grid at present for a large-scale move away from petrol/diesel cars.
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Also fact there aren't enough electric cars available to significantly alter the demand, so it's absolutely meaningless. Some of the data centers under construction will have a more immediate and significant impact. EirGrid's forecasts are based on the Government target of 500.000 EVs by 2030, and I don't see that target being hit.
 
Purple said:
Firstly meat farming and deforestation are the same thing so add those figures together.

It takes 113399kj of energy (27,103 Calories) to produce 1 pound of beef. There are 1134 Calories in a 15% fat pound of beef. Therefore the energy input is 23.9 times higher than the energy output. To put it another way if we ate the crops which we feed to the cows we'd need 23.9 times fewer crops.
The fertilizer production, water usage and other industrial inputs are also staggering; there are 6,800 litres of water required to produce a pound of beef. There are 480 litres needed to produce a pound of corn and there are 390 calories in that pound of Corn.
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Deforestation is already included in that figure as I said.

Look I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying there at all, my only point is that changes to a small number is still a small number. An individual will have a big impact on loads of really important issues around meat production by stopping eating meat, but even if everybody stopped it would not make a big difference to CO2 emissions. Fly less, take public transport more often, electrify your transport where it makes sense are all things that if done en-masse would have a meaningful impact on CO2 emissions.
 
Zenith63 said:
Deforestation is already included in that figure as I said.

Look I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying there at all, my only point is that changes to a small number is still a small number. An individual will have a big impact on loads of really important issues around meat production by stopping eating meat, but even if everybody stopped it would not make a big difference to CO2 emissions. Fly less, take public transport more often, electrify your transport where it makes sense are all things that if done en-masse would have a meaningful impact on CO2 emissions.
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Okay, but do remember that changing to an electric car is also a very small part of your overall environmental footprint. Air Travel, what we buy and consume, fast fashion etc are all bigger factors. Before you spend €40,000 on an EV there are loads of cheaper things you can do that will have as high or higher an impact.
 
My three point plan to solve global warming;
  • Reduce red meat farming by 80% and use the land freed up to grow trees.
  • Invest in clean nuclear power. The technology used in nuclear power stations in most of the world is 80 years old, is dirty and dangerous. There is clean and intrinsically safe technology available. Use that along with other green technologies to power our national grids and so much of our transport infrastructure and expand the grids in the developing world.
  • Put carbon taxes on clothing so that the fast fashion sector is closed down completely. If an item of clothing isn't going to last a few years it shouldn't be manufactured.
What's the point in buying an electric vehicle that is ultimately powered by turf?
 
Purple said:
My three point plan to solve global warming;
  • Reduce red meat farming by 80% and use the land freed up to grow trees.
  • Invest in clean nuclear power. The technology used in nuclear power stations in most of the world is 80 years old, is dirty and dangerous. There is clean and intrinsically safe technology available. Use that along with other green technologies to power our national grids and so much of our transport infrastructure and expand the grids in the developing world.
  • Put carbon taxes on clothing so that the fast fashion sector is closed down completely. If an item of clothing isn't going to last a few years it shouldn't be manufactured.
What's the point in buying an electric vehicle that is ultimately powered by turf?
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Oh how I wish for a "rolls-eyes" reaction to posts for moments like this :D .

This will have to do :rolleyes:
 
Purple said:
My three point plan to solve global warming;
  • Reduce red meat farming by 80% and use the land freed up to grow trees.
  • Invest in clean nuclear power. The technology used in nuclear power stations in most of the world is 80 years old, is dirty and dangerous. There is clean and intrinsically safe technology available. Use that along with other green technologies to power our national grids and so much of our transport infrastructure and expand the grids in the developing world.
  • Put carbon taxes on clothing so that the fast fashion sector is closed down completely. If an item of clothing isn't going to last a few years it shouldn't be manufactured.
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Love the suggestions especially the third one. And the second one.

Purple said:
What's the point in buying an electric vehicle that is ultimately powered by turf?
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Because it could be powered by solar and not turf. And because the alternatives are worse. e.g. fossil fuels.
 
