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wild_turkey

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Everything posted by wild_turkey

  1. We should have immamac move it back here. Or don’t, whatever, but it makes more sense in Travel than in Hobbies.
  2. It’s an activity that is heavily intertwined with travel. At least half of the discussion on skiing is actually discussion about which places are nice to visit, how to get there, where to stay, where to eat, etc. The skiing thread was on the Food and Travel board up until a few years ago and still belongs here.
  3. Knowing what we know today, couldn’t one make an argument that continued corporate investment in China makes said corporation more vulnerable to IP theft, which is a significant threat to future profits and a violation of that fiduciary duty?
  4. Which is a terrible place for it.
  5. They appear to be significantly more expensive. Tru Earth 64 laundry strips for $39.95 Tide 64 load (92 fl oz) laundry detergent for $12.99 I like things that are environmentally friendly, but I struggle when the cost is 3x higher.
  6. I think maybe troph was referring to the posters that originally criticized her for having a lake house and an F350. The intent of this thread is not to criticize each other for things we do that are short of perfect. It’s just a place for discussion of various topics and to share ideas for how we can possibly improve or make more educated decisions. I appreciate some of the different viewpoints that are offered, even if I don’t agree with all of them. I also don’t think sustainability is synonymous with carbon emissions or climate. It can apply to a lot of other areas in life, like what is the best type and source of fish to buy to avoid overfishing our oceans?
  7. This is our setup: The teal bin stays under the kitchen sink and we fill it with compostable food scraps, coffee grounds, wine corks, etc. It gets emptied into the left side of the outdoor compost every 3-4 days. The left side also contains rubbish from the garden, dead flowers, etc. We turn it periodically and use the good stuff to put back into the garden when planting. The right side is for browns - dead leaves, paper bags, some cardboard, etc. We occasionally mix some of it into the left side to give it some more fluff and bulk. I am very much a novice but this is our system which I believe is working.
  8. I saw your second reply and I think this is a valid question to be asking, but it does get more into the politics of the situation, rather than the choices at the individual level. On the one hand, the U.S. and other first-world countries have benefited tremendously from industrial and economic growth throughout the 20th century when no one was paying much attention to things like carbon emissions, clean energy, or the toxic effects of industry on our environment. And now that we do care, and we are economically in a better position to make some positive changes, we also need the entire undeveloped world to make responsible decisions, at a time when they are just getting simple luxuries like electricity and air conditioning. A coal power plant in India will do the same amount of damage as a coal plant in Texas. So I think there is a large amount of responsibility on the developed world to help these other parts of the world. When it comes to places like China (or insert any other country that doesn't want to play ball), I think money is the ultimate motivator. Economics are currently motivating them to use the lowest cost option for electricity and other resources. We would need to shift the economics in the form of tariffs, etc. that would them motivate them to change. We may still import your plastic trinkets, but there is a 200% tariff on it due to the environmental impact of its production, which then makes it such that no one in the U.S. wants to buy those items from that particular country. That of course requires citizens in places like the U.S. and Europe to support these actions, which may be a pipe dream.
  9. Perhaps we are all hypocrites. Our very existence, all 7.9 billion of us, is bad for this planet. The worst thing most of us will ever do in terms of carbon footprint is to procreate. Each little fuck trophy we make is going to consume more and inflict damage. We are humans and we like human things. We’re posting on this message board with devices that have a carbon footprint. Some people have boats or like to travel. So, in light of that, should we not even try? Does troph owning a lake house make it so that she can’t participate in other actions without being ridiculed by you? Do you want to go ahead and ridicule every person here with more than one child? Should we keep drinking Fiji and Evian from plastic bottles, driving our F250s, watering our massive lawns, and just ride this ship down? Do you have kids? What kind of world do you want them to live in? What kind of world do you want your great grandchildren to inherit? Would you rather sit around and point out that every single person is a hypocrite? Is any discussion of trying to do a small good thing too hypocritical for you because you will point out every person’s shortcomings? I haven’t seen one positive thing from you, just showing up long enough to inject negativity. That’s not what this is about. That attitude will be the death of humanity.
