Top green living myths
guardian.co.uk
Top green living myths
1–10 of 78 posts
Re: Top green living myths
#2Very good info!
A rule of thumb: the cheaper it is, the less energy it took to make it. Some more details: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=346912
Be aware that less energy is not always equal to better for the environment.
Re: Top green living myths
#3One thing that's always puzzled me: surely in the winter, when you have heating on, it doesn't really matter how efficient your appliances are - 'waste' heat from inefficient appliances will just replace heat that the heating system would generate otherwise?
Re: Top green living myths
#4One thing that's always puzzled me: surely in the winter, when you have heating on, it doesn't really matter how efficient your appliances are - 'waste' heat from inefficient appliances will just replace heat that the heating system would generate otherwise?
Only if you have electric radiators. If you heat your home in any other way, you're wasting some energy, since electric energy is the least efficient to use for simple heating.
Re: Top green living myths
#5One thing that's always puzzled me: surely in the winter, when you have heating on, it doesn't really matter how efficient your appliances are - 'waste' heat from inefficient appliances will just replace heat that the heating system would generate otherwise?
You heat your home with electricity?
Seriously, look into getting that fixed before you do anything else to lower your carbon footprint.
Re: Top green living myths
#6Very good info! A rule of thumb: the cheaper it is, the less energy it took to make it. Some more details: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=346912 Be aware that less energy is not always equal to better for the environment.
ars, you make a good point but pollution is a very big hole in your metric. If you can't account for it, then your rule of thumb is misleading.
Re: Top green living myths
#7Some of it is useful, some of it is useless nonsense, perpetuating other myths.
If you want to learn how negligible the effect of turning off your lightbulbs or converting to a gas heated kettle is, read "without the Hot Air" by David McKay: http://www.withouthotair.com/ It's transport and domestic heating that are the major energy consumers in the west. It's barely worth focusing on anything else.
"wood is a green fuel because the CO2 released when it gets burned will be sucked from the air by the trees planted to replace the felled ones"
What? No. Wood is a green fuel because all the CO2 released when burned was previously captured by the plant itself! What you replace it with is irrelevant.
The "Buy local" section is very good though. Local purchases will in general be a lot more wasteful than purchase of mass produced food which takes advantage of economies of scale.
Re: Top green living myths
#8Very good info! A rule of thumb: the cheaper it is, the less energy it took to make it. Some more details: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=346912 Be aware that less energy is not always equal to better for the environment.
Of course, something may have been cheap because it was produced in a place with lax environmental regulations (so lower compliance costs) and shipped via bulk freight options which dump a lot of nastiness into the atmosphere...
Re: Top green living myths
#9Some of it is useful, some of it is useless nonsense, perpetuating other myths. If you want to learn how negligible the effect of turning off your lightbulbs or converting to a gas heated kettle is, read "without the Hot Air" by David McKay: http://www.withouthotair.com/ It's transport and domestic heating that are the major energy consumers in the west. It's barely worth focusing on anything else. "wood is a green f…
What? No. Wood is a green fuel because all the CO2 released when burned was previously captured by the plant itself! What you replace it with is irrelevant.
So burning oil into the atmosphere is green because the CO2 and other dangerous substances were previously captured by the oil itself? (though it takes a bit more for an oil deposit to form than for a tree to grow)
Re: Top green living myths
#10Some of it is useful, some of it is useless nonsense, perpetuating other myths. If you want to learn how negligible the effect of turning off your lightbulbs or converting to a gas heated kettle is, read "without the Hot Air" by David McKay: http://www.withouthotair.com/ It's transport and domestic heating that are the major energy consumers in the west. It's barely worth focusing on anything else. "wood is a green f…
What? No. Wood is a green fuel because all the CO2 released when burned was previously captured by the plant itself! What you replace it with is irrelevant. So burning oil into the atmosphere is green because the CO2 and other dangerous substances were previously captured by the oil itself? (though it takes a bit more for an oil deposit to form than for a tree to grow)
You're right: the duration over which the CO2 was captured is important. The argument doesn't apply to burning the whole of the amazon at once! But burning growth which has happened since we started caring about CO2 has no net effect.