porphyre: alright, we might be wrong, but what if we're right?

Bloody Foxtongue (

porphyre) wrote,
@ 2008-05-15 15:11:00

Current music:	el-p - poisonville kids no wins
Entry tags:	environment

alright, we might be wrong, but what if we're right?

Women Observing Stars 1936 Chou Ota, Japan via COILHOUSE

Link via Lucas

Luxim labs recently unveiled an incredibly energy efficient light bulb that packs more luminosity than a street lamp into a pill-sized form factor. Each bulb is filled with argon gas, which turns to plasma when electricity is focused through it. The energy is driven to the bulb without electrodes. The resulting light is intensely bright and mirrors the quality of light radiated by the sun, yet is produced by one of the smallest, most energy efficient light sources we’ve seen.

Luxim, Pill bulb, tiny pill light bulb plasma bulb, halodes, super bright light bulb, eco lighting, green lighting, sustainable lighting, energy efficient lighting, lumen, pill-sized plasma bulb, argon gas, super-bulb, LED, light bulb

A substantial portion of energy is converted into light instead of heat, which makes the bulbs highly efficient. Each super-bulb produces a stunning 140 lumens per watt, doubling the output of high-end LEDs (70 lumens per watt) and leaving standard light bulbs in the dust (15 lumens per watt). While cost and longevity have yet to be released, these brilliant bulbs represent a bright future for energy efficient lighting.

I read about these brilliant innovations, and love them, but wonder if they'll spread down from the top in enough time to help. Most of the light bulbs in my house are the twirled glass energy savers, my roommate and I trek across the alley to illicitly use the neighbor's blue bins, we now have a balcony worm farm compost, and we shop as conscious consumers, as ethically as we can for every sort of product, be it food or clothing or cleaners. The same goes, likely, for most of my friends, but not, unfortunately, for the majority.

Which makes no sense.

From every angle I can see, it's a good idea to go green, even if you're one of the hidebound stalwarts who don't believe the constant, savage news about climate change or the impending food crisis. If we prepare for the worst, we have a chance to handle the worst, if we prepare for nothing, we can't handle anything at all. I think of it as a logic problem, preparing for the future, like Pascal's Wager applied to the environment instead of religion. "If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing"

What do you do to try and make a change?

(Post a new comment)

morbid_curious
2008-05-15 11:15 pm UTC (link)

Locally, I'm worried about the way that local farmers are being encouraged to convert more and more farmland to dairy use by Fonterra. While in a global market that might be profitable, it puts more of a strain on our natural resources. Dairy farming is very irrigation intensive and more polluting than other varieties of livestock farming, and we only have so much water to go around, even in high rainfall years.

And of course, even with all that profitable international business going on and increasing production, dairy products are still getting more and more expensive locally. A 2L milk container has risen in price something like 23% in the last year, with suppliers citing increased fuel costs (most of which hits the international traffic, rather than the domestic). It's now at the point where it's around as expensive as Coke, which has its syrup imported from the United States.

I can't help but think that when the energy crisis does hit the point where exports from New Zealand become unviable in a global market, we may have over-specialised our agriculture industry to the point where we'll have a lot of trouble coping with feeding our domestic population healthily, let alone anyone else.

At this point, I mostly try to raise awareness of issues with other people. New Zealand seems to at least be a bit more environmentally aware than some places, but we can still do more. We waste an inordinate amount of electrical power each year on poorly-insulated homes, for example.

One thing I found stunning recently was that some friends of mine who have quite a large back lawn were forbidden by their landlord from pulling up some of the turf and starting a vegetable garden. Apparently grass does more for the property value than being able to grow your own food? Mind-boggling.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	porphyre 2008-05-18 06:45 pm UTC (link)
	In regards to dairy farming in Canada, we have so much of it that farmers pour milk down the drain to keep prices up. More milk than you can actually imagine, huge vats, gigantic.... flush! It's awful. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	porphyre 2008-05-18 06:45 pm UTC (link)
	Also, the lawn thing, that's obscene. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	skankboy 2008-05-15 11:17 pm UTC (link)
	ha, i have that pic on my desktop cus I think it's cool (Reply to this)(Thread)

	porphyre 2008-05-18 06:45 pm UTC (link)
	it was almost my desktop, but it's just not big enough. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lucaskrech 2008-05-16 02:15 am UTC (link)
	Wow! I'm an Eastern European critical theorist. Cool! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	porphyre 2008-05-18 06:47 pm UTC (link)
	Whoops! fixed Though really, if I'm gonna have a mistake, at least it's an awesome one. (Reply to this)(Parent)

l2oto
2008-05-16 02:30 am UTC (link)

I replaced nearly every bulb in my place with compact fluorescents before Somebody told me they've got mercury in them.