  10. Half-measures are better than zero measures. One person firing a BB at a tank won’t do anything. The internet tells me a metal BB has a mass of about 0.35 grams and an M1 Abrams tank is about 65,000 kg. If all 332 million people in the U.S. fired a BB at the tank at the same time, it would be a collective total mass of 116,000 kg striking the 65,000 kg tank. There’s a quote to the effect of “We don’t need a few people to do this perfectly, we need everyone to do it imperfectly.”
  11. Christmas and other holidays My wife wanted some Halloween yard decorations, like plastic skeletons and shit, and I talked her out of it because I didn't want to purchase a bunch of new plastic shit that we don't really need. I do like many of the Halloween decorations in our neighborhood, but it makes me uneasy buying 4 plastic skeletons and thinking about what will happen to them in a few years when we tire of them. I suppose we could bury the poor bastards. Christmas is upon us, which is my personal favorite holiday. We decorate the house and yard, and that includes lights, some of which are incadescent. We already have the lights. If the incadescent bulbs wear out, we'll probably buy LED next time around. I wonder if Christmas lights will be a thing in ~50 years, and I hope we've innovated and engineered our way to allow those types of simple pleasures. If our energy capabilities can't sustain that, then there's a lot of other things on the chopping block that also bring joy to people. How do we feel about real trees vs. artificial? I don't have any idea the balance on this one. I like real trees but my allergies have likely relegated me to the land of artificial trees for life. Wrapping paper feels like a humongous waste. I wish everyone could agree that newspaper is sufficient, or come up with a better system for reusable gift bags for gifts of every occasion. I suspect wrapping paper will eventually be a relic of the past.
  12. I think Inka was on your side, supporting your rebuttal of BamaATL’s post.
  13. I have a United Mileage Plus Visa card through Chase. My wife is not an AU on the account. They sent me an email to refer a friend and we each get 10,000 bonus miles, plus the friend still qualifies for a signup bonus. Any reason I can’t refer my wife for this offer?
  14. Regarding EVs, this seems like a pretty good article on their life cycle carbon impact: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/electric-cars-have-much-lower-life-cycle-emissions-new-study-confirms/ And they link the white paper that it is based on: https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Global-LCA-passenger-cars-jul2021_0.pdf One potential criticism would be that they are merely looking at the carbon emissions aspect, and not taking into account other environmental, health, and geopolitical factors associated with battery mining. While that could certainly be true, no reasonable person can claim with a straight face that the O&G industry has ever been good in any of those departments.
  15. Yep, those get thrown away in my house. If I can easily rinse and recycle it, I do so. If I can’t easily rinse it, straight to the trash. With things like peanut butter, well with most things with a long shelf life actually, I try to buy the largest possible size. At least that way, the surface area (packaging) to volume (consumable product) is lower.
  16. Off the top of my head, I suspect you are right, that keeping your perfectly good cars would be the better environmental decision for right now. The math may work out differently if you drove 30k miles per year, or if you drove an F250 or Escalade that guzzles gas. I really don’t know how the average person can do that calculus to make informed decisions. Thinking forward, there may come a point where you need to replace them, hand them down to a kid, etc. Then maybe, depending on the EV situation in 5-10 years, it’s time to switch?
  17. I certainly agree with your second point about keeping older vehicles longer. Ideally, everyone would do that. The reality is that vehicles do eventually wear out and need replacing, or we have new drivers on the road getting a car for the first time. Regardless, vehicles are being produced and sold, so it’s worth asking which technology is truly better for the future of the planet. Your first point however, is a gross stereotype that you have formed about the typical EV owner, which has nothing to do with the validity of the technology itself. There’s another one a few posts above, so in this thread so far, we have the following criticisms of EVs: -Most EV owners are blathering idiots -Most Tesla drivers commute an hour each way Come on guys, you can do better than that. Both of those comments would also suggest that ICE drivers do not have long commutes and that ICE drivers are not blathering idiots, which is obviously absurd. Your perceived personality traits of a person using a technology should not even be in the discussion about the merits of the actual technology.
  18. Also, what data do you or any of us have that validates the idea that an EV powered by coal is worse than an ICE? It’s easy to say that and criticize your neighbor for their choice, but do you really know that to be true? If we think about the life cycle of a Tesla Model 3 vs. a Honda Accord, what is the total impact of each? The Honda accord is pretty straightforward because it’s always using the same basic gasoline. The impact of the Tesla could vary based on the owner’s electricity source. Would an entirely solar powered Tesla be better than the Honda over its life? Would an entirely coal powered Tesla be worse? If the latter is true, then do we have even a rough idea of the break-even point?
