quote: but it's important to remember (as you do, obviously, given your most agreeable choice of automobile [Big Grin] ) that an attitude adjustment toward energy and fuel has to be the biggest component of any solution.
Agreed. And the attitude adjustment goes beyond transportation.
Home heating is a huge component of our energy usage, which is why I had my furnace and the furnace in my mother in law's house this past year.
Anyone whose furnace is over twenty years old should replace theirs, even if it works fine, because efficiency has improved so much since then. It will repay itself within three years, usually. Also, get a programmable thermostat. If you have hot water heat, get an outdoor reset control (adjusts water temperature based on the outside temperature, so the house doesn't overheat every time the radiators heat up).
And get used to living at 69 degrees in the winter, and 78 degrees in the summer. I don't air condition at all, and there are only a few days a year where I think it's really necessary. But people who have it in the house tend to use it as soon as the temperature gets a little uncomfortable. Then they never get used to the annual increase in temperature, and just keep using it.
Of course there's insulation, and tightening up air infiltration. I built a counterflow heat exchanger for the makeup air inlet in my basement. It's not as efficient as a commercial model, but better than nothing.
And we've got to stop the sprawl. This goes back to transportation. In the past 20 years (iirc) the average commute has gone from about 7 miles each way to about 20 miles each way, simply because everybody wants a house in the country, but the jobs are still in the city. I read the other day that more homes being sold today are actually second homes. Now people are heating two houses that they only live in part time. What a waste.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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The government here in Canada has a program whereby you can get a government grant if you make improvements to your home's energy efficiency. I think these kinds of incentives are a really good idea. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote: And get used to living at ...78 degrees in the summer.
I wish I could. If the temperature gets that high, I remain awake until I pass out from exhaustion. That said, there are other ways to cool off so I can sleep than to adjust the thermostat, but all of them use some energy.
Twinky, I agree. But for some reason American liberals don't seem willing to pay people for what "you're supposed to be doing anyway". They'd rather use coercion, apparently.
quote:Whether or not human value and meaning have any cosmic meaning, their meaning has to be taken into account in our choices affecting ourselves within our existant time frame
Millions of homeless people living in tin shacks on the beaches of Sumatra and Sri Lanka just demonstrated that we have no real choices. Just keep sweating, eating, and reproducing.
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We have no choices? What? Sorry, I'm not sure I understand your point exactly... (I don't mean that in a criticizing way - I'm just an I-need-things-to-be-obvious person).
This whole thread is about the environmental impact our culture produces and the choices we need to make to try and slow or reverse those effects. Incidentally, to break into the 'other half' of the discussions here, I think that grant programme is a fabulous idea! I had no idea it existed; I'll have to start mentioning it to interested people.
And skil, to use your example, yes, these things happen but the millions of people supporting relief efforts prove value and meaning have veritable effects on the world too. Giving to charity can be (not always but sometimes) evidence of altruism. Altruism is all values and meaning, which are a part of survival as well. You watch my back, I'll watch yours. Etcetera. These environmental issues are tied in with that. Each person's choice to live in an environmentally friendly way contributes to the survival of others including people being very comfortable and wasteful at the cost of that sacrificing person's comfort.
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At this point, we'd need to redesign some of our cities from the ground up in order to make mass transit actually WORK.
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Some of us maintain that there is a god and that god cares how we treat our planet, but that god won't step in and save us from ourselves. Also, if god had anything to do with the Bible, we might find some clues in there as to how to care for our planet.
Some of us claim that there is no god, and the Bible can be no more than the collective wisdom of the ages, written by a man.
I say if there is no god, then it doesn't matter how we behave in relation to our environment. Personally, I'm going to tear down a few mountains looking for gold, and don't try to stop me. Why should I care if you once liked my mountain?
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Because we have the power to retaliate against things you care about. And, by the way, the Bible is nowise the wisdom of the ages, it is the wisdom of a small, very parochial desert tribe living three thousand years ago, and it is badly out of date.
Why do you believe that we need an outside force to make things important? Why this desperate desire to have your particular values live forever? Can you not take delight in the moment of life that you have?
Men die, and nations die. But before they die, they live.
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You ought to care for a variety of reasons. Say, because that mountain may have been home to traditions dating back thousands of years for an indigenous culture, and they'll probably get together and assassinate you in the night for doing it, because the values and traditions you destroyed and disrespected of theirs have real, tangible meaning to them and you've threatened them by that. Not to mention you destroy a lot of trees, probably ruin some precious fresh-water, throw some stock market somewhere into ruin... oh, I don't know, the list goes on.
Perhaps you're arguing now that from a purely evolutionary standpoint, things that help our physical survival are the only things worth preserving. You have to remember that values and meanings play *real* roles in survival. Maybe not outside the human sphere, but humans are plenty capable of killing each other, as well as other species, because of values. There are social factors in natural selection. The social factors in environmental choices will play a real role in how long our planet lasts.
Unless your point was to still argue that none of this matters on the cosmic scale, in which case this entire argument is and has been totally pointless.
KoM - I really like that last line... Is it from something, or did you make it up?
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Alas, no, that's Poul Anderson, back when he wasn't writing the same book ten times in a row. A short story, but I can't remember the name.
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It'll come back to bite ya in the end, skill. Somewhere along the line we forgot the age old wisdom of "don't crap in your drinking water." Theists and non Theists alike ought to be able to agree on that.
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quote: At this point, we'd need to redesign some of our cities from the ground up in order to make mass transit actually WORK.
I'm not sure in what way. I loved Atlanta's MARTA and the ubahn of Nurnberg. Both of those cities are several hundred years old and I didn't notice any kind of major retooling of either city.
Slap down a rail system to take people quickly from a central location north, south, east and west. Have stops at various intelligent locations on the line--malls, high density areas. Have bus systems and park 'n' ride at the locations. 'Easy'. The benefits of reduced energy consumption from fewer people having to drive cars out of necessity are obvious, but what's great is that people end up saving time quite often, too, in today's gridlock, not to mention a lot of cash from not having to pay for gas and auto insurance. PLUS, you don't have to worry about drivers under the influence. Part of the reason why there are so many DUIs is because there often aren't any cheap alternatives to driving home. Keep in mind, too, that good mass transit allows poor people, the 'handicapped', and the elderly increased mobility and freedom that they otherwise wouldn't have.
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quote:Dag, are you Catholic? I don't know that I've ever heard your particular affiliation before.
My wife is Catholic, but I know that more strict Catholics wouldn't agree, because she's also pro-choice.
Yes, I'm Catholic. When I used "Catholic position" I meant the official doctrine - I wasn't trying to speak for individual Catholics. Abortion is one of the areas where it's very easy to find an "official" position in the Catholic Church.
And I hate it when people say "X isn't really Catholic because they don't believe Y." There's really only two people authorized to say that for any given person (their Bishop and the Pope), and there's a reason they don't do it very often.
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