For a while, I had a strong feeling that environmental issues could be dealt with with "market-based" solutions. This was the Wired Magazine style of enviro-ism; the idea being that pollution or climate damage was just waste due to inefficiency, something that could be innovated around by markets.

Eventually, I thought, Peak Oil would meet climate change. Oil prices that rose due as scarce reserves dried up would eventually pass the expense of solar, wind, geothermal, etc., and the market would take care of the rest.

What we're getting instead is "safe" nuclear, "clean" coal, and, worst of all, an acceleration of clearing of Amazon rainforest to grow ethanol crops (did I get this link from you?). After you take into account the cleared jungle's contribution as a carbon sink, it's WORSE than burning oil. AND corn ethanol is raising the price of the corn, meaning the "high fructose corn syrup" that's in EVERYTHING.

It looks like the market is dumber than we thought. But look on the bright side: it appears we are now smarter than the market.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	porphyre 2008-05-18 06:49 pm UTC (link)
	That's the thing, right, is that market forces, sure, but WE are the market that's going to change, not the big companies. They've got too much already invested in the behaviour that's taking us all down. And no, I didn't hear about the rain-forest thing. That actually pisses me off, that news. Why can't we go march on someone with lit torches? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	velveteen 2008-05-16 07:40 am UTC (link)
	I'm hoping that fervent autodidactism will eventually provide me with the tools necessary to save the world. Though, as time passes, this may turn out to be a tragic flaw. (Reply to this)

themythicalman
2008-05-16 03:12 pm UTC (link)

Just a question, not intended to be cynical despite the way it sounds: isn't it rather presumtuous of us to say that we have to "save the planet"? Don't we really mean that we're trying to save ourselves as a speciesfrom our own self-destructive behaviour and short-sightedness? Our current behaviours are killing off plants/animals/ultimately ourselves, but in the end, life will probably continue in one way or another on this planet, regardless of whether or not we're around to be part of it. It might be primarily microbial and/or insects, depending on the level of catastrophe, but it's still life, right?

Just a thought.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

Live More Lightly

vgibson
2008-05-16 03:36 pm UTC (link)

I wrote a song called "LIve More Lightly" in the mid-90's but the world wasn't ready to take one small step to help lessen their impact. I think now they are. I am producing a book and multimedia disk called "The Live More Lightly Songbook and Workshop Guide". This gives assistance to choral groups, community groups and anyone who wants to do their own workshop. The idea of the song is to encourage everyone to do one thing to lighten their enviro-footprint.

I do not think I will have anyone singing "I will make my multi-billion dollar company carbon neutral by next week" or "Direct my governmental branch to protect farmland", but a lot of people may make one small effort (that they were probably thinking about doing anyway).

Check out livemorelightly.com for details. I am planning to tour across Canada this summer on my motorcycle to promote the concept and give workshops. If anyone wants to host a workshop or give me a place to stay post on my blog.

Love, Jhayne's Mom

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	justexquisite 2008-05-17 09:00 am UTC (link)
	I think people mean "save the planet (as we know it)". Of course the planet will go on without us, but we can't go on without the planet being pretty much exactly as it is. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	porphyre 2008-05-18 06:51 pm UTC (link)
	I'm not exactly opposed to having humanity take a few steps back, but the damage we would leave is nasty. What was the hypothetical time life on earth would have is humans vanished, just vanished, without a trace. Three days? Then all the tech we have would spiral out of control and destroy everything. Well, kill the plankton, which is the same thing. (Reply to this)(Parent)

dwights
2008-05-16 06:48 pm UTC (link)

I think we do what we can. One of the biggest things we do is have extra renters in our house. We don't need that much house to ourselves and we radically decrease our footprint by having 5 adults and 2 kids in our house instead of the 2 adults and 1 kid that "typical" society would have. Ultimately, I really think it is for naught. We're slowing the rate of descent, but there's just too many people for things to be sustainable. We might get lucky and come up with some tech to keep things from being too bad, but ultimately it'll rebalance through a combination of new tech and massive die-offs. You add more tech and simplify your living so that you can minimize the suffering of the die-offs. The worry is that you'll get enough die-offs for the whole house of cards to come tumbling down.