  19. What if your neighbors had solar panels and charged their EVs from solar? Or what about people who choose to pay a higher rate for an energy provider that claims to use 100% renewable energy? I’m honestly curious why your criticism is directed at the owner of the EV and not at the coal power plant. We obviously need to eliminate coal power plants.
  20. I watched that first YouTube clip that’s critical of EVs. I don’t know if I take the guy seriously and I don’t know his credentials or political leanings, but I think his criticisms are similar to many EV opponents. His first big criticism is that EVs aren’t charging with clean energy and are instead using predominantly fossil fuels. I share that concern, but I don’t think that’s a flaw in EV technology at all. That’s a problem with our energy sources, which is a huge separate topic. Simply put, I think we need EVs coupled with nuclear power, or greatly expanded clean energy in its various formats. But the issue to me is that EV technology could be a tremendous step forward if the electricity sources will follow suit. Maybe it’s worth putting the cart in front of the horse here. The same could not be said about ICE vehicles. They are by definition burning fossil fuels and will always be burning fossil fuels, and to commit to them out of fear of change is basically signing our own death sentence. We know exactly where that road will lead. His second concern is about sourcing the lithium and other minerals to produce the batteries. Also a valid concern, but he presents no data, which makes this merely a talking point lacking evidence. And as I mentioned above, potentially new sources for these minerals (such as the Salton Sea) will become available to help that obstacle.
  21. The link to the Plastic in the Environment thread posted above covers a lot of that, and yes, some stuff gets shipped to Asia and dumped in the ocean, but recycling isn’t entirely a scam. Someone posted another link in the Climate thread (CR) that had some videos about recycling specifically in Austin. It goes into pretty good detail about how it works for Austin and what can actually be recycled. There’s a lot of good recycling that does occur in most major cities, but as I mentioned, cities have done a terrible job at educating residents. The fact that you and many other people think it’s a scam is a problem, because then you become apathetic and don’t even try to recycle. And then you also have people who recycle a bunch of shit that can’t be recycled, and it messes up the system and reduces efficiency.
  22. Well that could be true, but to what extent do we know that to be true? I also think the concerns about battery production and mineral mining get a little bit overplayed by EV opponents, i.e. the O&G industry. However, there is little transparency on this point, so people are left to form their own opinions. If you have some good links, please share. And FWIW, the Salton Sea in California apparently has enough lithium to produce millions of EVs. If that production becomes operational and gets scaled up, it could entirely eliminate our need to get lithium elsewhere.
  23. Travel I love to travel. It's an addiction that would be hard for me to give up, and I know that air travel in particular has a major carbon footprint. So what happens when I purchase carbon offsets from the airline? Is that truly a good thing to do? Are they donating my $10 to a reliable cause like planting mangrove trees, or are they simply wasting it? Is there a better way to purchase carbon offsets on my own from a 3rd party independent from the airline? I guess the ideal thing would be to travel less, or not at all, or at least not anywhere that I can't go by driving an EV that charges from solar, or perhaps in a sailboat. But given that it's unlikely to happen, what are some practical measures a travel addict can take to offset their carbon footprint? I'd rather not settle for faux solutions that merely assuage guilt, but actual tangible measures with proven results.
  24. Electric vehicles They clearly seem to be the direction of the auto industry, which I personally support. My wife has a Tesla which is our primary vehicle. I have a 4Runner, admittedly not fuel efficient, but luckily it only gets used for ~30 miles a week. One thing I wonder about the EV industry is the life cycle impact of a vehicle. Sure, using electricity is better than gasoline, probably even if the electricity source is dirty energy like coal, and a much better difference for people who can use clean energy. But how much good data is available to consumers on the impact of producing EVs (especially the batteries) and disposing of old EVs at the end-of-life? That isn't nothing. I blindly trust that the EV is still the better decision, but can someone share reliable data for this? If we compare a Tesla 3 to a Honda Accord, over the life of the vehicles, including all production costs, energy, maintenance parts, etc...what is the expected environmental impact of each?
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