Zenith63 said:
Oh how I wish for a "rolls-eyes" reaction to posts for moments like this :D .

This will have to do :rolleyes:
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Sure, but the nonsense equating fossil fuel emissions with transport is a big part of the problem when looking at this issue. Electricity generation and heating burns more fossil fuels than all transport globally. Cooking using flames produces more greenhouse gasses than all transport globally.
 
PGF2016 said:
Love the suggestions especially the third one. And the second one.


Because it could be powered by solar and not turf. And because the alternatives are worse. e.g. fossil fuels.
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Yes, so the source of the power is what really matters.
 
Frank said:
That thread took a sharp turn

BMW X7 could be the way to go :)

Kia Sorento maybe as a bigger SUV Volvo V90 the dog could do a walk Skoda Superb estate same story options now of petrol or diesel.
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The Skoda is an awful looking yoke.
The X7 is a looker.
 
Zenith63 said:
I think you're maybe being unnecessarily argumentative here, I think we're broadly in agreement in our views on the environment and I was just suggesting to check the figures on this particular point as I was surpised by them (as a bit of an eco nut)?

If the production of meat only creates 2.8% of CO2 emissions (including land-repurposing/deforestation) in the US, which I'd imagine is very siialr to Europe, stopping producing it would at most improve things by 2.8%. But as people will need to eat something to compensate, the improvement will be much smaller, probably <1%. That is not a big number. Now if you looked at programmes to repurpose the saved land as forests or solar farms or nuclear power stations then I can see the point, but again I'm just countering the simplistic "stop eating meat and you'll make a dramatic difference to CO2 emissions". "Stop eating meat, reclaim the land for a massive reforestation and solar generation programme" is different, but we can do reforestation etc. without necessarily stopping eating meat, there's plenty of land (though again, I'm in favour of stopping for all the other very good reasons!)
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I appreciate that the OP has found their answer but this material here has to be addressed. Food is responsible for approximately a quarter of global GHG emissions. Of these emissions, almost 60% come from animal products (and half of this is beef and lamb alone). The guessimate of <1% is nowhere near the impact of removing meat from diets. A diet shorn of animal protein would have c. 50% of the emissions of a meat-eating diet.
However as you've already identified, it would also come will a massive windfall of land availability, which it would be nice to return to nature. Ireland, for example, uses more than 90% of its agricultural land to maintain non-native grasslands and even still required the importation of an average of almost 100,000,000 kilos of animal feed EVERY WEEK in 2018. And the carbon cost of that feed is not included in the one-third share of GHG emissions recorded that year. And there is no agreed model for measuring the carbon opportunity cost of setting aside all of that land to produce undigestible (by humans) plant matter, which would put meat in an even more disadvantageous position.
 

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Food is responsible for approximately a quarter of global GHG emissions. Of these emissions, almost 60% come from animal products (and half of this is beef and lamb alone).
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Look I want that to be right, even though I eat meat I know it is having horrible consequences on bio diversity, animal welfare etc, and frankly a quick fix to global warming would be great.

But I’ve quoted the EPA document above which would appear to tell a different story. Now there surely is a difference between global numbers and US numbers, but I’d imagine for the average Irish person trying to make better decisions the US numbers probably aren’t a million miles from ours, but I’mjust surmising.

If there’s different data that contradicts the EPA by all means fire it out, as I say I want your figures to be the right ones and believed them to be until listening to that climate change advocate/strategist speak recently.
 
Research in this area has consistently shown that the greatest mitigation potential in this area comes from adopting a plant base diet. Assuming you're talking about the U.S. EPA, which report are you referring to?
My figures are from the IPCC Land Use report last year, as well as https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food and the Irish figures came from various sources including the Oireachtas record, our own EPA and submissions to the Citizens Assembly in 2017.

Note: the Poore and Nemecek research found that a dietary shift away from all animal products in the US, where per capita meat consumption is thrice the world average, could reduce food emissions 61-73%.
 
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