I just heard on the BBC that they were thinking that a quarter of all species that were around 25 years ago have gone extinct since then. We're not preventing the collapse, we're in it. Its just such a large system it is hard to see. And it is resilient too. As the pressures are let off, things can rebound amazingly. It just may not be so comfy for those hairless apes at the top.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	justexquisite 2008-05-17 08:58 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, but most of them are bugs. I say good riddance! ;) (Reply to this)(Parent)

porphyre
2008-05-18 06:52 pm UTC (link)

I don't think I know anyone in the city who doesn't live with people if they have the space. Course, these days, it's tremendously difficult to own anymore., so unless you've reached a certain tax bracket, it's sort of moot anyway.

heck, that's why I have problems finding somewhere to have a birthday party, because we all live in apartments now. It's just too expensive to stay in houses, even shared houses.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

(Anonymous)
2008-05-16 09:58 pm UTC (link)

After my wife saw "The Inconvenient Truth", she was all eager to save energy. She asked me what could we do. I said we could turn the pool down from 29C to a more sane 26C. She didn't like that so instead she suggested buying some CF lights. Sure, we could do that but it would only be a minuscule difference compared to turning down the pool. Well, we could add solar heating. Sure, for $10k we could save 5% of what we could save by turning the pool down. It seems that only solutions that include spending money are legitimate, no matter how small the gains. Saving money to waste less doesn't seem to compute.

Ah well. At least I've been allowed to start my vegetable garden, tiny and shaded as it is. I am looking forward to eating one or two of my eight radishes later in the year.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	porphyre 2008-05-18 06:53 pm UTC (link)
	Three degrees is two too many? (Reply to this)(Parent)

Let's try to keep the earth habitable, guys!

justexquisite
2008-05-17 08:54 am UTC (link)

It has been very strange to me, watching "going green" become suddenly this super trendy thing. I remember being a tiny little girl and going with my mom to recycle, back when there weren't blue bins on every street and you had to actually go to the recycling center. And it's not like we were revolutionary. Saturday morning cartoons aired PSAs telling everyone to "recycle, reduce, reuse, and close the loop!" It's not like we just discovered climate change (although back then Al Gore hadn't made any snazzy PowerPoints yet).

For some reason this rising action and awareness as a trend unsettles me. Maybe it's because trends usually fade. Anything too cool eventually becomes passé. The things that are everyday remain, and it's important these habits remain.

As for me, I still recycle. Every week I have an overflowing blue bin and a nearly empty black one. The bins totally beat walking to the recycling center. All my bulbs are the spirally ones, even though I think they're totally hideous. At least they last almost forever. (Only two have burned out since I moved here 3 years ago! That's crazy!) I sign up for every opt-out list I can, so I don't get tons of paper junk mail and credit card offers every day. I bring my own reusable bag when I go to the store. (That's another thing my mom always did. I never saw anyone else use them when I was little, but my mom told me it was important. Now mine is this adorable one that folds up into a tiny clutch, so that you can always keep it in your bag and never forget it. When you need it, you just unzip it, and the zipper part becomes a pocket!)

That's one big bonus of green's trendiness: cute accessories! :)

(Reply to this)(Thread)

porphyre
2008-05-18 06:56 pm UTC (link)

I'm really liking the raised awareness. Growing up on the west coast of canada, I grew up in a very similar way. There was always recycling, (we learned to sort it in elementary school), cloth bags are ubiquitous, and the hardware stores sell solar panels. The thing is, though, that away from here, it's only just started. We might have grocery stores that are greener than green, but try buying organic small town somewhere else. We need to take our hard earned eco-habits and continue spreading them around. I don't think it's a fad so much as a growing education.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	justexquisite 2008-06-04 07:28 pm UTC (link)
	I do hope so. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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