Are you taking any measures because you believe in GW?

l listened to a Radio 4 programme where an 'expert' gave advice on how to save power and thus cut emissions. When she got to switching off the DVD recorders so they were not on 'standby' l thought that was it ... but 'no' she wanted the extension lead switched off because it had a red light. A red light? ... it's a light emitting diode that draws just 2.5ma! That's 2 and a half thousandths of an amp!

At that point l switched it off ... 'no', not the extension lead ... the radio station.

l haven't changed my lifestyle at home at all but to what extent have you?

Some things may be rather less effective than they first appear. Low energy lighting will save energy during periods where we are not using space heating but the advantages are going to become more marginal when the heating is on as the reduced dissipation in the lighting will to a very great degree be made up by the heating system. The advantage as to CO2 output then depends on the relative performances of the heating system and the electricity supply. A gas boiler vs an electricity supply that is part nuclear, part wind etc. might actually favour electrical heating – including the 'gash' heat from the lights.

Dodgy ideas are unfortunately common. I saw a program that was recommending a carbon offsetting scheme that was replacing low efficiency wood-burning stoves with more efficient wood-burning stoves (in South America I believe). While this may be a very laudable thing to do it is not a valid carbon offsetting scheme. Wood burning is already carbon neutral anyway. Making it more efficient does not make it any better in that regard. Indeed if you credit wood-burning as slightly carbon negative (due to the carbon 'fixed' in the ash) then doing less of it is actively unhelpful!

I've transferred to Good Energy which sources 100% of its electricity from renewables.

However, if we can't all do that at the moment as there are not enough wind farms, so I still save electricity because it is just about forming habits.

All the lighting is between 5 and 10 watts. I've had them three years and they have paid for themselves already by the electricity the save.

I got an A++ fridge/freezer, replacing an old second hand one and this will pay for itself in four years. It is possible to do these things even if you don't have much cash.

You can go to a credit union and borrow say £200 and the money you save each quarter you can use to pay off the loan.

I save run-off water and shower water and use that to pour into the toilet-systern. Now this pretty mad I know but I save £50 a year in water bills, which on my budget comes in really useful.

I used to have about 40 watts a day running things in standby or things like an electric alarm clock. All the savings together I've reduced from about 40kW to 20kW a week. Saving over £100 a year.

And it really is very easy to do.

See my "different kind of sceptic" thread. I don't believe this sort of thing will do any good.

We have tried to get our solid-walled, no-loft-to-insulate Victorian house insulated (as much for comfort as anything else) but we couldn't find any builders willing to take on the job. We have tried getting help finding one from the government's Energy Saving Trust but they're useless.

quote:

Originally posted by Mubbers:
Again this is why normal people are sick and tired of the "environment" and are now deeply cycnical as to anything to do with it.

"normal" people? Subjective statement that has no real meaning.

Since the mainstream politicians are all scrambling to be "green" there must be a sizable green vote.

quote:

Originally posted by Arcana69:
Are you taking any measures because you believe in GW?

l listened to a Radio 4 programme where an 'expert' gave advice on how to save power and thus cut emissions. When she got to switching off the DVD recorders so they were not on 'standby' l thought that was it ... but 'no' she wanted the extension lead switched off because it had a red light. A red light? ... it's a light emitting diode that draws just 2.5ma! That's 2 and a half thousandths of an amp!

At that point l switched it off ... 'no', not the extension lead ... the radio station.

l haven't changed my lifestyle at home at all but to what extent have you?

Sorry to be a pedant, but the light is probably a neon and draws typically 1mA, which at mains volts is 240mW. Over a year thats a whole big 2 KWH! (about 6p).

The absence of standby function on TVs is likey to mean people will leave the TV on when they would have turned it to standby rather than getting up to turn it off. If the standby power was very low, the net effect is likely to be an increase in power consumed. Many TVs have a standby power less than 1 mW.

Just to be a pedant's pedant the series resistor with a neon indicator is 1M or greater so the current would be 240microamps or less - less still if you allow for the period of the waveform below the strike voltage of the neon (typically 90v) so you have overestimated the power consumption by at least a factor of four.

quote:

Originally posted by Cloud Man:
Just to be a pedant's pedant the series resistor with a neon indicator is 1M or greater so the current would be 240microamps or less - less still if you allow for the period of the waveform below the strike voltage of the neon (typically 90v) so you have overestimated the power consumption by at least a factor of four.

Maplin sell a mains neon with a 270K series resistor. That was my reference. Valid point about the strike voltage though.

quote:

Originally posted by Robbie Writer:

"normal" people? Subjective statement that has no real meaning.

Since the mainstream politicians are all scrambling to be "green" there must be a sizable green vote.

"Normal" being those people who don't have the time during their working day to dream up ways to inflict their ideoliogies on everyone else.

This excludes politicians whose "working" day is to do exactly that.

Green Vote - I think you are right there is a green vote but in my opinion this new mainstream "greenness" is just lip-service to the lastest political fashion.

People are more concerned about the cr**ness of this government for green issues to be really relevant in the way they vote.

How can I explain what I'm thinking??

The green policies from all the 3 main parties are so weak and so similar that I doubt any voter will look at a particular party and say "Well I'm voting for X because their Environment Policy is really good!! (Thank god we're all saved!)"

What will happen (and this is depressing) is that voters will look at their favourite party and see that the "green box" has been ticked and vote that way anyway.

I mean come on - if we truely believed that CO2/GW was going to destroy civilisation as we know it shouldn't we be doing a bit more than proposing to tax air travel??

Really?

quote:

Originally posted by Mubbers:
I mean come on - if we truely believed that CO2/GW was going to destroy civilisation as we know it shouldn't we be doing a bit more than proposing to tax air travel??

Really?

The world is getting hotter.

The amount by which human CO2 production contributes to this rise is uncertain.

Realistically, nothing the world is going to do will do anything more than slightly slow the rise.

Nothing the British government can do will directly have an impact on this.

It looks good at international meetings and may help a party get elected.

And the world will get hotter.

quote:

Originally posted by free_thinker:

quote:

Originally posted by Mubbers:
I mean come on - if we truely believed that CO2/GW was going to destroy civilisation as we know it shouldn't we be doing a bit more than proposing to tax air travel??

Really?

The world is getting hotter.

The amount by which human CO2 production contributes to this rise is uncertain.

Realistically, nothing the world is going to do will do anything more than slightly slow the rise.

Nothing the British government can do will directly have an impact on this.

It looks good at international meetings and may help a party get elected.

And the world will get hotter.

Planning to move to higher ground then?

quote:

Originally posted by Mubbers:

Planning to move to higher ground then?

Me, I'm building an ark. Any takers?

quote:

Originally posted by free_thinker:

quote:

Originally posted by Mubbers:

Planning to move to higher ground then?

Me, I'm building an ark. Any takers?

How were you planning on powering said Ark?

quote:

Originally posted by Mubbers:

quote:

Originally posted by free_thinker:

quote:

Originally posted by Mubbers:

Planning to move to higher ground then?

Me, I'm building an ark. Any takers?

How were you planning on powering said Ark?

Mostly from the Methane the cows make. And I wouldn't want to release any greenhouse gasses from my ark.